Chris wrote:
"This already started in the 1990ies and got worse and worse,
this business of looking for the "perfect" candidate. A lot of
skills can be acquired in the first weeks (or months, depending).
It's better to train someone who's intelligent and innovative
than someone who's worked with all IDEs and build systems, but is
fairly un-innovative (problem => for loop)."
I agree with you, although I don't know how many others would.
And not all people are equally gifted in picking things up - it's
ability, but also character since when many people get to a
certain level of accomplishment they get addicted to the feeling
of comfort and would rather die than truly push themselves when
they don't know how it will turn out.
On Tuesday, 23 June 2015 at 18:15:47 UTC, ketmar wrote:
For many programmers, programming is just a job, not more.
They don't program in their spare time and are not really
interested in programming languages as you are.
that people called "code monkeys", not "programmers". it's
simply impossible to be a programmer without a passion to learn
things. not 'cause "well, if i learn XYZ i will be promoted to
better job and will get more money", but 'cause "hey, that's
*interesting*! i may never use that in my job (this is usually
wrong), but it's so interesting that i can't pass it by!"
code monkeys are good when there is a need in writing
boilerplate code, but they are bad for solving problems. not
necessarily 'cause they're dumb, they simply not interested in
problem solving.
Yes - the intriguing thing is that this trend has gone so far
that good people and mediocre people are the same price if they
look similar on paper (from what I have seen). In fact you may
be able to hire someone good for less than someone mediocre since
they are less tolerant of a bad working environment and want to
work on something that inspires them (whereas the average person
lacks imagination to see what might come out of the
ordinary-looking seeds of today) . As an entrepreneur, this is
one of the biggest arbitrages for many years, I think - provided
you are able to tell good from mediocre (or to put it charitably,
top notch from merely solid).
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-D-E-Shaw-pay-young-Harvard-and-MIT-graduates-over-200-000-per-year-right-out-of-college/answer/Laeeth-Isharc
This isn't technology specific, but it fits with what I have
heard from talking to people who are in that very specific field.
I think that's what the Quora guys mean when they talk of 10x
programmers, but it's not at all the description or way of
thinking I would apply, since obviously it puts the emphasis on
measuring what is not so easy to measure.
At my (now defunct - a different story) previous startup fund, we
had 1200 applications for 2 junior jobs - that's a lot, even
limiting it to the serious candidates. And they all look great
on paper, and one couldn't possibly even call them all. (For
this role, I was more concerned about missing someone amazing
than making the wrong hire - not the normal corporate priorities).
So I wrote an Oxbridge style applied economics open-ended
question. Most of the perfect candidates on paper just
regurgitated what they read in the FT; a few didn't and actually
thought about it. And the girl that got the job spent 45 hours
writing her paper, which was more useful than the stuff you would
get from a 40 year old seasoned guy. No way would we have found
her had we had an HR department (or rather had we let HR 'help'
us).
For technology, it's different, but I think the same way of
thinking may prove useful. And if/when I need a tech guy to help
me, it's a nobrainer to ask here because of the quality of the
people. Although that is not why I am here.
