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We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

danluu.com

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Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#111

Post by vector_spaces »

dkhenry wrote: post #26

For the specific example given I have turned down many individuals who sound like they have a similar background because they could not figure out how to work outside of their toolchain. I see it all the time with .NET and Java developers, if they are not in Visual Studios or Eclipse they don't know how to even compile their software. Both those ecosystems are fantastic and developers can be very productive, especial…

One data point but I have a ".NET background", primarily write "Enterprise software" in Windows stacks, but although I have a Windows Amazon Workspace at my disposal my daily drivers are Linux and Emacs.

That said I haven't really observed this phenomenon among any of my coworkers who run on Visual Studio and Windows full time. I think experienced devs who care about their craft enough to know a modicum of computer science understand what is happening "under the hood" when tooling like Visual Studio abstracts build steps away from them, or at least enough to be able to manually replicate it themselves if needed.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#112

Post by patja »

malvosenior wrote: post #60
plughs wrote: post #45

One frustration I've had recently is the number of companies encouraging or requiring code in the public sphere. They want to see open-source contributions or an active and impressive personal github page. If your employer is protective of their IP ( mine is ) and/or you are not willing to spend evenings and and weekends on pet projects, you are out of the running. Also >But if you think programmers aren't elitist, t…

As someone who uses Github and OSS contribution as a strong hiring signal, I'd like to offer an alternative perspective. People who do a lot of personal projects tend to be very good developers, especially when you can see a demonstrated ability to ship. This is also helpful for people who haven't worked at big name companies or don't have degrees from elite universities. I'd happily hire someone with no experience a…

If it works for you then great, but you are really limiting the pipeline of candidates. I'll bet there are 100 great candidates out there who don't even have Github accounts for every one you are seeing.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#113

Post by dkhenry »

leetrout wrote: post #42
dkhenry wrote: post #26

For the specific example given I have turned down many individuals who sound like they have a similar background because they could not figure out how to work outside of their toolchain. I see it all the time with .NET and Java developers, if they are not in Visual Studios or Eclipse they don't know how to even compile their software. Both those ecosystems are fantastic and developers can be very productive, especial…

I agree with your sentiment but it's not good to blame an entire class of people. I've had the same thing happen with devs who were using Python + Django and popular frontend toolchains. What you hit exactly square on the head is the lack of caring about what is going on. At larger corporations or at places with a rigid developer experience they do only have to care about their small piece of the pie. This especially…

I agree that you can't typecast everyone who has worked in a specific platform. There are lots of high quality developers out there working on all sorts of things, and as an industry we put too much emphasis on resume's which can't really display what you actually did at a company

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#114

Post by marcus_holmes »

MS90 wrote: post #82
malvosenior wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who uses Github and OSS contribution as a strong hiring signal, I'd like to offer an alternative perspective. People who do a lot of personal projects tend to be very good developers, especially when you can see a demonstrated ability to ship. This is also helpful for people who haven't worked at big name companies or don't have degrees from elite universities. I'd happily hire someone with no experience a…

It's just frustrating because not everyone wants to spend 24/7 working at a computer, some of us have other hobbies and prefer to keep a good work/life balance. I already get paid to code 8 hours a day, the last thing I want to do is go home and do it for free. Would an architect get denied employment because they didn't have a "pet project" skyscraper in their backyard to show off?

I literally can't code in the evening if I've been doing it all day. I have to be creative in other ways (sketching, blacksmithing, leatherwork, bookbinding, even minecraft has worked for this).

All my side projects have been done between gigs when freelancing, or while working in management roles where I can code as a creative outlet in the evenings because I haven't been coding all day.

I'm always slightly suspicious of people who claim to work a regular job coding and then put in similar hours on hobby projects. It's almost like "but if you can code in the evenings, what were you doing all day?"

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#115

Post by deusofnull »

igreulich wrote: post #90
barce wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why node? 2 reasons: async which C# has too, and coding in just one language. And no, writing backend JavaScript doesn't mean you're better.

So coding in one language is a BIT of a red herring. It only works if the paradigms your app uses are the same in the front and back. And I have nott seen a project where the KIND of problems that need solving (in the front vs back) were close enough for the same language to be a benefit. I mean at the end of the day, I can build a house with JUST a screwdriver, but man, I'd rather use the right tool fot the specific…

Reminds me of yesterday's hn frontpager, the paper about a "programble programming language". they were talking about how domain specific languages within a single language become super distinct and ungrokable to people who are otherwise fluent in the parent language. Think like, an angular dev reading nest.js node backend stuff. With javascript this is sorta everywhere. JS DSLs arent like explicitly uninterpretable to otherwise-experienced JS devs but there is a context shift cost for sure.

Ive not worked with c# much, but is that not as much of a problem with it? Like, is there more of a standardized way of doing things? Python is kinda like that i guess.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#116

Post by Cymen »

Is contracting on your resume really so bad? I recently made the jump from FTE to contracting because I've always wanted to and it's great. The compensation is higher and I can work the way I want to (put in a ton of effort to get something done, get paid for actual time put in and then move on to the next thing or take a break for a while to play with my two young kids).

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#117

Post by teddyh »

z3t4 wrote: post #2

You need to present yourself as whatever image the employer/recruiter has in her/his head. For example my old employer thought that people who had their heir in a certain way was more structured and would be a better manager. Or the company might want do diversify, so they look for someone that is different . So in the end I think it's mostly about luck unless you are very good at figuring these things out.

> had their [hair] in a certain way

https://dilbert.com/strip/1992-08-27

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#118

Post by throwawaymath »

natalyarostova wrote: post #103
plughs wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who do a lot of personal projects also tend to be young with minimal outside responsibilities. It is no secret that they are appealing hires - someone who's willing to spend long hours on personal projects is probably also willing to spend long hours on work projects. That's what makes it discrimination.

Life is about trade-offs. If you want to spend more time outside of work on things like friends and family, that's great. In fact, it's probably optimal. But to then say it's discrimination when someone who has made the choice to instead only focus on their technical skill, at the exclusion of friends and family, is better than you, is a little silly.

To be more charitable to the commenter's point, that's not what's being asserted as discriminatory. They're making the claim that it's implicitly discriminatory to penalize people who don't spend time on programming outside of work, because that reasonably penalizes people who are older (i.e. more likely to have a family).

They are not making the claim that choosing to hire someone better than someone else is discriminatory.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#119

Post by ethbro »

asdfman123 wrote: post #57
rb808 wrote: post #7

I worked on a big C# system with hundreds of windows servers, developed on Visual Studio etc. It was an awesome project and everything worked like clockwork. However there are very few projects using that technology so when I wanted to move I had trouble getting interviews. I'm now working with a very fashionable tech stack, its horrible, infrastructure is regularly broken, people can't trace problems easily, our fun…

I'm a C# developer at what I think is a really good dev environment. Tons of smart people here and we're highly productive. I like C# and I honestly feel boring software is better. I can't get behind chasing the latest trends. Why should I learn Node instead? Does writing backend Javascript mean you're a better developer?

To people who only know how to write backend javascript, yes.

I think companies underappreciate this.

If your current tech team is focused on (insert any specific language / framework), then why are they going to like and hire anyone with different experience?

Your telling me how you can do it in 3 lines of (new language) makes me feel pretty bad about my 1000 lines of Java.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#120

Post by akhilcacharya »

mcguire wrote: post #102

" Google bigwigs regularly talk about the hiring data they have and what hasn't worked. I believe they talked about how focusing on top schools wasn't effective and didn't turn up employees that have better performance years ago, but that doesn't stop TrendCo from focusing hiring efforts on top schools. " As far as I know, that doesn't stop Google from focusing hiring efforts on top schools. Anyway, I'm actually wond…

> Suppose you are one of the people hired out of school for $200k+. What happens in 10 or 15 years when you are no longer the shiny new thing, don't have the trendy skills, and have been working for boring companies?

I know several people like this. They'll either progress into principal tech level at the same or similar tier companies, or at worst retire. Unless the bottom falls out under the market those people aren't going to revert to the mean.

...and to be clear, the stuff Dan discussed doesn't really apply if you're one of those people hired for $230k new grad at Google or Facebook or Stripe or Lyft or whatever. Just the name is enough at that point.

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