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I usually use the criteria of "What does this person do in their spare time?" There should be two things that they should be doing: 1. They should be coding al
by akg 15y ago
I usually use the criteria of "What does this person do in their spare time?" There should be two things that they should be doing:
1. They should be coding all the time. Not just for their current job, but because they genuinely like it. They may not be able to write a red-black tree in your 5minute coding quiz, but if they are truly passionate about coding and technology they will bring a wealth of knowledge with them. More so, they will have lots of exposure to new technologies, ideas, and have good ties in the community.
2. They should be passionate about the industry you are in. I would expect half of the Spotify team to be almost deaf by now, because they are listening to music all day long -- and loving it.
It's hard to find people that will fit both, but you should at least settle for the point 1. Especially now, with public code repositories like Github, it is easy to see the quality of code that most people can churn out and how passionate they are about engineering good solutions.
- rickmb 15y ago> They should be coding all the time Seriously, this may make for great code-monkeys but very limited software developers. There are tons of things you can do to become a better developer that don't involve actual coding. Especially if your job is already mostly coding, for god's sake spend as much time as you can doing those other things. I'm not interested in people who can write awesome code, but couldn't finish even a small development project unless somebody else holds their hand through every step of the way. Totally agree with 2 though. Probably even more important than 1, because a mediocre programmer with a passion for the actual business can make a great product. An awesome programmer will just make great code. I prefer the former.
- akg 15y agoYou're totally right. I think when I say "coding", I don't literally mean writing code. Coding requires different facets of creation: designing, testing, etc. I think another way to say point 1, is to say that the person should be passionate about technology, which I guess is kind of like point 2, but for tech. And of course, you want someone with some breadth of experience and interests. I would venture that a well-rounded person has a lot more to offer just because he has a larger set of tools at her disposal that can be used to solve problems. Finding that "special" someone is always such a challenge ;-)
- rimantas 15y agoIf you want people who are open to new ideas you really should let #1 go.