5 ms·

“Let’s say I own a professional basketball team and need to make a hiring decision on a player who walks in the door. Am I going to be able to, with just an int

by irq11 7y ago

“Let’s say I own a professional basketball team and need to make a hiring decision on a player who walks in the door. Am I going to be able to, with just an interview, determine whether they are a currently good player, or a formerly great player who has only been coaching in recent years and has forgotten how to play?” No, that would be phenomenally stupid. You would do what teams actually do, and look at their recent playing history. Note that this is also entirely possible for engineers.

hvidgaard 7y ago
> Note that this is also entirely possible for engineers. How exactly? Most people cannot take their code with them and show off. It belongs to previous employers, and please do not begin with the "show me your GitHub" - it's unrealistic to expect people to devote their life 100% to coding. Just as I wouldn't expect a carpenter to build houses for fun in his spare time, I do not expect programmers to spend their spare time in front of computers. In fact I believe that socially it's a benefit if they have other hobbies.
- zimpenfish 7y ago
  > Most people cannot take their code with them and show off. And if someone turned up with code from their previous employer, that'd surely be a huge red flag anyway.
- irq11 7y ago
  This is the problem with programmers: everyone gets obsessive about finding perfect unicorn universal solutions, and gives up on obvious stuff that works 95% of the time. Get out of your own way! First, most programmers have at least some code they can show you. Stop fretting about the 5% who don’t. If you give up here simply because you have a theory about programmers “devoting their life to coding”, you lose. Second, you call their references. Yes, really. I know it’s not “objective”. Do it anyway. You will learn a lot. Really. Third, look around for other people they’ve worked with, who weren’t listed as references. Call some of them. See if you get different opinions. If your candidate truly, honestly has no code available, no enthusiastic references, and you can’t find anyone who worked with them who will vouch for their skill, then do you really want to hire them? Finally, yes: do a trivial fizzbuzz coding test to filter out the total fakes. Listening to coders complain, you’d think that nobody else in the world hired anyone, ever. Let go of your need to make hiring a failure-proof system, and you’ll discover a bigger world.
  - hvidgaard 7y ago
    The majority of my successful senior programmers do not have any private code to show off. Reasoning and ability to think abstract is important and impossible to judge from code they have written. I need programmers that can do those thing in a reasonable time frame and in a group. Most junior programmers have code to show, and most of the time I don't use it for anything. I'd rather do some FizzBuzz level whiteboard that we spend some time discussing and extend on. It gives a far better picture of their future as a developer. I know this excludes some, but that's the trade off I'm making. I call references every time, but calling around willy nilly is not a good idea. Apart from the fact that it's not legal, most of the time I get "Yes I've worked with X as a developer for Y years" and nothing more.
    - irq11 7y ago
      ”The majority of my successful senior programmers do not have any private code to show off.” You’re exaggerating or you are an extreme exception. Given the number of qualifiers (“successful senior programmers”, “private code”) I strongly suspect you’re just trying to find a reason to justify your opinion. What I see in your comment is someone who has decided the answer, and refuses to consider alternatives.
      - hvidgaard 7y ago
        More than half have no code "they own" or OSS contributions they would show off to an interview (the last part is important). That's neither an exaggeration nor trying to find a justification. They are fathers, amateur musicians, or like to restore old cars. Just to mention a few things. Could they spend 5-10 hours weekly writing code and hacking things together? Yes, but that would be a significant chunk of their spare time, so understandably they do not.
  - pjc50 7y ago
    > If your candidate truly, honestly has no code available, no enthusiastic references, and you can’t find anyone who worked with them who will vouch for their skill, then do you really want to hire them? Graduates? > no enthusiastic references, and you can’t find anyone who worked with them who will vouch for their skill This will make your diversity even worse unless you're extremely careful with it.
kragen 7y ago
Usually the only people who see engineers playing are their own team members, while basketball players play in public, in front of crowds, recorded simultaneously from many angles by video cameras.
- wvenable 7y ago
  Most junior level developers these days have open source code to look at it (as schools really push that). For higher-level developers you can ask more complicated and telling questions.
  - kragen 7y ago
    That's good and valuable, and it's laudable in its own right in a way that basketball isn't (since open source is a contribution to the intellectual commons) but it's not the same thing as working with someone. A lot of people only publish the projects where they were happy with the results, and often it's hard to tell how long someone took or what kind of help they had when they were writing something.

by irq11 7y ago

hvidgaard 7y ago

> Note that this is also entirely possible for engineers. How exactly? Most people cannot take their code with them and show off. It belongs to previous employers, and please do not begin with the "show me your GitHub" - it's unrealistic to expect people to devote their life 100% to coding. Just as I wouldn't expect a carpenter to build houses for fun in his spare time, I do not expect programmers to spend their spare time in front of computers. In fact I believe that socially it's a benefit if they have other hobbies.

zimpenfish 7y ago
> Most people cannot take their code with them and show off. And if someone turned up with code from their previous employer, that'd surely be a huge red flag anyway.
irq11 7y ago
This is the problem with programmers: everyone gets obsessive about finding perfect unicorn universal solutions, and gives up on obvious stuff that works 95% of the time. Get out of your own way! First, most programmers have at least some code they can show you. Stop fretting about the 5% who don’t. If you give up here simply because you have a theory about programmers “devoting their life to coding”, you lose. Second, you call their references. Yes, really. I know it’s not “objective”. Do it anyway. You will learn a lot. Really. Third, look around for other people they’ve worked with, who weren’t listed as references. Call some of them. See if you get different opinions. If your candidate truly, honestly has no code available, no enthusiastic references, and you can’t find anyone who worked with them who will vouch for their skill, then do you really want to hire them? Finally, yes: do a trivial fizzbuzz coding test to filter out the total fakes. Listening to coders complain, you’d think that nobody else in the world hired anyone, ever. Let go of your need to make hiring a failure-proof system, and you’ll discover a bigger world.
- hvidgaard 7y ago
  The majority of my successful senior programmers do not have any private code to show off. Reasoning and ability to think abstract is important and impossible to judge from code they have written. I need programmers that can do those thing in a reasonable time frame and in a group. Most junior programmers have code to show, and most of the time I don't use it for anything. I'd rather do some FizzBuzz level whiteboard that we spend some time discussing and extend on. It gives a far better picture of their future as a developer. I know this excludes some, but that's the trade off I'm making. I call references every time, but calling around willy nilly is not a good idea. Apart from the fact that it's not legal, most of the time I get "Yes I've worked with X as a developer for Y years" and nothing more.
  - irq11 7y ago
    ”The majority of my successful senior programmers do not have any private code to show off.” You’re exaggerating or you are an extreme exception. Given the number of qualifiers (“successful senior programmers”, “private code”) I strongly suspect you’re just trying to find a reason to justify your opinion. What I see in your comment is someone who has decided the answer, and refuses to consider alternatives.
    - hvidgaard 7y ago
      More than half have no code "they own" or OSS contributions they would show off to an interview (the last part is important). That's neither an exaggeration nor trying to find a justification. They are fathers, amateur musicians, or like to restore old cars. Just to mention a few things. Could they spend 5-10 hours weekly writing code and hacking things together? Yes, but that would be a significant chunk of their spare time, so understandably they do not.
- pjc50 7y ago
  > If your candidate truly, honestly has no code available, no enthusiastic references, and you can’t find anyone who worked with them who will vouch for their skill, then do you really want to hire them? Graduates? > no enthusiastic references, and you can’t find anyone who worked with them who will vouch for their skill This will make your diversity even worse unless you're extremely careful with it.

kragen 7y ago

Usually the only people who see engineers playing are their own team members, while basketball players play in public, in front of crowds, recorded simultaneously from many angles by video cameras.

wvenable 7y ago
Most junior level developers these days have open source code to look at it (as schools really push that). For higher-level developers you can ask more complicated and telling questions.
- kragen 7y ago
  That's good and valuable, and it's laudable in its own right in a way that basketball isn't (since open source is a contribution to the intellectual commons) but it's not the same thing as working with someone. A lot of people only publish the projects where they were happy with the results, and often it's hard to tell how long someone took or what kind of help they had when they were writing something.