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Shouldn't a portfolio of personal projects be enough ? In the past couple years I: - adapted Java's Regex engine to work on streams of characters - wrote a ba

by Xmd5a 2y ago

Shouldn't a portfolio of personal projects be enough ? In the past couple years I: - adapted Java's Regex engine to work on streams of characters - wrote a basic parametric geometry engine - wrote a debugger for an async framework - did innovative work with respect to whole-codebase transformation using macros Among other things. As for ChatGPT in the context of an interview, I'd only use it if I were asked to do changes on a codebase I don't know in limited time.

ganoushoreilly 2y ago
I think the arguments is there is no way to validate it was you that did the work. There's been too many instances of groups that do interviews for others or the work for take homes to help get people placed. There was a big deal about some H1Bs a while back where the people that showed up didn't look anything like the people that interviewed. So I understand both sides. It's frustrating though when you've done a lot of work, as you've listed. I think in a good interview maybe going over that code and getting the chance to explain things you did, why you did, or issues you had, could also go a long way. Interviewing is tough, more so at scale.
gray_-_wolf 2y ago
Bit annoying is that when companies ask for a portfolio, they often mean GitHub. Lot of non-technical hiring people I discussed this with were confused by the fact that there are other ways to contribute, like mailing lists.
blazing234 2y ago
most experienced developers don't have a portfolio because they code for a living lol
- Madmallard 2y ago
  I don't really think this is true? This might be true for developers that only work for companies and never in their own time maybe. My portfolio site is just one of the sites on my personal website that also hosts many of my projects. It wasn't much work to setup, and it provides organization and sharing capability so there's motivation to make it anyways.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >This might be true for developers that only work for companies and never in their own time maybe. I'd argue that that is indeed the majority. Maybe they have some work from school days, but very few devs are making portfolio pieces years into the industry once they can flesh out their "Employment" sectiion. IME you only need a portfolio as a non-junior if you are making a lateral move.
  - physicsguy 2y ago
    > This might be true for developers that only work for companies and never in their own time maybe. So most people with young kids then
rockyj 2y ago
This is what I do not get. I just do not understand the technical interview process these days. I have 20 years of experience in software development, I have hundreds of LinkedIn contacts you can check on, a dozen recommendations on LinkedIn and a dozen projects on Github, not to mention a blog and let's say a other indicators (e.g. Stackoverflow creds). Now what exactly are people checking on? My picture is on LinkedIn and Github. Clearly I can code and have done dozens of projects. What is the point of asking me - "Do you know Kafka?", "Have you used AWS S3 and how?", "How would you build / scale a Node.js project" - these are the real questions I was asked. Yes, had you cared to look at my Github / blogs you would have seen I have done this multiple times, what are we verifying now? I tried my best but at one point stopped caring about interviews.

by Xmd5a 2y ago

ganoushoreilly 2y ago

I think the arguments is there is no way to validate it was you that did the work. There's been too many instances of groups that do interviews for others or the work for take homes to help get people placed. There was a big deal about some H1Bs a while back where the people that showed up didn't look anything like the people that interviewed. So I understand both sides. It's frustrating though when you've done a lot of work, as you've listed. I think in a good interview maybe going over that code and getting the chance to explain things you did, why you did, or issues you had, could also go a long way. Interviewing is tough, more so at scale.

gray_-_wolf 2y ago

Bit annoying is that when companies ask for a portfolio, they often mean GitHub. Lot of non-technical hiring people I discussed this with were confused by the fact that there are other ways to contribute, like mailing lists.

blazing234 2y ago

most experienced developers don't have a portfolio because they code for a living lol

Madmallard 2y ago
I don't really think this is true? This might be true for developers that only work for companies and never in their own time maybe. My portfolio site is just one of the sites on my personal website that also hosts many of my projects. It wasn't much work to setup, and it provides organization and sharing capability so there's motivation to make it anyways.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >This might be true for developers that only work for companies and never in their own time maybe. I'd argue that that is indeed the majority. Maybe they have some work from school days, but very few devs are making portfolio pieces years into the industry once they can flesh out their "Employment" sectiion. IME you only need a portfolio as a non-junior if you are making a lateral move.
- physicsguy 2y ago
  > This might be true for developers that only work for companies and never in their own time maybe. So most people with young kids then

rockyj 2y ago

This is what I do not get. I just do not understand the technical interview process these days. I have 20 years of experience in software development, I have hundreds of LinkedIn contacts you can check on, a dozen recommendations on LinkedIn and a dozen projects on Github, not to mention a blog and let's say a other indicators (e.g. Stackoverflow creds). Now what exactly are people checking on? My picture is on LinkedIn and Github. Clearly I can code and have done dozens of projects. What is the point of asking me - "Do you know Kafka?", "Have you used AWS S3 and how?", "How would you build / scale a Node.js project" - these are the real questions I was asked. Yes, had you cared to look at my Github / blogs you would have seen I have done this multiple times, what are we verifying now? I tried my best but at one point stopped caring about interviews.