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We now only hire engineers using OSS paid bounties (and it's awesome)

35 points by snork_alt ↗ HN
At getdozer.io we started using Algora to create a few paid bounties on our GitHub repo. However, we soon realized that this OSS bounties approach is the best way to hire great engineers!

Here is why:

We get to test candidates on real-world problems, instead of asking them to solve some meaningless programming puzzles.

Because candidates get paid for the work they contribute, it is fair to ask for solutions to more complex problems (that would have required too much time in a normal interview).

It's a win-win for both candidates and the company: candidates are happy as they get compensated for their successful interview work; we are happy because a bug is solved or a new feature is implemented.

If a candidate is hired, he already has a context of the work he will be doing and he is productive from day zero.

9 comments

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MontyCarloHall
If you’re in the enviable position of having successfully monetized an OSS project to the extent that its revenue can support an entire company, this is the unambiguously best way to technically assess your candidates.

The rest of us are sadly not so lucky.

misterhtmlcss
Just building off what you are saying and trying to find a way around it.

Possibly an alternative could be to offer a bounty on a top you use and if needs x item patched. Instead of getting an interval to do it they could offer it to candidates. This would mean these external patches that often distract internal teams in big companies but are necessary could be turned into hiring opportunities. This wouldn’t totally resolve the problem you pointed out, but perhaps it would give more companies the chance to leverage that option. No?

vGPU
This could probably be used by any company. Just pick some Linux kernel bugs or a GitHub issue from some software you like/support. It doesn’t have to be “your” software specifically, and it gets around copy-paste leetcode problems.
rvz
This makes perfect sense. Especially in the age of AI. These programming puzzles are now rendered useless as the code can easily be thrown into ChatGPT for it to give the solution.

I also stand by asking for recent open source contributions to large projects (not hello world projects) as an alternative to those ridiculous programming puzzles [0] which not only it is irrelevant to the company, but it can be gamed and solved by an AI.

Both OSS bounties or asking for open source contributions for finding qualified candidates sounds like a better direction to go with for hiring genuine developers and not rote leetcoders trained at just passing the algorithms interview.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31546881

kali-nyc
You had me up until this line:

"If a candidate is hired, he already has a context of the work he will be doing and he is productive from day zero."

There are a lot of amazing women and non-binary engineers out there, too. Just sayin'.