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Open source contributions/projects is an extremely weak signal in my experience, and sometimes can be an negative signal. Open source software is developed gene

Open source contributions/projects is an extremely weak signal in my experience, and sometimes can be an negative signal. Open source software is developed generally differently than closed source software, much more async, and much more slowly. It is rare for people that professionally develop software to want to go write more software after work, and so quite often open source projects indicate they had a lot of free time for some reason, or they read something that they should do an open source project to increase chances of being hired. The places I've worked in the past 15 years generally take open source contributions as a very slight positive signal, but only one of many.

game_the0ry 3y ago
> Open source contributions/projects is an extremely weak signal in my experience What's a strong signal in your experience?
- gilbetron 3y ago
  There really are no strong signals, which is why interviewing is relatively painful. Instead, there are a bunch of weak and moderate positive and negative signals, that you have to aggregate into an overall signal. Unfortunately the error bars on those signals are significant, and so usually you only hire on a relatively strong aggregate signal, and even then get it wrong occasionally. Plus, nervousness and comfort with the environment and questions makes the error bars bigger. Depending on the level, but assuming a Senior role, then some stronger (not strong, just stronger) signals are: - ability to code basic solutions in the language of choice - ability to reason about code complexity - ability to get to a solution - ability to explain their reasoning - demonstrate they understand the nuance and complexity of software development - understanding common tools in the domain they are interviewing for (sharding for distributed systems for instance) Same, but on the negative/bad side of things: - arrogance, argumentative, rude (nervousness is totally fine and expected) - one true way-ism - complaining about interviews during an interview - inability to solve basic coding questions - lack of understanding about basic data structures (too many people I've interviewed don't even understand how a hashmap is used)
deleted 3y ago
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game_the0ry 3y ago

> Open source contributions/projects is an extremely weak signal in my experience What's a strong signal in your experience?

gilbetron 3y ago
There really are no strong signals, which is why interviewing is relatively painful. Instead, there are a bunch of weak and moderate positive and negative signals, that you have to aggregate into an overall signal. Unfortunately the error bars on those signals are significant, and so usually you only hire on a relatively strong aggregate signal, and even then get it wrong occasionally. Plus, nervousness and comfort with the environment and questions makes the error bars bigger. Depending on the level, but assuming a Senior role, then some stronger (not strong, just stronger) signals are: - ability to code basic solutions in the language of choice - ability to reason about code complexity - ability to get to a solution - ability to explain their reasoning - demonstrate they understand the nuance and complexity of software development - understanding common tools in the domain they are interviewing for (sharding for distributed systems for instance) Same, but on the negative/bad side of things: - arrogance, argumentative, rude (nervousness is totally fine and expected) - one true way-ism - complaining about interviews during an interview - inability to solve basic coding questions - lack of understanding about basic data structures (too many people I've interviewed don't even understand how a hashmap is used)

deleted 3y ago

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