Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

polyfill.work

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 233 posts

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#111

Post by pjmlp »

gsibble wrote: post #108
pjmlp wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ask about project work, and real technical questions. Many of us have a real life, and enough offers to chose from.

Sorry, but neither of those things show me that you know how to code. I don't know how long it took you to write your projects so you may be very slow and a terrible coder. Technical questions you may have prepped from a book. I need to see active coding, either live, in person, over zoom, or time boxed in a take home. We'll even compensate you for your time. But I need to see you actually working and review your wor…

No need to be sorry, I wouldn't apply to your company, and you would be lucky to even get a reply from me if contacting me on the typical social networks for developers.

Sorry.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#112

Post by gsibble »

nawgz wrote: post #81
glouwbug wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money really doesn't much once you've hit financial independence. I can live out the rest of my days with $1m invested. $200K-$500k annual salary, hell, even $100k, is enough at that point.

“I can live out the rest of my days with ... $200K-$500k annual salary” Sorry, but this isn’t “living out the rest of my days with” money, this is a top 5-1% pay range you’ve just suggested. I don’t necessarily disagree with your point but anyone who needs a $500K salary clearly is not financially independent

In the bay area, a $500k annual salary is really not that much in the grand scheme of thngs.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#114

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

gsibble wrote: post #56
sys_64738 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You lost me at "with a take home". I'm not interested in your silly games.

Ok. What would you suggest instead? I need to know you can, you know, actually code.

My favorite because of how realistic it is, is have me/the candidate do a code review. It's a real world thing that will be a part of most jobs that doesn't require artificial nonsense like coding in a browser, memorizable hacker rank crap, or some throw away time wasting coding challenge. As for if I can code, I have seven public github repos, 3 of which are previous take home challenges of varying degrees of absurdity.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#115

Post by gsibble »

PenguinCoder wrote: post #102
gsibble wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I/we do things significantly different than any other company I've worked for. Working fully remote makes it easier since you don't see people getting up from their desks or not coming into work. Our developers have no set hours, can work any hours they want, and are only expected to get the work assigned to them during a sprint done, no more, no less. I brought this style of work to our workplace and it's been…

Great to hear, glad that's working for you and the employees. Sounds great. Thanks for the book Req; I'm not in a position at a company to implement such teachings, I'm just an IC. Autonomy is certainly a big driver of job happiness for me though, I get it.

Thanks! We're constantly refining it. Employee satisfaction is a huge priority for me as we only hire top talent. Happy employees are productive employees. And productive employees make my bosses happy which makes our sales go up which makes the value of my equity go up. Everything is just better this way.

If I ever feel like writing a book (fat chance), I'll try to spread the gospel.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#116

Post by jenscow »

harshalizee wrote: post #73
gsibble wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I try to make take homes fun. I like the elevator problem in Python. Try to make elevator software that passes the unit tests. Sounds simple, right? Wrong. Very hard. I don't really care how successful you are. I want to see how readable and maintainable your code is. Sometimes I just ask for example projects that I can read. But I do need to know you can, you know, actually do the job. I personally find i…

It's not about if the take homes are fun or not. Far too many companies have varied take home tests that can take an hour or a 40-hour work week only to be ghosted after submission. I don't partake in any asymmetric interview processes, and many places are happy to let me skip it. I'm happy to sit on a zoom call with one of your engineers for a couple of hours and do whatever they want me code in that time. I'm just…

So if I asked you to do to a 1-2 hour coding task, you'd only do it if I were on a zoom call with you while you did it?

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#117

Post by gsibble »

WkndTriathlete wrote: post #110
gsibble wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. What would you suggest instead? I need to know you can, you know, actually code.

Talk to the candidate. If you (and the candidate) cannot communicate well enough in 30 minutes to discover that then either (a) you don't know enough to work well with a really good developer or (b) the developer doesn't know enough to work with you or (c) both are true. I have never been let down by this rule, either as a candidate or an interviewer. In my experience coding exercises as part of an interview process…

Trust me when I say I've talked to plenty of candidates who I thought were great only to learn they couldn't actually code fizzbuzz. Talking to candidates doesn't work.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#118

Post by teledyn »

Put simply: HR.

For starters, the acronym means "Human RESOURCES" ie, square one, or is about resource extraction, like any mining operation, about exploiting that resource for maximum value at minimum cost, and externalize costs where ever possible.

Alernatively, when actually creative people need assistants, they INSPIRE collaborations, using only the value of their idea.

There's more money in the former than the latter, but as Henry Ford said, "you can make money or you can make sense, the two are mutually exclusive."

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#119

Post by gsibble »

NaturalPhallacy wrote: post #114
gsibble wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok. What would you suggest instead? I need to know you can, you know, actually code.

My favorite because of how realistic it is, is have me/the candidate do a code review. It's a real world thing that will be a part of most jobs that doesn't require artificial nonsense like coding in a browser, memorizable hacker rank crap, or some throw away time wasting coding challenge. As for if I can code, I have seven public github repos, 3 of which are previous take home challenges of varying degrees of absurd…

I said this elsewhere but reviewing previous projects or doing a code review does help somewhat, but it leaves out my ability to see your actual coding skill re: speed. I need to get a sense of that in order to feel comfortable hiring you. The only way I can do that is if you do some live coding one way or another. How you do it at our company is entirely up to you.

With our salaries, we have yet to have anyone turn us down when we get to that stage of the interview, but maybe someday it'll happen.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#120

Post by gsibble »

pjmlp wrote: post #111
gsibble wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but neither of those things show me that you know how to code. I don't know how long it took you to write your projects so you may be very slow and a terrible coder. Technical questions you may have prepped from a book. I need to see active coding, either live, in person, over zoom, or time boxed in a take home. We'll even compensate you for your time. But I need to see you actually working and review your wor…

No need to be sorry, I wouldn't apply to your company, and you would be lucky to even get a reply from me if contacting me on the typical social networks for developers. Sorry.

No worries. Sounds like we wouldn't want you anyways if you have such poor work ethic.
Post reply on HN