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Ask HN: Would you hire a coder just by looking at GitHub contributions?

46 points by ceekay 13y ago

Do you still need to see him write code in an interview and convince yourself that he is good ?

kureikain 13y ago
Here is my stored. I was hired via somebody looking at my Github repo. My English wasn't that good to have a good interview with many company I tried before. My Github wasn't that great to attractive top notch company. My skill isn't that good to be a killer dev. I was just a so-so dev who really loves to code, and the company hired me based on that. Only looking at my Github repo.
- penguat 13y ago
  I'd like to know how you find working for/with them - is communication ever an issue?
brey 13y ago
I still want to see the thought process behind problem solving, and associated communication, especially when in unfamiliar territory - code output alone doesn't show that. But the existence of a github account is strongly correlated to a hire. It's depressing how many candidates haven't even heard of github...
- gaius 13y ago
  These days, now that word has gotten out, it's not unusual to see fake GitHubs, with an unmodified fork of another project in say. HR is not equipped to evaluate this, it needs an engineer to git clone and take a look.
  - mordae 13y ago
    Hmm, it's not that hard: https://github.com/plt/racket/commits?author=mordae https://github.com/plt/racket/commits?author=mordae You can find "repositories contributed to" in people's profiles.
    - gaius 13y ago
      Your HR department knows to do this? I call shenanigans.
      - marco-fiset 13y ago
        An HR department should not be hiring software developpers.
kingnothing 13y ago
Github doesn't tell me if he's someone I want to work with, so yes, a real interview is imperative.
SimonPStevens 13y ago
I would still want to spend some time talking with them. It's rarely all about just pure coding ability. I want to know if they can communicate effectively and if they can work as part of a team. If someone showed a great set of open source contributions before interview, I wouldn't necessarily need to see them code in the interview and would focus on the other things important to the role.
aaronsnoswell 13y ago
GitHub doesn't tell you if they will be a fit for the organisation! Of course I would still need to interview them.
yareally 13y ago
I know several ROM/app developers in the Android community (including one close friend) that have been approached solely based on their contributions to their own Github account and organizations they are a part of on there. At least one of them was not even a college graduate and was offered competitive pay + benefits by several different companies. However, each also ended up going through at least part of the traditional interview process as well (phone calls, in person, etc). I don't believe any of them had to write code though. In all of the cases, the companies were interested in not only their Android development skills, but that they had shown they could collaborate/communicate well with others. Each had also been a core contributor a major Android ROM project for at least 2 years, besides maintaining their own side projects.
jaseemabid 13y ago
I have received countless offers, with an average, not so great github profile (@jaseemabid). Looks like this works :)
- contingencies 13y ago
  Had a quick look at your profile: there is something scarily Indian (in the chaos sense) about combining Lisp with a BBQ joint :)
  - jaseemabid 13y ago
    @contingencies BBQ nation is one place where you can spend 4 hours happily talking about anything under the sun (read lisp) and enjoy the food. PS: I'm having a tough time with elisp, but its almost there :P
alan_cx 13y ago
Not that long ago, if you hired an artist based on his work, you might have ended up with a Godwin related situation...
jedberg 13y ago
Absolutely not. I've interviewed people who had amazing Github profiles who couldn't write a simple loop on the whiteboard. Either they hadn't written the code in their github, or they code only by copy/paste. ps. It might be a good idea to be slightly more gender neutral in your question. :)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- benaiah 13y ago
  About your PS: using "he" and its associated pronouns as the neuter pronoun is a well-established and common occurrence. It's not being sexist, or non-gender-neutral, it's just a way to have neuter pronouns without awkward constructions such as "they" or "he/she". Those are fine, but they read awkwardly to some people. Using "he" is a perfectly acceptable alternative.
  - jedberg 13y ago
    I'm aware that technically he/him are both gender neutral, as they derive from "human"(Latin) and not "man"(German). None the less, in today's common usage, it has lost that multifaceted meaning and the preferred language today is using the 3rd person as the gender neutral pronoun, or s/he or he/she.
    - benaiah 13y ago
      While "they" may be the more common usage (though I personally doubt it), it doesn't really matter: it's fine to use whatever you want, and there's no reason to call him on it when it's not actually sexist. I have no problem with you using "they", but I don't see any reason to have a problem with the OP using "he", either. That's the only point I was trying to make.
      - cabalamat 13y ago
        > While "they" may be the more common usage (though I personally doubt it), it doesn't really matter In your opinion. It matters to some people. > it's fine to use whatever you want Be aware that if you use the "he" form with some audiences, you will get a negative reaction. As to whether this is "fine" it depends on the purpose of your communication.
wldlyinaccurate 13y ago
Always interview the person. Always give them a code test - at the very least a simple 30 minute test. My current employer currently hires people without doing any sort of code test, and we have recently had to let people go because they just weren't very good. 30 minutes could have saved us a lot of wasted time and money.
ceekay 13y ago
Thanks for the info. My point was more to the tune of - when you can tell so much more from a candidate's github work -- his algo's, coding, coding style, commit notes, commit times, descipline.. why would you want to poke his coding again ? Why not just discuss his prior github work and clear the coding part of his interview ? Agreed on the need to check if you can work with him, team work, problem solving ..etc. But isn't github eliminating the need for vetting coding ? Fake github profiles is surprising! Never heard of that before!
lhnz 13y ago
There are lots of fake github profiles with tonnes of forks with no code committed. Be careful. You have to look at the code to see if they're good, and you should have a conversation about it to find out their thinking process. I'd always give a coding/architecture/design test before getting them in to interview as this would allow me to see how they solve new problems.
- EnderMB 13y ago
  It's also worth noting that even good developers might not understand GitHub. I worked with a guy (around 8-10 years experience, and a good senior dev/technical architect) who spoke to me about someone he was interviewing for a mid-level role. He told me that his GitHub profile was great, and that he had a ton of great code and specs that he had written. In fact, he had forked most of this great code, and the only code that was his was a few tutorials from some books he had read to try and learn C# a year or two ago. He wasn't a bad developer by any means. He didn't get the job because we couldn't get the budget to land another dev. However, there's a big difference in perception between a good developer on merit, and someone that has written some commonly used tools.
mzarate06 13y ago
No. I wouldn't hire anybody based solely on one signal. Great hiring requires evaluating more thoroughly than that. Have no less than one conversation with any candidate you're considering. Get a feel for their history, how they communicate, if they've any experience or passion in your domain, etc. E.g. All else equal, I'd more likely hire a candidate for my music start up that had experience integrating music apis, was an avid music lover, etc. That's not required, but helpful. And yes, I'd still have any candidate write code in an interview. Too many times simple sql queries, OO, or basic understanding of data structures have defeated candidates, despite code samples that implied otherwise. If a candidate can't write simple code to solve simple problems, they likely can't help the company solve much bigger problems efficiently.
seivan 13y ago
Yeah.
UK-AL 13y ago
Lack of github profile is not a no hire either. Just means they might not be a open source enthusiast.
- txutxu 13y ago
  There are opensource enthusiast which do not use github.
SmokyBourbon 13y ago
Hire without an interview? How would you know if they can write legibly on a whiteboard? What if they don't look like you? What if they don't already have a job working somewhere else? How will you know if they have the same hobbies as you? What if they can't solve riddles? What if they can't guess the right clothes to wear?
mbesto 13y ago
I'm going to support what could perhaps be a unpopular opinion - there is a lot more to a good programmer than simply writing good code. I'd take communication skills over someone's ability to optimize a while-loop any day. As a slightly tangential argument for hiring in general, I would like to offer that no matter what position you are hiring for, only looking at one facet of someone's abilities is very poor judgement.
- dingaling 13y ago
  Another useful angle is to investigate their personal domain; who is hosting DNS, are they using DNSSEC, do they run their own code on platforms they have built-out? Where are their MX pointing? Gives a good understanding of how much or little they understand implementation & deployment. And, of course, check that they can sign their e-mails with their own PGP key :)
Dirlewanger 13y ago
Absolutely not. Online presences, while a plus, should never be used as a hiring requirement. Also, what if they contribute to a bunch of private repos (e.g. their previous company)? You have no way of knowing this beyond what they will tell you.
kohanz 13y ago
Only if the job I was hiring for was to write code in a vacuum or a closet. If they needed to interact with customers or my team, I'd have to assess their personality as well.

46 points by ceekay 13y ago

Do you still need to see him write code in an interview and convince yourself that he is good ?

Here is my stored. I was hired via somebody looking at my Github repo. My English wasn't that good to have a good interview with many company I tried before. My Github wasn't that great to attractive top notch company. My skill isn't that good to be a killer dev. I was just a so-so dev who really loves to code, and the company hired me based on that. Only looking at my Github repo.

penguat 13y ago
I'd like to know how you find working for/with them - is communication ever an issue?

brey 13y ago

I still want to see the thought process behind problem solving, and associated communication, especially when in unfamiliar territory - code output alone doesn't show that. But the existence of a github account is strongly correlated to a hire. It's depressing how many candidates haven't even heard of github...

gaius 13y ago
These days, now that word has gotten out, it's not unusual to see fake GitHubs, with an unmodified fork of another project in say. HR is not equipped to evaluate this, it needs an engineer to git clone and take a look.
- mordae 13y ago
  Hmm, it's not that hard: https://github.com/plt/racket/commits?author=mordae https://github.com/plt/racket/commits?author=mordae You can find "repositories contributed to" in people's profiles.
  - gaius 13y ago
    Your HR department knows to do this? I call shenanigans.
    - marco-fiset 13y ago
      An HR department should not be hiring software developpers.

kingnothing 13y ago

Github doesn't tell me if he's someone I want to work with, so yes, a real interview is imperative.

SimonPStevens 13y ago

I would still want to spend some time talking with them. It's rarely all about just pure coding ability. I want to know if they can communicate effectively and if they can work as part of a team. If someone showed a great set of open source contributions before interview, I wouldn't necessarily need to see them code in the interview and would focus on the other things important to the role.

aaronsnoswell 13y ago

GitHub doesn't tell you if they will be a fit for the organisation! Of course I would still need to interview them.

yareally 13y ago

I know several ROM/app developers in the Android community (including one close friend) that have been approached solely based on their contributions to their own Github account and organizations they are a part of on there. At least one of them was not even a college graduate and was offered competitive pay + benefits by several different companies. However, each also ended up going through at least part of the traditional interview process as well (phone calls, in person, etc). I don't believe any of them had to write code though. In all of the cases, the companies were interested in not only their Android development skills, but that they had shown they could collaborate/communicate well with others. Each had also been a core contributor a major Android ROM project for at least 2 years, besides maintaining their own side projects.

jaseemabid 13y ago

I have received countless offers, with an average, not so great github profile (@jaseemabid). Looks like this works :)

contingencies 13y ago
Had a quick look at your profile: there is something scarily Indian (in the chaos sense) about combining Lisp with a BBQ joint :)
- jaseemabid 13y ago
  @contingencies BBQ nation is one place where you can spend 4 hours happily talking about anything under the sun (read lisp) and enjoy the food. PS: I'm having a tough time with elisp, but its almost there :P

alan_cx 13y ago

Not that long ago, if you hired an artist based on his work, you might have ended up with a Godwin related situation...

jedberg 13y ago

Absolutely not. I've interviewed people who had amazing Github profiles who couldn't write a simple loop on the whiteboard. Either they hadn't written the code in their github, or they code only by copy/paste. ps. It might be a good idea to be slightly more gender neutral in your question. :)

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
benaiah 13y ago
About your PS: using "he" and its associated pronouns as the neuter pronoun is a well-established and common occurrence. It's not being sexist, or non-gender-neutral, it's just a way to have neuter pronouns without awkward constructions such as "they" or "he/she". Those are fine, but they read awkwardly to some people. Using "he" is a perfectly acceptable alternative.
- jedberg 13y ago
  I'm aware that technically he/him are both gender neutral, as they derive from "human"(Latin) and not "man"(German). None the less, in today's common usage, it has lost that multifaceted meaning and the preferred language today is using the 3rd person as the gender neutral pronoun, or s/he or he/she.
  - benaiah 13y ago
    While "they" may be the more common usage (though I personally doubt it), it doesn't really matter: it's fine to use whatever you want, and there's no reason to call him on it when it's not actually sexist. I have no problem with you using "they", but I don't see any reason to have a problem with the OP using "he", either. That's the only point I was trying to make.
    - cabalamat 13y ago
      > While "they" may be the more common usage (though I personally doubt it), it doesn't really matter In your opinion. It matters to some people. > it's fine to use whatever you want Be aware that if you use the "he" form with some audiences, you will get a negative reaction. As to whether this is "fine" it depends on the purpose of your communication.

wldlyinaccurate 13y ago

Always interview the person. Always give them a code test - at the very least a simple 30 minute test. My current employer currently hires people without doing any sort of code test, and we have recently had to let people go because they just weren't very good. 30 minutes could have saved us a lot of wasted time and money.

ceekay 13y ago

Thanks for the info. My point was more to the tune of - when you can tell so much more from a candidate's github work -- his algo's, coding, coding style, commit notes, commit times, descipline.. why would you want to poke his coding again ? Why not just discuss his prior github work and clear the coding part of his interview ? Agreed on the need to check if you can work with him, team work, problem solving ..etc. But isn't github eliminating the need for vetting coding ? Fake github profiles is surprising! Never heard of that before!

lhnz 13y ago

There are lots of fake github profiles with tonnes of forks with no code committed. Be careful. You have to look at the code to see if they're good, and you should have a conversation about it to find out their thinking process. I'd always give a coding/architecture/design test before getting them in to interview as this would allow me to see how they solve new problems.

EnderMB 13y ago
It's also worth noting that even good developers might not understand GitHub. I worked with a guy (around 8-10 years experience, and a good senior dev/technical architect) who spoke to me about someone he was interviewing for a mid-level role. He told me that his GitHub profile was great, and that he had a ton of great code and specs that he had written. In fact, he had forked most of this great code, and the only code that was his was a few tutorials from some books he had read to try and learn C# a year or two ago. He wasn't a bad developer by any means. He didn't get the job because we couldn't get the budget to land another dev. However, there's a big difference in perception between a good developer on merit, and someone that has written some commonly used tools.

mzarate06 13y ago

No. I wouldn't hire anybody based solely on one signal. Great hiring requires evaluating more thoroughly than that. Have no less than one conversation with any candidate you're considering. Get a feel for their history, how they communicate, if they've any experience or passion in your domain, etc. E.g. All else equal, I'd more likely hire a candidate for my music start up that had experience integrating music apis, was an avid music lover, etc. That's not required, but helpful. And yes, I'd still have any candidate write code in an interview. Too many times simple sql queries, OO, or basic understanding of data structures have defeated candidates, despite code samples that implied otherwise. If a candidate can't write simple code to solve simple problems, they likely can't help the company solve much bigger problems efficiently.

seivan 13y ago

Yeah.

UK-AL 13y ago

Lack of github profile is not a no hire either. Just means they might not be a open source enthusiast.

txutxu 13y ago
There are opensource enthusiast which do not use github.

SmokyBourbon 13y ago

Hire without an interview? How would you know if they can write legibly on a whiteboard? What if they don't look like you? What if they don't already have a job working somewhere else? How will you know if they have the same hobbies as you? What if they can't solve riddles? What if they can't guess the right clothes to wear?

mbesto 13y ago

I'm going to support what could perhaps be a unpopular opinion - there is a lot more to a good programmer than simply writing good code. I'd take communication skills over someone's ability to optimize a while-loop any day. As a slightly tangential argument for hiring in general, I would like to offer that no matter what position you are hiring for, only looking at one facet of someone's abilities is very poor judgement.

dingaling 13y ago
Another useful angle is to investigate their personal domain; who is hosting DNS, are they using DNSSEC, do they run their own code on platforms they have built-out? Where are their MX pointing? Gives a good understanding of how much or little they understand implementation & deployment. And, of course, check that they can sign their e-mails with their own PGP key :)

Dirlewanger 13y ago

Absolutely not. Online presences, while a plus, should never be used as a hiring requirement. Also, what if they contribute to a bunch of private repos (e.g. their previous company)? You have no way of knowing this beyond what they will tell you.

kohanz 13y ago

Only if the job I was hiring for was to write code in a vacuum or a closet. If they needed to interact with customers or my team, I'd have to assess their personality as well.