15 ms·

I Wouldn't Hire a Programmer With No Interest in Programming Outside of Work

102 points by raganwald 17y ago

mikeryan 17y ago
I agree completely. I built a team of engineers (generally junior devs) all of them had pretty freshly minted degrees and all of them had built something outside of work. This team rocked. This was the single best bar I ever set for hiring young engineers.
angelbob 17y ago
The Hacker News title here is the opposite of the one on the article itself.
- boredguy8 17y ago
  Yeah, I was looking forward to a good contrarian article. But it was worth reading (and right) that hires should come from 'in network'.
- raganwald 17y ago
  fixed, thanks!
RyanMcGreal 17y ago
Perhaps title should be: > I Wouldn't Hire a Programmer With [No] Interest in Programming Outside of Work
kakooljay 17y ago
Paul Graham has a great post about hiring: http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html [Great hackers] Some other good links: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing... http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html
dilap 17y ago
On the flip side, how reasonable is it for an employer to claim ownership of outside-of-work code? And how do you evaluate someone who works at such a place -- certainly, that could be a large incentive to avoid extracurricular projects...
- raganwald 17y ago
  Or an incentive to avoid really strict IP agreements. If an employer asks for ownership of everything you do 24/7/365, what they are saying to you is that when you leave, your portfolio will be a huge blank for the years you are there. That might be fine if they're prestigious, such as perhaps Google, but you really ought to think about taking a few years off being "public" carefully in the context of ever getting a job or being invited to co-found something...
- mikeryan 17y ago
  I can't for the life of me remember the term right now. But I believe these issues are usually actually dictated by state law. I remember vaguely a case based in Texas where the company was able to claim someone's home brewed work as their own.
  - prosa 17y ago
    The term you are looking for is "work for hire". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire#Law_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire#Law_of_the_United...
  - aaronblohowiak 17y ago
    This also depends on the state. yay, california for protecting our rights!!
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hyperbovine 17y ago
Too bad. If he sits around reading math books in his spare time, you just missed out on an incredible opportunity. Seriously, I would be supremely interested in at least getting to know him, if not working with him. Actually managing to go off the grid at 5pm every day takes a lot of self-control. I'll bet most of the people reading this couldn't do it (myself included.) My guess is he spends his non-work time doing something enriching, not just swapping the monitor out for the TV.
- cakesy 17y ago
  There is no point in just reading maths books. That would be not much different to reading books about celebs. You have to get your hands dirty, start exploring theorems, or even start modelling them in the computer. That would be impressive. Someone who just reads maths books is not really bragging about much.
- raganwald 17y ago
  If such a person networks enough to have friends recommend him for the job, I'll meet him. If he doesn't network, I'll miss him. I don't have the patience to sort through thousands of job posting submissions and Indian outsource emails looking for the one incredible opportunity.
UsNThem 17y ago
There seems to be a total flaw in this article.This strategy would make sense if you are hiring someone just to code aka pure code monkey. On the contrary it makes sense to hire someone who is "good (tending to) very good" in his 9 - 5 job and then spends time after work creatively pursing other interests. These people have the most wide ranging spectrum of ideas / creative in their thought and just make more interesting co-workers to have ! I find this useful - Many times, I apply my comp sci ideas and solutions to solve other mundane ( non work )problems. My 2 cents
- raganwald 17y ago
  How do I go about meeting such people? the flaw in the article I see is that it suggests there is a dichotomy between monster.com and networking. Are there other ways to find qualified people that will locate these brilliant programmers who don't do anything programming-related outside of work?
  - techiferous 17y ago
    You can start by not driving them away. Seriously. There are a lot of really good programmers who don't tinker or blog in their spare time. If they come across an employer who makes a categorical statement that "their kind" is not employable, do you think they'll even bother to send in their resume? As another commenter noted, tinkering with programming on the side is a positive indicator, but not tinkering is not a negative indicator. Good programmers notice the logical mistake here, and it is off-putting.
    - raganwald 17y ago
      Your intent is laudable, but your argument seems to miss what I actually said, which was that I personally would never meet them, not that they weren't qualified or weren't employable. I can't hire someone I don't interview. My experience is that "hiring practices" is a very touchy subject. No matter how precisely you express yourself, people will take things personally because their self-worth is loosely connected to whether other people value their potential inclusion in a team. So I'm not even remotely surprised to find comments like yours.
gaius 17y ago
On the other hand: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html It's strictly an 8-to-5 kind of place -- there are late nights, but they're the exception. The programmers are intense, but low-key. Many of them have put in years of work either for IBM (which owned the shuttle group until 1994), or directly on the shuttle software. They're adults, with spouses and kids and lives beyond their remarkable software program.
- dmoney 17y ago
  How can one be intense but low-key?
  - Retric 17y ago
    Don't surf the net at work. Don't take long breaks. Don't waste time on useless things. Only show up when you are healthy and well rested. Only work with talented people who get stuff done. 6-7 hours of real work a day x 5 days a week x 48 weeks a year x 7 people can get huge amount of stuff done. PS: The longer most people are at work each day, the lower percentage of the time they are actually getting stuff done.
    - thwarted 17y ago
      Of course, the ratio of work-done to at-work is going to down as at-work goes up, even if work-done remains constant. This is why you should go home at the point where work-done equals at-work, so the ratio remains at 1, even if work-done and at-work are both less than 8. Most companies don't like people working significantly less than 40 hours a week, however.
smakz 17y ago
What I do outside of work is none of my employers business - period. I'm surprised I'm the only one that finds this practice offensive? For the record I have known many, many engineers who devote themselves 100% passionately to their 9-5 jobs and when they get home, they relax and do other things. These people are the type of people I would hire in my organization in a heartbeat. I have also known the 'entrepreneurial' type of developers who have side projects and while they are generally good workers, a few of them are more interested in their side project then their actual day job and their work quality has suffered. Hire the people with the skills and aptitude to do the job, leave their personal lives out of it.
- potatolicious 17y ago
  Mmmm, I interpret this practice a little bit differently. I wouldn't hire someone who isn't passionate about programming. Many of the people I work with today rarely code outside of work - kids, hobbies, friends, etc. This is okay. But what you really want is one of the guys who stayed up all night in college to bang out the latest and greatest piece of code. You want the people who genuinely love doing this - because there are twice as many people who slummed their way through CS doing the bare minimum necessary. I work with both types, and as the former type I cannot stand working with the latter.
  - bdotdub 17y ago
    I agree completely. I don't think it should be how many hours you put into a side project or how much time you spend coding something outside of work. It comes down to whether the person really enjoys tinkering with (new) technologies. It shouldn't matter if you don't code outside of work and it isn't your employers business. But if you do code outside of work, it definitely says a lot about your character and how you regard technology. My coworker said to me once, "There are those who do technology as a job, and there are those who do it as a passion. We want the latter"
    - gaius 17y ago
      "There are those who do technology as a job, and there are those who do it as a passion. We want the latter" Every company wants the best employees, but how many want to pay the best salaries?
aaronblohowiak 17y ago
Working 6 days a week with 60-hour weeks, how is a startup employee supposed to do anything other than chores and the occasional date outside of work? Maids, cooks, personal shoppers?
- anonjon 17y ago
  That's only 10 hours a day! You've got to get into a polyphasic sleep pattern and work sundays. Then you'll have time for your outside of work 'hobby' coding.
henriklied 17y ago
I must say, I agree. Having _no_ interest in programming outside work begs the question: Why is it your day job? Although I don't work on too many spare projects on my own, I read a whole lotta websites relating to programming (this site, for instance..) and catch up on relevant news and technologies. If the title was "No, I wouldn't hire a programmer who isn't cranking out code every hour he's awake", I'd definitely disagree. But, in my opinion, in this business, you really need to know what's going on. And unless you're in a research position at your day job, I'm guessing your boss wouldn't want you to spend working hours studying every interesting story on HN. Ergo, you'd read up on your spare time. That's not to say you shouldn't have hobbies. A three year old Norwegian study [1] shows that IT-engineers have the largest burnout-rate of all occupations. It's important to relax, find something that makes you feel disconnected (my love for the moment is mountain biking, but whatever floats your boat). [1] Google translate of Norwegian article about burnout-rates in the IT-industry: http://bit.ly/it-burnout http://bit.ly/it-burnout
- turtle4 17y ago
  You ask "Why is it your day job?" Because I spend the largest part of my life at my day job, and want to work on something I am passionate about during that time. However I am also a person with many additional interests and desires, such as playing sports, reading, art, and music and since each of those are deep areas of interest themselves, they all occupy parts of my non-working life, while being balanced with my family. There are plenty of people who feel this way. They are well balanced individuals who are effective at their jobs, and passionate about them. But there are only so many hours in a day. Working isn't just about time spent coding. It is about working well in a team, and relating with your customers, and understanding social issues as well as technical ones. Someone who only codes is simply more likely to be underdeveloped in one of those areas. It is just a stupid qualifier. If you are hiring a marketer, would you only hire someone who telemarkets from home on their off time because they enjoy it? That's just stupid. Someone who has side projects at home -might- be a more experienced developer. Or they could be a poorly rounded individual. Someone who doesn't work on side projects at home -might- be non-passionate. Or they might be very passionate and effective, and simply more well rounded. To say you would always require one or the other is just dumb.
azanar 17y ago
This post actually presents two premises. The first, that programmer hacking on their own projects, I agree is a very positive indicator. If they don't, it may or may not be a negative indicator, depending on the circumstances. However, I've found the combination of someone who really has the itch to hack in their own time, and that same someone who honestly can't find the time is rare. More often, after enough prodding, they'll admit they just aren't that interested, and that it is "just a job like any other". The second, that selecting candidates based upon social connections is an optimal strategy, I approach with some caution. This is not to say that it isn't the best way for raganwald to do things, but I have seen people develop insurmountable confirmation biases simply because someone they know gave a candidate the thumbs up. A lackluster interview performance wasn't enough to overcome this; poor performance once hired wasn't enough either. The trust the hirer puts in their network to suggest the right people must be for the right reasons. This, in a person's profession network, is rather rare. More often, two people knowing one another is the basis for a referral, rather than what the two people know about one another. This works ok in situations where the primary goal is to find a good social fit, but it is like throwing dice when determining if the candidate is capable of performing the required duties. In a lot of cases, both parties just don't care; the referral is a social, not economic or professional, transaction. Luckily for both parties, many companies don't care that much either. Mediocrity is not really affected by the introduction of more mediocrity, so neither party ends up with a tarnished image. This sort of politicing sucks. My perspective on this is much the same as Joel Spolsky's -- or at least the perspective he used to have. If a particular candidate comes pre-recommended by someone, I'm really hesitant to know that. If I'm the person doing the recommending, I always wonder whether I'm doing it because this person is a genuinely good fit, or if I am just feeling the pressure to be a good friend. If I was both introduced to him and one of the one's vetting him, I'd be really concerned that my bias is way too strong for me to make an honest, objective decision. Hiring people based on a blind resume submission sucks, too, and I don't know of any other alternatives. But I worry we have a blind spot to the biases of this method of finding candidates, simply because we want to believe the best in everyone we know.
- raganwald 17y ago
  Elsewhere, Giles Bowkett described hiring through networking, HN, blogging, twitter, and so forth as being "inbreeding" and would produce "retarded" results. I <3 Giles! http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/3488885664/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/3488885664/ p.s. Giles was positively kind in comparison to discussions elsewhere. It really shows that individual communities do have a very strong cultural bias, which I think supports your point and his: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9s5pd/no_i_wouldnt_hire_a_programmer_that_has_no/ http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9s5pd/no_i_woul...
lackbeard 17y ago
I worked with an extremely smart and productive programmer who only worked M-F 7-4, and never did any programming outside of work. Any company would be lucky to have him.
- cakesy 17y ago
  Ok, so you are no good at statistics (your anecdote means very little), why should we trust you to judge a programmers ability. You know how hard it is to actually measure how productive a programmer is, he could be writing absolute crap, that just gets the job done. The projects he has could be very simple. And someone smart might just be someone who can switch a computer on, to a lot of people.
techiferous 17y ago
As a developer, I take it as a red flag whenever I hear a prospective employer categorically state "I would never hire a programmer that X." First of all, it's a heuristic. If a programmer doesn't program outside of work, it could be that they are not passionate and don't take the time to keep their skills sharp. It could also be that they are a polymath genius, and simply can't function unless their life is full of a variety of interests. Hiring heuristics are appropriate when there are too many applicants. For the sake of efficiency, you need some way to narrow down the huge stack of applications. However, if you are having a hard time finding developers, that's not the time to use heuristics. It tells me something about a prospective employer's problem-solving skills and imagination when they would not consider interviewing someone for a single reason, such as not having a blog. That's like being a one-issue voter. Also, these heuristics have a way of confirming themselves. The person who hires only programmers who do X will probably end up finding decent programmers anyway, but they will be oblivious about the ones that got away.
- swombat 17y ago
  What if the employer says: "I would never hire a programmer that sucks"? Seems pretty reasonable to filter out people who are bad at their job. So your argument is really one of breadth - breadth of the filter. From my point of view as a programmer, I certainly do believe that programming outside of your job is an extremely good predictor of passion, which is a great predictor of ability as a developer, particularly for younger people. I might consider a 40-year old who doesn't program for fun anymore, maybe. I wouldn't bother interviewing a 25 year old who never saw a point in coding outside of university/work.
  - techiferous 17y ago
    "I certainly do believe that programming outside of your job is an extremely good predictor of passion" Yes, I think that's the point. Is this a good predictor? If you are a young, single male, then maybe so. There are many other reasons besides lack of passion that can prevent a passionate programmer from programming outside of work.
msluyter 17y ago
I would if I could, but my hands, back, and eyes can't take it. I do a lot of technical reading instead.
tolmasky 17y ago
The answers to this are so ridiculous. "Well too bad because as it turns out when he goes home he cures cancer, with paper and pencil!" Is it really necessary to explain that the point is that this person clearly isn't passionate about his work, as demonstrated by having zero outside interest in the subject. Clearly if he is a genius and has some amazing reason this doesn't apply. More importantly the point of this article wasn't so much that he wouldn't be hired out of spite or something, but that he would never even get to know these people and thus get a chance to interview. This is of course obviously true and has nothing to do with "privacy" concerns. If you are an active member of the community, then you will inevitably meet other people in this field and get opportunities that just won't show up in the classifieds, there's nothing controversial about it.
- deleted 17y ago
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maxklein 17y ago
Well, maybe he would not want to work with you either? Did you consider that? That you may be so one-dimensional that your programmer with slightly more diverse interests would find you and your job a boring place!
- raganwald 17y ago
  I wouldn't be offended at all if anyone finds my personal life too boring and one-dimensional for their tastes. http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/3983773743/in/set-72157622397631319/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/3983773743/in/set-721... http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/15825489/in/set-72157606261432453/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/15825489/in/set-72157... http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/525184427/in/set-72157606261432453/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/525184427/in/set-7215...
  - wallflower 17y ago
    You don't mess around. Thanks for being an excellent example of an adventurist doing activities where people don't care what you do for a living. 5.0 level rock climbing. I'd be more impressed though if you were a trials rider :)
protomyth 17y ago
A friend of mine always asked the following question in interviews: "What was the last program you wrote that wasn't for work or a programming assignment?" He just wanted an answer that wasn't "I have never programmed just for myself". Every other craftsman will use their talents for their own purposes, so it is generally a good sign if programmers do the same.
indra 17y ago
I understand the employer's point of view: Such mono-track, passionate programmers will be easy to exploit to work long hours and weekends.
- robotron 17y ago
  I think your post sums it up. I can't imagine someone wanting to actually hire one-dimensional droids except for this.
heresyforme 17y ago
Watch what questions you ask about a persons personal life in an interview. Depending on how and what you ask, you could set yourself up for legal action.
gorbachev 17y ago
I guess he's not hiring a whole lot of people with families then. When I was 20 I had a LOT of free time in my hands. I spent some of it doing programming. I'm no longer 20, and I have two kids who require near constant attention from my wife and I and I'll be damned if I spend any of my scarce free time doing programming. I have far better ways to spend my time these days. Mainly sleeping.
- yardie 17y ago
  Agree. When I was younger I built this monster ESX server for all my programming whims. Now, the server is still there, but it's primary job is a NAS for my kids' DVD collection. I sit in front of it maybe once a week. Most of my hobby programming is now done at work. Friday afternoons are set aside to experimental stuff that may or may not be related to work.
plinkplonk 17y ago
I've seen really good programmers(at ThoughtWorks for example) who didn't code at home at all. If you have an interesting job that leads you to code eight hours a day (typically the case at TW, if you find enterprise sw, agile, XP etc interesting), I can understand why you wouldn't want to code at home. If you are coding a solid eight hours a day, you are probbaly exhausted when you get home and don't want to see more code on the weekends. Playing with your kids beats coding any day. That said, would I be inclined a bit more toward someone who had say Open Source contributions? Of course, it would be foolish not to. I guess most of the debate is centred around the binary nature of the decision - will hire/ won't hire. Move to a more flexible non-binary judgment and it looks more reasonable. Personally, I am open to hire both kinds of devs, but I'd prefer someone who had a side project / Open source cred etc.
- cracki 17y ago
  8 hours inevitably leads to exhaustion. 7 hours is the limit, for me and many others.
fnid 17y ago
On the contrary side, it is interesting that this opinion is held of hackers, but would be ridiculous to consider for other fields. Imagine expecting an admin assistant to do personal admin assistant projects at home, or a bus driver to drive around just for the heck of it. It makes me curious which fields lend themselves well to having fun time outside work doing the same things. I can imagine car mechanics tinkering with their own cars after work. I can imagine chefs cooking for their friends. Do sports commentators call out shots at home or at the local sports bar when they are off work? How about journalists? Do they write for fun?
- plinkplonk 17y ago
  "On the contrary side, it is interesting that this opinion is held of hackers, but would be ridiculous to consider for other fields" Well Imagine a musician who never played except when he was on stage. Or a golfer who only plays at championships. The key is (more than whether one works at home or not, which I think is a mistaken emphasis) is to be able to see output so you can judge its quality. You could ask a musician auditioning for an orchestra to play a few pieces or a juggler to actually juggle 5 clubs. The problem is that there isn't a coding equivalent. Most developers who code only at work can't show you any of the resultant code. An interview is too short a time to ask someone to code anything meaningful. Having some independent work he can show makes evaluating a candidate much easier.
  - yardie 17y ago
    If you are a professional it just might be that. A lot of artists and athletes have insurance contracts that require them to only do work when they are working. This is why you'll rarely hear of a basketball player doing a pickup game. A sprained ankle or blown knee off the court and they can, really, lose everything. Most of them do enjoy the game so they'll play in disguise or an alias. When millions of dollars are on the line, sometimes, your passion can become your prison.
- zumda 17y ago
  These people actually do that! My mother is a "admin assistant" at work, and she does "admin assistant" work at home for two clubs she's part of. And a month ago a bus driver I know drove me and some relatives around for 6 hours just for the heck of it. And journalists do write for fun, ever heard of blogs? And my brother as a mechanical engineer recently fixed some headphones (they were cheap for 20 bucks or so, so he could have bought new ones easily). While it seems that only hackers do that, everyone does it more or less as long as they are passionate about their jobs. They just aren't as visible as the hacker crowd that develops Linux as a hobby.
known 17y ago
Is this rule plausible for other professions viz lawyers, doctors?
hal10001 17y ago
So what? To any developer concerned that you'll be ostracized by a potential employer because you don't have an interest in programming outside of work, let me give you a piece of advice. Employers who think they can define your work ethic on the job based upon what you do as a hobby outside of work, are some of the worst people to work for in this industry. If you want to let your hobby be your work, then more power to you, but you are in the vast minority. To everyone else, take heart in knowing that just because a few managers feel this way, it doesn't make it some industry standard we must all follow like sheep. Programmers -- go home at night, and be home. Enjoy your family, your friends, other hobbies, recreational pursuits, the environment... do what you enjoy in life. More than likely you'll be the group of developers that actually brings new, fresh insights to the table, because you're not living in a box coding 24/7, but you're living in the real world.
Scott_MacGregor 17y ago
While the interviewer/writer might seem a little flippant or lacking in eloquence with his description of the event, in the long run he would probably be making the best decision for the company. It seems like when he interviews he likes to hire those with a higher level of dedication to (more love of) coding. Perhaps as an interviewer his real concern here isn’t so much what someone does in their off-time, but rather he looks for a good fit with the rest of the team. If the current engineers are all about the never-ending love of coding and the new hire was not, the overall cohesion and possibly productivity of the group may suffer. “Ducks of a feather...” There are complaints all over the web about new hires who are perceived as slackers, or a know nothings, being hired on in hardworking departments (at good companies) and sometimes even being promoted up and up the ladder to the chagrin of the current employees. It can cause deep animosity towards the company and increased turnover of good people. Perhaps you have worked somewhere where this has happened and experienced it first-hand, or know someone who has.
TrevorJ 17y ago
I think in any field that requires thought, you are much better off hiring people who are just plain interested in thinking. That is to say, if somebody is a lifelong learner and has passion for it, I'd hire them way before somebody who lives, breathes and eats a particular language 24/7. People who are interested in the world around them spend their lives increasing a well of knowledge that comes in handy in remarkable ways, not to mention the fact that they know how to learn what they need to know, when they need to know it.

102 points by raganwald 17y ago

I agree completely. I built a team of engineers (generally junior devs) all of them had pretty freshly minted degrees and all of them had built something outside of work. This team rocked. This was the single best bar I ever set for hiring young engineers.

angelbob 17y ago

The Hacker News title here is the opposite of the one on the article itself.

boredguy8 17y ago
Yeah, I was looking forward to a good contrarian article. But it was worth reading (and right) that hires should come from 'in network'.
raganwald 17y ago
fixed, thanks!

RyanMcGreal 17y ago

Perhaps title should be: > I Wouldn't Hire a Programmer With [No] Interest in Programming Outside of Work

kakooljay 17y ago

Paul Graham has a great post about hiring: http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html [Great hackers] Some other good links: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing... http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html

dilap 17y ago

On the flip side, how reasonable is it for an employer to claim ownership of outside-of-work code? And how do you evaluate someone who works at such a place -- certainly, that could be a large incentive to avoid extracurricular projects...

raganwald 17y ago
Or an incentive to avoid really strict IP agreements. If an employer asks for ownership of everything you do 24/7/365, what they are saying to you is that when you leave, your portfolio will be a huge blank for the years you are there. That might be fine if they're prestigious, such as perhaps Google, but you really ought to think about taking a few years off being "public" carefully in the context of ever getting a job or being invited to co-found something...
mikeryan 17y ago
I can't for the life of me remember the term right now. But I believe these issues are usually actually dictated by state law. I remember vaguely a case based in Texas where the company was able to claim someone's home brewed work as their own.
- prosa 17y ago
  The term you are looking for is "work for hire". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire#Law_of_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire#Law_of_the_United...
- aaronblohowiak 17y ago
  This also depends on the state. yay, california for protecting our rights!!
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hyperbovine 17y ago

Too bad. If he sits around reading math books in his spare time, you just missed out on an incredible opportunity. Seriously, I would be supremely interested in at least getting to know him, if not working with him. Actually managing to go off the grid at 5pm every day takes a lot of self-control. I'll bet most of the people reading this couldn't do it (myself included.) My guess is he spends his non-work time doing something enriching, not just swapping the monitor out for the TV.

cakesy 17y ago
There is no point in just reading maths books. That would be not much different to reading books about celebs. You have to get your hands dirty, start exploring theorems, or even start modelling them in the computer. That would be impressive. Someone who just reads maths books is not really bragging about much.
raganwald 17y ago
If such a person networks enough to have friends recommend him for the job, I'll meet him. If he doesn't network, I'll miss him. I don't have the patience to sort through thousands of job posting submissions and Indian outsource emails looking for the one incredible opportunity.

UsNThem 17y ago

There seems to be a total flaw in this article.This strategy would make sense if you are hiring someone just to code aka pure code monkey. On the contrary it makes sense to hire someone who is "good (tending to) very good" in his 9 - 5 job and then spends time after work creatively pursing other interests. These people have the most wide ranging spectrum of ideas / creative in their thought and just make more interesting co-workers to have ! I find this useful - Many times, I apply my comp sci ideas and solutions to solve other mundane ( non work )problems. My 2 cents

raganwald 17y ago
How do I go about meeting such people? the flaw in the article I see is that it suggests there is a dichotomy between monster.com and networking. Are there other ways to find qualified people that will locate these brilliant programmers who don't do anything programming-related outside of work?
- techiferous 17y ago
  You can start by not driving them away. Seriously. There are a lot of really good programmers who don't tinker or blog in their spare time. If they come across an employer who makes a categorical statement that "their kind" is not employable, do you think they'll even bother to send in their resume? As another commenter noted, tinkering with programming on the side is a positive indicator, but not tinkering is not a negative indicator. Good programmers notice the logical mistake here, and it is off-putting.
  - raganwald 17y ago
    Your intent is laudable, but your argument seems to miss what I actually said, which was that I personally would never meet them, not that they weren't qualified or weren't employable. I can't hire someone I don't interview. My experience is that "hiring practices" is a very touchy subject. No matter how precisely you express yourself, people will take things personally because their self-worth is loosely connected to whether other people value their potential inclusion in a team. So I'm not even remotely surprised to find comments like yours.

gaius 17y ago

On the other hand: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/06/writestuff.html It's strictly an 8-to-5 kind of place -- there are late nights, but they're the exception. The programmers are intense, but low-key. Many of them have put in years of work either for IBM (which owned the shuttle group until 1994), or directly on the shuttle software. They're adults, with spouses and kids and lives beyond their remarkable software program.

dmoney 17y ago
How can one be intense but low-key?
- Retric 17y ago
  Don't surf the net at work. Don't take long breaks. Don't waste time on useless things. Only show up when you are healthy and well rested. Only work with talented people who get stuff done. 6-7 hours of real work a day x 5 days a week x 48 weeks a year x 7 people can get huge amount of stuff done. PS: The longer most people are at work each day, the lower percentage of the time they are actually getting stuff done.
  - thwarted 17y ago
    Of course, the ratio of work-done to at-work is going to down as at-work goes up, even if work-done remains constant. This is why you should go home at the point where work-done equals at-work, so the ratio remains at 1, even if work-done and at-work are both less than 8. Most companies don't like people working significantly less than 40 hours a week, however.

smakz 17y ago

What I do outside of work is none of my employers business - period. I'm surprised I'm the only one that finds this practice offensive? For the record I have known many, many engineers who devote themselves 100% passionately to their 9-5 jobs and when they get home, they relax and do other things. These people are the type of people I would hire in my organization in a heartbeat. I have also known the 'entrepreneurial' type of developers who have side projects and while they are generally good workers, a few of them are more interested in their side project then their actual day job and their work quality has suffered. Hire the people with the skills and aptitude to do the job, leave their personal lives out of it.

potatolicious 17y ago
Mmmm, I interpret this practice a little bit differently. I wouldn't hire someone who isn't passionate about programming. Many of the people I work with today rarely code outside of work - kids, hobbies, friends, etc. This is okay. But what you really want is one of the guys who stayed up all night in college to bang out the latest and greatest piece of code. You want the people who genuinely love doing this - because there are twice as many people who slummed their way through CS doing the bare minimum necessary. I work with both types, and as the former type I cannot stand working with the latter.
- bdotdub 17y ago
  I agree completely. I don't think it should be how many hours you put into a side project or how much time you spend coding something outside of work. It comes down to whether the person really enjoys tinkering with (new) technologies. It shouldn't matter if you don't code outside of work and it isn't your employers business. But if you do code outside of work, it definitely says a lot about your character and how you regard technology. My coworker said to me once, "There are those who do technology as a job, and there are those who do it as a passion. We want the latter"
  - gaius 17y ago
    "There are those who do technology as a job, and there are those who do it as a passion. We want the latter" Every company wants the best employees, but how many want to pay the best salaries?

aaronblohowiak 17y ago

Working 6 days a week with 60-hour weeks, how is a startup employee supposed to do anything other than chores and the occasional date outside of work? Maids, cooks, personal shoppers?

anonjon 17y ago
That's only 10 hours a day! You've got to get into a polyphasic sleep pattern and work sundays. Then you'll have time for your outside of work 'hobby' coding.

henriklied 17y ago

I must say, I agree. Having _no_ interest in programming outside work begs the question: Why is it your day job? Although I don't work on too many spare projects on my own, I read a whole lotta websites relating to programming (this site, for instance..) and catch up on relevant news and technologies. If the title was "No, I wouldn't hire a programmer who isn't cranking out code every hour he's awake", I'd definitely disagree. But, in my opinion, in this business, you really need to know what's going on. And unless you're in a research position at your day job, I'm guessing your boss wouldn't want you to spend working hours studying every interesting story on HN. Ergo, you'd read up on your spare time. That's not to say you shouldn't have hobbies. A three year old Norwegian study [1] shows that IT-engineers have the largest burnout-rate of all occupations. It's important to relax, find something that makes you feel disconnected (my love for the moment is mountain biking, but whatever floats your boat). [1] Google translate of Norwegian article about burnout-rates in the IT-industry: http://bit.ly/it-burnout http://bit.ly/it-burnout

turtle4 17y ago
You ask "Why is it your day job?" Because I spend the largest part of my life at my day job, and want to work on something I am passionate about during that time. However I am also a person with many additional interests and desires, such as playing sports, reading, art, and music and since each of those are deep areas of interest themselves, they all occupy parts of my non-working life, while being balanced with my family. There are plenty of people who feel this way. They are well balanced individuals who are effective at their jobs, and passionate about them. But there are only so many hours in a day. Working isn't just about time spent coding. It is about working well in a team, and relating with your customers, and understanding social issues as well as technical ones. Someone who only codes is simply more likely to be underdeveloped in one of those areas. It is just a stupid qualifier. If you are hiring a marketer, would you only hire someone who telemarkets from home on their off time because they enjoy it? That's just stupid. Someone who has side projects at home -might- be a more experienced developer. Or they could be a poorly rounded individual. Someone who doesn't work on side projects at home -might- be non-passionate. Or they might be very passionate and effective, and simply more well rounded. To say you would always require one or the other is just dumb.

azanar 17y ago

This post actually presents two premises. The first, that programmer hacking on their own projects, I agree is a very positive indicator. If they don't, it may or may not be a negative indicator, depending on the circumstances. However, I've found the combination of someone who really has the itch to hack in their own time, and that same someone who honestly can't find the time is rare. More often, after enough prodding, they'll admit they just aren't that interested, and that it is "just a job like any other". The second, that selecting candidates based upon social connections is an optimal strategy, I approach with some caution. This is not to say that it isn't the best way for raganwald to do things, but I have seen people develop insurmountable confirmation biases simply because someone they know gave a candidate the thumbs up. A lackluster interview performance wasn't enough to overcome this; poor performance once hired wasn't enough either. The trust the hirer puts in their network to suggest the right people must be for the right reasons. This, in a person's profession network, is rather rare. More often, two people knowing one another is the basis for a referral, rather than what the two people know about one another. This works ok in situations where the primary goal is to find a good social fit, but it is like throwing dice when determining if the candidate is capable of performing the required duties. In a lot of cases, both parties just don't care; the referral is a social, not economic or professional, transaction. Luckily for both parties, many companies don't care that much either. Mediocrity is not really affected by the introduction of more mediocrity, so neither party ends up with a tarnished image. This sort of politicing sucks. My perspective on this is much the same as Joel Spolsky's -- or at least the perspective he used to have. If a particular candidate comes pre-recommended by someone, I'm really hesitant to know that. If I'm the person doing the recommending, I always wonder whether I'm doing it because this person is a genuinely good fit, or if I am just feeling the pressure to be a good friend. If I was both introduced to him and one of the one's vetting him, I'd be really concerned that my bias is way too strong for me to make an honest, objective decision. Hiring people based on a blind resume submission sucks, too, and I don't know of any other alternatives. But I worry we have a blind spot to the biases of this method of finding candidates, simply because we want to believe the best in everyone we know.

raganwald 17y ago
Elsewhere, Giles Bowkett described hiring through networking, HN, blogging, twitter, and so forth as being "inbreeding" and would produce "retarded" results. I <3 Giles! http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/3488885664/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/3488885664/ p.s. Giles was positively kind in comparison to discussions elsewhere. It really shows that individual communities do have a very strong cultural bias, which I think supports your point and his: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9s5pd/no_i_wouldnt_hire_a_programmer_that_has_no/ http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9s5pd/no_i_woul...

lackbeard 17y ago

I worked with an extremely smart and productive programmer who only worked M-F 7-4, and never did any programming outside of work. Any company would be lucky to have him.

cakesy 17y ago
Ok, so you are no good at statistics (your anecdote means very little), why should we trust you to judge a programmers ability. You know how hard it is to actually measure how productive a programmer is, he could be writing absolute crap, that just gets the job done. The projects he has could be very simple. And someone smart might just be someone who can switch a computer on, to a lot of people.

techiferous 17y ago

As a developer, I take it as a red flag whenever I hear a prospective employer categorically state "I would never hire a programmer that X." First of all, it's a heuristic. If a programmer doesn't program outside of work, it could be that they are not passionate and don't take the time to keep their skills sharp. It could also be that they are a polymath genius, and simply can't function unless their life is full of a variety of interests. Hiring heuristics are appropriate when there are too many applicants. For the sake of efficiency, you need some way to narrow down the huge stack of applications. However, if you are having a hard time finding developers, that's not the time to use heuristics. It tells me something about a prospective employer's problem-solving skills and imagination when they would not consider interviewing someone for a single reason, such as not having a blog. That's like being a one-issue voter. Also, these heuristics have a way of confirming themselves. The person who hires only programmers who do X will probably end up finding decent programmers anyway, but they will be oblivious about the ones that got away.

swombat 17y ago
What if the employer says: "I would never hire a programmer that sucks"? Seems pretty reasonable to filter out people who are bad at their job. So your argument is really one of breadth - breadth of the filter. From my point of view as a programmer, I certainly do believe that programming outside of your job is an extremely good predictor of passion, which is a great predictor of ability as a developer, particularly for younger people. I might consider a 40-year old who doesn't program for fun anymore, maybe. I wouldn't bother interviewing a 25 year old who never saw a point in coding outside of university/work.
- techiferous 17y ago
  "I certainly do believe that programming outside of your job is an extremely good predictor of passion" Yes, I think that's the point. Is this a good predictor? If you are a young, single male, then maybe so. There are many other reasons besides lack of passion that can prevent a passionate programmer from programming outside of work.

msluyter 17y ago

I would if I could, but my hands, back, and eyes can't take it. I do a lot of technical reading instead.

tolmasky 17y ago

The answers to this are so ridiculous. "Well too bad because as it turns out when he goes home he cures cancer, with paper and pencil!" Is it really necessary to explain that the point is that this person clearly isn't passionate about his work, as demonstrated by having zero outside interest in the subject. Clearly if he is a genius and has some amazing reason this doesn't apply. More importantly the point of this article wasn't so much that he wouldn't be hired out of spite or something, but that he would never even get to know these people and thus get a chance to interview. This is of course obviously true and has nothing to do with "privacy" concerns. If you are an active member of the community, then you will inevitably meet other people in this field and get opportunities that just won't show up in the classifieds, there's nothing controversial about it.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

maxklein 17y ago

Well, maybe he would not want to work with you either? Did you consider that? That you may be so one-dimensional that your programmer with slightly more diverse interests would find you and your job a boring place!

raganwald 17y ago
I wouldn't be offended at all if anyone finds my personal life too boring and one-dimensional for their tastes. http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/3983773743/in/set-72157622397631319/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/3983773743/in/set-721... http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/15825489/in/set-72157606261432453/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/15825489/in/set-72157... http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/525184427/in/set-72157606261432453/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/raganwald/525184427/in/set-7215...
- wallflower 17y ago
  You don't mess around. Thanks for being an excellent example of an adventurist doing activities where people don't care what you do for a living. 5.0 level rock climbing. I'd be more impressed though if you were a trials rider :)

protomyth 17y ago

A friend of mine always asked the following question in interviews: "What was the last program you wrote that wasn't for work or a programming assignment?" He just wanted an answer that wasn't "I have never programmed just for myself". Every other craftsman will use their talents for their own purposes, so it is generally a good sign if programmers do the same.

indra 17y ago

I understand the employer's point of view: Such mono-track, passionate programmers will be easy to exploit to work long hours and weekends.

robotron 17y ago
I think your post sums it up. I can't imagine someone wanting to actually hire one-dimensional droids except for this.

heresyforme 17y ago

Watch what questions you ask about a persons personal life in an interview. Depending on how and what you ask, you could set yourself up for legal action.

gorbachev 17y ago

I guess he's not hiring a whole lot of people with families then. When I was 20 I had a LOT of free time in my hands. I spent some of it doing programming. I'm no longer 20, and I have two kids who require near constant attention from my wife and I and I'll be damned if I spend any of my scarce free time doing programming. I have far better ways to spend my time these days. Mainly sleeping.

yardie 17y ago
Agree. When I was younger I built this monster ESX server for all my programming whims. Now, the server is still there, but it's primary job is a NAS for my kids' DVD collection. I sit in front of it maybe once a week. Most of my hobby programming is now done at work. Friday afternoons are set aside to experimental stuff that may or may not be related to work.

plinkplonk 17y ago

I've seen really good programmers(at ThoughtWorks for example) who didn't code at home at all. If you have an interesting job that leads you to code eight hours a day (typically the case at TW, if you find enterprise sw, agile, XP etc interesting), I can understand why you wouldn't want to code at home. If you are coding a solid eight hours a day, you are probbaly exhausted when you get home and don't want to see more code on the weekends. Playing with your kids beats coding any day. That said, would I be inclined a bit more toward someone who had say Open Source contributions? Of course, it would be foolish not to. I guess most of the debate is centred around the binary nature of the decision - will hire/ won't hire. Move to a more flexible non-binary judgment and it looks more reasonable. Personally, I am open to hire both kinds of devs, but I'd prefer someone who had a side project / Open source cred etc.

cracki 17y ago
8 hours inevitably leads to exhaustion. 7 hours is the limit, for me and many others.

fnid 17y ago

On the contrary side, it is interesting that this opinion is held of hackers, but would be ridiculous to consider for other fields. Imagine expecting an admin assistant to do personal admin assistant projects at home, or a bus driver to drive around just for the heck of it. It makes me curious which fields lend themselves well to having fun time outside work doing the same things. I can imagine car mechanics tinkering with their own cars after work. I can imagine chefs cooking for their friends. Do sports commentators call out shots at home or at the local sports bar when they are off work? How about journalists? Do they write for fun?

plinkplonk 17y ago
"On the contrary side, it is interesting that this opinion is held of hackers, but would be ridiculous to consider for other fields" Well Imagine a musician who never played except when he was on stage. Or a golfer who only plays at championships. The key is (more than whether one works at home or not, which I think is a mistaken emphasis) is to be able to see output so you can judge its quality. You could ask a musician auditioning for an orchestra to play a few pieces or a juggler to actually juggle 5 clubs. The problem is that there isn't a coding equivalent. Most developers who code only at work can't show you any of the resultant code. An interview is too short a time to ask someone to code anything meaningful. Having some independent work he can show makes evaluating a candidate much easier.
- yardie 17y ago
  If you are a professional it just might be that. A lot of artists and athletes have insurance contracts that require them to only do work when they are working. This is why you'll rarely hear of a basketball player doing a pickup game. A sprained ankle or blown knee off the court and they can, really, lose everything. Most of them do enjoy the game so they'll play in disguise or an alias. When millions of dollars are on the line, sometimes, your passion can become your prison.
zumda 17y ago
These people actually do that! My mother is a "admin assistant" at work, and she does "admin assistant" work at home for two clubs she's part of. And a month ago a bus driver I know drove me and some relatives around for 6 hours just for the heck of it. And journalists do write for fun, ever heard of blogs? And my brother as a mechanical engineer recently fixed some headphones (they were cheap for 20 bucks or so, so he could have bought new ones easily). While it seems that only hackers do that, everyone does it more or less as long as they are passionate about their jobs. They just aren't as visible as the hacker crowd that develops Linux as a hobby.

known 17y ago

Is this rule plausible for other professions viz lawyers, doctors?

hal10001 17y ago

So what? To any developer concerned that you'll be ostracized by a potential employer because you don't have an interest in programming outside of work, let me give you a piece of advice. Employers who think they can define your work ethic on the job based upon what you do as a hobby outside of work, are some of the worst people to work for in this industry. If you want to let your hobby be your work, then more power to you, but you are in the vast minority. To everyone else, take heart in knowing that just because a few managers feel this way, it doesn't make it some industry standard we must all follow like sheep. Programmers -- go home at night, and be home. Enjoy your family, your friends, other hobbies, recreational pursuits, the environment... do what you enjoy in life. More than likely you'll be the group of developers that actually brings new, fresh insights to the table, because you're not living in a box coding 24/7, but you're living in the real world.

Scott_MacGregor 17y ago

While the interviewer/writer might seem a little flippant or lacking in eloquence with his description of the event, in the long run he would probably be making the best decision for the company. It seems like when he interviews he likes to hire those with a higher level of dedication to (more love of) coding. Perhaps as an interviewer his real concern here isn’t so much what someone does in their off-time, but rather he looks for a good fit with the rest of the team. If the current engineers are all about the never-ending love of coding and the new hire was not, the overall cohesion and possibly productivity of the group may suffer. “Ducks of a feather...” There are complaints all over the web about new hires who are perceived as slackers, or a know nothings, being hired on in hardworking departments (at good companies) and sometimes even being promoted up and up the ladder to the chagrin of the current employees. It can cause deep animosity towards the company and increased turnover of good people. Perhaps you have worked somewhere where this has happened and experienced it first-hand, or know someone who has.

TrevorJ 17y ago

I think in any field that requires thought, you are much better off hiring people who are just plain interested in thinking. That is to say, if somebody is a lifelong learner and has passion for it, I'd hire them way before somebody who lives, breathes and eats a particular language 24/7. People who are interested in the world around them spend their lives increasing a well of knowledge that comes in handy in remarkable ways, not to mention the fact that they know how to learn what they need to know, when they need to know it.