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It’s not “hiring people like me”, it’s just a way to separate the wheat (people who are intrinsically interested in programming) from the chaff (people who pick

by tomp 4y ago

It’s not “hiring people like me”, it’s just a way to separate the wheat (people who are intrinsically interested in programming) from the chaff (people who picked programming instead of law/finance/medicine because it pays better right now) Literally all other personality features are irrelevant, hence definitely not “people like me”.

onion2k 4y ago
Some people who studied compsci at university chose that because they'd been coding since they were 6 years old and they absolutely love it and want to master it. They're not all there because they decided it pays better than law.
- brabel 4y ago
  Amazing what someone wanting to see "something" will see "something"... if anything , going through the pain of a CompSci degree and not giving up (more than half my class gave up in the first 2 years) is about the best proof you can get the person is interested in programming. Self-taught people may also be truly talented and interested, but it may just well be that they studied for a few months and now claim to "know programming" exactly because they noticed the profession pays very well (I know someone exactly in that situation right now, and she's already looking for some other path after just 2 years in it as clearly she has zero aptitude).
- ghaff 4y ago
  CS overlaps with but != programming. Students will often gravitate to majors that have some overlap between "This is pretty interesting" and "I can probably make a reasonable living doing this." Outside of the arts, programming is rather unusual in that some have an expectation that this is something that you've loved since you were 6. (And, again, CS only overlaps to some degree anyway.)
lapcat 4y ago
> it’s just a way to separate the wheat (people who are intrinsically interested in programming) from the chaff (people who picked programming instead of law/finance/medicine because it pays better right now) Why would you assume that self-trained developers are intrinsically interested in programming?
- c16 4y ago
  In my experience, background doesn't tell you if someone's passionate. Spending a few minutes talking about their (as well as your own) side projects and what they've been spending their evenings working on / reading about and seeing them light up is a big indicator for me. Not everyone will do side projects - and that's fine - but passionate engineers will have something to get excited about without needing to think about it.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    Passionate about what? If they're more passionate about their side projects than about the work you're paying them to do, that seems like trouble.
    - dc-programmer 4y ago
      Definitely not a hypothetical scenario. I’ve seen this play out poorly before where work work takes a cognitive and priority backseat to outside work. I do think passion in a more abstract sense is a strong signal thorough. Such as passion for learning new things, solving complex problems, investment in collective outcomes, etc
  - BlargMcLarg 4y ago
    So my question, to what degree does it have to match? I went to university because I had an interest specifically in games, media and HCI. I could talk about my interest in those things fairly easily. Yet the far majority of jobs in my area are oriented around web development in its most basic, CRUD form. More often than not, I can almost detect a hint of snobbism from the other party's side whenever I lightly hint at the fact I don't really care for web development in my free time, but recognize overlap between various fields. In extreme cases, I see the above on stack level as well, which is even worse. As if preference in stack defines who should work where, when a few stack combinations heavily dominate the market.
- tomrod 4y ago
  Tautological. You spend your time on things that interest you at the point you spend your time on them.
SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
Picking a career purely for profit and being good enough at it without passion to compete with the passionate people shows a calculated grit and intelligence that I think you might be passing on. You might be missing the person who can make the calculated decisions without emotional investment, the person who can give you hard truths as to the viability of the business, the person who can take their personal out of decisions and act.
- allcentury 4y ago
  Optimizing for money is a guaranteed flight risk for any employer. High attrition is something to avoid at smaller companies as it greatly effects morale
  - ameister14 4y ago
    I don't agree because I think optimizing for money in the absence of alternatives is perfectly normal and a fairly good idea. If someone has consistently chosen to favor cash over anything else, that's a different story, but if someone chose an industry or type of career with money as the deciding factor I don't think that is terribly important. People need and want money. If I don't know what to do and have no guidance, how am I to decide? I'll look at difficulty, social benefits, moral impact and economic benefits. A 20 year old won't necessarily understand how to parse difficulty, social benefits or moral impact but will absolutely be able to understand basic economic benefits, so I think it's appropriate to use that as a method for choosing a career direction and I wouldn't object to hiring them.
pessimizer 4y ago
Just because you do something for money doesn't mean you're not good at it. I'm no big capitalist, but incentives 101 tells us that people try harder at things when you pay them. edit: and to make an unfair generalization, pay is the most predictable and intelligible motivation for an employee. An activist can be motivated by doing good through their organization, but an employee who isn't motivated by their pay is also certainly not motivated by helping their employers get wealthier. So their motivations are weird, not straightforward.

by tomp 4y ago

onion2k 4y ago

Some people who studied compsci at university chose that because they'd been coding since they were 6 years old and they absolutely love it and want to master it. They're not all there because they decided it pays better than law.

brabel 4y ago
Amazing what someone wanting to see "something" will see "something"... if anything , going through the pain of a CompSci degree and not giving up (more than half my class gave up in the first 2 years) is about the best proof you can get the person is interested in programming. Self-taught people may also be truly talented and interested, but it may just well be that they studied for a few months and now claim to "know programming" exactly because they noticed the profession pays very well (I know someone exactly in that situation right now, and she's already looking for some other path after just 2 years in it as clearly she has zero aptitude).
ghaff 4y ago
CS overlaps with but != programming. Students will often gravitate to majors that have some overlap between "This is pretty interesting" and "I can probably make a reasonable living doing this." Outside of the arts, programming is rather unusual in that some have an expectation that this is something that you've loved since you were 6. (And, again, CS only overlaps to some degree anyway.)

lapcat 4y ago

> it’s just a way to separate the wheat (people who are intrinsically interested in programming) from the chaff (people who picked programming instead of law/finance/medicine because it pays better right now) Why would you assume that self-trained developers are intrinsically interested in programming?

c16 4y ago
In my experience, background doesn't tell you if someone's passionate. Spending a few minutes talking about their (as well as your own) side projects and what they've been spending their evenings working on / reading about and seeing them light up is a big indicator for me. Not everyone will do side projects - and that's fine - but passionate engineers will have something to get excited about without needing to think about it.
- lapcat 4y ago
  Passionate about what? If they're more passionate about their side projects than about the work you're paying them to do, that seems like trouble.
  - dc-programmer 4y ago
    Definitely not a hypothetical scenario. I’ve seen this play out poorly before where work work takes a cognitive and priority backseat to outside work. I do think passion in a more abstract sense is a strong signal thorough. Such as passion for learning new things, solving complex problems, investment in collective outcomes, etc
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  So my question, to what degree does it have to match? I went to university because I had an interest specifically in games, media and HCI. I could talk about my interest in those things fairly easily. Yet the far majority of jobs in my area are oriented around web development in its most basic, CRUD form. More often than not, I can almost detect a hint of snobbism from the other party's side whenever I lightly hint at the fact I don't really care for web development in my free time, but recognize overlap between various fields. In extreme cases, I see the above on stack level as well, which is even worse. As if preference in stack defines who should work where, when a few stack combinations heavily dominate the market.
tomrod 4y ago
Tautological. You spend your time on things that interest you at the point you spend your time on them.

SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago

Picking a career purely for profit and being good enough at it without passion to compete with the passionate people shows a calculated grit and intelligence that I think you might be passing on. You might be missing the person who can make the calculated decisions without emotional investment, the person who can give you hard truths as to the viability of the business, the person who can take their personal out of decisions and act.

allcentury 4y ago
Optimizing for money is a guaranteed flight risk for any employer. High attrition is something to avoid at smaller companies as it greatly effects morale
- ameister14 4y ago
  I don't agree because I think optimizing for money in the absence of alternatives is perfectly normal and a fairly good idea. If someone has consistently chosen to favor cash over anything else, that's a different story, but if someone chose an industry or type of career with money as the deciding factor I don't think that is terribly important. People need and want money. If I don't know what to do and have no guidance, how am I to decide? I'll look at difficulty, social benefits, moral impact and economic benefits. A 20 year old won't necessarily understand how to parse difficulty, social benefits or moral impact but will absolutely be able to understand basic economic benefits, so I think it's appropriate to use that as a method for choosing a career direction and I wouldn't object to hiring them.

pessimizer 4y ago

Just because you do something for money doesn't mean you're not good at it. I'm no big capitalist, but incentives 101 tells us that people try harder at things when you pay them. edit: and to make an unfair generalization, pay is the most predictable and intelligible motivation for an employee. An activist can be motivated by doing good through their organization, but an employee who isn't motivated by their pay is also certainly not motivated by helping their employers get wealthier. So their motivations are weird, not straightforward.