5 ms·

"Bring a side project, show us how it works." Can people in the industry stop this please? You have to be mentally sick to ask people to code review their side

"Bring a side project, show us how it works." Can people in the industry stop this please? You have to be mentally sick to ask people to code review their side projects. It doesn't make any sense. "Average developer tenure is two years, company is three years old." Got it. I don't think this statement says what you think it does.

lmarcos 3y ago
Agree. Interviews taken into account side projects are biased towards: - people who have free time to work on side projects (usually young people have more free time than people with families) - people who don't mind sharing their code with others - people who work on interesting side projects. If your side project is boring, that will probably bore your interviewers -> no offer - people who work on side projects on regular basis. If I get to work on one side project every year, well, chances are I may have forgotten the hell I did on that project (depending when the interview takes place). If I work on side projects constantly, I have no trouble picking up a fresh one to talk about
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > people who work on interesting side projects. If your side project is boring, that will probably bore your interviewers -> no offer This hasn't been my experience at all. The interviewer doesn't care how "interesting" the side project is. What they want to see is what your actual working code is like, that you demonstrate a good grasp of programming concepts, etc.
  - lolinder 3y ago
    I wouldn't be worried about boring my interviewer and getting rejected because they consciously recognized that they were bored, I'd be worried about there not being a level playing field between projects when the hiring committee is discussing it later. The guy who built the fun video game will probably be remembered more fondly than the guy who built the CLI tool for tracking the weather.
- fnimick 3y ago
  > people who have free time to work on side projects (usually young people have more free time than people with families) That's the whole point. Companies would always prefer someone with no responsibility who can be guilted and pressured into doing overtime over someone who can point to actual needs outside of work that they need to attend to. It's a great way of filtering out people who will have boundaries.
yreg 3y ago
> You have to be mentally sick to ask people to code review their side projects. Could you expand why? We allow people to substitute a tech interview round with side project showcase. Don't see why it doesn't make sense in your view. > "Average developer tenure is two years, company is three years old." Got it. I don't think this statement says what you think it does. So what does it say?
- lolinder 3y ago
  > Could you expand why? We allow people to substitute a tech interview round with side project showcase. Don't see why it doesn't make sense in your view. As an option to replace a different interview segment I think that's quite fair. But both choices have to be clearly presented to the interviewee, and they should understand that either option is treated as equally good. OP's interview format seems to assume that everyone does the side project and the tech interview round isn't an option.
- ikura 3y ago
  > So what does it say? It depends on the definition of tenure... if tenure is defined as a closed interval (i.e. defined only for developers who've joined and then left) then it means that, of the developers who have departed, none had wanted to grow with the company, or the company had let them go. For a startup company this might not be a good sign. If tenure is defined as the length of time the developer had worked, OR, has worked so far, then it means they have a core group of developers and aren't growing the development team particularly quickly. Again, this might not be a good sign for a startup.
  - yreg 3y ago
    > then it means that, of the developers who have departed, none had wanted to grow with the company, or the company had let them go. For a startup company this might not be a good sign. What. Of course that "of the developers who have departed" all have left/been fired, that's a tautology. How is it "not a good sign"? Or is it supposed to be a bad sign that there even is a person who is not working there anymore?
CharlieDigital 3y ago
> You have to be mentally sick to ask people to code review their side projects. I would love to do this; it would give me an opportunity to showcase my side projects, my coding style, and all with code that I'm already familiar with. It would be great, IMO.

lmarcos 3y ago

Agree. Interviews taken into account side projects are biased towards: - people who have free time to work on side projects (usually young people have more free time than people with families) - people who don't mind sharing their code with others - people who work on interesting side projects. If your side project is boring, that will probably bore your interviewers -> no offer - people who work on side projects on regular basis. If I get to work on one side project every year, well, chances are I may have forgotten the hell I did on that project (depending when the interview takes place). If I work on side projects constantly, I have no trouble picking up a fresh one to talk about

JohnFen 3y ago
> people who work on interesting side projects. If your side project is boring, that will probably bore your interviewers -> no offer This hasn't been my experience at all. The interviewer doesn't care how "interesting" the side project is. What they want to see is what your actual working code is like, that you demonstrate a good grasp of programming concepts, etc.
- lolinder 3y ago
  I wouldn't be worried about boring my interviewer and getting rejected because they consciously recognized that they were bored, I'd be worried about there not being a level playing field between projects when the hiring committee is discussing it later. The guy who built the fun video game will probably be remembered more fondly than the guy who built the CLI tool for tracking the weather.
fnimick 3y ago
> people who have free time to work on side projects (usually young people have more free time than people with families) That's the whole point. Companies would always prefer someone with no responsibility who can be guilted and pressured into doing overtime over someone who can point to actual needs outside of work that they need to attend to. It's a great way of filtering out people who will have boundaries.

yreg 3y ago

> You have to be mentally sick to ask people to code review their side projects. Could you expand why? We allow people to substitute a tech interview round with side project showcase. Don't see why it doesn't make sense in your view. > "Average developer tenure is two years, company is three years old." Got it. I don't think this statement says what you think it does. So what does it say?

lolinder 3y ago
> Could you expand why? We allow people to substitute a tech interview round with side project showcase. Don't see why it doesn't make sense in your view. As an option to replace a different interview segment I think that's quite fair. But both choices have to be clearly presented to the interviewee, and they should understand that either option is treated as equally good. OP's interview format seems to assume that everyone does the side project and the tech interview round isn't an option.
ikura 3y ago
> So what does it say? It depends on the definition of tenure... if tenure is defined as a closed interval (i.e. defined only for developers who've joined and then left) then it means that, of the developers who have departed, none had wanted to grow with the company, or the company had let them go. For a startup company this might not be a good sign. If tenure is defined as the length of time the developer had worked, OR, has worked so far, then it means they have a core group of developers and aren't growing the development team particularly quickly. Again, this might not be a good sign for a startup.
- yreg 3y ago
  > then it means that, of the developers who have departed, none had wanted to grow with the company, or the company had let them go. For a startup company this might not be a good sign. What. Of course that "of the developers who have departed" all have left/been fired, that's a tautology. How is it "not a good sign"? Or is it supposed to be a bad sign that there even is a person who is not working there anymore?

CharlieDigital 3y ago

> You have to be mentally sick to ask people to code review their side projects. I would love to do this; it would give me an opportunity to showcase my side projects, my coding style, and all with code that I'm already familiar with. It would be great, IMO.