5 ms·

Surely this will filter out ~50% of people who are good but don’t have any public code? I have a family and as such no free time for coding so I haven’t writte

by jahnu 5y ago

Surely this will filter out ~50% of people who are good but don’t have any public code? I have a family and as such no free time for coding so I haven’t written any code I can legally show anyone else in more than a decade. But everyone who has employed me is more than happy with my work. Not to mention code is only half of why you would want to employ any developer.

xarope 5y ago
I agree. I would be happy to provide references of the developers and engineers in my ex-teams, whether collaborators or mentees, who would give me glowing references. Instead, I'm asked for senior-managers/directors as references... who were the reason why I left in the first place. I guess HR just wants to know I was actually employed there (tick box)
moonchrome 5y ago
>Surely this will filter out ~50% of people who are good but don’t have any public code? It then becomes a take home assignment where you get to pick the topic. Surely you wanted to protoype some tech but didn't have the opportunity at dayjob - so make that prototype and bring it to review. Much higher interview value than take home assignment IMO, but you need to be competent as an interviewer to enter into a discussion on something you might not understand yourself. And it's also higher value to the person applying because they get to protoype stuff they find interesting.
- EugeneOZ 5y ago
  Work created in 1-2 hours is very different from a work created in 1-2 months.
  - brongondwana 5y ago
    Yeah, but at this point you're not left with many other options other than sticking your finger in the air and hoping you can detect if they know how to write code.
    - EugeneOZ 5y ago
      Only if you are limiting yourself by the options mentioned by the top comment author :) I was interviewed many times without showing any of my code. The most effective way I saw: the interviewer gives you some code and asks you how you could refactor it, what parts you would implement differently.
      - brongondwana 5y ago
        To be fair, my "interview" for Fastmail was debugging a real production issue in realtime with one of the founders.
  - moonchrome 5y ago
    I don't see myself reviewing your 2 months of work at an interview. Showing me a prototype of something you thought was interesting and walking me through, pitching the tech and debating pros and cons would be enough for me to estimate what it would be like to work with you and my estimate of your experience level.
buf 5y ago
Hi, comment OP here. I decided to blog about this. It's cheeky, apologies. https://siliconvict.com/articles/6-how-to-hire-actually-good-engineers https://siliconvict.com/articles/6-how-to-hire-actually-good...
- jahnu 5y ago
  No worries at all :) > Sorry to be blunt, but chances are they aren't very good, and they are definitely not as good as they think they are. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s just so wrong it’s kinda wild how sure you are about this. At least half of the excellent colleagues I worked with in the past 10 years don’t fit your criteria. You’d be lucky to hire any of them.
  - csmpltn 5y ago
    I agree with you, this cannot be regarded as a healthy approach to hiring and comes off as delusional.
    - leaflets2 5y ago
      At the same time, it might sort of work, just that since they a bit randomly discard a fraction of the job applicants, the company will end up paying more, for those it hires (supply and demand). But maybe the company doesn't notice (and in the end what does it matter anyway)
  - damethos 5y ago
    I felt exactly the same when I read this. Plenty of people who are very good engineers have nothing in public to show.
- csmpltn 5y ago
  You do you. I can't see how your approach can scale to hire tens or maybe hundreds of engineers. Sounds like something that may somewhat work for you when you're the only one doing the hiring for your small team of buddies at a startup somewhere. You're not even trying to tackle things like hiring for multiple roles, interview fairness, subconscious bias, technical diversity, feedback, or making the interview process accessible to a larger group of people that don't fit your cookie-cutter from the get go. On a different note - I really hate the tone of your post. You come off as an arrogant person who's full of it and "has it all figured out". I'd easily pass on you just by reading these posts.
rickosborne 5y ago
> Surely this will filter out ~50% of people who are good but don’t have any public code? Not OP, but I follow a similar process when I have to do coding interviews. I work around the "no public code" problem easily: "great, then pick an open source library you use regularly and let's go through and look at some of the things you do with it, what you like about the API design, and some things you stumble over or wish were better". I've had candidates go through everything from jQuery to D3 to Spring to just parts of the Java SDK. Also, in my experience, the percentage of people who have _zero_ public code is small. Maybe 10%. Certainly not half.
- leaflets2 5y ago
  > pick an open source library you use regularly and let's go through and look at some of the things you do with it, what you like about the API design ... People who have plenty of time to prepare, eg carefully study and think about that API before the interview, will tend to do better in the interviews. Although they aren't necessarily better at coding. Meaning, you're slightly favoring people with lots of spare time. Not saying that's a good or bad thing, just maybe something to be aware about. Also, what open source project they happen to choose, will matter I would think. That's a bit like tossing a coin as part of the process
mountainriver 5y ago
Yeah we do this but also give people an option of either a take home test or live challenge. It works really well and fits all developer types. At the end of the day all your after is signal on how well they understand software. There are lots of ways of doing that

by jahnu 5y ago

xarope 5y ago

I agree. I would be happy to provide references of the developers and engineers in my ex-teams, whether collaborators or mentees, who would give me glowing references. Instead, I'm asked for senior-managers/directors as references... who were the reason why I left in the first place. I guess HR just wants to know I was actually employed there (tick box)

moonchrome 5y ago

>Surely this will filter out ~50% of people who are good but don’t have any public code? It then becomes a take home assignment where you get to pick the topic. Surely you wanted to protoype some tech but didn't have the opportunity at dayjob - so make that prototype and bring it to review. Much higher interview value than take home assignment IMO, but you need to be competent as an interviewer to enter into a discussion on something you might not understand yourself. And it's also higher value to the person applying because they get to protoype stuff they find interesting.

EugeneOZ 5y ago
Work created in 1-2 hours is very different from a work created in 1-2 months.
- brongondwana 5y ago
  Yeah, but at this point you're not left with many other options other than sticking your finger in the air and hoping you can detect if they know how to write code.
  - EugeneOZ 5y ago
    Only if you are limiting yourself by the options mentioned by the top comment author :) I was interviewed many times without showing any of my code. The most effective way I saw: the interviewer gives you some code and asks you how you could refactor it, what parts you would implement differently.
    - brongondwana 5y ago
      To be fair, my "interview" for Fastmail was debugging a real production issue in realtime with one of the founders.
- moonchrome 5y ago
  I don't see myself reviewing your 2 months of work at an interview. Showing me a prototype of something you thought was interesting and walking me through, pitching the tech and debating pros and cons would be enough for me to estimate what it would be like to work with you and my estimate of your experience level.

buf 5y ago

Hi, comment OP here. I decided to blog about this. It's cheeky, apologies. https://siliconvict.com/articles/6-how-to-hire-actually-good-engineers https://siliconvict.com/articles/6-how-to-hire-actually-good...

jahnu 5y ago
No worries at all :) > Sorry to be blunt, but chances are they aren't very good, and they are definitely not as good as they think they are. I don’t know what to tell you. It’s just so wrong it’s kinda wild how sure you are about this. At least half of the excellent colleagues I worked with in the past 10 years don’t fit your criteria. You’d be lucky to hire any of them.
- csmpltn 5y ago
  I agree with you, this cannot be regarded as a healthy approach to hiring and comes off as delusional.
  - leaflets2 5y ago
    At the same time, it might sort of work, just that since they a bit randomly discard a fraction of the job applicants, the company will end up paying more, for those it hires (supply and demand). But maybe the company doesn't notice (and in the end what does it matter anyway)
- damethos 5y ago
  I felt exactly the same when I read this. Plenty of people who are very good engineers have nothing in public to show.
csmpltn 5y ago
You do you. I can't see how your approach can scale to hire tens or maybe hundreds of engineers. Sounds like something that may somewhat work for you when you're the only one doing the hiring for your small team of buddies at a startup somewhere. You're not even trying to tackle things like hiring for multiple roles, interview fairness, subconscious bias, technical diversity, feedback, or making the interview process accessible to a larger group of people that don't fit your cookie-cutter from the get go. On a different note - I really hate the tone of your post. You come off as an arrogant person who's full of it and "has it all figured out". I'd easily pass on you just by reading these posts.

rickosborne 5y ago

> Surely this will filter out ~50% of people who are good but don’t have any public code? Not OP, but I follow a similar process when I have to do coding interviews. I work around the "no public code" problem easily: "great, then pick an open source library you use regularly and let's go through and look at some of the things you do with it, what you like about the API design, and some things you stumble over or wish were better". I've had candidates go through everything from jQuery to D3 to Spring to just parts of the Java SDK. Also, in my experience, the percentage of people who have _zero_ public code is small. Maybe 10%. Certainly not half.

leaflets2 5y ago
> pick an open source library you use regularly and let's go through and look at some of the things you do with it, what you like about the API design ... People who have plenty of time to prepare, eg carefully study and think about that API before the interview, will tend to do better in the interviews. Although they aren't necessarily better at coding. Meaning, you're slightly favoring people with lots of spare time. Not saying that's a good or bad thing, just maybe something to be aware about. Also, what open source project they happen to choose, will matter I would think. That's a bit like tossing a coin as part of the process

mountainriver 5y ago

Yeah we do this but also give people an option of either a take home test or live challenge. It works really well and fits all developer types. At the end of the day all your after is signal on how well they understand software. There are lots of ways of doing that