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How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans

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Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans

#41

Post by calevans »

mikemikemike wrote: post #8

"anytime they’re looking at job ads, serious developer positions, not front end developers... " Ouch. I guess I never should have dropped PHP for client side MVC apps.

I do apologize for the unfortunate wording on that comment.

It really was not my intent to imply that only back-end developers are serious developers. I'm going to chalk that one up to the fact that this was a live interview and sometimes things just fall out of my mouth before I can shut it. I do apologize and ask that any front end developer, designer, or any developer proficient with photoshop to please accept my apology. :)

I was trying to say that if a company is advertising for a developer, seeing photoshop on the ad is a red-flag. I have known a few developers who can also design but only a few.

In my experience, when you start seeing disconnects like this is it because the company hasn't put a lot of thought into exactly what they want the developer to do. That is bad for them, it is worse for whomever they hire.

I am married to a wonderful designer and would never ever disparage designers. :)

Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans

#42

Post by calevans »

wbronitsky wrote: post #21
jasode wrote: post #14

>, I am to the point in my career where I have a LinkedIn profile that if you printed out in a PDF, it would be 5 or 7 pages. I have 10 or 12 GitHub repos out there that show what my code is. If you as a developer manager are not qualified to read through my GitHub Repo [...], and if you’re not qualified to look at my LinkedIn profile and see that I show a progression of responsibilities, That's great for him but it'…

I totally agree with your first point. He seems to be saying that you are no good to him if you have not worked on side projects or open source. He seems blinded by his 35 years in the industry, and seems to not understand two things: 1) That there are a ton of companies that give 0 time for open source 2) That some people just write code as a job, not as a hobby. Personally, I would want my employees to give me 100%…

You are correct on the second point. I do fully understand the first point, however my answer is that if programming is a craft to you, take your own time to master your craft and put your efforts up on github.

As to your second point, some developers are not passionate about programming as a craft. I know developers and have worked with developers that programming is a job. Outside life, they have other interests and do not want to spend their evening turning a unit test green. I'm fine with that but when I am hiring, I am looking for passion.

Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans

#43

Post by calevans »

nadams wrote: post #19

I have so many comments on this article but this stood out: > I do not negotiate salaries. > I ask the person what do you need. That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. Did you honestly tell your employer "oh I only needed $X to pay my bills and eat ramen"? > I’ve got a junior developer saying I need $100,000, that’s not reasonable Actually according to glassdoor[1] - salaries for a "junior developer" range f…

Salary is a very tricky thing. Yes, there are locations that pay a Jr. developer $100k or more. My bias is showing in that I don't live on one of those areas.

That still does not change how I handle salaries. However, I left out a critical part.

Yes, I like hiring remote developers. Yes, I like paying each developer what they feel they are worth so that they are comfortable with the job and not always looking for the next thing.

HOWEVER, before I start looking for a developer to hire I have to assess what the position is worth to the company. Regardless of geographic norms for the developer, if the position of Jr. is not worth $100k to the company, then I will dismiss the candidate because others will provide similar value and within my range.

I want everyone to be comfortable with the salary being paid. That includes the developer I am hiring, the company I am hiring them for, and myself. The person who will be held responsible for the decision.

Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans

#45

Post by Phlow »

calevans wrote: post #42
wbronitsky wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with your first point. He seems to be saying that you are no good to him if you have not worked on side projects or open source. He seems blinded by his 35 years in the industry, and seems to not understand two things: 1) That there are a ton of companies that give 0 time for open source 2) That some people just write code as a job, not as a hobby. Personally, I would want my employees to give me 100%…

You are correct on the second point. I do fully understand the first point, however my answer is that if programming is a craft to you, take your own time to master your craft and put your efforts up on github. As to your second point, some developers are not passionate about programming as a craft. I know developers and have worked with developers that programming is a job. Outside life, they have other interests an…

Horseshit. You're welcome to hire that way, but I can tell you right now, you're missing a whole class of excellent devs that put 100% of their time into the stuff they're working on at the office. I have side projects I occasionally work on, for myself, but they're not on a public github, and they're almost always when things at the office have slowed down a bit. The rest of the time, I enjoy what I do so much, that I spend it on the work tasks, trying new PoC's, refactoring, etc. Now tell me exactly why you'd not hire someone like me?

Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans

#46

Post by greggyb »

codersteve wrote: post #39
greggyb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Personally, I would want my employees to give me 100% of their effort on coding. If they are going home and coding, how much effort are they actually putting in at work? If you owned a restaurant, would you object to your cooks going home and making themselves a nice meal? Note: This is more of an idle curiosity thing that popped into my head reading your comment. This is not a "Boom, roasted!" type of comment.

Cooking is different as it's something you do in order to eat--a basic necessity of life. So a cook would likely go home to cook a meal for his family but might not be happy about it. Software development is not a basic necessity of life.

Okay, so replace it with professional racing drivers who drive off the track; an illustrator drawing something in their free time; a photographer taking pictures of their friends; a manager who helps organize a charity event; a sysadmin who owns their own computer; really, any similar combination of employment and use of job-skills on personal time that would allow you to engage with the actual point of my comment.

My comment was not about cooks; that was just the first example that came to mind. The point is that sometimes people do things in their spare time that make use of the skills that their employer pays them for. Why is it inherently negative for an employee to use their job-skills for non-job purposes?

Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans

#47

Post by codersteve »

greggyb wrote: post #46
codersteve wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cooking is different as it's something you do in order to eat--a basic necessity of life. So a cook would likely go home to cook a meal for his family but might not be happy about it. Software development is not a basic necessity of life.

Okay, so replace it with professional racing drivers who drive off the track; an illustrator drawing something in their free time; a photographer taking pictures of their friends; a manager who helps organize a charity event; a sysadmin who owns their own computer; really, any similar combination of employment and use of job-skills on personal time that would allow you to engage with the actual point of my comment. M…

>>Why is it inherently negative for an employee to use their job-skills for non-job purposes?

It's not. I guess my point to the original comment is that they might not put in as much passion on the after-hours stuff because they are tired from work; and that doing it because you're kind of obligated to do it (for family, friends) is different from being required to do it in order to keep your career moving forward.

Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans

#48

Post by codersteve »

Phlow wrote: post #45
calevans wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct on the second point. I do fully understand the first point, however my answer is that if programming is a craft to you, take your own time to master your craft and put your efforts up on github. As to your second point, some developers are not passionate about programming as a craft. I know developers and have worked with developers that programming is a job. Outside life, they have other interests an…

Horseshit. You're welcome to hire that way, but I can tell you right now, you're missing a whole class of excellent devs that put 100% of their time into the stuff they're working on at the office. I have side projects I occasionally work on, for myself, but they're not on a public github, and they're almost always when things at the office have slowed down a bit. The rest of the time, I enjoy what I do so much, that…

I agree. What if you're applying for a Network Admin job? Are they supposed to have a github repo for admin scripts?

Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans

#49

Post by zck »

codersteve wrote: post #47
greggyb wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, so replace it with professional racing drivers who drive off the track; an illustrator drawing something in their free time; a photographer taking pictures of their friends; a manager who helps organize a charity event; a sysadmin who owns their own computer; really, any similar combination of employment and use of job-skills on personal time that would allow you to engage with the actual point of my comment. M…

>>Why is it inherently negative for an employee to use their job-skills for non-job purposes? It's not. I guess my point to the original comment is that they might not put in as much passion on the after-hours stuff because they are tired from work; and that doing it because you're kind of obligated to do it (for family, friends) is different from being required to do it in order to keep your career moving forward.

This sub-thread is the response to a sentiment I've never seen before -- wbronitsky's argument:

>Personally, I would want my employees to give me 100% of their effort on coding. If they are going home and coding, how much effort are they actually putting in at work?

The discussion is over "what should coding at home mean about a candidate or employee?" While certainly I agree with you that coding at home should not be /required/, I don't agree with the argument presented in the quote that says "coding at home means you're not working hard at work".

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