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What Programming Languages Do You Struggle To Hire For?

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Re: What Programming Languages Do You Struggle To Hire For?

#41

Post by matthewmacleod »

Pxtl wrote: post #17
robotic wrote: post #6

For most programmers its not the new language, its the custom libraries, obscure frameworks, legacy code, or tooling that is going to be an issue for them.

Exactly. I can get a guy up to speed with C# in a matter of hours. The problem comes up when we've got to deal with issues in IIS, Entity Framework, ASP.Net MVC, etc. etc. Most commodity programming languages are simple. Either they feel kinda like Javascript, or they feel kinda like Java. Obviously there are a few shops out there doing elaborate stuff with Clojure and they have a higher bar, but probably 95% of the…

I don't really agree. While you can certainly explain the basic syntax of a language in a few hours (assuming a developer who is at least familiar with a diversity of other languages,) it take a lot of time for most developers to become skilled at writing efficient, idiomatic code on a new platform.

Re: What Programming Languages Do You Struggle To Hire For?

#42

Post by kozhevnikov »

reuven wrote: post #33

It's true that certain languages are particularly hot, and thus particularly in demand. The three that come to mind right away are Ruby, Python, and JavaScript, for which there seems to be unquenchable demand, even if the absolute number of such jobs is dwarfed by Java and C#. I'm sure that there is a shortage of good Erlang, Scala, and Clojure developers, as well. But no matter what language you're looking to hire f…

Sold. Where do I learn Cobol? Is it web-scale?

Re: What Programming Languages Do You Struggle To Hire For?

#43

Post by falcolas »

mildtrepidation wrote: post #32
nevir wrote: post #9

Don't hire someone for their knowledge in a specific language! (Unless you're doing some very core work in that language) Hire someone who knows the concepts behind most languages, and can easily understand new ones.

I don't understand how people believe this is universally good advice. Perhaps if your company is large enough that you can reasonably pay new employees for weeks or months before they're actually productive, I can see this being feasible. But that's not most companies. Keep in mind that this also likely impacts the productivity of at least one of your current employees, and if it doesn't, your newbie's language acqu…

No employee is going to be productive on a new codebase for weeks or months, regardless of the languages they knew coming in. And they're still going to be a drain on resources while coming up to speed with the code base, even if they know the language.

The sooner you realize this, the sooner you'll understand what your real hiring requirements are.

Re: What Programming Languages Do You Struggle To Hire For?

#44

Post by tomrod »

tonydiv wrote: post #29

GPU programmers who know CUDA

You should get in touch with the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas. They have people teaching and learning CUDA/OpenCL in large batches; and like any good academic program they want to ensure their students are employed (and employable!). If you like, email me and I'll set up an introduction.

Re: What Programming Languages Do You Struggle To Hire For?

#45

Post by JoeAltmaier »

mildtrepidation wrote: post #32
nevir wrote: post #9

Don't hire someone for their knowledge in a specific language! (Unless you're doing some very core work in that language) Hire someone who knows the concepts behind most languages, and can easily understand new ones.

I don't understand how people believe this is universally good advice. Perhaps if your company is large enough that you can reasonably pay new employees for weeks or months before they're actually productive, I can see this being feasible. But that's not most companies. Keep in mind that this also likely impacts the productivity of at least one of your current employees, and if it doesn't, your newbie's language acqu…

Its ALWAYS weeks or months before somebody is really productive. They're already learning the build/CI/bug reporting environment anyway. A new syntax/debugging/deployment scheme. The language syntax is really pretty small potatoes.

Re: What Programming Languages Do You Struggle To Hire For?

#46

Post by debt »

Finster wrote: post #11
kolektiv wrote: post #3

Or, to put it another way, why are you so averse to investing in people/your company that you're looking for the finished article on the job market, rather than finding good people and helping them learn the specific skills you need?

This is exactly what we do, and it's worked really well. Of course, we're doing Agile, which I think helps this process. But if I have a good candidate that has attention to detail, knowledge of basic concepts, etc. but doesn't know our language of choice, I'm confident we can teach him our language. Especially if he has already learned similar languages. Even if he hasn't, we've hired people with almost no experienc…

I think most software companies will find it hard to get someone up to speed on their existing codebase. If a candidate is relatively green in regards to some programming language, most of the time a candidate can learn a language pretty quickly. The undocumented mess of a codebase typically takes longer to digest. Also, understanding the dev process in use takes some time as well getting comfortable with.

Re: What Programming Languages Do You Struggle To Hire For?

#47

Post by JoeAltmaier »

egeozcan wrote: post #38
robotic wrote: post #6

For most programmers its not the new language, its the custom libraries, obscure frameworks, legacy code, or tooling that is going to be an issue for them.

Most of which can be summarized as "magic". The less "magic" you have, easier it is to fill new positions.

You have some IP; that's your magic. Its always there. The less IP, the easier to compete with you. Catch-22.

Re: What Programming Languages Do You Struggle To Hire For?

#49

Post by robmcm »

inglor wrote: post #21

JavaScript. So many bad developers, so few good ones. You get a lot of people coming to interview.

There was the same problem with ActionScript back in the day. So many people had played with it in Flash, and were going for jobs developing RIAs. They had no idea about software development, but knew how to say goToAndPlay(1) and add a click handler.

We are seeing the exact same thing with JS. The more advanced frameworks tend to weed out those that are just playing around, from those who are serious software engineers.

Re: What Programming Languages Do You Struggle To Hire For?

#50

Post by nbouscal »

mildtrepidation wrote: post #32
nevir wrote: post #9

Don't hire someone for their knowledge in a specific language! (Unless you're doing some very core work in that language) Hire someone who knows the concepts behind most languages, and can easily understand new ones.

I don't understand how people believe this is universally good advice. Perhaps if your company is large enough that you can reasonably pay new employees for weeks or months before they're actually productive, I can see this being feasible. But that's not most companies. Keep in mind that this also likely impacts the productivity of at least one of your current employees, and if it doesn't, your newbie's language acqu…

It really, really does not take "weeks or months" for a skilled programmer to pick up a new programming language. If you're using intrusive and opinionated frameworks where you have to learn a ton of conventions, that increases ramp-up time. If you're crossing paradigms, e.g. from Java to Haskell or from Python to C, that increases ramp-up time. But if you're just picking up a new programming language, say a switch from Python to Ruby? You can be productive in a week. I've done it before, more than once.

The difficulty isn't in finding people with specific experience, the difficulty is finding people with a solid enough understanding of essential concepts to be able to do good work regardless of the environment they're working in.

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