Why You Need To Hire Great Developers • Hacker News Board

Re: Why You Need To Hire Great Developers

#21

Post by benlakey » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 4:17 AM UTC

amcintyre wrote: post #15

mbailey wrote: post #2

My company is making a business of identifying great developers (gild.com). It is a notoriously difficult task, even with the wealth of information developers tend to make public about themselves.

...even with the wealth of information developers tend to make public about themselves. I guess I'm gonna be a negative Nancy here, but I know some very good developers that don't make anything about themselves public. I expect some of the very best are completely invisible on the internet, at least by their real name, because they're too busy working on things their employers would rather keep as trade secrets.

I suspect you're right, though I'd rather they share the non trade secret advice that they have in a more public fashion, such as a blog or stackoverflow.

Re: Why You Need To Hire Great Developers

#22

Post by Brajeshwar » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 4:19 AM UTC

"There are lots of companies and people earning lots of money writing bad codes. There are lots of money to be made fixing those bad codes."

Re: Why You Need To Hire Great Developers

#23

Post by benlakey » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 4:19 AM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #19

I don't think hiring great developers is something everyone must do. After all, there are not enough of them to go around. Instead I'd say that the ability to hire great developers is a key advantage to being a smaller company. Also, I'd say that the notions of "10x" or "20x" greater productivity from the best developers are set on the wrong footing entirely. Such ideas presuppose that development is just production…

The 10x/20x thing doesn't refer to productivity at all. It refers to ability. So I think we're in fact saying the same thing here.

Re: Why You Need To Hire Great Developers

#24

Post by benlakey » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 4:22 AM UTC

blackhole wrote: post #5

This article is operating on an assumption that you let any given developer access your entire codebase. By partitioning developers into certain projects, you can isolate bad developers and move them into less harmful positions, while moving the majority of your great developers into critical infrastructure areas. There are ways to handle this that do not include missing out on good developers.

I agree that it operates on that assumption, and that the full-stack developer assumption is a good one. Have a read of this blog post for the mindset:

http://codercake.com/benefits-of-becoming-a-full-stack-devel...

Re: Why You Need To Hire Great Developers

#25

Post by xiaoma » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 4:26 AM UTC

benlakey wrote: post #23

InclinedPlane wrote: post #19

I don't think hiring great developers is something everyone must do. After all, there are not enough of them to go around. Instead I'd say that the ability to hire great developers is a key advantage to being a smaller company. Also, I'd say that the notions of "10x" or "20x" greater productivity from the best developers are set on the wrong footing entirely. Such ideas presuppose that development is just production…

The 10x/20x thing doesn't refer to productivity at all. It refers to ability. So I think we're in fact saying the same thing here.

Really? You're quantifying ability? What is a unit of programmer ability? You can track LOC or bugs or maybe even revenue generated, but none of those are exact measures of ability.

Re: Why You Need To Hire Great Developers

#26

Post by mbailey » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 4:45 AM UTC

spitfire wrote: post #6

mbailey wrote: post #2

My company is making a business of identifying great developers (gild.com). It is a notoriously difficult task, even with the wealth of information developers tend to make public about themselves.

"automated scoring" and "social network activity". That sounds like a fantastic way to find scads of mediocre developers. Development isn't about language, it's about comprehension.

We are making assessments of code made public, and combining it with how active people are in places like stackexchange. You can argue that code evaluated from github is not necessarily indicative of a good developer, but it's a good place to start rather than shotgun LinkedIn spam from recruiters.

Re: Why You Need To Hire Great Developers

#27

Post by mbailey » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 4:53 AM UTC

amcintyre wrote: post #15

mbailey wrote: post #2

My company is making a business of identifying great developers (gild.com). It is a notoriously difficult task, even with the wealth of information developers tend to make public about themselves.

...even with the wealth of information developers tend to make public about themselves. I guess I'm gonna be a negative Nancy here, but I know some very good developers that don't make anything about themselves public. I expect some of the very best are completely invisible on the internet, at least by their real name, because they're too busy working on things their employers would rather keep as trade secrets.

For sure, we can only evaluate what we can get access to. We're trying to scour as many sources as possible, but if you're exceedingly quiet, you wouldn't be in our system.

Re: Why You Need To Hire Great Developers

#28

Post by benlakey » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 4:53 AM UTC

xiaoma wrote: post #25

benlakey wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 10x/20x thing doesn't refer to productivity at all. It refers to ability. So I think we're in fact saying the same thing here.

Really? You're quantifying ability? What is a unit of programmer ability? You can track LOC or bugs or maybe even revenue generated, but none of those are exact measures of ability.

I don't think it's quantifiable. The numbers are imprecise opinions.

Re: Why You Need To Hire Great Developers

#29

Post by mbailey » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 4:54 AM UTC

sanswork wrote: post #3

mbailey wrote: post #2

My company is making a business of identifying great developers (gild.com). It is a notoriously difficult task, even with the wealth of information developers tend to make public about themselves.

Is there any way to view your own profile on gild?

Eventually we're planning to do just that.

Re: Why You Need To Hire Great Developers

#30

Post by jamesbanner » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 5:00 AM UTC

In my experience hiring great developers brings more challenges then benefits.

They are difficult to retain, They are difficult to be made satisfied, you need to change your company compensation rules to accommodate them and various other problems.

It's much better in my experience to hire a mediocre developer and train him in your domain.