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The case for language agnostic hiring

alphalist.com

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Re: The case for language agnostic hiring

#11

Post by hwntw »

brigandish wrote: post #7
dontlaugh wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps if workers were treated and paid better, they'd have less incentive to leave every two years.

It's the salary bump. Devs are being treated like customers for car insurance (in the UK). When a customer signs up they get a good deal, then as they remain loyal the deal slowly gets worse. People who change every year or two do the best. I've heard that this is now changing. Whatever reason the insurance companies have stumbled upon to make this change needs to be communicator to those hiring devs.

The FCA (one of the financial regulators) stepped in for the insurance market, which is why that change has started being made.

Re: The case for language agnostic hiring

#12

Post by bluetomcat »

another-dave wrote: post #9

In a perfect world, you'll always hire great generalists who can turn their hand at anything and have enough time to onboard them. In reality though, you're going to have different 'holes' in your team shape at various times that will drive who's a potential fit as a hire. And conversely, you're going to find different candidates in your search — if your codebase is primarily in Java, would you really turn down a str…

A generalist would be someone who is fluent in C, Python, Java, JavaScript and probably Haskell/Clojure/Scala. This would mean that they have been exposed to static and dynamic typing, manual and GC memory management, class-based and prototype-based OOP, and all the important functional programming concepts.

Re: The case for language agnostic hiring

#13

Post by fileeditview »

schroeding wrote: post #8

Elixir, Haskell et al. require concepts that are not required at all in e.g. Java. The functional programming module at my university had the highest failure rate after the math and statistics classes. Even something like C can require new concepts. I was a tutor for a university C programming course and students that had no problems with Java struggled hard with direct memory manipulation, pointer arithmetic etc., b…

Seems like generally good policy to give (paid) time to them if you expect them to learn something new.

Re: The case for language agnostic hiring

#14

Post by mynameisvlad »

schroeding wrote: post #8

Elixir, Haskell et al. require concepts that are not required at all in e.g. Java. The functional programming module at my university had the highest failure rate after the math and statistics classes. Even something like C can require new concepts. I was a tutor for a university C programming course and students that had no problems with Java struggled hard with direct memory manipulation, pointer arithmetic etc., b…

Eh, I wouldn’t necessarily correlate university students’ behaviors with those of even a mid-level dev. Their knowledge bases and even opinions and goals are entirely different.

I was certainly a much worse developer in university, and since leaving my desire to self-learn has increased tremendously.

That said, I definitely agree on paid time to learn, I think that’s a core concept that a lot of places lack. And not just for new hires where onboarding is costed in, ongoing learning that is encouraged and paid for is key.

Re: The case for language agnostic hiring

#15

Post by mynameisvlad »

bluetomcat wrote: post #12
another-dave wrote: post #9

In a perfect world, you'll always hire great generalists who can turn their hand at anything and have enough time to onboard them. In reality though, you're going to have different 'holes' in your team shape at various times that will drive who's a potential fit as a hire. And conversely, you're going to find different candidates in your search — if your codebase is primarily in Java, would you really turn down a str…

A generalist would be someone who is fluent in C, Python, Java, JavaScript and probably Haskell/Clojure/Scala. This would mean that they have been exposed to static and dynamic typing, manual and GC memory management, class-based and prototype-based OOP, and all the important functional programming concepts.

“Fluent” is a strong word. Developers are rarely “fluent” in one language let alone 5.

“Had exposure to” IMO is more accurate here. You don’t need someone who has mastered each and every language in and out. IMO you don’t even need someone to have experienced all of them to be called a generalist.

It’s more about the way they frame a problem and come up with the solution and their ability to pick up key concepts quickly. The specific experience is key to long-term success but that can be taught to someone that is open and eager to learn.

Re: The case for language agnostic hiring

#16

Post by salty_biscuits »

schroeding wrote: post #8

Elixir, Haskell et al. require concepts that are not required at all in e.g. Java. The functional programming module at my university had the highest failure rate after the math and statistics classes. Even something like C can require new concepts. I was a tutor for a university C programming course and students that had no problems with Java struggled hard with direct memory manipulation, pointer arithmetic etc., b…

Aren't you kind of paying them to learn directly by doing language agnostic hiring? More that you can't expect them to be productive quickly, but that goes for any hire right?

Re: The case for language agnostic hiring

#17

Post by mguerville »

dontlaugh wrote: post #6
jdmoreira wrote: post #3

This makes some sense to me conceptually but the reality of the situation nowadays is that a lot of devs change jobs every 2 years. So say you hire someone who is not familiar with the ecosystem, you train them for 2 years and then they leave? also it's not just about the language. Some ecosystems like iOS and Android are huge. These are not just some backend languages calling APIs these are gigantic sdks that take y…

Perhaps if workers were treated and paid better, they'd have less incentive to leave every two years.

My former CEO invested significantly in training (I personally received well over $250k worth, including leadership lessons from 2 weeks reliving D Day with military men, rowing with National champion coaches at Yale, etc.) and used to say people challenged him with « what of you spend all this money to train them and they leave? », to which he replied « what if we don’t train and develop them and they stay, isn’t that way worse? »

Re: The case for language agnostic hiring

#18

Post by roland35 »

I agree to an extent. A good software engineer should understand the fundamentals and be able to adapt to most environments. Unless... your team is doing something very unusual.

I like to think of it as a professional sports team (let's say basketball). If you have a chance to sign a skilled player who is an all-star, 7 feet tall, and can hit 3 pointers you sign him and it will probably work out!

Re: The case for language agnostic hiring

#19

Post by nonasktell »

schroeding wrote: post #8

Elixir, Haskell et al. require concepts that are not required at all in e.g. Java. The functional programming module at my university had the highest failure rate after the math and statistics classes. Even something like C can require new concepts. I was a tutor for a university C programming course and students that had no problems with Java struggled hard with direct memory manipulation, pointer arithmetic etc., b…

If you only know java are you even a real (professional) dev?

I'd expect any dev wanting a job using a language he doesn't know to have some understanding all of the concepts you're talking about. It's not language specific, it's just the basics of programming.

Re: The case for language agnostic hiring

#20

Post by treeman79 »

salty_biscuits wrote: post #16
schroeding wrote: post #8

Elixir, Haskell et al. require concepts that are not required at all in e.g. Java. The functional programming module at my university had the highest failure rate after the math and statistics classes. Even something like C can require new concepts. I was a tutor for a university C programming course and students that had no problems with Java struggled hard with direct memory manipulation, pointer arithmetic etc., b…

Aren't you kind of paying them to learn directly by doing language agnostic hiring? More that you can't expect them to be productive quickly, but that goes for any hire right?

There is a pool of people that can invite calculus on their own.

Another for those that can learn it on their own.

Another for those that can learn it in a multi year schooling system.

Limiting yourself to hiring from the smallest possible sets is challenging.

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