6 ms·

I have hired a lot of developers over the last 15 years and not once have I cared if they have a github account.

by silverbax88 11y ago

ElComradio 11y ago
I have no (public) github account and I approve this message.
- Raphmedia 11y ago
  Out of the 120 developers where I work, about 5 have active github accounts. Hiring based on github is ridiculous.
  - jboy55 11y ago
    I don't expect to see one for professional devs, a lot of time what we develop we aren't allowed to share. Or, if its a side project, its not necessarily open source. However, for college grads, or those without a CS degree and transitioning from a bootcamp, a github account really sets you apart and is becoming a must.
    - silverbax88 11y ago
      I don't agree with that. I actively hire guys off of internship. I welcome it. And I've even told guys when they were good enough to get more money somewhere else and I couldn't get it approved to keep them. Because a few years later, when they are established and I'm hiring that level of dev, I want to be able to try and get them again. And I have. I don't really need to see a GitHub account. Actually, I don't want to see it at all, because I don't have time. Let's just talk about what you've built, what got you excited and what types of things you like to really get heads down in. I'm going to slip in some tech questions during the conversation but if you're a solid programmer you probably won't even notice it. If you're not, you're going to give me a deer-in-headlights look or worse, try to bullshit me. I'm not going to call you on it, but I'm not going to hire you, either.
  - aquadrop 11y ago
    Are any of those 5 githubbers in the "lower half" amongst all 120 developers?
    - Raphmedia 11y ago
      Mixed. It's mostly people with interest in open-source. Or some people that encountered bugs, fixed them and then abandoned/forgot their github account. That being said, we use private bitbuckets for all things internal. It's not as if people couldn't work with git. People are simply not interested in open source / github. That said, english is a second language here, so that may explain why people are not interested in working on open source projects that are mostly made in english.
  - vorg 11y ago
    Agreed! If a developer has a github account, then they're thinking about some other programming thing on the job instead of the cruddy stuff they're being paid to do.
    - corobo 11y ago
      That's not how people work.
tjr 11y ago
And other hiring managers do care, like the guy who wrote this article HN discussed a couple of days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9447173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9447173
icelancer 11y ago
I've hired a lot of developers over the last 10 years and I put a lot of stock in guys contributing to open source or showing their work and interacting with the public.
teraflop 11y ago
It doesn't really matter much to me whether the projects somebody has worked on are open-source. But if they can't be demonstrated to exist, that's something else entirely.
- ElComradio 11y ago
  For a front end web dev that makes sense. If you have been working on e.g. internal tools or some other proprietary stuff for a long time, how are you supposed to prove their existence?
  - teraflop 11y ago
    Obviously it doesn't apply to everything. But for something like a public website or mobile app that would be reasonably expected to be easily findable, the fact that it isn't is weird. One project like that makes me wonder what the situation is; several make me suspicious. For what it's worth, some Googling turned up these links: http://www.spse-po.sk/web/ http://www.spse-po.sk/web/ https://github.com/mochja/odovzdaj.to https://github.com/mochja/odovzdaj.to but it shouldn't have been so difficult to find them.
- silverbax88 11y ago
  I promise you I can figure out if you can code or not in about 15 minutes. I don't mean cobble together Angular and Bootstrap. I need to figure out if you can actually code and what kind of person you are to work with.
  - ranman 11y ago
    Comments like this make me think that I never want to be interviewed by you. What do you think about going over code that someone has written previously and asking them questions about it? Do you ask the same coding questions every time?
    - silverbax88 11y ago
      Nope. Why would I ask the same coding questions every time? Nobody has written the same code or worked on exactly the same problems with exactly the same tools during exactly the same time. I would question you on the specific things YOU wrote and how YOU would solve problems.
mikegerwitz 11y ago
I haven't taken GitHub into consideration in hiring; it doesn't matter where the source code is. Just show me that you are passionate about what you do, that you enjoy learning and can learn well from others, can work as part of a team, and that you have some code out there that demonstrates what you've played around with. I'd be cautious if an employer wanted you to specifically have a GitHub account.
- vorg 11y ago
  Maybe there's a market out there for "ghost developers", i.e. programmers who manage activity on the Github accounts of other programmers, the aptitudally-challenged types who need them to cheat interviews as they hop their way through technical jobs on their way to a career in IT management.
Joky 11y ago
Well since GitHub is only ~5 years old it is not very surprising...
- brianobush 11y ago
  I think he was referring to sites that allow you to manage and collaborate with others, etc. e.g., sourceforge
- farresito 11y ago
  It's a little bit more than that: around 7 years old.
- silverbax88 11y ago
  I'm more likely to ask what source control you have used. If you say Git, I'm going to ask why. I'm going to figure out if you really understand source code or you just use what's popular. That is not a statement about Git or any other source control. But I don't need to see your github account to figure out what level of developer you are (or what level you think you are).
  - stdbrouw 11y ago
    "Because it's popular" is a great way to pick your plumbing, though. The opposite is the awesome developer who is so religious about all the tools and languages that he uses that nobody wants to work with them.
    - silverbax88 11y ago
      It's a good place to start. But I want to know that the person using a tool has a better understanding of what they are using than "everybody else uses it". The most popular solution could be the best one. I just want to hire people who think for themselves because I don't have time to do their thinking for them. But first I need to make sure they are really adept at problem solving and can adapt.
  - Retra 11y ago
jboy55 11y ago
I have also hired a lot of devs, I love it when they have a github account, especially those with less experience or as interns.
hk__2 11y ago
As a student, when you don’t have a lot of professional experience, having a good GitHub profile is a huge advantage in some companies. I got my current internship because of that. And the last one. And the one before.
ranman 11y ago
>"over the last 15 years" Well in the past several years I've worked with a lot of developers and I care a lot about their github/bug tracker/public accounts. I don't care if there aren't a lot of repos or projects... just that they're active participants in software and CS. Github is a pretty good indicator of that. Bug trackers are another great indicator. Seeing someone rant about: 500 errors on a website, poor extensibility in an API/lib, unexpected CLI behavior -- those are good signs that the person cares about their chosen profession. Coding is only one part of engineering. Being able to work with a team, recognize requirements, and ship are other important components. I find that engineers who have strong profiles on SO, github, bug trackers -- they tend to ship. They may not be the best coders in the world but from a business stand point that doesn't really matter. The best ideas in the world are useless if they never get shipped.
mikekchar 11y ago
Probably lots of people are like you. I think the world is changing, though, and I think it is instructive to note that the person complaining about the lack of Github content is 20 years old. I've read hundreds of CVs for web developers in the last 2 years and I could point to only a handful that didn't include some kind of reference to a portfolio (usually on Github). Even though you say that you don't care about a Github account when hiring, you went out of your way to look at this person's website on HN. I suspect that it made a bigger impression on you than if the person had simply emailed you a Word file with their CV. The fact that the person cares enough to craft something and show it off says something about them. Personally, I go and look at every single portfolio that gets sent to me. If there is anything half way interesting on there it gets an automatic telephone interview even if their CV is otherwise unappealing. I'm looking for people with decent technical chops -- I'm not bothered about how they got there. I've gotten jobs through my portfolio before as well. I have one fairly large but poorly written Ruby app, a handful of well-intentioned but abandoned projects, and an egotistical semi-blog (which has some cringe-worthy content that I really should edit ASAP ;-) ). As bad as my portfolio is, it is miles better than 99% of what I've seen (generally cut and paste rails projects). For anybody with real talent this can be a differentiator. It will get you to an interview and give the interviewer something to ask questions about. For me what the OP built would be much more than enough to interest me if we were hiring an intern, but the point of linking to whatever else they have done is a very good one. Especially for a permanent position, I would be following up on that.
- corobo 11y ago
  A problem you might find here is that people with actual real world experience but without being 'rockstars' are stifled by contracts that stop them being able to have a decent github account. Of course in many cases you can't just publish internal code from your place of work but a lot seem to also include clauses that claim ownership of anything you do outside of work too. Personally speaking that's why my own github account is full of tumbleweeds anyway
  - mikekchar 11y ago
    I hear you. I have lived through that. When I worked at a few Microsoft partners back in the bad old days I even had stipulations in my contract that I wasn't allowed to contribute to free software projects without permission. Every time I asked for permission I was denied. When I was young I put up with it because progressing in these companies seemed to be important to me. Now I simply would not sign such a contract. I'm a contractor now and so I'm a lot more free than before, however in my last job I got explicit assurances up front that I was allowed to write my own code. Luckily there are a lot of places around that will accommodate you these days. They may not be the highest paying jobs, but I'm willing to take a huge pay cut to ensure my freedom to code.

I have hired a lot of developers over the last 15 years and not once have I cared if they have a github account.

ElComradio 11y ago

I have no (public) github account and I approve this message.

Raphmedia 11y ago
Out of the 120 developers where I work, about 5 have active github accounts. Hiring based on github is ridiculous.
- jboy55 11y ago
  I don't expect to see one for professional devs, a lot of time what we develop we aren't allowed to share. Or, if its a side project, its not necessarily open source. However, for college grads, or those without a CS degree and transitioning from a bootcamp, a github account really sets you apart and is becoming a must.
  - silverbax88 11y ago
    I don't agree with that. I actively hire guys off of internship. I welcome it. And I've even told guys when they were good enough to get more money somewhere else and I couldn't get it approved to keep them. Because a few years later, when they are established and I'm hiring that level of dev, I want to be able to try and get them again. And I have. I don't really need to see a GitHub account. Actually, I don't want to see it at all, because I don't have time. Let's just talk about what you've built, what got you excited and what types of things you like to really get heads down in. I'm going to slip in some tech questions during the conversation but if you're a solid programmer you probably won't even notice it. If you're not, you're going to give me a deer-in-headlights look or worse, try to bullshit me. I'm not going to call you on it, but I'm not going to hire you, either.
- aquadrop 11y ago
  Are any of those 5 githubbers in the "lower half" amongst all 120 developers?
  - Raphmedia 11y ago
    Mixed. It's mostly people with interest in open-source. Or some people that encountered bugs, fixed them and then abandoned/forgot their github account. That being said, we use private bitbuckets for all things internal. It's not as if people couldn't work with git. People are simply not interested in open source / github. That said, english is a second language here, so that may explain why people are not interested in working on open source projects that are mostly made in english.
- vorg 11y ago
  Agreed! If a developer has a github account, then they're thinking about some other programming thing on the job instead of the cruddy stuff they're being paid to do.
  - corobo 11y ago
    That's not how people work.

tjr 11y ago

And other hiring managers do care, like the guy who wrote this article HN discussed a couple of days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9447173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9447173

icelancer 11y ago

I've hired a lot of developers over the last 10 years and I put a lot of stock in guys contributing to open source or showing their work and interacting with the public.

teraflop 11y ago

It doesn't really matter much to me whether the projects somebody has worked on are open-source. But if they can't be demonstrated to exist, that's something else entirely.

ElComradio 11y ago
For a front end web dev that makes sense. If you have been working on e.g. internal tools or some other proprietary stuff for a long time, how are you supposed to prove their existence?
- teraflop 11y ago
  Obviously it doesn't apply to everything. But for something like a public website or mobile app that would be reasonably expected to be easily findable, the fact that it isn't is weird. One project like that makes me wonder what the situation is; several make me suspicious. For what it's worth, some Googling turned up these links: http://www.spse-po.sk/web/ http://www.spse-po.sk/web/ https://github.com/mochja/odovzdaj.to https://github.com/mochja/odovzdaj.to but it shouldn't have been so difficult to find them.
silverbax88 11y ago
I promise you I can figure out if you can code or not in about 15 minutes. I don't mean cobble together Angular and Bootstrap. I need to figure out if you can actually code and what kind of person you are to work with.
- ranman 11y ago
  Comments like this make me think that I never want to be interviewed by you. What do you think about going over code that someone has written previously and asking them questions about it? Do you ask the same coding questions every time?
  - silverbax88 11y ago
    Nope. Why would I ask the same coding questions every time? Nobody has written the same code or worked on exactly the same problems with exactly the same tools during exactly the same time. I would question you on the specific things YOU wrote and how YOU would solve problems.

mikegerwitz 11y ago

I haven't taken GitHub into consideration in hiring; it doesn't matter where the source code is. Just show me that you are passionate about what you do, that you enjoy learning and can learn well from others, can work as part of a team, and that you have some code out there that demonstrates what you've played around with. I'd be cautious if an employer wanted you to specifically have a GitHub account.

vorg 11y ago
Maybe there's a market out there for "ghost developers", i.e. programmers who manage activity on the Github accounts of other programmers, the aptitudally-challenged types who need them to cheat interviews as they hop their way through technical jobs on their way to a career in IT management.

Joky 11y ago

Well since GitHub is only ~5 years old it is not very surprising...

brianobush 11y ago
I think he was referring to sites that allow you to manage and collaborate with others, etc. e.g., sourceforge
farresito 11y ago
It's a little bit more than that: around 7 years old.
silverbax88 11y ago
I'm more likely to ask what source control you have used. If you say Git, I'm going to ask why. I'm going to figure out if you really understand source code or you just use what's popular. That is not a statement about Git or any other source control. But I don't need to see your github account to figure out what level of developer you are (or what level you think you are).
- stdbrouw 11y ago
  "Because it's popular" is a great way to pick your plumbing, though. The opposite is the awesome developer who is so religious about all the tools and languages that he uses that nobody wants to work with them.
  - silverbax88 11y ago
    It's a good place to start. But I want to know that the person using a tool has a better understanding of what they are using than "everybody else uses it". The most popular solution could be the best one. I just want to hire people who think for themselves because I don't have time to do their thinking for them. But first I need to make sure they are really adept at problem solving and can adapt.
- Retra 11y ago

jboy55 11y ago

I have also hired a lot of devs, I love it when they have a github account, especially those with less experience or as interns.

hk__2 11y ago

As a student, when you don’t have a lot of professional experience, having a good GitHub profile is a huge advantage in some companies. I got my current internship because of that. And the last one. And the one before.

ranman 11y ago

>"over the last 15 years" Well in the past several years I've worked with a lot of developers and I care a lot about their github/bug tracker/public accounts. I don't care if there aren't a lot of repos or projects... just that they're active participants in software and CS. Github is a pretty good indicator of that. Bug trackers are another great indicator. Seeing someone rant about: 500 errors on a website, poor extensibility in an API/lib, unexpected CLI behavior -- those are good signs that the person cares about their chosen profession. Coding is only one part of engineering. Being able to work with a team, recognize requirements, and ship are other important components. I find that engineers who have strong profiles on SO, github, bug trackers -- they tend to ship. They may not be the best coders in the world but from a business stand point that doesn't really matter. The best ideas in the world are useless if they never get shipped.

mikekchar 11y ago

Probably lots of people are like you. I think the world is changing, though, and I think it is instructive to note that the person complaining about the lack of Github content is 20 years old. I've read hundreds of CVs for web developers in the last 2 years and I could point to only a handful that didn't include some kind of reference to a portfolio (usually on Github). Even though you say that you don't care about a Github account when hiring, you went out of your way to look at this person's website on HN. I suspect that it made a bigger impression on you than if the person had simply emailed you a Word file with their CV. The fact that the person cares enough to craft something and show it off says something about them. Personally, I go and look at every single portfolio that gets sent to me. If there is anything half way interesting on there it gets an automatic telephone interview even if their CV is otherwise unappealing. I'm looking for people with decent technical chops -- I'm not bothered about how they got there. I've gotten jobs through my portfolio before as well. I have one fairly large but poorly written Ruby app, a handful of well-intentioned but abandoned projects, and an egotistical semi-blog (which has some cringe-worthy content that I really should edit ASAP ;-) ). As bad as my portfolio is, it is miles better than 99% of what I've seen (generally cut and paste rails projects). For anybody with real talent this can be a differentiator. It will get you to an interview and give the interviewer something to ask questions about. For me what the OP built would be much more than enough to interest me if we were hiring an intern, but the point of linking to whatever else they have done is a very good one. Especially for a permanent position, I would be following up on that.

corobo 11y ago
A problem you might find here is that people with actual real world experience but without being 'rockstars' are stifled by contracts that stop them being able to have a decent github account. Of course in many cases you can't just publish internal code from your place of work but a lot seem to also include clauses that claim ownership of anything you do outside of work too. Personally speaking that's why my own github account is full of tumbleweeds anyway
- mikekchar 11y ago
  I hear you. I have lived through that. When I worked at a few Microsoft partners back in the bad old days I even had stipulations in my contract that I wasn't allowed to contribute to free software projects without permission. Every time I asked for permission I was denied. When I was young I put up with it because progressing in these companies seemed to be important to me. Now I simply would not sign such a contract. I'm a contractor now and so I'm a lot more free than before, however in my last job I got explicit assurances up front that I was allowed to write my own code. Luckily there are a lot of places around that will accommodate you these days. They may not be the highest paying jobs, but I'm willing to take a huge pay cut to ensure my freedom to code.