On the issues of evaluating programmers ... When looking to integrate someone into our existing team, we really consider three different areas: direct experience, domain knowledge, and demonstrated problem solving skills.
Direct experience is generally judged from their resume and asking questions related to their most recent positions. This cannot be done for folks coming fresh from college so for them we focus on questions related to their biggest programming projects, team assignments they may have completed, etc. Domain knowledge is a huge factor in determining how quickly new folks become productive members of the team. Even if they cannot immediately contribute as coders they can often begin helping through reviews of requirements, testing and generally being part of the knowledge base. Since we hate forcing a square peg into a round hole, this is often part of the process we go through to find which area of our projects interests the programmer most. We sort of let them discover their niche as it were. Finally, we are interested in general problem solving skills. For this we rely on either performance in their most recent position or we study their college transcripts. Computer science degrees are a rarity on our team. Instead we are heavy in physics, mathematics, and engineering. We have discovered that it seems easiest to take folks from these fields and turn them into exceptional programmers than it may be to take computer science majors that shied away from advanced mathematics (yes some college programs still allow that option). Now, with all that said, the big caveat is that I cannot refer to any research that demonstrates these as sound principles for the evaluation of programmers. Once a person is a part of our team, determining who is a "good" programmer is not one our concerns. Our environment is one of high demand so the few that we have brought on board that were not able to come up to standards generally went their own ways soon enough. We rarely sit around and question a person's understanding of efficient data structures, quiz one another on design philosophies or anything of that sort. I'm not sure if that provides any insight but I thought it might do well to hear from someone grunting it out on a daily basis. Speaking of which ... the work is waiting to be done. Later, Kelly Pendergraft Sr. Simulations Engr Intelligent Decision Systems, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- PPIG Discuss List ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Discuss admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/discuss Announce admin: http://limitlessmail.net/mailman/listinfo/announce PPIG Discuss archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/discuss%40ppig.org/
