4 ms·

Except that the vast majority of programmers essentially say "I'm very good at taking pictures, but I can't actually show you any of them because they're all pr

by gregmac 10y ago

Except that the vast majority of programmers essentially say "I'm very good at taking pictures, but I can't actually show you any of them because they're all property of my previous employers, and I never take pictures just for myself". > I think programmers should create their portfolios of personal or paid for projects that showcase their technical and artistic skill and companies should take those seriously. 100% agree, and Github in particular is great for this. Sadly, in my experience very, very few candidates have such a thing. Even non-code content such as issues they've filed or stackoverflow questions and answers is a very useful way to judge someone's technical abilities, but many candidates don't provide links and either use separate identities/aliases or don't participate.

cloudjacker 10y ago
I have all that stuff No problem getting interviews Still have to do the "brainteaser of the hour" technical interviews. Fortunately it is often the same question I realize, so this gets easier without needing to go through the whole book on this.
bobwaycott 10y ago
I imagine the vast majority of employers would be pretty pissed if the vast majority of programmers shared their private code, and some might even wish to take legal action. As an employer interviewing and hiring candidates, one should respect and expect this confidentiality to be exhibited and adhered to. For example, I build things for clients that are proprietary to their businesses. Some things are publicly accessible, like marketing pages, but the real stuff is locked behind employee-only auth. Other things run entirely on internal networks, and can't be accessed from the web. They would be rightly upset if they discovered I shared their code with a third party, or placed it on Github. Moreover, just because Github exists, doesn't mean programmers should feel obligated to "participate". Outside of developers who maintain or participate in truly used projects, it's mostly noise. The only exception I can agree on is looking at issues a candidate has reported to gauge their depth of understanding, clarity of communication, offering of solutions, and other such valuable insights.
jogjayr 10y ago
Many companies don't bother looking at things like that. Even if you have a Github account with some amount of non-trivial, original code on it, they'll put you through a "phone screen" and have you do a longest increasing subsequence/subset sum/longest palindrome substring problem for a front end position. And yeah I'm talking about Silicon Valley/SF City/YC type startups here, not BigCorp Inc.
ubernostrum 10y ago
100% agree, and Github in particular is great for this No, it's useless for this, because companies don't look at it. That would require the recruiters and interviewers to spend more than fifteen seconds prepping for the phone-screen call, and we can't have that. Incidentally, after my last job hunt one of my new policies was that I hang up on any company that throws me into their fizzbuzz phone-screen after being the one to initiate contact with me. If they didn't think I had the skills they shouldn't have reached out in the first place, and if they do think I have the skills they shouldn't need to waste my time and an interviewer's time on the fizzbuzz question. (I say this after multiple companies tried to recruit me with a "we want a Django committer, that's why we're contacting you" pitch and then put me into their fizzbuzz-esque phone screens)

by gregmac 10y ago

cloudjacker 10y ago

I have all that stuff No problem getting interviews Still have to do the "brainteaser of the hour" technical interviews. Fortunately it is often the same question I realize, so this gets easier without needing to go through the whole book on this.

bobwaycott 10y ago

I imagine the vast majority of employers would be pretty pissed if the vast majority of programmers shared their private code, and some might even wish to take legal action. As an employer interviewing and hiring candidates, one should respect and expect this confidentiality to be exhibited and adhered to. For example, I build things for clients that are proprietary to their businesses. Some things are publicly accessible, like marketing pages, but the real stuff is locked behind employee-only auth. Other things run entirely on internal networks, and can't be accessed from the web. They would be rightly upset if they discovered I shared their code with a third party, or placed it on Github. Moreover, just because Github exists, doesn't mean programmers should feel obligated to "participate". Outside of developers who maintain or participate in truly used projects, it's mostly noise. The only exception I can agree on is looking at issues a candidate has reported to gauge their depth of understanding, clarity of communication, offering of solutions, and other such valuable insights.

jogjayr 10y ago

Many companies don't bother looking at things like that. Even if you have a Github account with some amount of non-trivial, original code on it, they'll put you through a "phone screen" and have you do a longest increasing subsequence/subset sum/longest palindrome substring problem for a front end position. And yeah I'm talking about Silicon Valley/SF City/YC type startups here, not BigCorp Inc.

ubernostrum 10y ago

100% agree, and Github in particular is great for this No, it's useless for this, because companies don't look at it. That would require the recruiters and interviewers to spend more than fifteen seconds prepping for the phone-screen call, and we can't have that. Incidentally, after my last job hunt one of my new policies was that I hang up on any company that throws me into their fizzbuzz phone-screen after being the one to initiate contact with me. If they didn't think I had the skills they shouldn't have reached out in the first place, and if they do think I have the skills they shouldn't need to waste my time and an interviewer's time on the fizzbuzz question. (I say this after multiple companies tried to recruit me with a "we want a Django committer, that's why we're contacting you" pitch and then put me into their fizzbuzz-esque phone screens)