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I have no side code projects to show you

codementor.io

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Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#221

Post by patientplatypus »

austincheney wrote: post #211

My open source projects have gotten me all but 1 of my last 4 jobs. Hands down. Yes, I still had to pass the interview, but when you can claim that your NPM package ballooned to a million monthly downloads suddenly the conversation changes from writing code to architecture, product management, and leadership. Essentially you are telling the guy on the other side of the desk that I can solve problems nobody else in th…

This comment really rubs me the wrong way. Realistically there are maybe, what, a couple hundred "million plus" downloaded npm packages, that are useful per language. That would almost seem generous. Now compare that to the number of programmers.

What you are essentially saying is that it would be a reasonable expectation to only get a job as a software engineer if you are the absolutely in the top .0001% of programmers in the world. Which, sure, I'm glad you're successful, that's nice. And as advice for one individual it's good - showing good work is a positive indicator for an employer. But in the aggregate we can't ALL be the best.

I went to school because I had thought that my chances of making a stable living were higher than playing basketball and praying that I would make it into the NBA.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#222

Post by glangdale »

I sympathize with this guy. I think the "side projects" issue, like "write some code on the whiteboard plz" is a symptom of the dysfunction in our industry. Specifically, a startling proportion of people purportedly working as programmers cannot in fact perform even basic tasks and don't feel shy about pretending that they can.

A lot of my issues about the weird side project fetish come down to the fact that this is an award for the misaligned. I spent pretty much the first decade of my 'proper' career working on ideas that went into our regex matcher (now at github.com/intel/hyperscan fwiw). During some of the more intense periods I could barely take a shower or daydream without having to grab a notebook and start writing ideas down, many of which went into the product. When I wasn't doing that stuff, I really didn't have any energy left for building anything else. Reading these discussions, I often wondered what would happen if the associated startup (Sensory Networks) had tanked.

This isn't hating on people who do side projects; it's just to say that having the time/energy to do side projects often feels like it results from misalignment with your day job. I was happier than a pig in shit writing regex and literal matcher code (or designing algorithms) at Sensory Networks and I'm still that happy doing new software projects at Intel.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#223

Post by ifhd »

warcher wrote: post #31

I’m not mad at you, but as the dude on the other side of the desk, I have to decide whether you can cut it and I’m fine saying no. I could make you do some whiteboard problems, but I think whiteboard problems are pretty far removed from your day to day development and I am uncomfortable relying on them as a proxy for your ability to ship code. I don’t really disagree with your philosophy of working while you’re worki…

I work on internal tools for a major company. You can't see them, some I probably shouldn't even tell you about.

When I get home I play video games and watch tv and play with my dog. sometimes I'll screw around with a new language or something else. I don't post stuff on github and keep a blog or anything else like that.

I think your view is pretty myopic. Ask me to talk for 30 minutes about one of my projects and force me to answer some tough questions about it. whiteboard some designs.

Maybe I should just hire some guys off a freelance site to write me some side projects.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#224

Post by dmoy »

calibration263 wrote: post #157
bad_user wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving a candidate a "take-home assignment" is actually the most disrespectful of the options listed. Unless you're an awesome company, with really cool projects and offering me a jaw dropping salary and benefits, then no, I'm not going to do free work for you. Even if you are an awesome company, people probably have to actually work for you to see that, so no, I'm not going to do free work for you. I'd rather spend…

> I'm not going to do free work for you Our industry could follow after the restaurant industry and implement stages/trialing. You come in and work a full day. If you get the job that days pay shows up on your first paycheck, if not they send you out the door with a check.

That does not work for anyone who currently has a job, unless your current employer has extremely lax moonlighting policies.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#225

Post by Pica_soO »

warcher wrote: post #31

I’m not mad at you, but as the dude on the other side of the desk, I have to decide whether you can cut it and I’m fine saying no. I could make you do some whiteboard problems, but I think whiteboard problems are pretty far removed from your day to day development and I am uncomfortable relying on them as a proxy for your ability to ship code. I don’t really disagree with your philosophy of working while you’re worki…

Eh, the Duds can fork github projects too, add some minor feature and release the "project" to rot.

You do not get to see people who get stuff done- you get to see people who optimized their "work"-life for the impression of getting stuff done.

Not beeing ready to pour unreasonable hours in- actually is a good sign. Such a person values his/her time- and thus will think on there own, for example when handed ridiculous feature requests. Such a person will stand up to me, and ask questions that might save month of development time sunk into unnecessary work.

Sorry, but we are not building the pyramids here. We are making software- and for that a lazy-loading brain with a clever work-avoidance Algorithm, in a un-passionate mercenary can be very effective as a development tool.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#226

Post by literallycancer »

hobofan wrote: post #193
eropple wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, that doesn't happen. And I go on a lot of interviews; it's an activity that helps with a set of skills that I always need to keep sharp. And, along those lines, I get a lot of offers! But it has never-not-once been related to my Github profile. In my experience, it is employers signaling how cool they are before they ask you to do their multi-hour coding test for no money.

> before they ask you to do their multi-hour coding test for no money Where do all of you keep finding those companies? Is that an SV thing, or am I just not applying to "prestigious" enough companies? I've been on my fair share of interviews and haven't had that happen once, along with no whiteboard interviews. I can echo your experience about Github projects playing a small role apart from signaling though. Once, a…

Can confirm, not a SV thing, plenty of it in Europe.

Nothing to do with prestige, it's a simple "will this monkey jump through hoops" test to see if you'll work in shitty conditions for shitty pay.

My go to response is asking them to look at my git instead, which ends the process in about half the cases. The other half they look at it for <5 minutes and point out the error that isn't an error (yes I know what an SQL injection is, and I've taken steps to make sure it won't be an issue).

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#228

Post by ifhd »

notzorbo3 wrote: post #117
eropple wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side? As somebody who has plenty of open source projects--the set of employers who actually looks at them is within epsilon of zero. I have not once, not once gotten a meaningful question from anything I have posted on Github in any interview or client meeting even after suggesting up-front that it's worth taking a look. And I used to interview on a monthly basis just to keep in practice! No--instead you…

> Employers don't care. The wrong empoyers don't care. The right ones do. My github portfolio is a means for me to determine if a potential employer is suitable for me, not the other way around. It's not a test for me to pass, it's a test for a potential employer to pass. If a recruiter brings up things listed on my LinkedIn page, I know they're not suitable for me. If they bring up things on my github, I'm reasonabl…

Thats a pretty arbitrary line. Why wouldn't they want to ask about hte projects you poured thousands of hours of paid time into?

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#229

Post by rco8786 »

warcher wrote: post #217
rco8786 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unmaintainable junk Isn't that what pretty much every side project is anyway? Unless you're an active OSS developer the chances of any of your projects being worthy of judgment is pretty slim. I've got 10-12 repos on github I can show you...they're all half baked weekend projects that I did just to tinker with some new technology or idea I had. None of them are production quality, and most of them I'm appalled at a…

A lot of programming is real grimy and there’s a lot of skeletons in every closet. Par for the course. I’ve seen it all. The code isn’t the code, it’s a conversation we have about how you think. So many people dragging me in this thread think it’s about the code. It is not. I’m interested in the person. The code is just an artifact and a conversation piece.

Then certainly it’s replaceable, no? Could just as easily say it’s not about the whiteboard, the whiteboard is an artifact and a conversation piece.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#230

Post by literallycancer »

apple4ever wrote: post #204
bad_user wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving a candidate a "take-home assignment" is actually the most disrespectful of the options listed. Unless you're an awesome company, with really cool projects and offering me a jaw dropping salary and benefits, then no, I'm not going to do free work for you. Even if you are an awesome company, people probably have to actually work for you to see that, so no, I'm not going to do free work for you. I'd rather spend…

That's fine, I'm happy to hire someone who is dedicated, passionate, and loves coding enough to to a quick assignment. Its not free work, its a demonstration of skill. In fact, we just hired someone who did that, and her assignment came back better than expected. At first we were so-so on her due to potential lack of experience, but the assignment (and her projects on her personal site) showed us were wrong.

>Its not free work, its a demonstration of skill.

Was it paid? If not, then it's free work. Call it whatever you want, in my experience the people talking about passion the most are those that are just looking to pay the least they possibly can.

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