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It's hard to get a job because there are a lot of charlatans out there and it's often very hard to get rid of them once hired. Even worse is hiring someone merely mediocre and not actively harmful. That said of course the modern coding interview is I think only very loosely correlated with quality.
How is hiring a mediocre developer worse than hiring a charlatan?
A recent comment from reddit: This year I became a co-owner of the company that worked at for the past three years. It's a small development and consulting company and we're currently struggling to find new developers. At the same time, my girlfriend is trying to get her foot into this field. Since she's interested in a completely different tech stack than what we use, hiring her through good ol' nepotism is not goin…
The trades have apprenticeship programs... might be an interesting model to try to replicate.
The second part is that the trade has a bonded period. Depending on how that is written, this becomes more difficult to enforce with at will employment. It can also lead to companies taking significant advantage of their bonded juniors. I mean... if you think this is a good model, revature is out there.
Its like this for all jobs: the reason is that a bad employee typically subtracts more value than a good employee adds. So companies put a lot of effort in lowering the odds of hiring bad employees even if it means positions remain unfilled.
http://pyxisinc.com/NNPP_Article.pdf
The bibliography is also something to track down and read if you're interested in the subject.
A recent comment from reddit: This year I became a co-owner of the company that worked at for the past three years. It's a small development and consulting company and we're currently struggling to find new developers. At the same time, my girlfriend is trying to get her foot into this field. Since she's interested in a completely different tech stack than what we use, hiring her through good ol' nepotism is not goin…
I actually agree with the practice, and generally don’t think you should be employed to learn the basic tools of the trade. First there’s a code fluency wall you have to get over. Then there’s a tech debt/spaghetti lesson that needs to be learned (IMO this can only be learned the hard way) I did this with 6 months working on my own stuff 12 hours/day, then 6 months working for nothing but equity in a never gonna happ…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's (at least) a third category: Small, not tech heavy companies like simple webshops, small crowdfunding platforms, etc will need someone, ANYONE, to keep working on their giant stack of legacy PHP/Rails/whatever code. The business does not support hiring very senior people and the founders are not technical at all so they don't recognize the troubles inherent in hiring a full team of juniors.After a few years t…
You are underestimating the effort it takes to inherit a big codebase and maintain it, this is not a task for a junior.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think a lot of this is because our profession does not have an accepted universal bar everyone can jump over to be considered ‘qualified’. Credentialing organizations already exist[1], but none have lobbied the US government to prevent the uncredentialed from practicing. Perhaps it's time. If none of the existing orgs are good enough, start a new one. 1. https://www.computer.org/product/education/professional-sof…
I’d be happy if some organizations started accepting a credential in lue of a coding interview, and just did a design/architecture and cultural interview.
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That all makes sense, and it bothers me, too, but they do hire somebody eventually, which implies that somebody can produce quality results in 50 minutes in a high pressure situation in an environment they're unfamiliar with and people they just met.
Note: This depends on hiring style. Some companies have a bar and everyone who meets that bar is hired. Other companies are hiring for a position that gets one person... These results may be "curved". If you give the same easy test with no pressure and everyone is sufficiently good, then it was a waste of everyone's time. In such an approach, you do something that is sufficiently hard that you're able to identify the…
Maybe because the concept of a test is flawed? It seems to me like every company that uses a whiteboard test gives out the same tests anyways.
What are they really trying to test? If someone understands common algorithms and data structures? I dont see why that couldnt be determined by a simple interview with an engineer. A test might be useful for a HR recruiter who doesnt have a computer science background, but those tests are usually conducted by other engineers anyways.
The whiteboard thing just seems to me like an arbitrary hazing ritual.
I think a lot of this is because our profession does not have an accepted universal bar everyone can jump over to be considered ‘qualified’. Every technical interview feels like rolling the dice in proving I am a competent developer. Giving me 50 minutes in a high pressure situation in an environment i am unfamiliar with and people I just meet will never product my best results, and then add to the fact that I could…
I think a lot of this is because our profession does not have an accepted universal bar everyone can jump over to be considered ‘qualified’. Every technical interview feels like rolling the dice in proving I am a competent developer. Giving me 50 minutes in a high pressure situation in an environment i am unfamiliar with and people I just meet will never product my best results, and then add to the fact that I could…
That all makes sense, and it bothers me, too, but they do hire somebody eventually, which implies that somebody can produce quality results in 50 minutes in a high pressure situation in an environment they're unfamiliar with and people they just met.