5 ms·

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 l

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?
      - Jtsummers 10y ago
        You can include your membership in various technical communities in your CV/resume. People list ACM/IEEE memberships, participation in mentorship programs, etc. No reason not to include online communities (short a desire for privacy, once you give out your handle it's one google search away to everything else you have online).
- brogrammernot 10y ago
  Sorry, should've specified. These were explicitly for front end developers, not full stack or back-end. I hardly would expect a back end developer to have a decent website, as that's not their forte. However, it's great if you can pass a front end coding interview but if you don't have any personal projects you can speak about, even something as small as a simple jQuery tic tac toe game or anything of the matter it's harder to know if you just studied the questions or actually understand the design patterns. Granted I'm not going to fail someone on an interview who appears competent, can explain Frontend technologies well and answers questions correctly. It's just more comforting to have both. As we all know, theory doesn't equal real life in many situations.
- heywire 10y ago
  I've also encountered employers that prohibit employees from contributing to outside projects, partly due to the possibility that you might re-use some code between work and personal projects (even if unintentionally).
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    Yes, for this reason and many others, filtering on "has a Github" is potentially problematic. I know tons of great developers who don't use Github, let alone have a carefully crafted "profile".

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?
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      You can include your membership in various technical communities in your CV/resume. People list ACM/IEEE memberships, participation in mentorship programs, etc. No reason not to include online communities (short a desire for privacy, once you give out your handle it's one google search away to everything else you have online).
brogrammernot 10y ago
Sorry, should've specified. These were explicitly for front end developers, not full stack or back-end. I hardly would expect a back end developer to have a decent website, as that's not their forte. However, it's great if you can pass a front end coding interview but if you don't have any personal projects you can speak about, even something as small as a simple jQuery tic tac toe game or anything of the matter it's harder to know if you just studied the questions or actually understand the design patterns. Granted I'm not going to fail someone on an interview who appears competent, can explain Frontend technologies well and answers questions correctly. It's just more comforting to have both. As we all know, theory doesn't equal real life in many situations.
heywire 10y ago
I've also encountered employers that prohibit employees from contributing to outside projects, partly due to the possibility that you might re-use some code between work and personal projects (even if unintentionally).
- ryandrake 10y ago
  Yes, for this reason and many others, filtering on "has a Github" is potentially problematic. I know tons of great developers who don't use Github, let alone have a carefully crafted "profile".