This is a topic that has really gotten out of hand. There are all sorts weighing in these days — along with far too much jowl waggling by middle managers and idealist super hackers.
So let’s cut the shit and get down to business, shall we? Here’s how to fucking hire a great developer:
1. Use fucking credentials.
I don’t know how the discussion has devolved to the point that this isn’t obvious. You’re not going to somehow probe the extent of a persons’ mental faculties by quizzing them on minutiae that literally nobody commits to memory. You judge a person based on what they’ve done before they land in your office. Why? Because it’s not possible to compress a college education or a product launch into a 30 minute blabberfest.
“Wah! Boo-hoo. College isn’t the real world. I can’t use no book learnin’ to straighten out our VB.NET calculator optimization plant!”
You are what’s wrong with the industry. The whole point of a college education is to demonstrate the ability to learn and excel at a high level. If a candidate distinguished herself in school, pay attention. For computer scientists (unlike, say, English majors) part of that training is legitimately practical: we learn how to engineer software using big-kid tools. Ask us about our projects and then decide if they’re credible.
The notion that the years we spent pounding on books and keyboards doesn’t count as much as writing bullshit browser plugins for $20/hour is flaming garbage. Disregarding students’ investment as mere rigmarole is equivalent to asserting that Gandhi went on hunger strikes because he wasn’t hungry. Many of us sacrificed for our education and you better damn well pay attention to it.
“Hurr-durr, what if a candidate slid by? Or earned bad grades? Or didn’t go to college? What then?”
Read more: Your startup sucks