Fr3dd1

https://web.archive.org/web/20250918105751/https://www.nytim...

I would argue that a good process always has a good self correction mechanism built in. This way, the work done by a "low quality" software developer (this includes almost all of us at some point in time), is always taken into account by the process.

Interesting idea but what exactly is a dev test for you? And when does it qualify as a ci test?

I had quiet a ride myself with that topic. For years my opinion was, that I dont want to, as the auther here suggests as well, go with tdd as long as I dont know exactly what I need. Than I switched over and used tdd for everything with a more regid (interface) design upfront. Nowadays I use tdd from the integration side and only add unit tests later or case by case when I think its usefull. A really good ressource is "Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests"

I would go a step further and dont let juniors use LLMs for code generation. The purpose and your role as a junior is to not only work but also to learn. When using genrated code, you miss a lot of opportunities to do so. Of course you could learn of some other methods or stuff from the frameworks you are using but imho thats not that big of an advantage.

Today, if someone uses LLMs for code generation, he/she will probably question the generated code and will put his own judgement above it. I am curious how fast that will change, especially for juniors. When will they start to question their own judgement and just go with the generated code becuase its "more safe"?

Are you ready to find out?! :D

You should make them input the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42

Maybe you are right and it could be a good "first aid" :)

Yeah, kind of like that. What would be needed to get curated are the facts. Who could do it, would be the author of the original article. Maybe the author just needs to flag the wrong facts. In my, obviously very well minded view, an author has a big interest that first: his scientific article is correct - you get real bad reputation if your science is provable wrong - and that the facts others get out of it, are also correct. Of course, highly positive view :)

I like that comment, gave me a smile :D You are truly correct, thats why I asked if something like that already exists.

I kind of like your idea but in my head I always bounce back to "Is that a problem technology can or should solve?" IMHO the underlying problem is that people dont care that much anymore for each other, especially strangers. And the reason for that is, that in our society, we are not at all dependent on our surroundings. You can be perfectly fine without knowing your neighbors for example. If you dont have any sugar or salt to cook something, you can go to a close by store, order it or just order the cooked meal. You dont go to your neighbor and ask for a little bit of sugar or salt (if you ask for sugar, you probably get insulted because how bad sugar is - little joke :D ). So I guess, the only thing that truly work is to build communities that consists of interdependent people. Just my take one it :)

I am in germany, so by far not the same situation as in other areas of the world. If I would get such an assignment myself and I have the feeling that this will help the company and also me to verify, if it is a fit, I will do that 1 to 3 hour task very happily.

We did a lot of these assignments and no one assumed that they will be hired if they complete it. Its about how you communicate your intent. I always told the candidates, that the goal of the task is 1. to see some code and if some really basic stuff is on point and 2. that you can argue with someone about his or her code.

For that topic some nice additional stuff: https://diataxis.fr/

- After 10 Years I want to do a PR in either squats, on the bench or DL

- Running a 10k in under 50 min

- Doing some 24h bike race

- Solving the shortage of skilled workers with help of my better half :D

I myself just get to drink some water. If its possible I would highly recommend getting some sunlight right at the start of your day and what also helped me in the past (I know, sounds a bit strange) is to just tidy up your bed.

What is it, that sparks your interest in industrial automation? I would recommend on focusing on the stuff you want to instead of focusing what you dont want to do. So dont think about "I dont want to stay in ML" but for example more about "I want to see a physical occurence of what I contributed to"

As some others suggested I would also recommend to try to make an experiment. Identify one part of your software suite you think you can build, operate and do the maintenance for. Aim to do it as fast as possible. Test if you can resolve the issues, you have with your vendor, if you do it yourself. If that fails, it propbably isnt a good idea to go full scale on it. Again: aim to get some real world experience with your own build software AS FAST (and cheap) as possible. Dont go for a perfect solution.

We develop software for the german energy market (just the economic parts of it). If you are interested, look the following (we germans loooove rules and specifications :D) https://www.edi-energy.de/index.php?id=38 This are just the specifications for exchanging data between participants.

Okay, I didnt thought about such an early state.

The underlying belief to this is, is that more hours = more results = better results. I highly doubt that this is the truth.

I myself lead a software development team. I am 31 and the last two people I hired were almost 50 and they are very good devs. In my opinion age alone isnt a reason not to hire someone. What is the "common reason" older people are not considered to be hired? I guess because people think they cant adapt or are stuck in some ways in theire thinking. If your future you can show that this is not the case, I guess you are fine :) Only "REAL" age related reason is (and I have to admit that I myself didnt hire someone because of that) if the person wants to retire in the near future and you think you want to invest your time in someone who will, hopefully, stay longer.

99% of candidates come through some 3rd party recruiter (in our case). They know our ranges and communicate this. The other 1%, well I just dont do, no special thoughts. Its not in my intention to push compensation down. This only has future downsides if I hire the candidate and he performs well.

% in company not a thing here. I ask for a salary range from the candidate. If that meets the range I can potentially offer, I say so. If it is too high, I also say so. If it is lower than usual and it is a final match, our offer will be higher. If the candidate "refuses" to name it (acutally didnt happend in the last years) I can only assume that I would say my budget. Guess its fair or what would you say?

Actually telling things you like is a good thing. Why would it be a bad thing? Getting zero job offers is mostly, at least from my experience, a result of lacking the needed soft or hard skills (sadly errors can occure here - false negatives) or someone who doesnt meet organizational requirements (like the things we discussed here). In my process I tell in the first contact, that I am looking to fill a full time position in my team. If the candidate neither at the end of this call or in the organzation process for the second meeting says, that working full time is not an option, well sorry, thats just unfair. My opinion.

I did not think this gets so much attention. A lot of the points you all wrote are correct. But still, if I am looking to fil a full time position (of course this is written in the ad...) and you dont want to work full time than this is totally fine but not a match. Maybe you think you can convince a company that you can generate the same output as other employees who work full time - and maybe that is true. But its insanely hard to do so. To this day (at least in germany in most companies I know) people are just not ready yet to admid that working time != working results. Just the turh for now (I myself hope too that this will change and I do my bits). And by the way I would assume that a lot of people who are active here are above average in there profession. I dont have proof for that but thats what I think. And guess what: a lot of candidates are not above average.

Context: I do recruiting as a team lead. I am happy you found what you were looking for. But from my pov, if you want to work less than fulltime and thats a non negotiable thing for you, please be open up front with the people who interview you. Typically when a full time position is offered, the workload of a full person is needed (lets not discuss if 8h of work a day results in better or more output than less hours, thats another topic). I was several times in the position where a candidate suddenly said, that he wants to work part time (at the last stage of the hiring process). By doing this he wasted not only mine but also his own time..

I live and work in germany so the environment might be way different then in the us or other countries. What I do is a small programming task that candidates can do in there own time frame at home. For the task you have to implement one interface consisting of 2 methods. Its nothing special in terms of computer science. What do I look for in the solutions I get? - Is the code readable? - Does it compile - Are there any unit tests - The implementation needs to work with the filesystem, how is that solved and how is it tested (if it is tested)? - Is there some kind of error handling? I check these points and in the next interview with the candidate I discuss the solution with him or her.

Context: I am myself a tech lead / team manager and at the moment I try to recruit a more senior developer.

My way to assess candidates differ from the style the blog describes, but of course I do some kind of technical screening. From my point of view, this blog, obviously, just describes the view of the candidate. And maybe this person is quite good at his job. But you have to consider, that you get a lot of candidates who can't get things done. I screen candidates who want to do a PhD in computer science but write code like we are 20 years or more in the past. I get candidates with a degree in computer science who do a little programming task that won't compile at all.

What I want to say is, don't underestimate the sheer number of people who apply (or get brought in by recruiting companies) who, to be honest, cant develop software that's a little more complex.