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Ask HN: Does anyone hire average developers?

Obviously most companies do by definition.

slackingoff2017 9y ago
:) average is probably worse than you think. I've followed the LinkedIn status of couple guys I knew as "developer interns" that didn't make our cut to get an offer at the end of their internship. We always told them we only had a certain number of spots to make them feel a little better. The truth was some of us devs would get together and talk about who wasn't "getting it" or was generally clueless. They were nice guys for the most part and I follow them mostly hoping they will find a more fitting dev job somewhere else. This isn't always the case. Maybe half the new devs that didn't make our cut end up leaving software completely, or finding a job on the periphery like analyst, tester, or UI mockup designer. Software development requires a very logical mind and the ability to dream up the idea of a thing and make it real. I think the creative side of software development is downplayed, it's definitely the most fertile field for inventor types. Just like making pretty paintings, programming feels natural to those that can do it. And just like art, everybody can draw but the quality of the artwork varies wildly. Again with the art analogy, some people are just not capable of being taught how to program above a basic level of understanding. In the beginning I sunk tons of time into helping some of our more clueless interns become productive. I'm kinda jaded now, more in the "sink or swim" camp, because I saw just how much the innate ability to grasp programming concepts affected outcomes. A few of our interns that seemed to be charity cases at the beginning became semi competent developers within a few months. Others came in with a CS101 level understanding and never advanced beyond that. Eventually I decided my time was better spent helping those who were catching on quickly. So the main reason everyone strives to get good developers is because so many are terrible. The freedom in software design means the quality depends a lot more on creativity than in branches of engineering with strong physical constraints. It's a lot easier to decide if someone designs roads properly than if they write "good" software. The terrible developers end up doing menial jobs like maintaining a library's website or being the "tech guy" at a small business. Another example is that extremely successful software like Slack or Whatsapp was designed by just a couple very creative and good engineers. As powerful, smart, and huge as a company like Google is, they can't manage to outcompete the couple guys behind Slack or Whatsapp.
twobyfour 9y ago
Depends on how you define average. I work on a software team that's about twice as productive as any other team our size that I've previously encountered, regardless of skill. But the technical abilities of everyone on the team (with one possible exception out of ten) fall well within the fat part of the Gaussian distribution. We're all "average" technically. But I wouldn't call anyone here "average". We excel as a team because everyone's "soft" skills are well above average. Self management, in particular. But also pride in one's work. Ability to collaborate effectively. Willingness to learn from one another. Lack of ego. Interest in solving business problems rather than "sexy" technical problems. Empathy. We're building what's 95% a CRUD app anyway, though with some additional complexity to handle scale. Engineers with top 10% technical skills would be bored out of their skulls here. But if we hired "average" engineers without those exceptional "soft" skills we'd be accomplishing less than half as much as we do now.
lilian50 9y ago
my husband was cheating until someone told me about trustedhacker2016@gmail.com who helped me spy on his social media accounts and gave me all his facebook and instagram passwords , he also spy on his whatsapp and gave me his chat history , he is a guru , tell him i refered you so i can get a discount on my next job with him , spread the good news lol
lilian50 9y ago
my husband was cheating until someone told me about trustedhacker2016@gmail.com who helped me spy on his social media accounts and gave me all his facebook and instagram passwords , he also spy on his whatsapp and gave me his chat history , he is a guru , tell him i refered you so i can get a discount on my next job with him , spread the good news lol

Obviously most companies do by definition.

slackingoff2017 9y ago

:) average is probably worse than you think. I've followed the LinkedIn status of couple guys I knew as "developer interns" that didn't make our cut to get an offer at the end of their internship. We always told them we only had a certain number of spots to make them feel a little better. The truth was some of us devs would get together and talk about who wasn't "getting it" or was generally clueless. They were nice guys for the most part and I follow them mostly hoping they will find a more fitting dev job somewhere else. This isn't always the case. Maybe half the new devs that didn't make our cut end up leaving software completely, or finding a job on the periphery like analyst, tester, or UI mockup designer. Software development requires a very logical mind and the ability to dream up the idea of a thing and make it real. I think the creative side of software development is downplayed, it's definitely the most fertile field for inventor types. Just like making pretty paintings, programming feels natural to those that can do it. And just like art, everybody can draw but the quality of the artwork varies wildly. Again with the art analogy, some people are just not capable of being taught how to program above a basic level of understanding. In the beginning I sunk tons of time into helping some of our more clueless interns become productive. I'm kinda jaded now, more in the "sink or swim" camp, because I saw just how much the innate ability to grasp programming concepts affected outcomes. A few of our interns that seemed to be charity cases at the beginning became semi competent developers within a few months. Others came in with a CS101 level understanding and never advanced beyond that. Eventually I decided my time was better spent helping those who were catching on quickly. So the main reason everyone strives to get good developers is because so many are terrible. The freedom in software design means the quality depends a lot more on creativity than in branches of engineering with strong physical constraints. It's a lot easier to decide if someone designs roads properly than if they write "good" software. The terrible developers end up doing menial jobs like maintaining a library's website or being the "tech guy" at a small business. Another example is that extremely successful software like Slack or Whatsapp was designed by just a couple very creative and good engineers. As powerful, smart, and huge as a company like Google is, they can't manage to outcompete the couple guys behind Slack or Whatsapp.

twobyfour 9y ago

Depends on how you define average. I work on a software team that's about twice as productive as any other team our size that I've previously encountered, regardless of skill. But the technical abilities of everyone on the team (with one possible exception out of ten) fall well within the fat part of the Gaussian distribution. We're all "average" technically. But I wouldn't call anyone here "average". We excel as a team because everyone's "soft" skills are well above average. Self management, in particular. But also pride in one's work. Ability to collaborate effectively. Willingness to learn from one another. Lack of ego. Interest in solving business problems rather than "sexy" technical problems. Empathy. We're building what's 95% a CRUD app anyway, though with some additional complexity to handle scale. Engineers with top 10% technical skills would be bored out of their skulls here. But if we hired "average" engineers without those exceptional "soft" skills we'd be accomplishing less than half as much as we do now.

lilian50 9y ago

my husband was cheating until someone told me about trustedhacker2016@gmail.com who helped me spy on his social media accounts and gave me all his facebook and instagram passwords , he also spy on his whatsapp and gave me his chat history , he is a guru , tell him i refered you so i can get a discount on my next job with him , spread the good news lol

lilian50 9y ago