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I have no side code projects to show you

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Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#391

Post by nanodano »

pjmlp wrote: post #143
notzorbo3 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what's universally hard? Finding people who are good at their jobs. References don't matter, experience doesn't matter, education doesn't matter. Why not? Because it doesn't say anything about actual skill. What does? Side projects, where you can actually see if a person has skills. > a corporate lawyer purely based on their pro-bono work? You hire a corporate lawyer based on their public reputation. For a p…

Some of us have NDAs as part of our job. Not everyone is happily doing FOSS projects.

I think the big misconception is that a side project has to be a prolific open source project. As someone who has interviewed developers, someone who has _anything_ on a GitHub page stands out in the crowd. Even just a folder with a few batch scripts can go a long way.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#392

Post by [deleted] »

joshribakoff wrote: post #298
vacri wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One company I work for rejected a candidate based on Github - he'd cloned some repos and stamped his name on it, and claimed they were his. The hiring tech smelled something fishy, and the candidate said that he worked with these various other repos on the backend. Hiring tech reached out to the owners of several repos, and none of them had heard of the candidate before. Github was used in this hiring process to reve…

Likewise I've deleted resumes because they claimed to have coded a website when it's clear they simply installed out of the box software. They didn't explicitly lie and say they coded it from scratch, but I felt like they were implying that Another time I rejected due to side work was a candidate claimed to have written the "worlds fastest framework". Even if it was fast it's possible there's something out there fast…

[deleted]

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#393

Post by nanodano »

jasonswett wrote: post #21

It's a very well-known fact that interviewers will often want to see some code. Because of this, I at one point spent maybe about 15 hours putting together a small project specifically to use as a code sample. This code sample, which again took maybe about 15 hours to put together, served its purpose for years. To avoid this tiny amount of easy work that has such a high potential upside is, to be frank, just dumb and…

Couldn't agree more. If you can't put in one weekend of hard work to give you a leg up on the competition for something as important as _your career_ you are just being dumb and lazy.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#394

Post by nanodano »

sumeno wrote: post #120
jasonswett wrote: post #21

It's a very well-known fact that interviewers will often want to see some code. Because of this, I at one point spent maybe about 15 hours putting together a small project specifically to use as a code sample. This code sample, which again took maybe about 15 hours to put together, served its purpose for years. To avoid this tiny amount of easy work that has such a high potential upside is, to be frank, just dumb and…

Counterpoint: In 10 years I have never had an employer ask to see a code sample so that 15 hours was better spent by doing pretty much anything else.

When I vet resumes, I most definitely look at any code their provide, but I don't always ask them about it. If they didn't put it on their resume, I don't specifically ask them about it either because they should have put it on the resume. If you put it on your resume, you can't say for sure they didn't look at it and factor that in when reviewing candidates.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#395

Post by thomastjeffery »

jasonswett wrote: post #21

It's a very well-known fact that interviewers will often want to see some code. Because of this, I at one point spent maybe about 15 hours putting together a small project specifically to use as a code sample. This code sample, which again took maybe about 15 hours to put together, served its purpose for years. To avoid this tiny amount of easy work that has such a high potential upside is, to be frank, just dumb and…

> I at one point spent maybe about 15 hours putting together a small project

Inventing a project interesting enough to focus on for 15 hours can be difficult. Just like learning SQL without a dataset.

Inventing a project also isn't likely what you want to be hired for, so it's reasonable to have that low on your priority list.

Free software is constantly filling the gaps that I would want to create a "side-project" to fill. I'm not saying it's particularly difficult to find something to work on, but it certainly isn't trivial.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#396

Post by nanodano »

TylerE wrote: post #22
zamalek wrote: post #3

> I ran 50+ miles a week. I pushed myself to excel. To excel within the boundaries of the time and life-balance I had set for myself. Part of excelling at your job is learning new stuff - something that I am absolutely certain you do all the time, even if you only do it during work hours. Maybe this week you are starting a new project and need to learn Vue. Publish those 100 lines of code to GitHub. Just like that yo…

Better check your employment agreement. My company owns what I write on company time, I don't have the rights to just "put it on GitHub", and yes, I take that seriously.

You shouldn't put _actual_ work code you wrote on GitHub, but you should write your own small sample programs that demonstrate you know how to use a certain library that you just learned, and then you have it as reference code for yourself later and it shows you know a specific technology.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#397

Post by aminorex »

0x445442 wrote: post #302
qq66 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surgeons, plumbers, dentists, and gardeners are licensed, bonded, and insured, entrusting the certification process to a third party. Surgeons and dentists also have professional development baked into their work schedules, which software engineers should have -- say, hire someone for 35 hours per week so they can spend 5 hours per week on professional development.

The other difference is Surgeons, Plummers, Dentists and even Gardeners get payed for services rendered not time. This is a huge problem in the industry and is the source of massive waste.

You have a rather rosy view of medicine and gardening. Your view of plumbing and dentistry aligns with my own, however.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#398

Post by nathan_f77 »

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…

I was with you until this line:

> You don't need all the popular abstractions, frameworks, and mountains of tooling that other candidates cannot live without.

I would like to hear more about the problems with popular abstractions, frameworks, and tooling. That's a very strange thing to say.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#399

Post by aminorex »

nanodano wrote: post #368
kemitche wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't expect my surgeon to do surgery in his spare time. Nor my plumber, dentist, gardener, or any other professional. I look at their past work history and reviews from customers and/or coworkers. I will never understand the belief that side projects are in any way necessary. I'd much rather have a well rounded individual who isn't moonlighting on other things but rather can bring his clear focused mind to the off…

What about an artist or a musician? Would you expect a musician to practice and get better in their free time or only play their instrument during paid gigs?

Fine artists usually produce works on speculation. Craft persons usually produce on a cottage-industrial basis, essentially commodity piecework. There are a lot of ways to get paid, beyond the two you highlight, so the parallels are not as clear as you appear to be assuming.

Re: I have no side code projects to show you

#400

Post by nanodano »

Haijal wrote: post #2

I really enjoyed this post. I feel the same way, I do love coding and working on software projects doesn't feel like work to me. I spent my high school years and college years(and I graduated years after I should have from taking two years off after freshmen year) working fast food and grocery stores. I know what work feels like. However, I don't and won't spend every waking hour I have doing one thing. This life has…

> However, I don't and won't spend every waking hour I have doing one thing

Why does everyone think that it requires every spare second you have to write a couple programs and post them on GitHub? Can you spare 1 hour per week? Why would it require every waking hour you have to write a couple scripts and throw them in GitHub?

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