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Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

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Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#221

Post by intelVISA »

josephg wrote: post #172
jokethrowaway wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how expecting candidates to know algorithms by heart or solving complex algorithms is useful. Whenever I encounter that at work I research the topic extensively and learn or re-learn whatever it is I need. I completely agree on testing on real tasks, given some candidates who perform terribly on those manage to squeeze by (even thanks to them passing leetcode bs interview without having real world experie…

I think I broadly agree for most programming jobs. Algorithm problems are based on the philosophy that if you can implement a binary tree in 20 minutes, you’re smart enough to figure out just about anything else that comes up. They were popularised by Google, who hire with the goal of never hiring incompetent people even if it means missing out on some good people. There’s two problems with algorithm problem intervie…

I think raw DSA has its place but shouldn't be 100% LC style: too isolated and abstract.

You can probably learn more by wrapping it as a tiny 'project' note: not a take home -- just a DSA/LC style 'problem' diguised inside a git repo. I'd rather see 2Sum with a Cargo.toml in a repo, seeing them scaffold this in the lang of their choice, or within an existing codebase.

Justifying the full end-to-end "how is this going to be deployed and maintained", "how would you test X" is a bit more informative than "please repeat Djikstra's algorithm into the void".

Of course, being good @ LC in isolation is still a proxy for (math) intelligence perhaps unpopular - but in SWE being smart isn't enough, you gotta grift, ship or hustle your way through; thinking is mostly optional.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#222

Post by MrVandemar »

saurik wrote: post #148
throwaway0asd wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely the difference in performance is due to differences in expectations. The two greatest common failures I see repeated among software developers is: 1) The inability to consider diverse perspectives 2) The inability to differentiate writing instructions from building something larger For example many developers cannot imagine the career requirements associated with other careers. That could be due to lack o…

I am having a difficult time inferring your meaning for "writing instructions".

Not OP, but I infer that "writing instructions" equates to a lot of basic scripting - change the colour of that button, show a calendar, trigger that animation, send data to the validation script and display an X or a tick depending. As differentiated from, or opposed to, writing complex applications that require thought, design and awareness of best practice.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#223

Post by marcusverus »

legerdemain wrote: post #184
marcusverus wrote: post #31

1) Put your code on GitHub, add the link to LinkedIn and to your resume. Hiring managers and internal recruiters are inundated with applicants with no experience who expect to learn how to code on the job. The way you differentiate yourself from them is by making it crystal clear that you can do the job on day 1. (If you can't do the job on day 1, work on that before proceeding) 2) Ignore experience requirements, app…

Where are you seeing job ads that provide the name of the hiring manager (!) and a direct phone number (!!) for human resources? What jobs even issue phone lines to employees anymore?

I can see how it would be difficult to find the hiring manager for larger companies, but it’s pretty straightforward for smaller shops.

Nobody lists the number for HR—you just call in and ask to be transferred.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#224

Post by rubberband »

88913527 wrote: post #93
rubberband wrote: post #86

Late to the party, but maybe I can help. I've helped in the hiring of many developers. (grain of salt, just my opinion, etc...) * Don't do bootcamps. It's a red flag for me. This can be said for any 100% online college. (again, I'm just being honest). Community colleges are fine. * You having a Github that you've committed stuff to often-ish will most interest me. I don't give a crud if you contribute to open source.…

Contributing to open source can be a valuable sign. It shows the candidate could navigate a large repository, communicate with the maintainers, and successfully merge something-- the ancillary soft skills needed when developing software in a team environment.

Sorry if I gave the wrong impression when I mentioned the OSS angle... My (hindsight: almost meaningless) point was that the whole "open / vs closed source ideology" doesn't matter. You could contribute to the Donald Trump C# repo for all I care... It's the contribution that matters to me.

If an "amateur" (or whatever) programmer can contribute to OSS... That means so much! You list the implications very well, so thank you.

I try to hire based on ability, not qualifications (welcome to Arbitrary Definitions 101?).

Boils down to: if you work at a gas station, and get a PR merged into the Linux Kernel... Yeahhhh... We can talk about that senior dev position ;) Is five weeks vacation okay with you?

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#225

Post by josephg »

intelVISA wrote: post #221
josephg wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I broadly agree for most programming jobs. Algorithm problems are based on the philosophy that if you can implement a binary tree in 20 minutes, you’re smart enough to figure out just about anything else that comes up. They were popularised by Google, who hire with the goal of never hiring incompetent people even if it means missing out on some good people. There’s two problems with algorithm problem intervie…

I think raw DSA has its place but shouldn't be 100% LC style: too isolated and abstract. You can probably learn more by wrapping it as a tiny 'project' note: not a take home -- just a DSA/LC style 'problem' diguised inside a git repo. I'd rather see 2Sum with a Cargo.toml in a repo, seeing them scaffold this in the lang of their choice, or within an existing codebase. Justifying the full end-to-end "how is this going…

Yeah I agree 100%. A good technical interview should involve a lot of different parts. Some programming, some conversational.

Essentially, there's 100 different things you need to know to do your job well. The job of a good technical interview is to give you a (biased) sample from those 100 elements of knowledge. So, some practical programming work. Some conversational - "how is this going to be deployed and maintained". Etc.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#226

Post by peanutcrisis »

scarface74 wrote: post #220
josephg wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are knowledge holes a mile wide with bootcamp curriculums though. The programs I’ve seen don’t teach: - Information security - Anything lower level than Python/Ruby - Unix (streams, files, processes and threads, syscalls, etc) - Debugging. (Except incedentally) Not knowing these things can be fine in a feature factory workplace. But having an engineer on your team who has no idea about infosec is an active dang…

And most college courses also don’t teach that.

Can you substantiate this? It's incredibly hard to believe that the majority of universities offering a programme in computer science would not have a class on operating systems or information security, or anything more abstract or concrete about those topics.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#227

Post by rubberband »

pinum wrote: post #215
rubberband wrote: post #86

Late to the party, but maybe I can help. I've helped in the hiring of many developers. (grain of salt, just my opinion, etc...) * Don't do bootcamps. It's a red flag for me. This can be said for any 100% online college. (again, I'm just being honest). Community colleges are fine. * You having a Github that you've committed stuff to often-ish will most interest me. I don't give a crud if you contribute to open source.…

>This can be said for any 100% online college. I'm curious about this part. Do such students tend to underperform at interview?

They absolutely do. Without fail.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#228

Post by JCharante »

scarface74 wrote: post #220
josephg wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are knowledge holes a mile wide with bootcamp curriculums though. The programs I’ve seen don’t teach: - Information security - Anything lower level than Python/Ruby - Unix (streams, files, processes and threads, syscalls, etc) - Debugging. (Except incedentally) Not knowing these things can be fine in a feature factory workplace. But having an engineer on your team who has no idea about infosec is an active dang…

And most college courses also don’t teach that.

Most college courses don't but most curriculums have some sort of security class. When we were learning assembly we used gdb to exploit faults in a C program (and we didn't get the source code so we had to read the assembly). There was also one for finding exploits exposed for a website that has a DB in the backend.

Nothing prevents bootcamps from having those classes though.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#229

Post by josephg »

torben-friis wrote: post #199
josephg wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are knowledge holes a mile wide with bootcamp curriculums though. The programs I’ve seen don’t teach: - Information security - Anything lower level than Python/Ruby - Unix (streams, files, processes and threads, syscalls, etc) - Debugging. (Except incedentally) Not knowing these things can be fine in a feature factory workplace. But having an engineer on your team who has no idea about infosec is an active dang…

I’d argue that if any of those reach production it’s never going to be the junior dev’s fault. Where’s the review process? Stronger point even: it is beneficial to have a person capable of messing up that way so you can check that your quality control is working.

A tiny minority of places I've worked do code review for every commit. Or have careful enough processes that they would catch every mistake made by incompetent engineers.

Most companies simply trust their employees most of the time. Hardening a process against programmers you don't trust has a massive cost.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#230

Post by fijiaarone »

I look for three things that hobbyist (or college trained) programmers usually don’t have but will put you head and shoulders above the crowd:

1. Being able to work with version control — pull requests, branching & merging, etc.

2. Being able to step through and debug code and write tests that expose low level bugs.

3. Being able to write defects clearly and precisely that others (technical and non- technical) can understand.

Sadly, most interviewers won’t be looking for these skills:

1. They’ll either be looking for someone who memorized (or can guess) their chosen coding challenge trivia.

2. They’ll want someone be who agrees with them and makes them feel superior.

3. They’ll want someone whose resume and demographics ticks the most boxes on their list.

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