5 ms·

I don't like the requirement to sign up for Github in order to sign up for your thing. Seems like an unnecessary hurdle considering how few real-world develope

I don't like the requirement to sign up for Github in order to sign up for your thing. Seems like an unnecessary hurdle considering how few real-world developers actually have profiles there. Worse, I do actually have a Github account, but I'm not going to tell you about it in order to log in and learn what this thing does, given that I have no idea what you plan to do with it. I can imagine a scenario where I'll discover a page on the internet proudly proclaiming that "Jason Is Looking For A Job!" when the reality is simply that "Jason is curious what dimensions go into that shape thing". Give me a user/pass. Or better still, no requirement at all to dig in further. Then I'll dig.

gee_totes 12y ago
My favorite part about the GitHub login is that since I keep my dotfiles on GitHub,these type of applications want to know my skill level and job preference based on the breakdown of languages in my profile. I have yet to see a senior level .vimrc architect job in the wild.
chrisseaton 12y ago
"few real-world developers actually have profiles there" Is that really true? I work for a mega-corp and I still put as much work as I can on GitHub. You always have side projects you can put up there as well.
- leftnode 12y ago
  I interviewed at Amazon 2 years ago and they wanted to do a real time coding session, but had no way of easily sharing code. I said I'd just post it in a GitHub Gist and read out the URL and he was dumbfounded and had never heard of this before. So yeah, _lots_ of developers don't have GitHub profiles or even know what it is.
- untog 12y ago
  I think the OP is correct that few developers are on there, but among the crowd this site is likely to want to attract, most are. That said, 99% of my contributions are in private repos, so my profile won't tell you a lot.
- EC1 12y ago
  We live in a vacuum here on HN. Most developers are not us.
  - zghst 12y ago
    It's a good (open discussion, latest topics and trends, expanding the palette with exposure of ideas) and bad thing (secret/slower paced work environments, unexposed devs, rockstars that don't need it, etc).
- johnward 12y ago
  I work for a megacorp. I have a few unfinished personal projects on github but everything else if confidential. You're not going to find out much about me based on my github account. However, it seems to be a requirement for a lot of jobs these days, especially in startup landia. So if you can't share things you do at work then you have to spend all your free time doing OSS or side projects that you can share on github or no one believes you can actually do what you say you can.
  - danielweber 12y ago
    > So if you can't share things you do at work then you have to spend all your free time doing OSS or side projects that you can share on github or no one believes you can actually do what you say you can. Nah, just keep on looking for work at a place that is willing to invest time in evaluating you.
- okatsu 12y ago
  I work for one too and it's hard to even discuss Git itself with someone here; most people just know SVN. The stack in my industry is very stagnant and I think a lot of people just learned what they had to when they were still young and became set in their ways. They have families now and coding has become a 9-to-5 chore; they're not interested in keeping a portfolio up to date or even trying anything new. I'd presume most people who come to HN are interested in evolving their skill set. The common worn-out office drone doesn't visit HN.
  - RemoteWorker 12y ago
    Git != Github. I have always used git, privately (eg: Bitbucket). And if I want to run an open source project, I can very well do that with Bitbucket too. I don't know why employers ask to see a Github profile.
    - okatsu 12y ago
      I never said Git == GitHub. I meant that they don't even know Git, let alone GitHub.
  - zghst 12y ago
    Sadly I know this situation too well and my industry is moving blazing fast (web dev).
- tptacek 12y ago
  It's really true that most developers don't have Github accounts. There's also not a strong correlation between sophistication and having a Github account. Most developers know about Github, of course, and have used it. You know, to get stuff.
- wglb 12y ago
  I suspect so. I have a profile, but there are only some trivial programs there. Of developers that I am contact with these days, maybe at most 10 percent of them have put profiles there.
jekrb 12y ago
| few real-world developers actually have profiles there. What is the actual ratio of developers on github to not on github? All the developers where I work are on github, as well as the developers who I know personally. And if not on github, then bitbucket.
- dublinclontarf 12y ago
  I've got a github account, no public code. All my work is private. How many other people are the same?
  - lhnz 12y ago
    I have a Github and I actually have a few public projects but the vast amount of my work is private. Funny thing is that even if you create side-projects it's unlikely that you'll actually want to make them public. For example, say you want to create a Saas or bootstrap a small startup. The idea of putting all of your execution online for all to see (or borrow) is super scary. For me it's about potential upside. If I take time off work to work on my own projects and I expend 10 hours a day in creating them, am I doing this in order to lock down a better job in a couple of months, or am I doing this because I would like to some day have personally crafted something which creates value for others and allows me to live freely? I think you'd have to be crazy to want to put huge projects online for all to see (particularly as they can often require stigmatising relaxation of processes which don't make as much sense as an individual in order to be able to handle the workload as a sole engineer.) Of course there are those that like to build development tools and libraries for other engineers. That's a priesthood I've not really entered properly - it's hard to create something which isn't just yet another me-too framework, but very respectable if you are able to do this (top ~1%).
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- hunglee2 12y ago
  90% of Stack users do not have Github accounts. That was my intel from an insider source from Stack. Got no proof beyond that but intuitively feels about right. NB: lot of MS guys on Stack - maybe a correlation there
hunglee2 12y ago
Great point jasonkester, We thought long and hard about what type of marketplace we wanted to create. We ultimately felt that there was a requirement to gate the marketplace on both sides to prevent bad actors from parasitizing the site (see LinkedIn). Engineers are in such high demand, that they go, inevitably recruitment agents and others will follow. Github isn't perfect, but we our use of it is primarily as a signal of the type of people we want to attract (developers only) and as an additional admin hurdle for bad actors to have to go through. So, yeah, we took a risk. Higher friction at the both ends (employers are curated, again to stop agents), but our aim is to create a high signal, zero noise matching service for engineers and this was the way to do it. Our plan is to add further login options - bitbucket, stack et al. v2. Hope that explains some thinking about the sign up flow - feel free to ping me any questions! Hung
- nobodysfool 12y ago
  Hung, do you really believe that tech recruiters don't already have github accounts?
  - Benjammer 12y ago
    Along those lines, is a cross-login of any kind really ever a filter for anything? Seems like it's generally more either a huge hassle or something to make seamless login much easier for people who don't care about using their facebook login for everything. Shouldn't the content/workflow/UX of your site be what attracts certain kinds of users and disincentivizes others?
    - hunglee2 12y ago
      Hey Benjammer, You make a very good point about content! Its true, that the content on the platform will determine whether the users get value from it. The caveat missing from your model is there are different types of users, with different, often opposing agendas, who might impact that UX. Suppose for instance, we have a website where the content is generally great tech opportunities with cool companies. Who's interested in that? Engineers interested in job discovery might be and that is precisely our target audience. However, there are others who are also interested in that sort of information - recruiters, for instance, looking for leads. Now this is not the community we are trying to serve. In fact, we know that this demographic has the potential to seriously damage the UX of the employers of the others side of the platform (imagine if you signed up as a hiring manager to Workshape and it was advertised as direct employers only - and all you got in return was recruiters hassling you to give them a mandate to recruit for you...). So, we put into place mechanisms which firstly signal who our audience is, and secondly create friction to get in. We understand that this is at some cost to rapid scale. But we don't value a platform which scales quickly, then equally quickly becomes toxic with the effluent of people who shouldn't be there. Hope that makes sense! Keep the questions coming - feedback is welcome and necessary. Hung

gee_totes 12y ago

My favorite part about the GitHub login is that since I keep my dotfiles on GitHub,these type of applications want to know my skill level and job preference based on the breakdown of languages in my profile. I have yet to see a senior level .vimrc architect job in the wild.

chrisseaton 12y ago

"few real-world developers actually have profiles there" Is that really true? I work for a mega-corp and I still put as much work as I can on GitHub. You always have side projects you can put up there as well.

leftnode 12y ago
I interviewed at Amazon 2 years ago and they wanted to do a real time coding session, but had no way of easily sharing code. I said I'd just post it in a GitHub Gist and read out the URL and he was dumbfounded and had never heard of this before. So yeah, _lots_ of developers don't have GitHub profiles or even know what it is.
untog 12y ago
I think the OP is correct that few developers are on there, but among the crowd this site is likely to want to attract, most are. That said, 99% of my contributions are in private repos, so my profile won't tell you a lot.
EC1 12y ago
We live in a vacuum here on HN. Most developers are not us.
- zghst 12y ago
  It's a good (open discussion, latest topics and trends, expanding the palette with exposure of ideas) and bad thing (secret/slower paced work environments, unexposed devs, rockstars that don't need it, etc).
johnward 12y ago
I work for a megacorp. I have a few unfinished personal projects on github but everything else if confidential. You're not going to find out much about me based on my github account. However, it seems to be a requirement for a lot of jobs these days, especially in startup landia. So if you can't share things you do at work then you have to spend all your free time doing OSS or side projects that you can share on github or no one believes you can actually do what you say you can.
- danielweber 12y ago
  > So if you can't share things you do at work then you have to spend all your free time doing OSS or side projects that you can share on github or no one believes you can actually do what you say you can. Nah, just keep on looking for work at a place that is willing to invest time in evaluating you.
okatsu 12y ago
I work for one too and it's hard to even discuss Git itself with someone here; most people just know SVN. The stack in my industry is very stagnant and I think a lot of people just learned what they had to when they were still young and became set in their ways. They have families now and coding has become a 9-to-5 chore; they're not interested in keeping a portfolio up to date or even trying anything new. I'd presume most people who come to HN are interested in evolving their skill set. The common worn-out office drone doesn't visit HN.
- RemoteWorker 12y ago
  Git != Github. I have always used git, privately (eg: Bitbucket). And if I want to run an open source project, I can very well do that with Bitbucket too. I don't know why employers ask to see a Github profile.
  - okatsu 12y ago
    I never said Git == GitHub. I meant that they don't even know Git, let alone GitHub.
- zghst 12y ago
  Sadly I know this situation too well and my industry is moving blazing fast (web dev).
tptacek 12y ago
It's really true that most developers don't have Github accounts. There's also not a strong correlation between sophistication and having a Github account. Most developers know about Github, of course, and have used it. You know, to get stuff.
wglb 12y ago
I suspect so. I have a profile, but there are only some trivial programs there. Of developers that I am contact with these days, maybe at most 10 percent of them have put profiles there.

jekrb 12y ago

| few real-world developers actually have profiles there. What is the actual ratio of developers on github to not on github? All the developers where I work are on github, as well as the developers who I know personally. And if not on github, then bitbucket.

dublinclontarf 12y ago
I've got a github account, no public code. All my work is private. How many other people are the same?
- lhnz 12y ago
  I have a Github and I actually have a few public projects but the vast amount of my work is private. Funny thing is that even if you create side-projects it's unlikely that you'll actually want to make them public. For example, say you want to create a Saas or bootstrap a small startup. The idea of putting all of your execution online for all to see (or borrow) is super scary. For me it's about potential upside. If I take time off work to work on my own projects and I expend 10 hours a day in creating them, am I doing this in order to lock down a better job in a couple of months, or am I doing this because I would like to some day have personally crafted something which creates value for others and allows me to live freely? I think you'd have to be crazy to want to put huge projects online for all to see (particularly as they can often require stigmatising relaxation of processes which don't make as much sense as an individual in order to be able to handle the workload as a sole engineer.) Of course there are those that like to build development tools and libraries for other engineers. That's a priesthood I've not really entered properly - it's hard to create something which isn't just yet another me-too framework, but very respectable if you are able to do this (top ~1%).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
hunglee2 12y ago
90% of Stack users do not have Github accounts. That was my intel from an insider source from Stack. Got no proof beyond that but intuitively feels about right. NB: lot of MS guys on Stack - maybe a correlation there

hunglee2 12y ago

Great point jasonkester, We thought long and hard about what type of marketplace we wanted to create. We ultimately felt that there was a requirement to gate the marketplace on both sides to prevent bad actors from parasitizing the site (see LinkedIn). Engineers are in such high demand, that they go, inevitably recruitment agents and others will follow. Github isn't perfect, but we our use of it is primarily as a signal of the type of people we want to attract (developers only) and as an additional admin hurdle for bad actors to have to go through. So, yeah, we took a risk. Higher friction at the both ends (employers are curated, again to stop agents), but our aim is to create a high signal, zero noise matching service for engineers and this was the way to do it. Our plan is to add further login options - bitbucket, stack et al. v2. Hope that explains some thinking about the sign up flow - feel free to ping me any questions! Hung

nobodysfool 12y ago
Hung, do you really believe that tech recruiters don't already have github accounts?
- Benjammer 12y ago
  Along those lines, is a cross-login of any kind really ever a filter for anything? Seems like it's generally more either a huge hassle or something to make seamless login much easier for people who don't care about using their facebook login for everything. Shouldn't the content/workflow/UX of your site be what attracts certain kinds of users and disincentivizes others?
  - hunglee2 12y ago
    Hey Benjammer, You make a very good point about content! Its true, that the content on the platform will determine whether the users get value from it. The caveat missing from your model is there are different types of users, with different, often opposing agendas, who might impact that UX. Suppose for instance, we have a website where the content is generally great tech opportunities with cool companies. Who's interested in that? Engineers interested in job discovery might be and that is precisely our target audience. However, there are others who are also interested in that sort of information - recruiters, for instance, looking for leads. Now this is not the community we are trying to serve. In fact, we know that this demographic has the potential to seriously damage the UX of the employers of the others side of the platform (imagine if you signed up as a hiring manager to Workshape and it was advertised as direct employers only - and all you got in return was recruiters hassling you to give them a mandate to recruit for you...). So, we put into place mechanisms which firstly signal who our audience is, and secondly create friction to get in. We understand that this is at some cost to rapid scale. But we don't value a platform which scales quickly, then equally quickly becomes toxic with the effluent of people who shouldn't be there. Hope that makes sense! Keep the questions coming - feedback is welcome and necessary. Hung