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The best people I've ever hired all looked the same: 1. Had a Github with actual code in it. 2. The code was clean, lightly commented, and brief without being

The best people I've ever hired all looked the same: 1. Had a Github with actual code in it. 2. The code was clean, lightly commented, and brief without being terse; regardless of the paradigm. 3. They breezed through the interview because the questions tested their ability to actually build the thing they said they could build. No silly games. A light question that touches on data structures and O time, but nothing you'd need to crack open your old college books over. I feel bad for people starting out, but senior / intermediate devs are just such a better deal. You pay double and you get about four or five times the work.

brogrammernot 10y ago
In my experience, this holds true as well. I would say though, that you have to keep an open mind when interviewing people just starting out or at that junior level cause there are some really talented, yet raw, developers that you can miss out on otherwise. This is of course assuming you have the bandwidth to help mentor these developers and/or you are okay with less output for the first 6-9 months while they begin to grok what is needed for the job. Overall, I've been bummed lately because I've interviewed CS majors and they have no/poor personal website, basic CS code in Github, and overall don't seem to have that passion that other non CS majors do have. I don't know if it's college that isn't preparing them well enough, but having a personal project or two in Github alongside a decent personal website goes a long way to at least indicate you actually enjoy programming.
- 3pt14159 10y ago
  Yeah, I've learned I suck at managing / growing junior people. I want to be good at it, but I'm not patient enough and I don't like sitting on people. I'm good at the teaching part, I've taught two girlfriends how to code to the point where they are both earning serious money coding. And I'm good at the managing part, I could bring projects to completion that I was proud of and usually on time. But I can't seem to do these two things at the same time. And really, I have zero financial motive to learn how to do so because while you might get the rare wiz kid, usually you don't.
- ionised 10y ago
  Or perhaps it's because not everyone wants to be a web dev. Perhaps all of their code at previous gigs has been proprietary and they don't relish the prospect of doing a full days work and then coming home to spend their evenings maintaining a GitHub profile in case a future employer has it as an unspoken requirement for the position.
  - mbrock 10y ago
    That's one of the problems with proprietary software: it forces coders into keeping their work secret.
    - ionised 10y ago
      This I agree with.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    Indeed. We can't have portfolios of our actual work, because it's proprietary. So we end up with a pseudo-requirement for sample projects to be done on our own time. Which have to be kept (reasonably) continuously updated. Fortunately this has only cost me one interview so far and not made it genuinely hard to find a job while having a job. I suppose I could try citing my 22k karma on electronics.stackexchange, but I'm not sure that has the same level of name recognition.
    - brogrammernot 10y ago
      I would mention it. If anything it at least shows a sense of community and as an interviewer I would make the assumption that you enjoy answering questions so would likely make a helpful, pleasant teammate. I'd even ask a few questions around your approach to answering questions etc.
      - vonmoltke 10y ago
        How do you mention it to your interviewer if you get rejected pre-interview for not having a portfolio?
bbcbasic 10y ago
> I feel bad for people starting out, but senior / intermediate devs are just such a better deal. You pay double and you get about four or five times the work. That's a reason to feel bad for the senior devs :-). The people starting out will get the job because they look cheap to managers/shops that want to throw mythical man months at a problem, so they get a foot in that way.

brogrammernot 10y ago

In my experience, this holds true as well. I would say though, that you have to keep an open mind when interviewing people just starting out or at that junior level cause there are some really talented, yet raw, developers that you can miss out on otherwise. This is of course assuming you have the bandwidth to help mentor these developers and/or you are okay with less output for the first 6-9 months while they begin to grok what is needed for the job. Overall, I've been bummed lately because I've interviewed CS majors and they have no/poor personal website, basic CS code in Github, and overall don't seem to have that passion that other non CS majors do have. I don't know if it's college that isn't preparing them well enough, but having a personal project or two in Github alongside a decent personal website goes a long way to at least indicate you actually enjoy programming.

3pt14159 10y ago
Yeah, I've learned I suck at managing / growing junior people. I want to be good at it, but I'm not patient enough and I don't like sitting on people. I'm good at the teaching part, I've taught two girlfriends how to code to the point where they are both earning serious money coding. And I'm good at the managing part, I could bring projects to completion that I was proud of and usually on time. But I can't seem to do these two things at the same time. And really, I have zero financial motive to learn how to do so because while you might get the rare wiz kid, usually you don't.
ionised 10y ago
Or perhaps it's because not everyone wants to be a web dev. Perhaps all of their code at previous gigs has been proprietary and they don't relish the prospect of doing a full days work and then coming home to spend their evenings maintaining a GitHub profile in case a future employer has it as an unspoken requirement for the position.
- mbrock 10y ago
  That's one of the problems with proprietary software: it forces coders into keeping their work secret.
  - ionised 10y ago
    This I agree with.
- pjc50 10y ago
  Indeed. We can't have portfolios of our actual work, because it's proprietary. So we end up with a pseudo-requirement for sample projects to be done on our own time. Which have to be kept (reasonably) continuously updated. Fortunately this has only cost me one interview so far and not made it genuinely hard to find a job while having a job. I suppose I could try citing my 22k karma on electronics.stackexchange, but I'm not sure that has the same level of name recognition.
  - brogrammernot 10y ago
    I would mention it. If anything it at least shows a sense of community and as an interviewer I would make the assumption that you enjoy answering questions so would likely make a helpful, pleasant teammate. I'd even ask a few questions around your approach to answering questions etc.
    - vonmoltke 10y ago
      How do you mention it to your interviewer if you get rejected pre-interview for not having a portfolio?

bbcbasic 10y ago

> I feel bad for people starting out, but senior / intermediate devs are just such a better deal. You pay double and you get about four or five times the work. That's a reason to feel bad for the senior devs :-). The people starting out will get the job because they look cheap to managers/shops that want to throw mythical man months at a problem, so they get a foot in that way.