Programming Outside of Business Hours

http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/blob/master/2009-10-08/no_hire.md?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+raganwald+%28homoiconic%29&utm_content=Google+Reader#readme

by tomh • 16 years ago

39 78 16 years ago

github.com

heretoo• 16 years ago

This is a wake up call for me. Too little networking..

pendragon• 16 years ago

Very interesting that someone really uses his social network like that. I like to keep up with professionals via their blogs and twitter. As a student (final year) I find it helps me learn what's happening in the tech world from a better (for me) perspective than a purely news oriented site. I usually learn something which helps.

RobIsIT• 16 years ago

In my mind, programming outside of business hours is a part of ongoing education. Often, you learn a lot programming on your own time even if it is related to a work project. Extending a new function or exploring how something could work better with a new technique after 5pm is one of the easiest and best ways to pepper in some regular education.

Sometimes however, a programmer who isn't deeply interested in technology can be a valuable addition to the team. If you have a lot of code that needs to be transitioned, complicated logs that need imported, regular "do this, then" work or other labor that a deeply motivated programmer would find tedious, a different style of programmer may find this work comfortable and easy.

ganley2• 16 years ago

For some of us, our job fulfills our passion just fine, and affords plenty of opportunity for ongoing education. I've always thought that many (not all, but many) people program for fun because their job isn't sufficiently interesting.

jacquesm12• 16 years ago

What people do outside of 'business hours' really is no business of their employer. The angle is 'I would not interview them', not 'I would not hire them'.

The difference is subtle, but the title suggests that it is the one whereas actually it is the other.

Think about it, if you actually did what the title says then you'd be open to legal action almost immediately.

Imagine an employer that would not hire a bookkeeper because they're not busy with bookkeeping in their free time.

I understand what the author is trying to say but the title is not really appropriate, the author has filtered out such applicants before the interview phase, so he does not hire them as a consequence of that.

goodside• 16 years ago

The only thing silly about the bookkeeping example is that people who enjoy bookkeeping are rare, and a manager with that policy would have trouble finding anyone for the job. If I were hiring a bookkeeper, and I actually did find someone who enjoys bookkeeping in their free time (say, for a local chess club or a non-profit charity) I would consider that a plus. If nine out of ten resumes came from people who do free-time bookkeeping, I would be inclined to hire one of them over the one-in-ten minority that doesn't. If this is illegal, the law is wrong.

jacquesm12• 16 years ago

As an employer you pay your employees for their time. What they do outside of that time is completely up to them and literally no business of the employer. So whether someone goes skydiving in their spare time or collects stamps or works on their hobby projects in the same field as their profession should have no bearing on their employment, or on their hiring.

The law is in my opinion totally just and I'm saying that as a former employer.

pierrefar2• 16 years ago

I think the point is that good programmers are constantly tinkering, trying things out, learning new things, etc, outside of the 9-5 work. I call it "passion" and other words apply too.

It's a lot like driving: good drivers are fanatic about it. They are always itching to go for a drive and push their cars. If you wanted to hire a star driver, would you want want to hire someone passionate or someone who learned it on the job and gets by?

jacquesm12• 16 years ago

It simply isn't a criterion for fitness for the job. I can see that it would be an advantage and you might be able to get away with this on a small scale but if say Microsoft made it policy to only hire programmers that program in their spare time as well they'd be in hot water in not time flat.

If you want your programmers to continue to be educated for the work that they do and for new technologies applicable to that work then you can provide them with courses during work time. If they do such stuff in their spare time it's great but that can never be a discriminating factor during the hiring process in anything but the most unofficial manner.

Anyway, you don't have to believe me, passion is great but you can't mandate it of an employee.

If you are looking for a co-founder that's a different story, but people that are employees do not fall in the same category.

brown9-2• 16 years ago

The problem isn't in looking for someone who has "passion" but it is with judging candidates based not upon their ability to do the job, but on other factors.

Companies in US are not allowed to discriminate based upon things like commute time, family situation at home, age, etc. - none of which factors into how well they can do the job once they are at work and on "company time" - and the argument that what someone does on their personal time falls into this category of judging someone based on factors beyond "Can the applicant perform this job?" is pretty easy to make.

So it's fine to look for passion - but people hiring and doing interviewing should be very cautious about what they say (and especially what they tell applicants) about how they are going to judge your level of passion, unless they want to open themselves up to potential discrimination suits (or so my possibly overly cautious corporate HR department would have us believe).

mikeryan• 16 years ago

I respectfully disagree.

First there are several jobs which require an ongoing education requirement (outside of work) in order to maintain the correct licensing for their fields. My mom's a nurse, my wife's a lawyer, both have ongoing education requirements. To take your bookkeeper examples, CPA's at least have Professional Education Requirements.

I consider programming outside the office part of a programmer's ongoing education. We may not need to be licensed but we do need to continue to keep up with technologies both in and outside our direct field of work. I'd be hesitant to hire anyone who doesn't keep up with what is going on in the environment around them. In my particular case the vast majority of technologies that I use now in my work I started working on outside of my direct work projects. Thats the nature of our industry.

And there's nothing illegal, in the US at least, about asking about activities outside of work and using that as a basis of hiring.

nkassis• 16 years ago

To continue on the CPA example. My dad is a CA in Canada (the equivalent) he rarely has free time. And when he does, he usually goes meet with clients at restaurants and such. He also takes courses every 6 months. You might call him a workaholic, but his job requires a lot of customer relation and preparation.

jacquesm12• 16 years ago

I know the requirements for nursing are related to practicing safety, and work out to about 1 hour per month in most US states, I'm not sure if that time is provided by the employer or has to be taken out of 'free' time, having a license for the job is a pre-requisite, so it would be logical to take it out of 'free' time.

Just as a cab driver would be expected to have a valid driving license.

That's nothing to do with 'passion' outside of the job though, where a nurse would only be hired (or fired if she/he didn't) practice nursing in their free time, it's everything to do with the company being liable if they employed people that were not in the possession of a valid license to perform their jobs.

raganwald15• 16 years ago

This is a very complex question and there are no obviously correct answers. Here in Ontario, what you did outside of business hours is the business of a prospective employer in a certain sense. We have a law prohibiting certain forms of hiring discrimination, and as part of that it is illegal to ask a candidate questions pertaining to such things. So for example, I am not allowed to about your religious activities.

But I am allowed to ask questions that do not directly or indirectly adress illegal discrimination, and asking about profession-related activities is usually on-side.

That being said, it is perfectly legal for anyone to file a lawsuit suggesting that perfectly legal questions are being used to indirectly create illegal discriminatory practices. So if I never ask about religion but I only hire from my network which "happens to be" my church or my weekly Richard Dawkins Appreciation Society club...

What little I know about HR suggests that hiring out of a professional network that is agnostic about discriminatory matters is legal. HOWEVER, programming networks are on shaky ground. Not because of religion, but things like Ruby Conferences seem to under-represent certain protected classes of people like women.

Another example: If I put out a call for applicants on my own blog and that's the only source of applicants, am I discriminating against people who speak English competently for professional purposes but only read Hindi or Mandarin programming blogs? In ontario, that could be construed as illegal.

I can't give anyone legal advice, but if your network gives the appearance of discriminating against qualified candidates in protected classes, I suggest that it's good business sense to expand your network. It's a win-win: You'll get qualified people that other employers are ignoring, and your legal costs will go way down.

So... Good point about the title. And even though I am NOT saying that in an interview I refuse to hire someone who does not blog or go to conferences or tweet or whatever, my filtering mechanism could be breaking the law if it accidentally discriminates in a legal sense.

jacquesm12• 16 years ago

That perfectly sums it up.

The problems really only start when you get larger though.

If you were to go over roughly 20 employees and you put out calls for applicants. Ontario is pretty bad in this respect actually (I still have an Ontario corporation, I probably ought to shut it down) I remember all the cautioning from our corporate lawyer there regarding interview questions. For instance 'how old are you?' is an illegal question, but 'are you over 18?' is ok.

Under 20 employees and when using non-public ways of reaching potential hires the situation changes a bit, but someone could still have a case if they felt that they should have gotten a job and you refused them for some imaginary reason. Being an employer in a litigious climate is pretty tricky.

yummyfajitas4• 16 years ago

It's a win-win: You'll get qualified people that other employers are ignoring...

Not necessarily, if you account for time wasted on pointless interviews. Some networks/channels are simply better, and a better network causes you to waste less time interviewing fools. My company has been hiring, and I've found that the candidates who contact me through HN are of a higher quality than those we've found via recruiters.

If you recruit from a lower quality pool, you need to spend more time filtering out the chaff. Maybe it's necessary to avoid lawsuits, but it's not necessarily a win-win.

PastorOfMuppets• 16 years ago

Thats nice. I wouldn't want to work with someone who did nothing but program, use computers, 24/7. There is this thing called life, I hear its pretty interesting.

lsc4• 16 years ago

oh god, are you that guy who can't shut up about the football game last weekend? do you know how hard it is to keep smiling when you accost me every Monday morning with the news about your team? At least let me finish my coffee first.

(I'm mostly joking... but there really is a pretty big cultural divide here between people for whom this is a job and people for whom this is their identity.)

ganley2• 16 years ago

You nailed it with that last sentence, and the OP would seem to be looking for the latter class of people. What troubles me is the constant either-or mudslinging between the job people who think the identity people have no lives, and the identity people who think the job people are nothing but seat-warmers. As with all such false dichotomies, the truth is a long spectrum between the two, and using a single, simple measure such as whether the person programs for fun to measure passion is heuristic at best.

raghava• 16 years ago

>>a pretty big cultural divide here between people for whom this is a job and people for whom this is their identity Precisely. :) Still, as ganley points out, "truth is a long spectrum between the two".

Simply put, question is whether the candidate is passionate about programming and software systems (and if so, is he competent enough ;)) or not. For few it is their identity, and for many, it is just a job. Even those who loathe(or do not care a damn about) programming/software/computers/technology could be given fancy designations and be employed in IT, thanks to that thriving segment in the industry (yeah, the one that provides 'cost-effective means to get anything done based on a checklist').

Real fun (read 'misery') is when there is a misfit around; i.e. like when there's a guy totally passionate about programming/computers with a bunch of 'I-won't-even-touch-computer-outside-work' types who abhor programming. /* yeah, the latter ones are for real. :) */

raganwald15• 16 years ago

O RLY?

There are a lot of reasons to disagree with my post, but this isn't one of them. Your argument contains something called a straw man, namely the implication that I advocate hiring people who do nothing but program 24/7.

Yes, there is this thing called life. I have two kids. I Scuba dive, rock climb, bike, and do a bunch of other things that are not programming. I also enjoy programming. Not instead of life, but as part of a rich experience.

cageface• 16 years ago

I find I get some of my most important technical insights when I'm doing totally non-technical things. I can't count how many times I've been grinding away on a tricky bit of code, making no progress, only to have a simple solution pop into my head ten minutes after I leave the apartment and go for a walk. It's true that to excel in programming requires more than a 9-5 commitment but part of that commitment is an interest and passion for things completely outside of programming, because it's the cross-fertilization of ideas that helps you grow. Life and the mind require balance.

seshagiric• 16 years ago

So basically if a good programmer is spending his time with family and kids or doing something other than programming in his non-work time, then you will not hire him?

Programming outside business hours is great way to learn new skills and try out things that will never come as part of your day job. For example, my day job would never include any mobile app development. So I do it as a side project. In fact lot of people have developed lot of cool projects this way (outside work).

However saying this is the only way to tell a programmer is good is taking it too far. Like Jacquesm mentions people might have other interesting things to do or on the other hand people can suck equally bad in their 'other' projects too :)

raganwald15• 16 years ago

I absolutely agree that saying this is the only way to tell a good programmer is taking it too far. And in fact, the post does not say this is the only way to tell a good programmer.

So have an upvote, we agree.

Tamerlin2• 16 years ago

"So basically if a good programmer is spending his time with family and kids or doing something other than programming in his non-work time, then you will not hire him?"

That person would in many cases be the better choice, too -- especially if you want your product to actually work, and not be a maintenance nightmare. People like hate getting paged at 2am due to production bugs, so they tend to have stronger motivation to write simpler, cleaner code than the passionate tinkerers tend to write and become emotionally attached to.

jim_dot• 16 years ago

Programmers are not people. They are robots without friends or families and they really hate being paid overtime.

sgift• 16 years ago

As an employer I would want good (or "great", but I prefer the term good) programmers. I don't really care why they are good. Maybe they are good because they program 24/7 - okay. Maybe they do not use a computer outside of the office, but are still good programmers - okay.

Really, why should I care? This all sounds more like "I want people who are like me" than "I want good programmers as employees".

BSousa• 16 years ago

This has been discussed in many places but ok, here goes my take. I hardly, ever, ever program at home unless it is something I can make money of. I like programming as much as the next guy, but between my family and my hobbies (which are many), I see programming for 9-5.

Working 8 hours a day and being good at it doesn't qualify as passionate? What do you want? 10? 16? 22 hours a day?

You want people that are passionate and want to learn? Give them chances to do so while on the job. Let them use Ruby on Rails, or Erlang on the next project. Don't expect them to do it at home for free so you them reap the rewards.

If you don't want to hire me, fine, heck you can even not hiring me because I'm bald and you don't like bald people, but this "Has to program at home/Has to contribute to Open Source" crap is nothing more than that, crap!

maukdaddy• 16 years ago

This is one of the problems with the Silicon Valley echo-chamber effect. Everyone things that they deserve (must!) hire the "rockstars" who hack 24/7.

I'd rather hire someone who doesn't spend all of their spare time programming because they're going to be more rested and fresh when it comes to their work programming. Spending time with family, outdoor activities, cultural events, hell even reading and not being in front of a computer are all vital to the brain.

Tamerlin2• 16 years ago

I'd actually go a step farther and FIRE anyone who regularly works a lot of overtime -- for exactly the same reason.

As far as I'm concerned, sillycone valley can have the rockstars. It will keep them out of my hair so that I can get things done.

jtbigwoo• 16 years ago

Any employer worth working for has learning and development programs. At big companies, there's probably dozens of people managing training programs. At small companies, there are tons of opportunities to organize interest groups or show and tell. I know firms with lots of licensed employees (accounting, insurance, and education come to mind) generally have no problem granting their employees time to keep current on their continuing education. So what's the problem with technology? Why can't we act as humanely as other professions?

lsc4• 16 years ago

/every/ company I've worked for buys it's technical people books. Hell, I do that for my contractors. And most larger places have tuition assistance if you want to take actual classes.

matwood• 16 years ago

My company paid for my grad school and let me build my work schedule around classes and big assignments.

wccrawford• 16 years ago

For the first 3 years that I was a professional programmer, I didn't code at all at home. Previously, I had coded as a hobby and it was my skills from that that I was hired on. But suddenly going from 2 hours of programming a day to 8 was too much.

Around the 3 year mark, something changed. I suddenly wasn't doing enough programming at work and started playing around at home.

Now recently (the 5 year mark is quickly approaching) I have started to hunger for it even more, and have started watching less TV and playing fewer video games in favor of doing more fun coding at home and researching new ideas/languages/etc.

I think if the developer has years of experience and doesn't code at home, he doesn't have the fever needed to become better on his own time.

While I don't think that should immediately disqualify someone, I think it should be part of the hiring decision.

j-g-faustus• 16 years ago

I met someone who finished business school and applied for lots of jobs in the financial sector, but was rather frustrated after six months and several interviews but no job offer. (This was before the financial crisis.)

She complained that the interviewers were asking stupid and irrelevant questions, along the lines of "what is the current stock price for company X?"

When she told them she had been away on vacation in France they asked her to describe the French stock market instead. (She: "How am I supposed to know, I was on holiday!")

Programming is apparently not the only field where "interest beyond 9-5" is a job requirement...

Or more precisely: There are plenty of jobs in both programming and finance where 9-5 interest is enough, but in my experience the jobs that are considered "good" tend to ask more than that.

mey2• 16 years ago

Companies are always looking at ways to reduce costs. Some recognize that one employee performance varies greatly from the next employee. Asking these questions tends to indicate a different caliber of employee, one that is devoted to their field in obsessive ways. If that in the end defines a better employee I don't really know, but I tend to disagree. I personally (in the programming field) look for people who have the right ego (humble) and personality (outgoing). If you can do those two things, have a baseline of knowledge, and can LEARN then you'll make a great employee. (Maybe not a great entrepreneur?) (Also no the company I work for is not currently hiring)

timwiseman• 16 years ago

right ego (humble) and personality (outgoing).

I guess it sort of depends on how you define humble, but I find that most good programmers have at least a touch of arrogance. They must approach some of the most complicated machines developped in all of history and say, "I will make this do my will." They must approach problems that have not been solved before and say, "I can solve this." If you decide to change languages or even just frameworks or a new API, they must think, "I can and will learn this."

I can see a desire for a certain degree of humility, but it must be of a specific kind, not what most people think of as humility. It should be of the "I know there are people better than me, but I will find them and learn from them. I will always strive to be the best, while acknowledging there will be others better."

yummyfajitas4• 16 years ago

I'm not sure you could characterize those questions as measuring "interest beyond 9-5". I think they are actually just ticking off the boxes "candidate spent at least 10 minutes effort into prepping for interviews [Y/N]".

There are many big bank interview guides, all of which tell you "look up the DOW/NASDAQ/S&P open/close before the interview" (not to mention share price of the company you are interviewing at). At one point I interviewed at a big bank, and many questions I got were stolen right out of this book: http://www.amazon.com/Heard-Street-Quantitative-Questions-In...

ojbyrne2• 16 years ago

Isn't it possible their job is more than just 9-5? At a startup, it often consumes most of your free time.

ojbyrne2• 16 years ago

I have actually heard the opposite during hiring. Basically because of the "no assholes" rule. If someone doesn't have interests other than work/programming, there's a good chance they fail that test.

riffraff• 16 years ago

am I the only one bothered by the second formula? ¬(¬MY_PEEPS ⇒ ¬SKILLZ) ∧ ¬(¬SKILLZ ⇒ ¬SOFTWARE)

at first sight it could be quite more simple as

¬(SKILLZ ⇒ MY_PEEPS ∨ SOFTWARE ⇒ SKILLZ)

(contrapposition, de morgan)

raganwald15• 16 years ago

Hmm, I think you're right!

klochner3• 16 years ago

"we can all agree that . . . ???"

   ¬(¬MY_PEEPS ⇒ ¬SKILLZ) ∧ ¬(¬SKILLZ ⇒ ¬SOFTWARE) # original formula
   ¬(SKILLZ ⇒ MY_PEEPS ∨ SOFTWARE ⇒ SKILLZ)        # De Morgan
   ¬(¬SKILLZ ∨ MY_PEEPS ∨ ¬SOFTWARE ∨ SKILLZ)       # (a⇒b) ↔ (¬a∨b)
   ¬(¬SKILLZ ∨ SKILLZ ∨ MY_PEEPS ∨ ¬SOFTWARE)       # re-arranging
   ¬(TRUE ∨ MY_PEEPS ∨ ¬SOFTWARE)                   # (¬a∨a) ↔ TRUE
   FALSE                                            # ¬TRUE ↔ FALSE

raganwald15• 16 years ago

No, I don't agree. Maybe you should explain each step so that I can follow along. I am probably not as smart as you are.

Update: I think you are being a bit literal. The two SKILLZ aren't the same proposition. The first is the proposition that a particular person has some characteristics I value. the second is the proposition that a particular team has some characteristics I value. So if you want to get really serious, you might call the first one SKILLZ-sub-candidate and the second SKILLS-sub-team.

Thinking this through was valuable, thank you and have an upmod.

klochner3• 16 years ago

formal logic isn't something you're supposed to get "hand-wavey" with, especially if you're trying to show off your geek-cred.

and I found it happily ironic that he preceded the statement with "i think we can all agree"

SHOwnsYou2• 16 years ago

I want to say something that will no doubt be wildly unpopular.

What are the chances that the author uses programming as a method of escape? The reason I say this -- he discusses his social anxiety at the bottom. Makes me think instead of interacting with new and random people, he would rather be in his own thoughts (either because it is less painful or there simply isn't an interest in new people).

Many people, even several that I work with, do not program much outside of the job. I would virtually always rather be out at an event or by the pool or doing just about -anything- other than be on my computer after my work day is finished. Important stuff comes through my phone and I'll address it if necessary, but I am not dying to get right back on the computer when I get home.

I should note however, that my job is transitioning out of developer and into a more outwardly facing role. I've been developing for several years and I've just grown tired of it. I get to solve new problems now.

raganwald15• 16 years ago

Chances are good, especially when I was an adolescent. However, like many things it's way more complicated than that. I enjoy meeting new people. If you say, "Reg, let's go for a coffee, I want you to meet someone," I will probably leap at the chance. If you say, "Reg, there's an iPad programming Flash Mob going on downstairs," I might break out in hives. or go bouldering where I meet plenty of people and have rich experiences with them.

It's a very good and refreshing supposition, thanks!

SHOwnsYou2• 16 years ago

Let me start by saying I am very happy that you responded to me.

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I feel like there is very much an industry standard personality-wise (that I think you are more similar to). I don't think I am anything like the industry standard - I am headstrong with an ego rivaled by few. I don't think I am better or worse suited for what we do, but I am noting the difference.

My ultimate point is that I gain a lot of insight when other people, who I know are different personality wise, give me their thoughts on how they would/do run a business.

A lot of people in my family run successful businesses and I have access to who/what personalities they hire, but the line of work my family is in is not technology-heavy at all. I am inclined to think my dad is more likely to hire people that don't put a large amount of their personal time into their work, simply because he runs a very customer oriented business. Being able to relate to and engage people is very important. Diversified interests help a lot in being able to do this.

So like I said, I approach it differently (maybe it's learned from my parents and relatives), but I appreciate you responding to me very much. It helps me to figure out what makes you tick.

blahblahblah3• 16 years ago

The idea that if you don't program outside of work you're not a good programmer is just silly. I can understand that you might regard with some suspicion the abilities of someone who has never in their entire life written code outside of work. But, the idea that you must always continue to do so even when you have a day job programming is utter nonsense.

Programming isn't my weekend hobby anymore. Why should it be? I get to do it every day at work and get paid for it now. That was the point of making it my career. It was something I already enjoyed doing and was good at that I could also make a living by doing. Am I automatically less passionate about it because I'm doing it for profit now? Of course not. I use my free time to do all of the other things that I enjoy doing. It's ok to have more than one passion. It won't harm your programming ability for you to program during the day and paint or write music in your spare time. On the contrary, you are more likely to show up for work each day refreshed and enthused about what you are doing precisely because you are doing other satisfying things after work.

raganwald15• 16 years ago

edit: http://raganwald.posterous.com/all-that-jazz

blahblahblah3• 16 years ago

"Given any mechanism for filtering people, I claim that there are smart, productive people who will be filtered out. These are called false negatives. It is impossible to create a repeatable hiring process that does away with false negatives."

While it is true that no test can avoid false negatives, it is also true that if the quantity measured by your test is uncorrelated with the phenomenon of interest then your test is neither sensitive nor specific and its PPV and NPV will be poor no matter where you set your decision threshold on the ROC curve. If you advocate such a test publicly, you should expect to be criticized for doing so.

"I now understand that he was using a strategy for hiring people, not a metric for measuring me. His strategy for hiring people worked for his purposes. Why take that personally?"

You could decide which programmer to hire based on skin color and write a blog advocating that "strategy" as well. (You'd get sued for doing so, but that's tangential to the point here.) If you did that, it would be unreasonable to expect the "it's just my strategy; it isn't about you, so don't take it personally" argument to be taken seriously. Whether you are aware of it or not, when you advocate a hiring practice publicly you are making an implicit claim that it has some validity and the community is right to spew vitriol in your direction if your hiring criteria are not well constrained within the realm of demonstrable merit and cross over into areas that are none of your damn business as an employer.

Programming Outside of Business Hours

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