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>, I am to the point in my career where I have a LinkedIn profile that if you printed out in a PDF, it would be 5 or 7 pages. I have 10 or 12 GitHub repos out t

by jasode 12y ago

>, I am to the point in my career where I have a LinkedIn profile that if you printed out in a PDF, it would be 5 or 7 pages. I have 10 or 12 GitHub repos out there that show what my code is. If you as a developer manager are not qualified to read through my GitHub Repo [...], and if you’re not qualified to look at my LinkedIn profile and see that I show a progression of responsibilities, That's great for him but it's not workable for a pool of 22-year old college graduates with no work experience, or 40-something developers who never had a chance to write open source for github. That's one of the reasons why companies actively recruiting from colleges use fizzbuzz and whiteboard coding tests. What's the % of compsci college grads that have github activity of any significance? Less than 10%? >Free lunches, that’s crap. [...] I understand the mentality of free lunches and dry cleaning and all of this. Those exist so the company can keep the developer’s butt in their seat longer, and they exist for no other reason. I disagree about employer provided lunches. The other stuff like foosball tables and onsite volleyball court I don't have a strong opinion on but employer provided lunch is a very nice thing to have. So many days I'm hungry and I really don't want to get into a hot 120 degree car or fight the rain and snow just to get something to quick to eat. The employer catered lunch is very convenient especially if the vendor brings in healthy food (veggie sandwiches, etc). It is very hard in some locations to get a healthy lunch when the closest restaurants are junk food places like McDonalds and Taco Bell. Every place I worked at that had employer provided lunch never had any social pressure that forced you to eat your lunch while being chained to your desk. Maybe he only sees companies forcing programmers to multitask the lunch hour by eating a sandwich with one hand and banging out code with the other. He doesn't realize there are companies out there that provide lunch simply as a progressive benefit instead of some kind of abusive weapon.

wbronitsky 12y ago
I totally agree with your first point. He seems to be saying that you are no good to him if you have not worked on side projects or open source. He seems blinded by his 35 years in the industry, and seems to not understand two things: 1) That there are a ton of companies that give 0 time for open source 2) That some people just write code as a job, not as a hobby. Personally, I would want my employees to give me 100% of their effort on coding. If they are going home and coding, how much effort are they actually putting in at work?
- greggyb 12y ago
  >Personally, I would want my employees to give me 100% of their effort on coding. If they are going home and coding, how much effort are they actually putting in at work? If you owned a restaurant, would you object to your cooks going home and making themselves a nice meal? Note: This is more of an idle curiosity thing that popped into my head reading your comment. This is not a "Boom, roasted!" type of comment.
  - wbronitsky 12y ago
    That's fair. I guess it is more of a management issue then. I wouldn't want my chef cutting corners and rushing his/her work in order to prepare a 5 course dinner at home, but maybe I would want them to try out new recipes at home and bring them to the restaurant. Something to think about.
    - zck 12y ago
      That's close to, but not quite the point. Let's say you're happy with your chef's output at work. The chef is making good dishes, and suggests changes and new items. Great. You ask, when the chef comes in for the day, what he or she did over the weekend. "Well", comes the response. "My in-laws were visiting, so I made them a proper Italian supper, with fresh pasta and homemade meatballs." Your restaurant isn't Italian. Are you annoyed? The point is that it's wrong to control people when they're not at work. If you're happy with a programmer's output at work, it's ridiculous to tell them that they shouldn't program when they go home. If you're unhappy with their work, then the point is not "you're doing too much at home", but "you're not doing enough at work. Do what you need to do to produce as we agreed your job requires."
      - wbronitsky 12y ago
        I feel like I'm being a bit misunderstood. I wasn't trying to talk about current employees, but lets work with this analogy. I take issue with the author trying to judge this chef based on the meal he made for his in-laws. That seems to be the same as judging a candidate's merit based upon their side projects. My example and question might have been a bit off, but I still think it is a bit flawed to make this judgement when trying to hire someone.

by jasode 12y ago

wbronitsky 12y ago

I totally agree with your first point. He seems to be saying that you are no good to him if you have not worked on side projects or open source. He seems blinded by his 35 years in the industry, and seems to not understand two things: 1) That there are a ton of companies that give 0 time for open source 2) That some people just write code as a job, not as a hobby. Personally, I would want my employees to give me 100% of their effort on coding. If they are going home and coding, how much effort are they actually putting in at work?

greggyb 12y ago
>Personally, I would want my employees to give me 100% of their effort on coding. If they are going home and coding, how much effort are they actually putting in at work? If you owned a restaurant, would you object to your cooks going home and making themselves a nice meal? Note: This is more of an idle curiosity thing that popped into my head reading your comment. This is not a "Boom, roasted!" type of comment.
- wbronitsky 12y ago
  That's fair. I guess it is more of a management issue then. I wouldn't want my chef cutting corners and rushing his/her work in order to prepare a 5 course dinner at home, but maybe I would want them to try out new recipes at home and bring them to the restaurant. Something to think about.
  - zck 12y ago
    That's close to, but not quite the point. Let's say you're happy with your chef's output at work. The chef is making good dishes, and suggests changes and new items. Great. You ask, when the chef comes in for the day, what he or she did over the weekend. "Well", comes the response. "My in-laws were visiting, so I made them a proper Italian supper, with fresh pasta and homemade meatballs." Your restaurant isn't Italian. Are you annoyed? The point is that it's wrong to control people when they're not at work. If you're happy with a programmer's output at work, it's ridiculous to tell them that they shouldn't program when they go home. If you're unhappy with their work, then the point is not "you're doing too much at home", but "you're not doing enough at work. Do what you need to do to produce as we agreed your job requires."
    - wbronitsky 12y ago
      I feel like I'm being a bit misunderstood. I wasn't trying to talk about current employees, but lets work with this analogy. I take issue with the author trying to judge this chef based on the meal he made for his in-laws. That seems to be the same as judging a candidate's merit based upon their side projects. My example and question might have been a bit off, but I still think it is a bit flawed to make this judgement when trying to hire someone.