3 ms·

Just curious: How would you differentiate between the first type and the second type of programmer when you hire him/her?

by jabo 15y ago

zavulon 15y ago
Good question. That's what I'm struggling with right now. There really is no way to determine this accurately at interview stage - a smart person will always figure what kind of answer you're looking for. One way is to have them describe in detail what they're doing at their current/previous positions - if they mention legacy code/doing support or maintenance, ask for more details. See how they're describing it - matter-of-factly, or in a negative way. However, there really is no good way to do this, other than to hire somebody for a trial period and have them do actual real world tasks. That's what I try to do most of the time, but unfortunately it's not always possible. If someone has better ideas, I would love to hear them.
- hrktb 15y ago
  If you interview a guy/girl very good technically buy seems to work on shitty, boring and otherwise inane projects more often than not, you might still have found it. For a lot of corporations that's where you send the programmers that eat it up and just do their job...
- elliottkember 15y ago
  Personally, I've found a sense of humour to be a reasonable indication - person 2 is more likely to be able to step back, smile, and say "okay, this is horrible and it's going to go badly for these reasons. But if I had to do it, I'd X the Y with Z". If they can do that and laugh about it, I get a sense of levity and perspective.
majani 15y ago
I look for signs of overcoming general hardships in life. Sometimes those signs show up in a resume, sometimes I have to talk to someone for a couple of hours to find them.
daemon13 15y ago
It is usually possible to do for any type of position [not only developers] if you make a deep-dive interview, asking a lot of open questions (how? why? etc) to understand the operating motto of a person. Drawback - it may take up to 1.5-2.5 hours of one-on-one conversation. I have never failed to separate doers from other types. The only issue I had is that sometimes, after interviwing 20-30 people, I could not find a 100% doer, and therefore I had to make a comromise.

Just curious: How would you differentiate between the first type and the second type of programmer when you hire him/her?

by jabo 15y ago

Just curious: How would you differentiate between the first type and the second type of programmer when you hire him/her?

zavulon 15y ago

Good question. That's what I'm struggling with right now. There really is no way to determine this accurately at interview stage - a smart person will always figure what kind of answer you're looking for. One way is to have them describe in detail what they're doing at their current/previous positions - if they mention legacy code/doing support or maintenance, ask for more details. See how they're describing it - matter-of-factly, or in a negative way. However, there really is no good way to do this, other than to hire somebody for a trial period and have them do actual real world tasks. That's what I try to do most of the time, but unfortunately it's not always possible. If someone has better ideas, I would love to hear them.

hrktb 15y ago
If you interview a guy/girl very good technically buy seems to work on shitty, boring and otherwise inane projects more often than not, you might still have found it. For a lot of corporations that's where you send the programmers that eat it up and just do their job...
elliottkember 15y ago
Personally, I've found a sense of humour to be a reasonable indication - person 2 is more likely to be able to step back, smile, and say "okay, this is horrible and it's going to go badly for these reasons. But if I had to do it, I'd X the Y with Z". If they can do that and laugh about it, I get a sense of levity and perspective.

majani 15y ago

I look for signs of overcoming general hardships in life. Sometimes those signs show up in a resume, sometimes I have to talk to someone for a couple of hours to find them.

daemon13 15y ago

It is usually possible to do for any type of position [not only developers] if you make a deep-dive interview, asking a lot of open questions (how? why? etc) to understand the operating motto of a person. Drawback - it may take up to 1.5-2.5 hours of one-on-one conversation. I have never failed to separate doers from other types. The only issue I had is that sometimes, after interviwing 20-30 people, I could not find a 100% doer, and therefore I had to make a comromise.