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> There’s growing evidence that hiring a top sport programmer is a coup for software companies. So, hiring people who engage in doing something as a hobby and
by mgkimsal 11y ago
> There’s growing evidence that hiring a top sport programmer is a coup for software companies.
So, hiring people who engage in doing something as a hobby and practice at it outside of (or in addition to) regular "schooling" do well? Whodathunk? We didn't even have programming classes in my day (well, not until 9th grade for me, and that was pretty advanced - many neighboring school districts didn't offer any at all). (edit: so... for many years the only people I knew who programmed were all hobbyists/extracurricular folks)
> “Every time I have hired someone who is good at these contests, they have crushed the job. They tend to be fast, accurate, and into getting things done.”
Wondering how well people like this fit in to team-oriented environments. I'm certainly not a programming-olympian like the subjects of the article - have never done competitive stuff (did "olympics of the mind" back in the day, but not quite the same thing). However, I think I'm a reasonable problem solver and software developer. I don't typically fit in well with teams. Do the benefits of these 'super-coders' outweigh any diminished team capabilities? Is that a tradeoff that can be made for a season, but needs to be rectified later?
- kragen 11y agoan interesting thing about programming competitions (in general, and icpc in particular) is that they select for winning hacker teams, not winning hackers. if your three-person icpc team is even epsilon more productive than you would be on your own, then you will beat any single-hacker team that consists of someone just like you. icpc is especially team-focused because you only have one terminal, so you can't just each hack away on different problems. so selecting for programming-contest winners might be a good way to find super-coders who don't have diminished team capabilities.
- mgkimsal 11y agothat is interesting. it sounded like at least some of the winners in the article were solo vs team, but yeah... good point. Although... it basically means they can work with others who also have the ... whatever it takes to play at that level. That programming team member paired with anyone else in your office may be a horrible fit.