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> I've hired "zero experience programmers without a Bachelor". If there is a clear modicum of ability and desire, I'll give a person a chance to prove themselve

> I've hired "zero experience programmers without a Bachelor". If there is a clear modicum of ability and desire, I'll give a person a chance to prove themselves. Did they do something at home? Some hobby project to show? Or they couldn't turn a computer on? At my company (and in a previous one) we have hired - and still hire - people without degrees and minimal experience. But they should show us something. A github repo, taking some MOOCs, doing a "bootcamp". How do you tell they have ability and desire if they've got absolutely nothing to show? I have a liberal arts degree, and I entered the "professional" software engineering world by being hired at a serious company at 26, despite being a passionate PC and Linux user since I was 15. But, heck, at that age I could show some more than decent knowledge of operating systems, Python programming, networking, web protocols, and desktop GUIs. All things that I coded in my spare time or to do small jobs for friends or small family businesses. You could say I had no formal education, but not that I had zero experience. > A few of those hires turned into some of the most technically competent programmers I've ever worked with, And, all of them stayed at your company? I'm not saying that's not possible - it TOTALLY is. I'm saying that it's risky from an economical POV.

jandrewrogers 7y ago
The "zero experience" doesn't imply they've never programmed, just that they've never applied it in a job-like setting. It was entirely a side effect of personal interest and curiosity, often without any intent to make a job of it. MOOCs, bootcamps, github repos, etc are recent things, they didn't even exist for most of my career. A few such hires literally lived in rural flyover country with limited economic means, which created few opportunities to do things the formal way. It didn't stop them from learning though. But if you had an in-depth conversation with them about what they had built, how they had built those things, and why they designed things the way they did, you could immediately see that they had a deeply intuitive understanding of computer science that went beyond just programming. And often they had other valuable skills, like being atypically literate writers or having a thorough understanding of how real silicon works (rare knowledge these days, sadly). And a couple stood out as being seriously deep on the theoretical CS side in their areas of interest. I never said they stayed at my company, and I don't currently work with any of them. They all went on to have very successful careers working at the top tech companies. They just needed an opportunity. The vast majority of software engineers that have worked for me over the years have gotten a CS degree at some point in their life.
- alanfranz 7y ago
  > But if you had an in-depth conversation with them about what they had built, So, they had built something. That's not zero experience, for me. I think we mostly agree and share similar hiring patterns. I'll change my question: did they work for you long enough to justify your investment in their coaching?

jandrewrogers 7y ago

The "zero experience" doesn't imply they've never programmed, just that they've never applied it in a job-like setting. It was entirely a side effect of personal interest and curiosity, often without any intent to make a job of it. MOOCs, bootcamps, github repos, etc are recent things, they didn't even exist for most of my career. A few such hires literally lived in rural flyover country with limited economic means, which created few opportunities to do things the formal way. It didn't stop them from learning though. But if you had an in-depth conversation with them about what they had built, how they had built those things, and why they designed things the way they did, you could immediately see that they had a deeply intuitive understanding of computer science that went beyond just programming. And often they had other valuable skills, like being atypically literate writers or having a thorough understanding of how real silicon works (rare knowledge these days, sadly). And a couple stood out as being seriously deep on the theoretical CS side in their areas of interest. I never said they stayed at my company, and I don't currently work with any of them. They all went on to have very successful careers working at the top tech companies. They just needed an opportunity. The vast majority of software engineers that have worked for me over the years have gotten a CS degree at some point in their life.

alanfranz 7y ago
> But if you had an in-depth conversation with them about what they had built, So, they had built something. That's not zero experience, for me. I think we mostly agree and share similar hiring patterns. I'll change my question: did they work for you long enough to justify your investment in their coaching?