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When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

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Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#72

If you're a company looking for developers, you have to learn to live with developers who are simply good enough. I'm talking about guys and gals who just see programming as a way to pay the bills. Everybody wants to hire the brightest developers, but there aren't enough to go around. It's a mathematical impossibility.

You can be a great developer and/or leader and build product or company that bright developers will want to work at.

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#73
post #52

Maybe this is paranoia, but I'm beginning to find a lot of threads like this (and a few yesterday about 'how to hire people') actively coercive: "Contribute to Open Source or Don't Get Hired". There are a lot of increasingly shrill remarks out there about how everyone should be doing open source projects in their 'spare time', so no-one has any excuse not to have a track record of FOSS contributions... frankly, it's…

The problem is that I can't believe a word you said. I can't see examples of this awesome super top-secret code because it's all closed-source, as you say, for good reasons. I also can't trust your references, because you'll only give me ones that will say good things about you, and any digging at your work history will only uncover "yes he worked here" responses. I want to see open-source contributions because I lik…

'The problem is that I can't believe a word you said'

Thats fair, but the thing is that its YOUR PROBLEM(as a recruiter), not mine as a great "closed source" engineer

I know bunch of people who work on very cool and interesting problems/projects binded NDAs and have no problem on finding a new job if they want to. Hell Facebook, twitter, google are all closed source(mostly) so wouldnt you hire ex-Facebook engineer if he has no open source commitments?

Lets face it - its employees market, where companies compete for bright engineers. If you are saying that you only want open source commitments - thats fine, but you are betting on smaller market and missing some great talents. So you are more "lazy" recruiter, who dont want to look deeper, do facts check, test candidate etc. But again its your own problem, not mine.

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#75
post #66

Maybe this is paranoia, but I'm beginning to find a lot of threads like this (and a few yesterday about 'how to hire people') actively coercive: "Contribute to Open Source or Don't Get Hired". There are a lot of increasingly shrill remarks out there about how everyone should be doing open source projects in their 'spare time', so no-one has any excuse not to have a track record of FOSS contributions... frankly, it's…

You'd go with a graphic designer with a portfolio you could look at every time, right? Say the graphic designer's previous employer didn't let them put stuff in the portfolio -- I don't know, maybe they only worked on NSA internal marketing -- that's the designer's problem. They aren't going to say "no fair," they're going to find a way to do some work to put in a portfolio. Wouldn't have to be open source work, just…

This assumes that all programming in analogous to 'graphic design'. This analogy breaks the moment you consider that perhaps at least some programming is more analogous to, say, civil engineering or in-house material science research or in-house statistics... none of these other professionals are going to be able to disclose their 'portfolio' in any meaningful way.

Yet, mysteriously, civil engineers, material scientists and statisticians somehow keep being hired and the work keeps getting done. Baffling, I know.

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#76
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this part of the reason for references, but more importantly: probation period ?

references are useless, companies are very wary to give bad references due to the chance of a lawsuit, and a probation period is a massive cost to the company

I've heard this for years, but have never been able to find out what references someone gave for me in an employment situation. Is it common?

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While filling out my profile it struck me that I'd love a friend finding service: Find me programmers within 50 miles of my stated location who share interests and experiences in some of the many tags I chose for myself. I'd like to meet them and have a beer.

We'd need a word like "bromance", but for nerds.

Yuck, no.

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#78
I frequently fork projects on Github, add features/fix bugs, send a pull request and then delete my fork after my changes have been integrated. I've started to consider keeping my forks around for this reason alone but that strikes me as a waste of Github's disk space...

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#79
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "endless side projects" is unreasonable, is "at least one" reasonable?

No, it is not. For a side project to be remotely comparable to the efforts that, for example, we have put in, it would have to be quite a side project. Calling attention to (say) a 250-line neat hack - say a patch to a driver, or solving some elegant toy problem - would constitute a detraction from the programmers' major contribution at work over the course of years. I view this new fixation on open source contributi…

Yet you offer no reasonable alternative.

You act like the code you've written that no one can see should matter to another company interviewing you. There is no way for a interviewer to verify the work you've done at your previous job. Like it or not, if you are looking for a new job it is your job to impress them. Fail to do that an risk them picking someone else.

Re: When it comes to hiring, I'll take a Github commit log over a resume any day.

#80

Maybe this is paranoia, but I'm beginning to find a lot of threads like this (and a few yesterday about 'how to hire people') actively coercive: "Contribute to Open Source or Don't Get Hired". There are a lot of increasingly shrill remarks out there about how everyone should be doing open source projects in their 'spare time', so no-one has any excuse not to have a track record of FOSS contributions... frankly, it's…

For-profit companies are certainly allowed to attempt to convince me that working for free for them is both morally required and in my own best interests. I promise to listen attentively.

Ditto other cultural fit issues like "Your personal life should come second to our business desires", "Marriage and children are unreasonable burdens to saddle us with", "You should be loyal to us; we may reciprocate, but if not, it is just business", etc, etc.

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