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Pollyanna posted:What about people like me, who simply don't have any pressing needs or interests that merit a side project? I have my hobbies, sure, but I don't have anything that I think of and go "you know what this needs? An app!". Am I meant to just force myself into building something I wasn't interested in in the first place? Almost none of the side projects that me or my coding friends do are to meet a really pressing "need" that anyone has. We do them to learn new techs, and because we just like making stuff. In general I agree that ads looking for passion, a solid green GitHub history, and/or rockstars/ninjas is generally code for "you will never ever get a break and we take ourselves waaaay too seriously". That said, if I were a hiring manager and someone didn't have ANY side project to show me (or at least talk about), I would wonder how they're keeping their skills up to date. Also, it's totally, totally fine to just code for a paycheck (although maybe don't say that in an interview). There are many companies out there with engineering cultures that would be perfectly happy with that. But it's also totally fine for companies to want to hire people with a passion for coding, especially if it's a smaller company or startup.
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Aug 21, 2017 19:36
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I once had an interviewer who was really keen on personal projects. He went on for ages about my projects, what I learnt, how I would improve them, etc. I got so carried away with his enthusiasm for my projects that I asked him what he was working on. 'Oh nothing, I don't have the time..' They want you to be passionate, and work on your own stuff, plus work 90 hours, and stick in one of those 'Everything you have ever done belongs to us' clauses into the contracts.. I love coding and computing in general. I love to learn new things, but I'm not going to be passionate about medical/ecom/CRUD software, unless you pay me for it..
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Aug 21, 2017 20:02
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I'm most baffled at the intersection of "passionate weekend coders" and ".NET". I didn't know there was any overlap there.
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Aug 21, 2017 20:03
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Were you an experienced candidate or just out of school, Ratus?
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Aug 21, 2017 20:03
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At the time I was looking for my second job with 2 years exp. I didn't get a call back tho.
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Aug 21, 2017 20:22
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Lol if you have a life outside of work and a family and you are coding outside of work then good for you but I'll stick with 40 hours a week
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Aug 21, 2017 21:33
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IDK, I also feel like it kind of unfortunately soft-filters people with mental illnesses or difficult home situations? Like, when I was in limbo for a year between undergrad and grad due to some bad application timing I was extremely depressed, and only worked on my few big OSS projects because I had literally nothing else to do. And I made quite a lot (in a language I don't touch anymore, unfortunately). But now that I'm in grad school I can do my research, which is pretty much full time hours or a little more, but honestly on bad months it can be hard enough to get out of bed to hang out with friends or even watch dumb youtube videos much less program for funsies (which I do find fun an engaging sometimes, and on good months I do dick around with stuff). Somebody can do a job, and even be pleasant and good and fun to work with, but may have home troubles or health problems or family issues or stress that prevents them from living up to some theoretical fullest potential full of enthusiasm outside of work. Maybe they don't have any OSS projects because they were working a second job during college to support a kid or something. And honestly, these, people are the ones who are more likely to have bad networks (too depressed or busy to connect) and need to get that interview than the person contributing to 6 repositories at once and reading tech blogs. Hell, my best friend's brother is in CS, but doesn't have internet at home because his parents are weird as gently caress (they can afford it they just refuse, which annoys both my friend and him) so he has to trek to the library or lab to do school work, much less contribute to Github. And like, obviously this is a hard problem in general, it's not like I'm saying "give unimpressive resumes a chance because maybe they're just sadbrains with coding skills of gold", but I feel like there becomes a certain level of weeding out over extracurricular stuff that starts to really disproportionately filter perfectly good people having a rough time. Linear Zoetrope fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Aug 21, 2017 |
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Aug 21, 2017 21:37
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Pollyanna posted:What about people like me, who simply don't have any pressing needs or interests that merit a side project? I have my hobbies, sure, but I don't have anything that I think of and go "you know what this needs? An app!". Am I meant to just force myself into building something I wasn't interested in in the first place? jony neuemonic posted:- It's pretty exclusionary. Not everyone has time for side projects (family responsibilities are the big one, but there's plenty of things that might eat up someone's spare time). That doesn't mean they're any less interested or passionate about their work. jony neuemonic posted:- It assumes that writing code is the most important / challenging part of the job which hasn't been my experience. Anecdotes are like assholes, though. JawnV6 posted:This is a great way to get cowboy coders who invent metaproblems instead of doing a solid hour of straightforward work, think themselves too good to write their own tests, and generally won't deign to communicate with anyone who hasn't sunk as much time into a code base as them. A user had a complaint?!? Well, do they have any MORE elegant way to run disparate templated queries through a homogenized global visibility monitor?? Thermopyle fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Aug 21, 2017 |
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Aug 21, 2017 22:22
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Right, I'm pretty sure nobody but recruiters think some of these filters are particularly meaningful. However, in my case we had 10k people apply over 2 months and trying to narrow that down to the 3 people we offered (to get one hire), was a pretty massive undertaking. Even a filter with a lovely signal to noise ratio turns a really lovely situation into one that's at least manageable. The problem is you're randomly removing good candidates from consideration. If I could solve that problem I'd quit and sell my techniques to the companies spending millions to find good candidates. On the plus side, for people looking for jobs, at least you can take solace that rejections might just be about luck of the draw and not necessarily a measure of ability. It's probably not too much consolation though. :-(
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Aug 21, 2017 23:48
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I mean, if we're just using side projects as another arbitrary "I need half these resumes off my desk" filter, sure. But Pollyanna's original post was in reference to a guy dropping people without side projects because he thought it made them unsuited to the job which is pretty gross. That said, I still list a few of mine because I had the time for them, so why not. If nothing else it's something to discuss in an interview that's guaranteed to not be NDA'd.
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Aug 22, 2017 00:58
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I super disagree with personal projects as a barometer for passion for anyone with more than a year of experience, but at the same time it's made a difference at my current place. Between updates to frameworks that aren't backwards compatible, and new frameworks that can solve new problems, being aware these changes are important. But at the same time, if that's what you want out of your employees, maybe give them work hours dedicated to that continuing education instead of hoping they do it themselves?
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Aug 22, 2017 01:04
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Filtering out people without side projects is a great way to filter out older candidates without actually discriminating based on age.
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Aug 22, 2017 01:05
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Just blindly throw out half the resumes you get so you never hire any unlucky people. That's probably just as good a filter.
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Aug 22, 2017 08:26
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Would that mean that they are unlucky? Or lucky as they dodged a bullet? Filter on star signs, at least you can point to 'documented' reasons for 'team fit'
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Aug 22, 2017 13:03
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I only hire dogs that have contributions to major open source projects. I mean, if they can overcome not having hands they can overcome anything and that's the kind of dog I want to work with.
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Aug 22, 2017 13:07
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I mean, I don't think it's a good filter in the sense of "doing this gets me exactly who I want and doesn't make me miss anyone I do want", but I can't get behind the idea that its as bad as flipping a coin, either. So maybe out of all my potential candidates 3% of them are people I would want working for me. The problem is finding that 3%. I'm not even sure what "passion" means exactly in this context, but lets pretend its something useful. I don't think filtering by side-project-having is going to get me to a pool of like 70% useful candidates, but I do think its going to increase that 3% to something better. Maybe its 4%, maybe its 10%, gently caress if I know. Does it kick out lots of good candidates, probably. But I'm not convinced there's any type of filtering you can do that doesn't do that. Thermopyle fucked around with this message at 16:29 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 16:26
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Rattus posted:Would that mean that they are unlucky? Or lucky as they dodged a bullet? Counterbalance it by throwing out the other half, half the time.
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Aug 22, 2017 16:29
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Thermopyle posted:I mean, I don't think it's a good filter in the sense of "doing this gets me exactly who I want and doesn't make me miss anyone I do want", but I can't get behind the idea that its as bad as flipping a coin, either. You're right, it's much worse. The "luck" filter is cognizant of the mechanics of what it's doing and recognizes that the employee's time is more valuable in that situation. It's a legitimate response to a high volume of applicants where there are likely a pool of good candidates. The side project filter makes otherwise good, decent folks come up with BS rationalizations for how it applies to working on a team. jony neuemonic posted:But Pollyanna's original post was in reference to a guy dropping people without side projects because he thought it made them unsuited to the job which is pretty gross.
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Aug 22, 2017 16:42
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This'll probably sound really stupid but what are the chances of programming being automated and the field shrinking to non-existence within the next few decades? Reading books on A.I. and the Singularity make my shower thoughts go wild, especially now that i just got into the field.
InevitableCheese fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 16:55
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JawnV6 posted:You're right, it's much worse. The "luck" filter is cognizant of the mechanics of what it's doing and recognizes that the employee's time is more valuable in that situation. It's a legitimate response to a high volume of applicants where there are likely a pool of good candidates. The side project filter makes otherwise good, decent folks come up with BS rationalizations for how it applies to working on a team. Right, I agree that its worse from the employees standpoint. Are you arguing that the employer has less candidates they would want in the remaining pool?
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Aug 22, 2017 16:58
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InevitableCheese posted:This'll probably sound really stupid but what are the chances of programming being automated and the field shrinking to non-existence within the next few decades? Reading books on A.I. and the Singularity make my shower thoughts go wild, especially now that i just got into the field. But who programs the A.I.? Check and mate  Also, re: side projects and application rejection excuses - there's a finite number of jobs and we're already butting up against prospective employee saturation in the market in general, let alone jobs that are worthwhile. This thing is a bubble anyway so who even cares anymore gently caress. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 17:10
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InevitableCheese posted:This'll probably sound really stupid but what are the chances of programming being automated and the field shrinking to non-existence within the next few decades? Reading books on A.I. and the Singularity make my shower thoughts go wild, especially now that i just got into the field. Not zero.
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Aug 22, 2017 17:10
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Thermopyle posted:I mean, I don't think it's a good filter in the sense of "doing this gets me exactly who I want and doesn't make me miss anyone I do want", but I can't get behind the idea that its as bad as flipping a coin, either. It's understandable why hiring managers and HR departments want to require side projects - at the very least, it should cut down on developers who can't fizz a buzz. But, it's ugly in the same way that "culture fit" criteria are ugly. It tends to select for people from certain cultural backgrounds and phases of life, in ways that aren't legal to directly select for good reason. Emphasizing side projects speaks to a pretty serious lack of professionalism in hiring, and lack of diversity on the team. Somebody who puts a huge emphasis on side projects probably has very limited experience working with new parents, anyone with a medical issue that requires time off, people who have to take care of elderly relatives, or a thousand other things. Or, worse, they have managed people in those situations and resent them. Either way, you probably don't want to work there. InevitableCheese posted:This'll probably sound really stupid but what are the chances of programming being automated and the field shrinking to non-existence? Reading books on A.I. and the Singularity make my shower thoughts go wild, especially now that i just got into the field. Lots of programming is already automated. Nobody hand-writes machine code, and not many people hand-write assembly, because we have compilers and interpreters to do the vast majority of that work for us now. You can see the same trend in lots of other places - 20 years ago, writing a web application probably meant banging protocol to a socket more or less directly. Now, we have automation that turns server-side objects into JSON or what have you automatically. There's a trend here: automation increases, and humans come up with new ways to use it that require technical expertise. If you stay in one section of the industry, you'll either be automated out of a job, or turn into one of those COBOL greybeards who get paid insane money to maintain an ancient, critical application because it's cheaper than building a new one. If you keep focusing on core problem-solving skills, and find new ways to use them, you'll do OK unless and until the fundamentals of the economy shift in drastic and fundamental ways. At that point, you can't really predict anything. Space Gopher fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Aug 22, 2017 |
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Aug 22, 2017 17:16
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Space Gopher posted:Either way, you probably don't want to work there. Definitely.
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Aug 22, 2017 17:21
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InevitableCheese posted:This'll probably sound really stupid but what are the chances of programming being automated and the field shrinking to non-existence within the next few decades? Reading books on A.I. and the Singularity make my shower thoughts go wild, especially now that i just got into the field. It'll be the last productive thing to be automated, in that, once programming is fully automated, you effectively have an AI that can fully guide it's development and will quickly be able to solve ALL solvable problems. Sure it sucks when that happens, but I don't think there is a better field you could be in that would be immune to this.
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Aug 22, 2017 17:22
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Pollyanna posted:But who programs the A.I.? Check and mate
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Aug 22, 2017 17:47
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I only run AIs that work on side projects.
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Aug 22, 2017 17:50
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I had an interview consisting almost entirely of someone asking me Ruby syntax trivia using a bad polycom. Why am I in this industry, again?
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Aug 22, 2017 18:00
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Thermopyle posted:Not zero. But smaller than the chances of all jobs disappearing in nuclear fire given the current state of the world, so kinda pointless to worry about. fantastic in plastic posted:I had an interview consisting almost entirely of someone asking me Ruby syntax trivia using a bad polycom. Why am I in this industry, again? Better question is why are they jfc
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Aug 22, 2017 18:05
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I just got a rejection from a company because I didn't have "enough experience." This was after a phone screening, a timed coding challenge, and a half-day of interviews on site, all of which went smoothly. I have 2 years' experience and that was never mentioned as a possible issue. What do I read into here? "We thought we might have had a spot and value our convenience over your time"? "We have another reason that we can't officially reject you for"?
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Aug 22, 2017 18:55
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Thermopyle posted:Right, I agree that its worse from the employees standpoint. Yes, arbitrarily lopping off working parents, to just pick one of the categorical exemptions that this poo poo filter manages to nab, will lead to less candidates they would want. When hiring folks start to internalize and build up a mythology around side project work, it just accelerates worse results.
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Aug 22, 2017 19:23
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Cheston posted:I just got a rejection from a company because I didn't have "enough experience." This was after a phone screening, a timed coding challenge, and a half-day of interviews on site, all of which went smoothly. I have 2 years' experience and that was never mentioned as a possible issue. Different people accomplish different things in two years, and your two years wasn't enough for them. It sucks, but it happens. Sometime in your career you'll sit next to a truly productive programmer, it's enlightening and jealousy-inducing.
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Aug 22, 2017 19:26
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Cheston posted:I just got a rejection from a company because I didn't have "enough experience." This was after a phone screening, a timed coding challenge, and a half-day of interviews on site, all of which went smoothly. I have 2 years' experience and that was never mentioned as a possible issue. The second one. "Lack of experience" means literally anything from "we want someone who's more 'senior' (whatever that means)" to "HR is complaining that we aren't sticking to their requirements" to "I just don't like them". lifg posted:Different people accomplish different things in two years, and your two years wasn't enough for them. It sucks, but it happens. How are you supposed to end up in a job with those productivity opportunities if you need said job to get said job? In this setup, a bad job fucks you over forever.
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Aug 22, 2017 19:27
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Pollyanna posted:How are you supposed to end up in a job with those productivity opportunities if you need said job to get said job? In this setup, a bad job fucks you over forever. There are plenty of job opportunities. Almost no one gets every job they apply for, and conversely good companies routinely pass up on qualified candidates. It's all a numbers game, eventually good programmers will get a job, and good companies will end up with programmers. Don't get too tied up on specific companies and it'll work out. Also, Cheston can use this as a learning experience. They now know to up they up their game when describing their projects.
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Aug 22, 2017 20:08
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JawnV6 posted:Yes, arbitrarily lopping off working parents, to just pick one of the categorical exemptions that this poo poo filter manages to nab, will lead to less candidates they would want. When hiring folks start to internalize and build up a mythology around side project work, it just accelerates worse results. Yes, it will lead to less candidates, but the idea is that it will increase the relative number of candidates they do want in the remaining pool. I don't think it's readily apparent that this isn't the case, though I can imagine several arguments against it. Basically, I'm arguing that you seem to be too sure in your opinion. I don't really care to keep defending a policy that I'm very uncertain about, barely care about, and that probably leads to an employer I wouldn't want to work for, so I'm not going to!
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Aug 22, 2017 20:09
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Thermopyle posted:Yes, it will lead to less candidates, but the idea is that it will increase the relative number of candidates they do want in the remaining pool. I don't think it's readily apparent that this isn't the case, though I can imagine several arguments against it.
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Aug 22, 2017 20:16
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JawnV6 posted:It's cool that this is an abstract exercise that you don't give a poo poo about, but I was exactly mirroring your "less candidates THEY WOULD WANT" language. Like can I at least get a good faith reading? Eliminating the pool of working parents tosses out more good than bad. I didn't say "less candidates total" like you're implying here. Does it? Don't most employers want people who they will be able to work to the bone and force to do tons of overtime? Good luck doing that with a parent.
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Aug 22, 2017 20:20
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lifg posted:There are plenty of job opportunities. Almost no one gets every job they apply for, and conversely good companies routinely pass up on qualified candidates. It's all a numbers game, eventually good programmers will get a job, and good companies will end up with programmers. Don't get too tied up on specific companies and it'll work out. There are plenty of job opportunities, sure, but only a certain subset of those are good jobs that lead to the advancement and productivity you're looking at. Snak posted:Does it? Don't most employers want people who they will be able to work to the bone and force to do tons of overtime? Good luck doing that with a parent. IMO the employer is the problem in this equation, not the employee. Relatedly, I'm apparently approaching the end stages for a remote position at a startup - salary negotiation might be up soon. I'll push for a salary that'd be competitive in Boston, I just wonder if they understand that a remote employee needs as much investment as a local employee. I'm still not sure if I'll take it over continuing at my current place - I haven't even hit 2 years at my current place and starting a new job is a gamble like anything else, and I'm paranoid that it'll somehow be a step down. I might end up marginalized and ignored as a remote employee, developer practices might be somehow worse...I keep thinking about potential downsides. Guess I get to find out  vv I agree.
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Aug 22, 2017 20:39
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Pollyanna posted:IMO the employer is the problem in this equation, not the employee. Of course that's the case, but it doesn't mean that employer filtering out the type of employees they want to hire, it means they're a bad employer.
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Aug 22, 2017 20:40
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Pollyanna posted:I'm still not sure if I'll take it over continuing at my current place - I haven't even hit 2 years at my current place and starting a new job is a gamble like anything else, and I'm paranoid that it'll somehow be a step down. I might end up marginalized and ignored as a remote employee, developer practices might be somehow worse...I keep thinking about potential downsides. Guess I get to find out I'm everything in this post except remote. Someday I'll learn the right questions to ask during an interview.
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Aug 22, 2017 21:16
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