This is an aside, but I'm starting to realize how many gripes, on both sides, are the result of a very poor hiring system. Kathy Sierra, a while back, wrote a

This is an aside, but I'm starting to realize how many gripes, on both sides, are the result of a very poor hiring system. Kathy Sierra, a while back, wrote a truly eye-opening blog post on "the hollywood model". You're fired at the end of every job, and your job security is your reputation. I don't love everything about the way hollywood works, of course, but one thing's for sure - they give credit. They list credits. Of course, people can grab credit they haven't earned, and I'm sure that people who have succeeded don't always get the credit they are due... but at least the system intends to give credit. As a dev, when was the last time you got a by-line? If you release an excellent product, is there a "credits" list where the UI designer, the "producers" (proj managers?), developers are listed? Maybe in the code itself, but that's proprietary. So instead out industry relies on these stupid indicators, which lead to articles about how "job hoppers are bad". Well, some job hoppers are people who opportunistically abandon a good team that doesn't deserve it, and others are people who people who are too good to waste any more time on a crap situation. Job hopping, code tests, three minute phone call reference checks, university degrees... hey, I use these things too when I'm hiring. That's what you do when you interview unknown people whose work you can't immediately identify. And I do the monkey dance when I'm interviewed too, because that's what you have to do. But man, there has got to be a better way... a big goal of my career is to get to the point where the people who interview me have better ways of knowing what I can contribute.