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Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

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Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

#51

Post by __123__ »

__123__ wrote: post #50

This is a horrible question that if not illegal, is extremely close to being illegal since it requires the candidate to give information about their age. The signal this question provides is a signal about the person giving the interview (and the company as a whole) and nothing about the candidate. That is, if someone asked me this question in an interview, I would immediately know that I want nothing to do with the…

For me, the biggest question, is what company does the person asking this interview question work for, so I can know to never interview with them ever.

Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

#52

Post by __123__ »

Mezzie wrote: post #49
iforgotpassword wrote: post #10

I think it is a very good indicator. Some comments here try to defend people who started later on and still might be very good, but that's besides the point I think. If you have someone who started at young age, you can be pretty sure they're really good. After all, they must have done it because it was actually fun to them, because no 12yo would be like "this sucks but it will be good for me later in life". So they…

I started at age 4 and I am a competent but not amazing coder.

It is not about when you started learning something, but how you learned it.

It can be easy to learn the "wrong way" to do things when not classically trained, especially in engineering roles, that is hard to unlearn later.

That is, you could have an understanding of something that works for what you have seen so far, but is fundamentally flawed and it is not until much later when you have seem more complicated scenarios that you understand how it was flawed.

Someone learning later, though, from a professional, can be showed the bigger picture earlier and have a better understanding.

Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

#53

Post by Mezzie »

__123__ wrote: post #52
Mezzie wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started at age 4 and I am a competent but not amazing coder.

It is not about when you started learning something, but how you learned it. It can be easy to learn the "wrong way" to do things when not classically trained, especially in engineering roles, that is hard to unlearn later. That is, you could have an understanding of something that works for what you have seen so far, but is fundamentally flawed and it is not until much later when you have seem more complicated scena…

I agree! I was responding as an example to help disprove 'if somebody starts early, they're good.' I think there are benefits and drawbacks to each type of learning. There's also a lot of things I have some incomplete knowledge of but have never learned the appropriate way/have blind spots about and a lot of things I had to learn the hard way that would have gone way more smoothly if I'd opted for a CS education or learned differently.

Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

#55

Post by roland35 »

slim wrote: post #46
roland35 wrote: post #14

I 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…

you are saying that those who benefited from early exposition to computers are better programmers but a company should somehow ignore it because it's unfair

Yeah that's exactly what I am saying. If you want your entire team to be have a monoculture go for it! I think diversity (in all kinds) is good and many of the very best engineers I've worked with came from non traditional backgrounds.

Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

#58

Post by Agraillo »

I don't think 11yr vs 15yr/16yr is a big difference for measuring. I started early, probably falling into 11yr category. Many years passed, and recently I had a chance to look at my code of the age probably around 20. There were so many wrongs in the code that I stopped counting. Definitely I learned a lot since then. So the period between 11yr and 21yr was just fun for coding and getting things working as quickly as possible (youth just can not wait).

Re: Ask HN: Is "At which age did you start coding?” a good data point for hiring?

#59

Post by pdevr »

No. You will get fake answers from the dishonest, with the youngest possible age that will be accepted without too many questions. As for the honest ones, starting something early does not necessarily mean that they kept on doing it, or more importantly, it does not mean that they learned more than others about technologies that are fairly new.

There are of course outliers, like competitive programmers who have successful software careers, but you can find them easily by other means.

Any interview question, where the answer cannot be verified fairly quickly, if used as a criteria for hiring, will get you plenty of liars and a few good people.

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