Would you hire this developer?

http://www.fromdelhi.com/2008/09/30/would-you-hire-this-ruby-on-rails-developer/

by pius • 18 years ago

9 26 18 years ago

Maybe something's lost in translation there, but I can't believe the attitude of some people applying for jobs these days.

I mean, you need to convince the person that is reviewing your application that you are somehow extra special. I find it hard to understand how you'll do that by being arrogant and rude.

bigthboy2• 18 years ago

I've noticed this in not only my current project but previous projects that I've worked on. When we're looking for someone to help do some specific programming tasks we tend to have a problem with people not really being polite in their applications. They treat it as though they did it as more of an afterthought. I don't seem to see this problem in artistic positions...

huhtenberg4• 18 years ago

Both sides have a problem with an attitude and are worthy of each other.

> Contributing to open source projects matters more than your marks in school to us and to a lot of other companies around.

Maybe it matters more to them and perhaps it's specific to India, but in Canada participation of a candidate in open source projects is of just a cursory interest. Besides quoted exchange states that they simply wanted to look at guy's code. If so, then just ask for it. Getting into "thou shalt contribute to the open source" tirade is pretty much pointless given the context.

danielharan2• 18 years ago

What part of Canada are you in?

In Montreal, many companies routinely ask if a developer has open source projects, or code samples.

If a company doesn't do this they are hiring based on resume and interview only, rather than seeing actual code.

huhtenberg4• 18 years ago

> or code samples

That's exactly my point. No one here (at least in my experience) focuses on open source contributions per se. The end goal generally is to look at some code that a candidate have written, not necessarily the open source one.

Of course there are exceptions. For certain positions you will get a big bonus for any contributions to a specific high-profile open source project. But this has less to do with a code you wrote and more with domain knowledge you picked up along the way.

jjburka2• 18 years ago

honestly I wouldn't hire anyone that can't take the time to spell out "you"

huhtenberg4• 18 years ago

> honestly I wouldn't hire anyone that can't take the time to spell out "you"

How about people who don't capitalize first letter in the sentence and don't put a dot at the end ? :)

jjburka2• 18 years ago

touche

nuclear_eclipse• 18 years ago

Zing!

scribblewiki• 18 years ago

One person is applying for a job, the other is writing on a social news site. Yeah those are the same.

sown2• 18 years ago

I wonder if it is just some regional thing they accept there. I dunno...

bigthboy2• 18 years ago

Under most circumstances I would not and have not hired any programmer who could not provide some sort of demonstration program with a clean source and stable compile (depending on the language).

tptacek• 18 years ago

No.

vaksel• 18 years ago

I would have ignored the application when I saw the first email. 1 year experience + no English is a bad combination.

+ lack of open source and 1 year, tells me that this is someone who just picked up a book and hasn't really done anything yet

ashleyw• 18 years ago

There are tons of developers in India, check this out:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=programming

The problem is for many, its a job, just like working at McDonalds — they aren't like us, they don't go home and work on open source projects and the like.

Also, with the mass of people doing it, especially those with little passion for the industry, they sometimes don't take care when it comes to security, etc..

Now thats not to say all developers from India are bad programmers, I've worked with quite a few code ninjas...you've just got to be careful!

bigbang• 18 years ago

The languages section from Google trends for the query "programming" 1. Tagalog 2. English 3. Russian

Tichy2• 18 years ago

"We only work with devlopers who are willing to donate 20000$ to charity"????

danielharan2• 18 years ago

$20k? charity?

I have projects with 20-100 LOC up on github, for my own convenience. It costs me nothing to make these public if I can't sell them - that's not charity.

zain• 18 years ago

Your time costs something.

SwellJoe• 18 years ago

Historically, I've only ever hired developers I've found through their contributions to Open Source software...but I've always built Open Source software, predominantly, so I wouldn't know how to select developers otherwise. But, it pretty much rules out the process of weeding through dozens of pointless applications like this, since I usually approach the developers I want to hire.

aasarava• 18 years ago

No -- but not because the developer didn't contribute to an open source project.

Communication skills are important in development, especially when you're working on a team and for someone else. The cover letter / intro email is the first test in the hiring process. Even if English is not your first language, you should be able to effectively introduce yourself, your skill set, your experience, and your interest in the position -- plus answer any other questions in the job posting.

This candidate failed the very first test. The "delete" key -- or, if the hiring manager is super nice, the "no thanks, good luck" reply -- should have been used immediately.

nose• 18 years ago

>attitude of Indian developers towards contributing to open source projects

Huh? I know plenty of Indian open source developers (myself included)

Would you hire this developer?

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