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We found our intern with the intention to hire if we found a good fit. (And he found us by my comments here on HN!) I described somebody who was interested in w

We found our intern with the intention to hire if we found a good fit. (And he found us by my comments here on HN!) I described somebody who was interested in wearing many hats from admin to programmer, with at least some programming/Ruby experience, and voila! We lucked out on the first try and we will be employing him as soon as we can get the paperwork together. I highly recommend this type of approach for junior devs, do-it-all peeps, and even admins. Also, from my hiring days in corporations, my more general recommendations: * hire on attitude, passion and team fit, not current skill set (unless you are totally crunched) * ask them what they read on their own time * figure out why they do what they do (or do what the job description says) A smart, motivated, passionate, conscientious person with not-quite-enough experience will quickly bring herself/himself up to speed. On the other hand, a person with the exact skillset you need may be unbearable. As for the money, well, we're a 2-person company. We have not just our SaaS product, but live training courses, etc. Yes, it's kind of scary to employ somebody, but we figured out that, worst case, we can just do one training course a month to cover the monthly salary of our new addiction. That's a good trade.

grammaton 16y ago
> hire on attitude, passion and team fit, not current skill set (unless you are totally crunched) I wish everyone in a position to hire thought like this. The overall quality of developers in the industry would improve sharply, for one. Programmers as a whole might be a less bitter lot, as well. Kudos to you sir.
- ardit33 16y ago
  yeah, but attitude alone doesn't build products. If we are talking for just some simple web app, then that is fine, but if you are doing anything that is technically challenging, you better have somebody experienced on the first 2-3 employees you hire. You need both energy/passion, but also somebody that is good and has experienced a lot, both successes and failures. One thing I noticed really good engineers with experience tend to be a bit more pessimistic/opinionated by nature, and also more pragmatic. They can anticipate problems down the road (where a junior engineer would think everything is jolly), while avoid over-engineering. Junior programmers are more likely to either over or under engineer; brush potential problems as "insignificant", or grossly underestimate what it takes to get something done. Most of us have been there at some point. But also a junior engineer might bring your fresh energy to the mix. But remember, really good engineers, with experience,and with passion and great attitudes, are hard to find. Mainly b/c they have no problem to find a job.

grammaton 16y ago

> hire on attitude, passion and team fit, not current skill set (unless you are totally crunched) I wish everyone in a position to hire thought like this. The overall quality of developers in the industry would improve sharply, for one. Programmers as a whole might be a less bitter lot, as well. Kudos to you sir.

ardit33 16y ago
yeah, but attitude alone doesn't build products. If we are talking for just some simple web app, then that is fine, but if you are doing anything that is technically challenging, you better have somebody experienced on the first 2-3 employees you hire. You need both energy/passion, but also somebody that is good and has experienced a lot, both successes and failures. One thing I noticed really good engineers with experience tend to be a bit more pessimistic/opinionated by nature, and also more pragmatic. They can anticipate problems down the road (where a junior engineer would think everything is jolly), while avoid over-engineering. Junior programmers are more likely to either over or under engineer; brush potential problems as "insignificant", or grossly underestimate what it takes to get something done. Most of us have been there at some point. But also a junior engineer might bring your fresh energy to the mix. But remember, really good engineers, with experience,and with passion and great attitudes, are hard to find. Mainly b/c they have no problem to find a job.