If I can't see your work - you're crap • Hacker News Board

Re: If I can't see your work - you're crap

#61

Post by vinceguidry » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 11:08 PM UTC

maratd wrote: post #25

jdietrich wrote: post #16

OP has missed the point spectacularly. There aren't just two developers in the world, there are hundreds. For those with published commits, I can assess quality of their code myself and see whether they actually know what they're doing within a couple of minutes. A developer with only a CV is a pig in a poke. They might be a terrific developer, they might just be very good at bullshitting their way up the career ladd…

> I have no way of distinguishing a genuinely talented developer from a bullshitter. Nonsense. Put him in front of a computer and ask him to write something. Then evaluate him based on that. I have written hundreds of thousands of lines of code, but only have a few thousand up on Github and quite frankly, most of that is not my best work. Most of the code I write is proprietary. > Why should I spend half a day or mor…

> Those with overflowing commits on Github either have a very skewed work/life balance or quite simply, have no actual work experience.

This. I would LOVE to contribute to open source. But I also want a life. I want the life more than I want to contribute. So until I can contribute while I'm on the job, my github account will languish. And that's fine by me.

My last interview asked me about my github account, and I told him just that, that I'd love to contribute, but just don't have the time. I still got the job.

It's not a problem until you make it a problem.

Re: If I can't see your work - you're crap

#62

Post by __--__ » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 11:50 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #16

OP has missed the point spectacularly. There aren't just two developers in the world, there are hundreds. For those with published commits, I can assess quality of their code myself and see whether they actually know what they're doing within a couple of minutes. A developer with only a CV is a pig in a poke. They might be a terrific developer, they might just be very good at bullshitting their way up the career ladd…

"I can assess quality of their code myself"

I'm curious, how many interviewers actually do this? My experience is most interviewers can't even be bothered to read my resume, let alone anything on github. I've been on the other side of the desk and am equally guilty of this. The best result I've had is when I bring printed code to the in person interview. Then they at least scan it while I'm sitting there, though I have no idea if they are actually reading it or if this is their idea of being polite.

Re: If I can't see your work - you're crap

#63

Post by speeder » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 1:19 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #52

speeder wrote: post #28

Anyone know how a developer in situation 1 can get a job? I am a game developer, and many game companies have two qualities: 1, they demand lots of time. 2, they do either very specific work related only to their game, or they do things that can be re-used, but then this mean it become very valuable internal tech and must NOT be shared with competitors. Currently my lifestyle is: wake up, drink tea, wear something, g…

Sounds like you are way underpaid and not really happy with your current job. You should be looking actively for better paid jobs that allow a healthier life / more spare time, this is particularly true if you are worried about your current company failing. If you are not invited to interviews at all, there's probably something wrong with your CV/presentation, try to identify and fix that.

I am actually overpaid for our standards. This is because I am associate of the company, and thus I can get whatever I need... The thing is, what I need (mostly thanks to student debts) is still more than what most companies here would pay to a programmer.

Re: If I can't see your work - you're crap

#64

Post by opcenter » Fri, Aug 16, 2013, 5:55 PM UTC

mistercow wrote: post #18

opcenter wrote: post #10

I fall into the "developer 1" category myself. I only recently started doing side projects in my own time (and publishing them on github), almost entirely because I was starting to run into walls job searching without a "portfolio." Unfortunately, this means that what potential employers are seeing is stuff that I've done in my almost non-existent free time, so it's generally unfinished, unpolished projects that had…

>Unfortunately, this means that what potential employers are seeing is stuff that I've done in my almost non-existent free time, so it's generally unfinished, unpolished projects that had a really simple goal or were for learning a new language/framework. So, it's not necessarily a good indicator of what I produce when I can focus full time on a project. That is a tricky situation to deal with. On the one hand, you d…

>If you say "This is something I built in my free time", or "This is something I built while I was learning Backbone" (and keep you tone enthusiastic, not apologetic), then people will understand the context in which they should be judging what they see. If they're smart, they'll realize that seeing what you can do when you don't have much time, or when you're on unfamiliar ground, is at least as valuable as seeing what you can do under ideal conditions. If they're not smart, do you want to work for them?

That's a good point and it's what I've been following so far. "Here's a project I built in my free time because I wanted to brush up on my Python skills, and in the process I also learned a lot about Flask, MongoDB, HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript."

> That's hard too. It might help if you can come armed with some benefits of releasing something as open source, like the fact that other people will be able to find and fix bugs for your employer, which is basically free labor.

Also a good point. I'll have to give that a try.