or be like Netflix and only hire proven people and pay them a lot
Hire people who aren’t proven
31–40 of 460 posts
Re: Hire people who aren’t proven
#32>Google's interview best practices strictly focused on algorithms and data structure questions won't help you in your interview process. They mostly don't help because they bear no resemblance to what 99% of developers actually do, even at Google. Realism in dev job interviews is criminally underrated.
At a startup, we interviewed purely for being able to d x task in Angular, Entity Framework, MongoDB, C#, and other components of our tech stack.
It worked out well for us - we just needed a website built.
The company I work for now interviews only on the fundamentals and problem solving in language of choice - I am starting to come around and see the benefit of this, but it seems it only makes sense with senior candidates who context-switch a lot and need to intrinsically understand GraphQL the moment they hear about it because they know it's a graph.
Re: Hire people who aren’t proven
#33> 1. Can this candidate do the job? I'd go so far as to ask: "can this candidate learn to do the job?". In our recent job postings, I've started adding a specific paragraph after the desired qualifications stating more or less "if you don't tick all the boxes above but are motivated to learn and grow, please apply. We'll teach you what you need to do the job" > 2. Will this candidate be motivated? This. Even more tha…
> And will we provide the right environment for them to grow?
This.
I'm so tired of investing in my work and my workplace to have obscure management "advice" on fixing my character flaws (e.g. being too soft / too emotional) to have any chance of growth by trying to transform in to something they want.
Part of that is on me- the picking and choosing of battles is a real problem for me- I care a lot about maintaining high standards for code quality with automated linting and formating, for instance.
I like having soft skills and as I tell anyone I'm interested in working with- I want to work with nice, intelligent people; in that order.
Re: Hire people who aren’t proven
#34Why would any company have do hire people and train them? Companies these days don't really come to a hault if they're in need of a few developers, and as the market is saturated, they can hold out indefinitely until they believe they have a "rockstar."
According to my experience, a lot fewer companies than even a few years ago are in a hurry to talk to you despite them having a job posting and you having more experience. Most of them will take their sweet ass time, and it will take even longer if they've replaced their HR or their own recruiting process with a recruiting firm, and usually they'll engage in the same process of finding a "rockstar" while taking their time because then they can fit in time for another client and make more money.
Besides, the incentive for hiring the unproven developers is quickly dying off with services like Triplebyte that can test and interview developers for you for a nominal fee. Those who would normally be in charge of hiring at a company never gets to the point where they've interviewed a bunch of people and decides that they're tired of interviewing people and hires the candidate who seems the most intelligent.
Re: Hire people who aren’t proven
#35I think hiring has become more difficult now that programming has been discovered as a well paying mainstream career. When I started in the 90s most people I worked with had a passion for the craft but now I find we interview a lot of people who have a CS degree just for the career prospects but not out of interest for the craft. I find it much easier to deal with someone who has no relevant experience but cares vs s…
And what about when companies these days exploit the term "caring"?
I like programming as much as the next person here but i'm not going to code 80 hours a day. I also like going to gym and working out, riding my bike, playing soccer and hanging out with friends.
Companies these days expect you to have side projects or contribution to popular open source libraries while having a job. Oh and did i mention asking you questions about algorithms and data-structures that you most likely haven't used in years and won't be using for foreseeable future?
Re: Hire people who aren’t proven
#36I think hiring has become more difficult now that programming has been discovered as a well paying mainstream career. When I started in the 90s most people I worked with had a passion for the craft but now I find we interview a lot of people who have a CS degree just for the career prospects but not out of interest for the craft. I find it much easier to deal with someone who has no relevant experience but cares vs s…
After 10 years, most veterans have learned not to care. Or at least, not care too much.
It's hard to truly care in any soulless corporation that cares only about profits and IT is seen generally as a pure cost centre (banking is worst in this, but others are not stellar either).
Another aspect is meaning of life - if your response is work, then you either have that 0.01% type of work which really matters (and is hardly IT, maybe in Red Cross/MSF style), or much more probably you are just lying to yourself.
Life has so much more meaning outside of work, outside of sitting in front of computers. The older you get the more clear this should be, even if you started as a hardcore IT geek. I know I did, but boy am I glad I moved on.
Re: Hire people who aren’t proven
#37> 1. Can this candidate do the job? I'd go so far as to ask: "can this candidate learn to do the job?". In our recent job postings, I've started adding a specific paragraph after the desired qualifications stating more or less "if you don't tick all the boxes above but are motivated to learn and grow, please apply. We'll teach you what you need to do the job" > 2. Will this candidate be motivated? This. Even more tha…
>> 3. Will this candidate get along with coworkers?
> Duh. But also, how do you actually test objectively for this without introducing bias?
You can't because it's a bs metric like "culture fit". After about a dozen people, you can no longer ensure people will get along or like each other. I only have five brothers but I don't even like all of them.
People have quirks, and it's easy to find reasons to pass on candidates because of them (reminds me of Seinfeld and how the characters ended relationships because of man hands or toes). I see this a lot in non-technical hiring where marketing folk exclaim "I like the candidate, we have great rapport" only to discover the candidate was subpar.
> I'm really of two minds on this topic.
I used to be, but after suffering through a bout of mental illness that rendered me an anxious mess when I was once the life of the party really changed how I evaluate this dimension. Be kind and assume the best, which we can all agree would be amazing if the tables were turned.
Re: Hire people who aren’t proven
#38I think hiring has become more difficult now that programming has been discovered as a well paying mainstream career. When I started in the 90s most people I worked with had a passion for the craft but now I find we interview a lot of people who have a CS degree just for the career prospects but not out of interest for the craft. I find it much easier to deal with someone who has no relevant experience but cares vs s…
The passion/craftsman culture changed when we started selling our souls for the next ad-click or personal information collection system. While it might have seemed good back then, we now have a massively cobbled-together web ecosystem. I know it's a cheap shot, but those same passionate people built the crap we have today. I don't think it speaks very highly of that time or the merits of passion. (many individuals ha…
>we now have a massively cobbled-together web ecosystem
I don't think most older ecosystems were any better. For example Unix is a cobbled together mess. Autotools is a terrible mess of a build system, etc.
Big "professional" ecosystems aren't much better either. Just look at all the jokes like "fizzbuzz enterprise edition".
Re: Hire people who aren’t proven
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
The passion/craftsman culture changed when we started selling our souls for the next ad-click or personal information collection system. While it might have seemed good back then, we now have a massively cobbled-together web ecosystem. I know it's a cheap shot, but those same passionate people built the crap we have today. I don't think it speaks very highly of that time or the merits of passion. (many individuals ha…
> The passion/craftsman culture changed when we started selling our souls for the next ad-click or personal information collection system. I am really passionate about the information collection system I work on. I do my best to ensure data isn't leaked, everything is secure and encrypted. If you would like to offer a solution to the fact that the vast majority of people in this country now expect software to be free…
>If you would like to offer a solution to the fact that the vast majority of people in this country now expect software to be free (save, some AAA video game titles), I am all ears.
Subscriptions? I pay for Netflix, Amazon Prime, Github, MS Office, a VPN, and probably a few others.
If you're B2B, use price per user/customer/developer? e.g. Highcharts was worth the money vs. free options.
The problem is there's no guarantee you don't also collect info or decide to play ads even if I pay for a subscription.
Re: Hire people who aren’t proven
#40I read " You must have 10 years experience of " as shorthand for " Have you stopped learning new things? Come and work here. "
That's ridiculous. Why does learning new technology mean you need to stop using the old technology?
Yeah, it’s totally webdev. In other fields 10+ years experience of C++ or whatever would be totally normal.