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Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

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Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#111

Post by JoshCole »

yannk wrote: post #39
michaelchisari wrote: post #27

Despite having written tens of thousands of lines of open source code, I have yet to have an interviewer who has looked at that code and asked me about it.

Really? That's the most surprising thing I've read today. As an interviewer, Open Source contribution is one of the first thing I look for about a candidate.

I think most people look for it, but that the poster is talking about due diligence. It is easy to read that someone contributed to open source and give them brownie points. It takes a bit of effort to find the work they did, figure out what its doing, and determine whether they actually did a good job. People try to conserve their mental resources, so they don't always put in that effort.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#112

Post by schammy »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #74
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #18

The only hiring process I have found to work for developers is to sit down and work on real code together. This gets to the heart of the matter, and you very quickly feel out someone's knowledge, ability, and most importantly, how well they collaborate on a problem. Because in a startup you will need collaboration, and likely under the highest stress moments you've seen in your life. I also feel like this gives appli…

I wonder if you could give them access to a custom subdomain of a test site and tell them to build a web app, anything they want, and upload it. Give a suitable time limit, a day to a week, depending on how much you want to see and whether they already are a full-time employee or student. Then screen based on what people came up with. That's a bit more involved than the lighter-weight solution in the same vein - remo…

Hmm, not a bad idea. My company is going to be hiring soon, I'm thinking about doing something like this. It would be relevant to our service though, not just a random web app. e.g., building something on top of our API. Thanks for the idea!

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#113

Post by damncabbage »

lwat wrote: post #34
sp_ wrote: post #22

I worked for a German startup too and our main problem was not vetting interviewees but finding people who want to interview at all. In the five year history of the company I think only one single person was hired who was not already friends with someone at the company. Other people just never applied. I remember manning the booth at one of those college campus events and it was very lonely. I probably talked to thre…

Wow here in Australia we get HUNDREDS of people lining up to interview for every job we advertise.

Which company would that be, if you don't mind me asking? :)

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#114

Post by nandemo »

bugsy wrote: post #80
MichaelGG wrote: post #33

Writing code is just another type of conversation. Sure, you're going to ask many questions. Having a candidate code a bit in front of you, going back and forth, provides a lot of info. As far as "CS puzzles" - binary search, trees, linked lists, hashtables, etc: None of those should be puzzles. If you're giving interviews that people can "memorize" an answer to, then the problem is how you're doing the interview. A…

Do you actually find people that expect candidates to implement quicksort? I've certainly implemented it, but there's no way I have it memorized, it's not an obvious algorithm at all. I'd be flabbergasted to be asked to implement it from memory with no warning. It seems clear to me that one would be testing for if the person happened to have looked at the algorithm recently, not if they were competent.

It's not such an arcane algorithm. Choose a pivot element, (say) p. Rearrange the array into left_sub_array + [p] + right_sub_array such that all elements of left_sub_array are no greater than p, and all elements of right_sub_array are greater than p. Then recursively sort the left and right sub-arrays.

If you don't remember this, it's OK. If I was the interviewer I'd still give you the description above and see if you could implement it. Most candidates cannot.

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#115

Post by Tichy »

sp_ wrote: post #22

I worked for a German startup too and our main problem was not vetting interviewees but finding people who want to interview at all. In the five year history of the company I think only one single person was hired who was not already friends with someone at the company. Other people just never applied. I remember manning the booth at one of those college campus events and it was very lonely. I probably talked to thre…

Was your company offering "business solutions" by any chance? I remember once walking across an IT fair in Munich and being floored at the extreme boringness of all the company banners. They all seemed to provide "solutions" - whatever, no details about what they were doing (solutions for what?), nothing special going on. My brain was completely drained after the walk.

Just saying, maybe a better presentation could help. Also working in a software company is a kind of dreadful outlook, even today (neon lights, specs filled with hundreds of pages, dreary meetings...).

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#116

Post by tomjen3 »

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Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#117

Post by meatpeople »

Having only recently read Peopleware 2nd Ed., I've been mulling over the audition concept in the "Hiring A Juggler" chapter - effectively having a developer present on a project they worked on, what they contributed and learned and so forth.

It seems like it would have value - allow the candidate to prepare and present on a topic they're strong on, and in-depth enough to allow cross-examination.

Has anyone any experience of this from either side?

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#118

Post by blub »

jacques_chester wrote: post #31

My previous employer ( http://thefrontiergroup.com.au ) had a process where candidates would come and spend a day onsite. You'd be paid for the day. The process was to work together with a senior coder on problems of escalating difficulty. Starting with 1.upto 10 do |i| { print i } "What does this do?" And ending with "Here's a legacy application we maintain. Add a new widget to the dashboard. Think aloud." During th…

Erm... why did they fire you?

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#119

Post by gommm »

tptacek wrote: post #26
staunch wrote: post #15

My current system is: 1) Simple programming challenge ( 2) Casual discussion-style interview to get to know how they think and behave. 3) Short term contract with a predefined project ( 4) Full time hire with salary + equity.

If (3) is working for you, great; however, bear in mind that it's a seller's market for talent right now. I'd neg an offer contingent on doing a 3 month contract first, and I'd advise my friends to do the same; why should I shoulder that risk, if there are 2-3 other good positions open that will take it on for me by offering FT right away?

I think the problem between tptacek and me and the others arguing is that many of us are not from the USA... The USA being an At-Will employment system, there is not as much downside with hiring someone full time and the health care issue is specific to the US...

Re: Hiring Developers: You're Doing It Wrong

#120

Post by Stormbringer »

lwat wrote: post #34
sp_ wrote: post #22

I worked for a German startup too and our main problem was not vetting interviewees but finding people who want to interview at all. In the five year history of the company I think only one single person was hired who was not already friends with someone at the company. Other people just never applied. I remember manning the booth at one of those college campus events and it was very lonely. I probably talked to thre…

Wow here in Australia we get HUNDREDS of people lining up to interview for every job we advertise.

Really? Well, I guess you're not based in Echuca then....
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