Not really.
You're filtering for wealth.
Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?
21–30 of 90 posts
Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?
#22This feels similar to asking “do sons of blacksmiths make better blacksmiths?” and a few steps later you end up with a guild system.
Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?
#23Please ask this question, it makes it much easier for me to hire.
Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?
#24I am strongly against this question. You're basically looking at who's parents provided an opportunity for them to learn coding early. I'm sure you would find that most people who started programming at a young age (and are still doing it obviously) are probably better than average and also enthusiastic. However, I think it is still a disservice to anyone who didn't have support as a child. For the record I was learn…
Exactly.
I wrote my first hello world program before high school (I don't know exactly what age), and I know plenty of people that started in adulthood that would be better coders than me. I'm not bad, I just recognize that plenty of people learned later and are "better" at coding.
Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?
#25Man I remember when I was little, I always wanted to make apps for iOS but my parents couldn’t even afford to buy me an iPod touch let along a Mac…
Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?
#26I worked at a big tech company in a staff/principal engineering position. I always had coworkers who didn’t start coding until college, who were better engineers, communicators, and overall leaders than I was. I turned to them for mentorship.
For what it’s worth, I learned to code in grade school.
I wasn’t terrible at my job, and left in that principal role.
Not sure how conclusive my anecdote is, but I 100% do not believe there’s a strong relationship with starting to code earlier in life and being a better coder, engineer, or general employee than someone who started in college or even much later in life.
Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?
#27It’s a good data point in the sense that chances are, people that started doing that early are good. That doesn’t mean that the people that didn’t are bad. You’d be missing a large population of good coders if you use that data point as a high bit in decision making.
Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?
#28I wouldn't ask anything age related at all in an interview.
In fact, that the answer could theoretically be over 40 and that that would count against the candidate means it's probably illegal in the US without clear evidence that it directly relates to job performance.
Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?
#29I am strongly against this question. You're basically looking at who's parents provided an opportunity for them to learn coding early. I'm sure you would find that most people who started programming at a young age (and are still doing it obviously) are probably better than average and also enthusiastic. However, I think it is still a disservice to anyone who didn't have support as a child. For the record I was learn…
Yeah I had non technical parents and a school that considered excell to be computer science.
I tried to learn at home but didn't get past simple scripts. I'm sure a more gifted person would have done better in my position but I think I could have done better if I'd had help.
Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?
#30This a meta comment. Many other comments here talk about a correlation between wealth and programming early in life, which really surprised me. I started programming on a commodore 64 in the early eighties, and I don't understand mentions of needing a desktop computer or powerful/expensive hardware; on the contrary, you could learn programming on any old computer with a keyboard.
Anybody cares to explain their reasoning here about the correlation with wealth? Besides any correlation between having started early and being a good prospective hire.