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It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

simonwillison.net

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Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#231

Post by machinehermiter »

My job opportunities are limited to what my real connections and friends can help me get.

If I want to expand my opportunities I have to add nodes and strong ties in my network.

Not gimmicks for the interview lottery and pray the hiring manager doesn't have a friend going for the job.

From my past positions I suspect people highly underestimate how many times they go on an interview with no real chance for the position because the hiring manager already has someone in their real network in mind. I mean a real friend or friend of a friend, not someone they just added on social media but don't really know.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#232

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

adamors wrote: post #197
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if I forgot how to write binary search The binary search algorithm isn't something you can "forget". For a literate programmer it's like forgetting how to write the letter 'A' or forgetting which pedal is the gas and which is the brakes.

This comment is nonsense. Nobody is writing binary searches in their day-to-day jobs, and if they do it's once in a blue moon, not every day. You're using pedals every time you drive.

Binary searches should be internalized as part of your life's vocabulary if you're a programmer.

You don't use all 10000 words of your native language every day. You don't ride a bike every day. Nevertheless, that's part of you and you don't need to make a conscious effort to remember which way the pedals spin when you ride a bike after a long hiatus.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#233

Post by aloner »

ImprobableTruth wrote: post #208
golergka wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked in gamedeve since 2007 and interviewed a lot of people. Small games portfolio doesn't matter, because small games, just like beginner tutorials from Unity, don't teach you skills necessary to work on a large-scale project with multiple developers. When you're working on small-scale projects, you can follow bad practices and don't hit their limitations. However, if I would be interviewing a game designer a…

Does this also apply to junior roles? I would expect a portfolio of small games or some tech demos is the best you could expect there.

No, small side projects will definitely help you stand out when you're applying for a junior position since you don't have a lot of experience yet.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#234

Post by trhway »

watwut wrote: post #226
trhway wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a guess - you're young and have short industry experience, just enough to make very sure of yourself, so probably the age is between 25-30 with the experience between 5-10 years?

I am older then that and still don't fond that question extraordinary hard?

the point isn't about whether the question is hard. It is about understanding that other people are different and especially when the people stumble for whatever reason. The manifested "holier than thou" and lack of humility probabilistically suggest relative youth and inexperience.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#235

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

jerrre wrote: post #181
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if I forgot how to write binary search The binary search algorithm isn't something you can "forget". For a literate programmer it's like forgetting how to write the letter 'A' or forgetting which pedal is the gas and which is the brakes.

Your analogies are things that you use a large % of the time, almost any second. Whereas I've been programming for years, and never wrote a binary search (I think?), but perhaps I don't qualify as literate? I think writing an if-statement would be closer to your analogies.

> ...but perhaps I don't qualify as literate?

Probably.

Point is, you don't really need to know how to program to ship software.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#236

Post by brailsafe »

sokoloff wrote: post #225
brailsafe wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you give people negative points for trying anything they can do to compete in a fucking ridiculous job market? I mean, suggest alternatives if your genuine intention is to help people find work, rather than just saying that you actively look down on people for trying something. You get negative points for being a dick. Of course, I'm making assumptions, which you should never do.

If what you do comes across as manipulative, and specifically trying to manipulate me into believing you are more qualified, then it’s entirely rational for me to compensate for that by assigning negative points. The job market is indeed ridiculous right now. Companies need more qualified SWEs than they can find. That causes wages to rise. Rising wages, buzz, and large numbers of openings attract more people to the f…

And you default to assuming that someone who wrote code in order to have something to show a prospective employer is attempting usurp the integrity of your hiring funnel. Wtf is a fully qualified SWE anyway, and how is someone supposed to get there if not by getting in the door?

Lastly, it's absolutely not rational to follow that line of reasoning. If you find yourself out of work, and discover that the interview process has changed so dramatically that your resume basically accounts for fuck all, then you need to stand out somehow. If you assume someone is automatically unqualified, you might just not be very qualified to make these determinations. Ya filter however you're going to filter, but this is just prejudice.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#237

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

kragen wrote: post #185
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if I forgot how to write binary search The binary search algorithm isn't something you can "forget". For a literate programmer it's like forgetting how to write the letter 'A' or forgetting which pedal is the gas and which is the brakes.

Well, but he said "forgot how to write binary search in 10 minutes". This came up here three months ago: "school was years ago...I've forgotten how to implement a hash table in C within 30 minutes. Is that really the gatekeeper we want?" Well, I thought, yes, I think it is, actually? So I tried implementing a hash table in C—without testing it, as if I were writing it in an interview without programming tools. It too…

> But it's easy for the algorithm to hide subtle bugs.

For sure, but I guarantee you the interviewer from the grandparent comment wasn't looking for correctness and safety when they asked to implement a binary search.

They ask the binary search question to check if the applicant knows what an algorithm is and if they ever had to implement one. (Any algorithm.)

Sadly, 90% of programmers these days don't and haven't.

> In Python you should probably just use the bisect module in practice, most of the time, rather than reimplementing it.

Well, yes, most developers ship software without ever having to actually program.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#239

Post by mewpmewp2 »

sgtnoodle wrote: post #216
mewpmewp2 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which case would you actually implement a binary search instead of using an existing library method for that?

Code running on a microcontroller with very limited RAM, operating on data structures that don't naturally plug into generic algorithm implementations. For example, finding the end of a several GB long append-only log file stored on the raw blocks of an SD card.

In these cases did you write it from scratch or were you able to copy paste a working solution?

Because most pragmatic to me would be to google for a solution on Stack overflow, see what is upvoted and seems reasonably vetted, then potentially go over the code yourself to see if there's any issues and maybe write few tests to be extra sure.

Maybe your use case is too niche though to be able to copy paste though, I'm not sure.

Re: It doesn't take much public creativity to stand out as a job candidate

#240

Post by wodenokoto »

sudeepj wrote: post #65

There are two modes of hiring: 1. General purpose: Typical FANG like where hire first and then do team matching later 2. Targeted hiring: Companies want specific people and they try to recruit them A sizable number of top open-source contributors get recruited are in #2. Eg. 1) Top contributors in Rust lang hired by AWS. 2) FANG companies targeting top AI researchers from academia. One's open-source presence needs to…

I’m not sure I fully agree.

There are plenty of good positions (at least in Europe) where they ask for an engineer who can work with tool/Lang x, and won’t ask you to invert a binary tree, but will ask you about what kind of projects you’ve worked on.

I thought that was what you meant by #2, until you mentioned that it required “really prolific” engagement with open source.

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