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I made the mistake of thinking an active github account was a good proxy for "Is this person interested in tech enough to work here?". I was called out on it at

I made the mistake of thinking an active github account was a good proxy for "Is this person interested in tech enough to work here?". I was called out on it at a conference (fortunately for me at a bar and not when I was on stage), by someone who pointed out that many people just don't have time to work on side projects and push them to Github. Maybe they work 8 hours a day on a bank or government project that is all private and then they spend the rest of the day acting as a care giver to a relative, studying, or volunteering in a women's refuge. All noble activities that I would consider positives for a candidate, but I'd never know if I just checked "Do you go home and cut code out of hours?". I mistook my own privilege of free time as a universal truth and I'm glad I was called out on it early on and able to change my (interviewing/screening) ways. I wonder what else I need someone to call me out on...

ethanbond 6y ago
Not to mention this signal is easily gamed. I know many people who light up their Github activity graph with one line commits to READMEs or codestyle changes somewhere.
- nullsense 6y ago
  Someone made a product called GitHub Gardener that does this for you.
  - Balgair 6y ago
    https://www.gitgardener.com/ https://www.gitgardener.com/ $10/mo isn't bad for a 'professional' service. Basic manicures are ~$20 and last 7-10 days; they are common with in-person sales and marketing jobs.
  - juped 6y ago
    lol, clever. I just put up a pre- and post- dated repository with commits dated from 1970 to 2038, which should keep me set until Github dies.
    - jjeaff 6y ago
      How does that work? GitHub counts the activity based on the post dates?
      - juped 6y ago
        git commits have two dates, an author date and a committer date; the github profile page thingy is based on the author date of commits. just set it to whatever
        jjeaff 6y ago
        I see. Well I think that makes your option even more clever.
        juped 6y ago
        The cleverness isn't the service, but charging people money for it. Wish I'd thought of that!
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    I bet there are some places you can just purchase pre-curated GitHub accounts.
hartator 6y ago
I will still think odd that’s someone who is a professional hasn’t found one bug in an open source lib that is worth a PR or even an issue in a decade of work.
- isbvhodnvemrwvn 6y ago
  And if they did, what value do you derive from it? Fixing a small logic error or one-off error gives you about as many data points about someone as them having absolutely nothing on github.
  - hartator 6y ago
    That they care enough to give back a little? Even from a pure selfish perspective, I would still open a PR or an issue to double check that my logic is sound.
    - user5994461 6y ago
      You're selecting against employees working at Fortune 500 who are limited from participating in open source, unless filling some horrifying paperwork.
      - isbvhodnvemrwvn 6y ago
        At my former company there was a three step process for contributing to open source: - get approval from VP to spend time on that - get approval from legal (they checked the license and if the company has any liability from that code not working, this alone took a couple months) - get approval for release of code from a so called open-source committee (basically checked if your contribution doesn't damage company's reputation) It was easier to set up a fake account and get things fixed this way. But no way I could do that on company hardware or time.
        pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        We're talking about contributions in one's own time, outside of work and not using their resources??
fxtentacle 6y ago
In my case, I have found trying to contribute to open source to be a huge waste of time. For example, I once found and patched a bug in paperclip, explained why it happened and sent a PR. It was ignored for 5 years and then they abandoned the project. Or I once fixed Heroku issues by upgrading the ImageMagick version with a custom build pack. They featured it somewhere and suddenly I was getting entitled emails every day by random strangers who strongly felt that I should fix their Heroku deployment. Then there's the issue of dependencies. My cool tool for analysing satellite photos won't be of much use to anyone who doesn't have API access to a satellite ground station. I.e. there's no benefit in making it open source. And lastly, I've had the unpleasant experience of a company taking my open source project, adding copy protection and then selling it as theirs while simultaneously refusing to adhere to my license of either following GPL or paying for closed source use. Nowadays, I only share source code for hobby projects with friends, but not publicly. Otherwise it's more work and less pleasant for me.
- selykg 6y ago
  I wouldn't say all of those are a waste. Notably the first. You fixed a bug, you contributed, you did your part but it was ignored. Did you learn anything from that? Beyond "Open Source is a waste of time" I guess? It's easy to look at things negatively, but there's often positives to be found if you simply look for them. Not to say you're wrong, just, trying to offer some perspective.
- momokoko 6y ago
  This is one of the most fascinating things about the internet. If someone were to read this incredibly extreme and atypical experience of sending in two(!) pull requests, they would think they'd be better off getting punched in the face than to send in a fix they made. Opensource is enormous at this point. One data point(or even 30!) is no longer particularly relevant. Instead think of it like any endeavor in life. You are taking a leap of faith. Sometimes you'll have a great experience that may even blossom into greater things you never expected. Sometimes you'll be let down despite your best efforts and intentions.
  - fxtentacle 6y ago
andrewstuart 6y ago
How I use Github might possibly show you my passion and enthusiasm and skill as a programmer. What many fail to understand is that disinterest in Github absolutely does not tell you anything meaningful about that programmer. Too many hiring managers/recruiters/HR people focus only on the first point, as some sort of religion.
- rumanator 6y ago
  > What many fail to understand is that disinterest in Github absolutely does not tell you anything meaningful about that programmer. Well, it does. It says he doesn't have a portfolio for some reason. Is it because he is incompetent and has nothing to show for? Perhaps not, but if the candidate makes it difficult for recruiters and interviewers to get an objective way to corroborate his claims regarding his level of expertise then just for the sake of avoiding wasting your time with yet another paper tiger... It would be better to cut him out of the shortlist for further interviews.
  - andrewstuart 6y ago
    >> Well, it does. It says he doesn't have a portfolio for some reason. No, you do not have to have a "reason" for not having a public portfolio. Not having a public portfolio doesn't say anything at all about someone's competence. >> if the candidate makes it difficult for recruiters and interviewers to get an objective way to corroborate his claims regarding his level of expertise Public code is not the only way to assess skills, indeed as I mentioned elsewhere in this thread its actually a pretty bad way to assess skills. If the best tools you have for assessing competence is github then your recruiting process is lacking. >> It would be better to cut him out of the shortlist for further interviews. I can imagine employers with this attitude lamenting how hard it is to find good people.
- johnisgood 6y ago
  I do not use GitHub because their political views do not align with mine. And what does politics have to do with programming? I do not know, you have to ask them, they are the ones trying to bring politics into IT. I just self-host Gogs, GitLab, Trac, cgit, etc. They are independent of each other, of course. :) Different teams, different needs. As far as my personal projects go, I just self-host cgit, and I accept "pull requests" through e-mail. It works.
zitterbewegung 6y ago
I work for a bank and I have contributions to the python project and a multitude of projects on Github. Yes those things I did took a lot of time but I typically do it out of boredom . To be honest my GitHub projects are demos and I just like giving presentations . If you compare yourself or anyone on any given metric you will feel bad. What is even worse is when people tell you all the time about a metric that you should do but once you do it you find that it wasn’t necessary at all and it’s some kind of mental gatekeeping.
- barrkel 6y ago
  Cool story. I have a kid and all our work commits are to a private Atlassian Bitbucket repo, so the only commits from me on GitHub are my dotfiles, once in a blue moon. I've been coding since 1995 and my open source contributions tailed off around 2002 or so. Wasn't how I wanted to invest my spare time.
- bena 6y ago
  You're missing the point. The point isn't that the hypothetical banker can't have an active github profile, it's that there are reasons they might not. Take me for instance, I haven't really done anything significant in the public for over a decade now. The vast majority of my code has been for one private company or another. And that's the case because either my job has me working the hours or after putting in 8 to 10 hours of code in private, there's exercising, practicing guitar, socializing with friends and family, building Lego sets, reading, playing video games, and other activities that don't involve me writing more code. That's not to say I don't, it's just I don't have that much time to do it outside of work.
- zwayhowder 6y ago
  As noted I was using examples. I wasn't saying everyone who works for a bank can't commit code to GitHub, just that in the grand scheme of things it's more likely. I just spent the past 4 years getting an MBA, my github repos are all horribly out of date because I had more important things to do. It doesn't mean I'm any less passionate about the technology.
woutr_be 6y ago
What bothers me so much is that my work is supposed to be my hobby. After programming for 8 hours a day, I go home and do something else, I have no interested in programming once I'm done working. Some companies I've interviewed with claim that I'm just not enthusiastic about programming, or that I'm not motivated enough, simply because I don't do any programming at home. They also questioned how I could learn new things. And my answer is usually the same; if they expect someone that wants to program 24/7, then I'm definitely not the right person. I have other hobbies I'm interested in, and I have no desire to burn out. I also expect to be given the time to keep up with new tech on the job.

ethanbond 6y ago

Not to mention this signal is easily gamed. I know many people who light up their Github activity graph with one line commits to READMEs or codestyle changes somewhere.

nullsense 6y ago
Someone made a product called GitHub Gardener that does this for you.
- Balgair 6y ago
  https://www.gitgardener.com/ https://www.gitgardener.com/ $10/mo isn't bad for a 'professional' service. Basic manicures are ~$20 and last 7-10 days; they are common with in-person sales and marketing jobs.
- juped 6y ago
  lol, clever. I just put up a pre- and post- dated repository with commits dated from 1970 to 2038, which should keep me set until Github dies.
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    How does that work? GitHub counts the activity based on the post dates?
    - juped 6y ago
      git commits have two dates, an author date and a committer date; the github profile page thingy is based on the author date of commits. just set it to whatever
      - jjeaff 6y ago
        I see. Well I think that makes your option even more clever.
        juped 6y ago
        The cleverness isn't the service, but charging people money for it. Wish I'd thought of that!
- jjeaff 6y ago
  I bet there are some places you can just purchase pre-curated GitHub accounts.

hartator 6y ago

I will still think odd that’s someone who is a professional hasn’t found one bug in an open source lib that is worth a PR or even an issue in a decade of work.

isbvhodnvemrwvn 6y ago
And if they did, what value do you derive from it? Fixing a small logic error or one-off error gives you about as many data points about someone as them having absolutely nothing on github.
- hartator 6y ago
  That they care enough to give back a little? Even from a pure selfish perspective, I would still open a PR or an issue to double check that my logic is sound.
  - user5994461 6y ago
    You're selecting against employees working at Fortune 500 who are limited from participating in open source, unless filling some horrifying paperwork.
    - isbvhodnvemrwvn 6y ago
      At my former company there was a three step process for contributing to open source: - get approval from VP to spend time on that - get approval from legal (they checked the license and if the company has any liability from that code not working, this alone took a couple months) - get approval for release of code from a so called open-source committee (basically checked if your contribution doesn't damage company's reputation) It was easier to set up a fake account and get things fixed this way. But no way I could do that on company hardware or time.
      - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        We're talking about contributions in one's own time, outside of work and not using their resources??

fxtentacle 6y ago

In my case, I have found trying to contribute to open source to be a huge waste of time. For example, I once found and patched a bug in paperclip, explained why it happened and sent a PR. It was ignored for 5 years and then they abandoned the project. Or I once fixed Heroku issues by upgrading the ImageMagick version with a custom build pack. They featured it somewhere and suddenly I was getting entitled emails every day by random strangers who strongly felt that I should fix their Heroku deployment. Then there's the issue of dependencies. My cool tool for analysing satellite photos won't be of much use to anyone who doesn't have API access to a satellite ground station. I.e. there's no benefit in making it open source. And lastly, I've had the unpleasant experience of a company taking my open source project, adding copy protection and then selling it as theirs while simultaneously refusing to adhere to my license of either following GPL or paying for closed source use. Nowadays, I only share source code for hobby projects with friends, but not publicly. Otherwise it's more work and less pleasant for me.

selykg 6y ago
I wouldn't say all of those are a waste. Notably the first. You fixed a bug, you contributed, you did your part but it was ignored. Did you learn anything from that? Beyond "Open Source is a waste of time" I guess? It's easy to look at things negatively, but there's often positives to be found if you simply look for them. Not to say you're wrong, just, trying to offer some perspective.
momokoko 6y ago
This is one of the most fascinating things about the internet. If someone were to read this incredibly extreme and atypical experience of sending in two(!) pull requests, they would think they'd be better off getting punched in the face than to send in a fix they made. Opensource is enormous at this point. One data point(or even 30!) is no longer particularly relevant. Instead think of it like any endeavor in life. You are taking a leap of faith. Sometimes you'll have a great experience that may even blossom into greater things you never expected. Sometimes you'll be let down despite your best efforts and intentions.
- fxtentacle 6y ago

andrewstuart 6y ago

How I use Github might possibly show you my passion and enthusiasm and skill as a programmer. What many fail to understand is that disinterest in Github absolutely does not tell you anything meaningful about that programmer. Too many hiring managers/recruiters/HR people focus only on the first point, as some sort of religion.

rumanator 6y ago
> What many fail to understand is that disinterest in Github absolutely does not tell you anything meaningful about that programmer. Well, it does. It says he doesn't have a portfolio for some reason. Is it because he is incompetent and has nothing to show for? Perhaps not, but if the candidate makes it difficult for recruiters and interviewers to get an objective way to corroborate his claims regarding his level of expertise then just for the sake of avoiding wasting your time with yet another paper tiger... It would be better to cut him out of the shortlist for further interviews.
- andrewstuart 6y ago
  >> Well, it does. It says he doesn't have a portfolio for some reason. No, you do not have to have a "reason" for not having a public portfolio. Not having a public portfolio doesn't say anything at all about someone's competence. >> if the candidate makes it difficult for recruiters and interviewers to get an objective way to corroborate his claims regarding his level of expertise Public code is not the only way to assess skills, indeed as I mentioned elsewhere in this thread its actually a pretty bad way to assess skills. If the best tools you have for assessing competence is github then your recruiting process is lacking. >> It would be better to cut him out of the shortlist for further interviews. I can imagine employers with this attitude lamenting how hard it is to find good people.
johnisgood 6y ago
I do not use GitHub because their political views do not align with mine. And what does politics have to do with programming? I do not know, you have to ask them, they are the ones trying to bring politics into IT. I just self-host Gogs, GitLab, Trac, cgit, etc. They are independent of each other, of course. :) Different teams, different needs. As far as my personal projects go, I just self-host cgit, and I accept "pull requests" through e-mail. It works.

zitterbewegung 6y ago

I work for a bank and I have contributions to the python project and a multitude of projects on Github. Yes those things I did took a lot of time but I typically do it out of boredom . To be honest my GitHub projects are demos and I just like giving presentations . If you compare yourself or anyone on any given metric you will feel bad. What is even worse is when people tell you all the time about a metric that you should do but once you do it you find that it wasn’t necessary at all and it’s some kind of mental gatekeeping.

barrkel 6y ago
Cool story. I have a kid and all our work commits are to a private Atlassian Bitbucket repo, so the only commits from me on GitHub are my dotfiles, once in a blue moon. I've been coding since 1995 and my open source contributions tailed off around 2002 or so. Wasn't how I wanted to invest my spare time.
bena 6y ago
You're missing the point. The point isn't that the hypothetical banker can't have an active github profile, it's that there are reasons they might not. Take me for instance, I haven't really done anything significant in the public for over a decade now. The vast majority of my code has been for one private company or another. And that's the case because either my job has me working the hours or after putting in 8 to 10 hours of code in private, there's exercising, practicing guitar, socializing with friends and family, building Lego sets, reading, playing video games, and other activities that don't involve me writing more code. That's not to say I don't, it's just I don't have that much time to do it outside of work.
zwayhowder 6y ago
As noted I was using examples. I wasn't saying everyone who works for a bank can't commit code to GitHub, just that in the grand scheme of things it's more likely. I just spent the past 4 years getting an MBA, my github repos are all horribly out of date because I had more important things to do. It doesn't mean I'm any less passionate about the technology.

woutr_be 6y ago

What bothers me so much is that my work is supposed to be my hobby. After programming for 8 hours a day, I go home and do something else, I have no interested in programming once I'm done working. Some companies I've interviewed with claim that I'm just not enthusiastic about programming, or that I'm not motivated enough, simply because I don't do any programming at home. They also questioned how I could learn new things. And my answer is usually the same; if they expect someone that wants to program 24/7, then I'm definitely not the right person. I have other hobbies I'm interested in, and I have no desire to burn out. I also expect to be given the time to keep up with new tech on the job.