5 ms·

We once had a contractor who interviewed pretty well. After a while I noticed that it was impossible to have a technical discussion with him. He only took notes

We once had a contractor who interviewed pretty well. After a while I noticed that it was impossible to have a technical discussion with him. He only took notes and never said much. I also noticed that he never delivered anything the same day. He took notes and then next morning it was done. I once told him to fix a simple bug NOW and had him sit next to me. He starred at the screen for several hours and did nothing. And not unsurprisingly it was done the next day. We came to the conclusion that he had a ghostwriter somewhere else who would do the actual work from the contractor’s notes. Problem was that the ghostwriter was not a great dev either and wrote bad code. So we had to let him /them go. The contractor is now a principal developer/ team lead at another company……

josefresco 5y ago
If the "ghostwriter" was good, would you have cared?
- teej 5y ago
  It's typically a good idea to know the folks you've given code access to.
- kelnos 5y ago
  I think the example parent gave was enough to answer that: if there was a critical issue that needed to be fixed in hours, this employee would have been unable to do it. (Also agree with the sibling about it being good to know who you're giving access to your company's resources and private information. If someone is willing to lie about their skills and have someone else do their work overnight, what other sketchy things might they be doing without your knowledge?)
- spaetzleesser 5y ago
  I would have cut out the middleman and hired the ghostwriter. The guy that sat in our office was useless and probably made the majority of the money. I don't think he deserved to be paid.
- kumarvvr 5y ago
  As a manager of the guy, yes. How reliable or accurate do you think those notes are? How secure is having someone outside your company writing code that runs inside your servers?

josefresco 5y ago

If the "ghostwriter" was good, would you have cared?

teej 5y ago
It's typically a good idea to know the folks you've given code access to.
kelnos 5y ago
I think the example parent gave was enough to answer that: if there was a critical issue that needed to be fixed in hours, this employee would have been unable to do it. (Also agree with the sibling about it being good to know who you're giving access to your company's resources and private information. If someone is willing to lie about their skills and have someone else do their work overnight, what other sketchy things might they be doing without your knowledge?)
spaetzleesser 5y ago
I would have cut out the middleman and hired the ghostwriter. The guy that sat in our office was useless and probably made the majority of the money. I don't think he deserved to be paid.
kumarvvr 5y ago
As a manager of the guy, yes. How reliable or accurate do you think those notes are? How secure is having someone outside your company writing code that runs inside your servers?