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Ask HN: What is a better predictor of success for developers?

1 points by tmastro ↗ HN
For those of you who have experience in the hiring process for developers, what have you found to be a better predictor of success for applicants: work they've done on side projects or performance in a technical interview? Or something else?

4 comments

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niwde
Side projects. Show me what you've done, and run me through how you developed it. Since you developed it, you should know the inner workings of it.
Haijal
While this is a true statement, I don't really like this mentality in our field. Just the thought that hiring managers want you to have 15 side projects and a full Github profile, and also work 16 hour days at the office. If you are a programmer/developer and you don't eat your meals at a computer desk while staring at code, you are seen as less.

I love developing it was the best career move i've ever made, but you know what? I also love friends, hiking, jogging, going to the gym, video games, playing guitar, and watching movies.

I don't live to work. I work to pay for the stuff I like to do outside of work.

cimmanom
We administer a take-home project that's not much more difficult than FizzBuzz. We've almost never had a candidate fail to complete it at all (it should take a mid-level developer no more than an hour to code and verify the simplest possible working solution). But a surprising number return code that is awfully sloppy or reveals a fundamental failure to understand the tools they're working with.

One can also usually distinguish juniors and seniors by the level of sophistication of their code. It gives us a good idea of which candidates will be able to work to our standards, or learn to quickly.

However, that's only one component of success. We find that personality is far more important (though also much harder to interview for).

We need people who are capable of self-management, independent work, and structured thinking in an unstructured environment; who relate their work to the priorities of the rest of the company; who communicate clearly and proactively; and who are collaborative and supportive of one another.

People with all those attributes are remarkably difficult to find.

tmastro
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Would you be willing to talk to me about your process? You can reach me at the email address on my profile or let me know how I can contact you.