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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.

#101

Post by tomjen3 »

varjag wrote: post #95
optimusclimb wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You people are insane. Going out on a limb here, as I hate making my life public - I worked at Factset Research Systems for just about four years. They are a publicly traded company (FDS - NYSE). Guess what - They would allow precisely 0% of the code I wrote for them while working there to be shown to another company. So what you are saying, is that, given that, unless I went home and coded and contributed to an open…

> Do you think that when a heart surgeon from NYC applies to work in Seattle or LA, they say, "That's great that you didn't kill anyone at First General on 57th street, but, do you have any published video of you doing surgery pro bono we can watch so that we know you're not full of it?" I think their diploma and med license are sufficient. I also think a lot in hiring decision for particular surgeon can depend on th…

Then check that the guy has a relevant degree.

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

#102

Post by tomjen3 »

anon-user-11248 wrote: post #87

I'm going to chime in here with all the various for/against comments going on and at least TRY to make some sense out of all this - or at the very least, show others how some of us "haters" see it, and explain to other "haters" how it's just the way it is - period. Using GitHub or other OSS contributions/commits as your actual resume, or the litmus test for, "can I have the job, boss?" has been something I think we'v…

>can I have the job, boss?

Thats your problem right there - it is a sellers market right now, so if they start making too many demands for stupid things you can get a job elsewhere.

You are a great programmer, good companies know they need to qualify themself to you.

Do you think suit guy got his job with that attitude?

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

#103

Post by namdnay »

anon46566677 wrote: post #14

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.

Would you even want to hire only geeks?

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

#104

Post by mooism2 »

tomjen3 wrote: post #99
technomancy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that I can't believe a word you said. It comes down to this: filtering by OSS contributions gives you many false negatives (as the OP has complained) but virtually zero false positives. In hiring, a false negative is a bummer, but a false positive is disastrous. It would be irresponsible of me as an interviewer not to take this into account. If it someone's pissed because they fall into the false neg…

In hiring a false negative means your competition gets a better programmer which means they will be able to eat your lunch. How isn't that a disaster?

Maybe.

If a false negative means you have no awesome candidates to choose from, that's a problem.

If a false negative means you have two awesome candidates to choose from instead of three, that's irritating but hardly a disaster.

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

#105

Post by tomjen3 »

ori_b wrote: post #41
orijing wrote: post #4

This puts developers in companies that commit to open source projects like Chromium to be at a significant advantage to those developing proprietary software. I understand where the author is coming from, but this is unfair for those who work on closed-source projects. Of course I have my own personal projects, but for most of them, I am not about release their source.

The hiring process isn't meant to be fair - it's meant to get the best results. A good way to see if someone can write good code is to look at the code they've written and to see if it's good. If the ability to demonstrate that they can write good code with concrete examples puts someone at an advantage over others, so be it.

Actually in this case it puts people who like git over people who like mercurial, svn, rcs, etc which is unlikely to benefit anybody.

Last time I heard git sucks on windows, svn is still extremly widely used (try writing a game with a large amount of binary assets and use git) and some of the old open source systems still use CVS.

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

#106

Post by tomjen3 »

JasonPunyon wrote: post #32
eddanger wrote: post #3

This is an interesting approach but not all talented developers partake in open source projects.

This is true and thanks for the feedback. Do you (or anyone else reading) have any ideas for things that all talented developers would want to list on their profiles that we don't have on Careers yet? Thanks again!

Android and IPhone developed programs.

The market is hot right now and it would be pretty nice to be able to show some of the programs that has been written.

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

#107

Post by namdnay »

onan_barbarian wrote: post #38

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…

Not only that, but "passionate" people aren't always a good fit. I prefer to work with someone who may only regard software engineering as a job, but who has common sense etc.. instead of some hacker kid who is going to try to make things as complicated as possible just for kicks.

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

#108

Post by statictype »

patio11 wrote: post #80
onan_barbarian wrote: post #38

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…

I don't see what this has to do with the issue being discussed - that having made open-source contributions is an important factor in getting hired.

We're not talking about companies demanding that you do open-source work for them before getting hired. It's about the idea that having some code publicly available somewhere is a good way to improve your chance of being hired.

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

#109

Post by dpritchett »

int3 wrote: post #83
dpritchett wrote: post #45

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.

I'm doing some initial work on that.

The key here is that StackExchange has a high usage rate amongst programmers and it allows me to register interests in technologies that I don't have public source code for.

Facebook has a nice social graph but no angle on programmer socialization. Github's API can let you infer which open source languages I dabble in, but not at all what I do at my day job. Good luck to you though, I'd love to see the product.

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

#110

Post by bphogan »

onan_barbarian wrote: post #68
bphogan wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Thanks for the sarcasm: "awesome super top-secret code". Realistically, the code and details of are covered by NDA. The task solved, the huge difficulty of same, the overall success of the task being solved, demonstrable fluency in related but public areas of computer science, and the commercial success (modest or otherwise) of the code would not be. If you don't understand this, or couldn't say the same things about…

It honestly wasn't meant as sarcasm and I apologize for the hyperbole. But do you know how often I hear people say "I'm really good, but I can't show you anything. But you can talk to my references and they'll tell you I'm good." That may work with HR people and managers who don't code, but not from programmers.

There's a distrust of programmers because many programmers are not at your skill level. You don't seem to have problems with finding employment. Perhaps open-source contributions don't matter to people of your caliber. But you need to realize that it's not HR or management asking to see your code -- it's your peers.

We need as many metrics as we can to find out who's good and who says they're good. Looking at code and examples of work is exactly how you do that. You can argue all you want, and it may not be fair. Neither is "You have to have a 3.5 GPA to get a job here."

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