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It seems that "great" developer is somewhat a synonym for "public" developer. I'm not sure how companies would just "know" someone is "great" otherwise. And y

It seems that "great" developer is somewhat a synonym for "public" developer. I'm not sure how companies would just "know" someone is "great" otherwise. And yes, not all publicly known developers are necessarily great (or even good), but I'm not sure how one would recognize a 'great' developer without that person also having some degree of publicness to them. And yet, I've known more than a handful of developers who are really solid, great people to work with, and I'd like to work with again. None of them have ever blogged, podcasting, presented at conferences nor run a public repository on github. Yet by many definitions of 'great', they fit the bill, but not the sort of 'great' that would mean companies would just 'know' of their greatness, and go out of their way to hire/recruit them.

feklar 10y ago
Offtopic but there was another post here recommending that people do just that, be very visible and public so when the layoffs happen you aren't the person laid off even if you're just doing the same work as everybody else you appear to be indispensible. Recruiting works the same I guess.
nl 10y ago
That's not at all what Dan Luu is talking about - not at all sure where you got that. He repeatably mentions personal recommendations.
- mgkimsal 10y ago
  "Joel also posits that companies can recognize prospective “great” developers easily" Reacting more perhaps to this general notion (or Joel's notion?)
  - patrickyeon 10y ago
    I understood that notion to mean the companies would recognize a "great" developer when they were presented with one, either during the interview or even when said developer was working with them.
    - mgkimsal 10y ago
      there were refs to companies "knowing" people and sending them offers as soon as they heard of a layoff, for example (either somewhere in the piece or in the comments here).
cheriot 10y ago
> and I'd like to work with again Exactly! People they know tell them about jobs and then vouch for them.
- Noseshine 10y ago
  That assumes those people keep an active network. While I - a freelancer - am still connected with former colleagues through LinkedIn I don't expect to ever get a job through any of them, and vice versa, despite having much enjoyed working with them and received offers to do a project together while we were together at a particular job. It's just that we have had zero contact apart from the time we were on the project together. It would feel extremely awkward to now, years later, send them an email "would you know a job for me", no matter how well we worked together. You just don't do that, at least I wouldn't. If I was asked by someone by someone I once knew I would immediately feel like an unwritten and unspoken social contract was broken. It just doesn't feel right to me. After a few years it's just too much time that has passed. It feels like putting social pressure on them, similar to those "endorsements" on LinkedIn.
  - morgante 10y ago
    > You just don't do that, at least I wouldn't. You are definitely an outlier in the industry. By far the most common way to hire people is through referrals. Whenever I am looking for a new job, I send out emails to my network saying I'm looking for a new opportunity and to let me know if they know anything interesting. It's a win-win for everyone.
    - Noseshine 10y ago
      > definitely Source? > Whenever I am looking for a new job So a sample of one against a sample of one is "definitely"? :-) I have yet to see anyone do that, and I'm connected to quite a few colleagues from when I was still employed, not just from the freelancer period.
      - morgante 10y ago
morgante 10y ago
> It seems that "great" developer is somewhat a synonym for "public" developer. Not really. What Joel and Dan are both talking about is that great developers tend to have coworkers who know they're great and will happily hire them at other companies. I'm certainly not a "public" developer. My most popular repo on GitHub has maybe 10 stars. But I do have a handful of people who I've worked with in the past who will readily hire me at their new companies. Referrals are how most hiring works, and it's the predominant way that companies recognize "great" developers even though said developers are not public.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  I have been in this industry for 14 years. I know three developers I have worked with who are both still working and not still at the companies where I worked with them. It's kinda hard for me to take advantage of that. This kinda ties in to the point tptacek made elsewhere about the problems of relying on this kind of recruiting.
  - morgante 10y ago
    > It's kinda hard for me to take advantage of that. Why? That's 3 companies where someone should be willing to give you a strong referral, not to mention that really your network should include second-degree referrals as well.
    - vonmoltke 10y ago
      It's only three companies, and they aren't companies I would want to work at unless I needed another job. I'm not sure what you mean by "second-degree referrals".
- mgkimsal 10y ago
  the fact that you have repos on github qualifies you as a 'public' developer.

feklar 10y ago

Offtopic but there was another post here recommending that people do just that, be very visible and public so when the layoffs happen you aren't the person laid off even if you're just doing the same work as everybody else you appear to be indispensible. Recruiting works the same I guess.

nl 10y ago

That's not at all what Dan Luu is talking about - not at all sure where you got that. He repeatably mentions personal recommendations.

mgkimsal 10y ago
"Joel also posits that companies can recognize prospective “great” developers easily" Reacting more perhaps to this general notion (or Joel's notion?)
- patrickyeon 10y ago
  I understood that notion to mean the companies would recognize a "great" developer when they were presented with one, either during the interview or even when said developer was working with them.
  - mgkimsal 10y ago
    there were refs to companies "knowing" people and sending them offers as soon as they heard of a layoff, for example (either somewhere in the piece or in the comments here).

cheriot 10y ago

> and I'd like to work with again Exactly! People they know tell them about jobs and then vouch for them.

Noseshine 10y ago
That assumes those people keep an active network. While I - a freelancer - am still connected with former colleagues through LinkedIn I don't expect to ever get a job through any of them, and vice versa, despite having much enjoyed working with them and received offers to do a project together while we were together at a particular job. It's just that we have had zero contact apart from the time we were on the project together. It would feel extremely awkward to now, years later, send them an email "would you know a job for me", no matter how well we worked together. You just don't do that, at least I wouldn't. If I was asked by someone by someone I once knew I would immediately feel like an unwritten and unspoken social contract was broken. It just doesn't feel right to me. After a few years it's just too much time that has passed. It feels like putting social pressure on them, similar to those "endorsements" on LinkedIn.
- morgante 10y ago
  > You just don't do that, at least I wouldn't. You are definitely an outlier in the industry. By far the most common way to hire people is through referrals. Whenever I am looking for a new job, I send out emails to my network saying I'm looking for a new opportunity and to let me know if they know anything interesting. It's a win-win for everyone.
  - Noseshine 10y ago
    > definitely Source? > Whenever I am looking for a new job So a sample of one against a sample of one is "definitely"? :-) I have yet to see anyone do that, and I'm connected to quite a few colleagues from when I was still employed, not just from the freelancer period.
    - morgante 10y ago

morgante 10y ago

> It seems that "great" developer is somewhat a synonym for "public" developer. Not really. What Joel and Dan are both talking about is that great developers tend to have coworkers who know they're great and will happily hire them at other companies. I'm certainly not a "public" developer. My most popular repo on GitHub has maybe 10 stars. But I do have a handful of people who I've worked with in the past who will readily hire me at their new companies. Referrals are how most hiring works, and it's the predominant way that companies recognize "great" developers even though said developers are not public.

vonmoltke 10y ago
I have been in this industry for 14 years. I know three developers I have worked with who are both still working and not still at the companies where I worked with them. It's kinda hard for me to take advantage of that. This kinda ties in to the point tptacek made elsewhere about the problems of relying on this kind of recruiting.
- morgante 10y ago
  > It's kinda hard for me to take advantage of that. Why? That's 3 companies where someone should be willing to give you a strong referral, not to mention that really your network should include second-degree referrals as well.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    It's only three companies, and they aren't companies I would want to work at unless I needed another job. I'm not sure what you mean by "second-degree referrals".
mgkimsal 10y ago
the fact that you have repos on github qualifies you as a 'public' developer.