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Ted Dziuba Says, "I Don't Code In My Free Time"
theodp writes "When he gets some free time away from his gigs at startup Milo and The Register, you won't catch Ted Dziuba doing any recreational programming. And he wouldn't want to work for a company that doesn't hire those who don't code in their spare time. 'You know what's more awesome than spending my Saturday afternoon learning Haskell by hacking away at a few Project Euler problems?' asks Dziuba. 'F***, ANYTHING.'"
Also:
Who cares?
When I worked as a spaghetti cook and eating spaghetti every night for three years, I didn't eat spaghetti for the next seven years.
When I worked as video game tester for six years, I very rarely played video games at home. After 40 to 80 hours a week testing games, I wanted to do something different with my time.
I been resisting offers to do technical writing since I write fiction in my off times. An ideal job is one that you can separate from your personal life.
I mean, you wouldn't hire a gardener who had a garden of his own - would you?
Schmuck.
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I'm sure brain surgeons read medical journals and go to symposiums outside of their normal working hours.
So he would want to work for those who do hire people who don't code in their spare time? Or would want to work for those who don't hire people who do code in their spare time? Or what?
And Who's on first, right?
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Personally I try to avoid companies that care that much about what I do in MY time in general. If I'm not on the clock, its none of your fucking business. If I decide to learn a new language on my own, it is irrelevant until I start using it at work, in which case I expect my going above and beyond to be noticed. If it is required that I learn something new for work, I sure as hell had better be paid by the company for it one way or another (even if it just means doing the learning during company time).
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Perhaps, but never coding in your free time, not ever, and saying that you've never enjoyed writing code to explore or learn something: that shows a distinct lack of balance.
My tram ride to work takes 40 minutes. Honestly, what am I going to do with that time? I have a eeepc 701 loaded with ubuntu. On the tram I write code. It makes the commute bearable for me,
If you can't see what else you could be doing with that time other than coding the I would suggest that you need to step back from it and take a look at the bigger picture. But don't take this as meaning I am saying you shouldn't code - just that you should be aware of the tradeoffs you are making in order to code.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Work is the boring stuff. You're fixing tedious bugs in tedious applications dealing with tedious real world problems like the cover page of the new TPS report. It's like a ski instructor that have to deal with all the horribly inexperienced people doing things all wrong or at least it's nothing like cruising along freely yourself. Obviously after a long day on the job I understand that this person would just want to go home, eat a pizza and do something completely different. But I'd be concerned about the coder that didn't have any pet projects, any interest in coding outside work like a ski instructor that never just goes skiing. No deadlines, no pressure, no dealing with poor specs, annoying customers or superiors. If you don't ever tinker with anything under those conditions I really don't see you giving it your best during work hours either. I don't mean that you need to have a long list of "public" off-hours coding experience that can be validated and put on your CV, just as a personality treat.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
>If you let your kids take over your entire free time then your not doing yourself or your kids any favours.
I'm guessing you're not a parent?
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
What this guy probably doesn't know, is that just about all coders that actually are any good at their job, love the endless unlimited possibilities their knowledge provides so much that they simply don't give a fuck about whether somebody is paying them to do it or not. They _HAVE_TO_CREATE_. They _HAVE_TO_SOLVE_PROBLEMS_. They simply cannot be stopped.
While there may be many not-so-good programmers that love to code in their spare time, I have actually _NEVER_ met any good programmer/engineer/developer/whatever that DOESN'T WANT to code in their spare time. I don't think they exist. However, I do think many exist that THINK they're a good programmer. Probably this Ted Dziuba guy is one of them. I'd never hire him.
0x or or snor perron?!
He's 26. He has ~3 years professional experience. What exactly qualifies as years of experience in your eyes, because from where I'm sitting he's a green horn. Not that I agree with the notion that you have to code in your offtime to be worth a crap.
Perhaps, but never coding in your free time, not ever, and saying that you've never enjoyed writing code to explore or learn something: that shows a distinct lack of balance.
... distinct lack of creativity and/or distinct lack of drive to explore
Dude thinks he's not boring, because he puts down what non-boring people like to do, and all put downs make you cooler, right? But, the real world doesn't work that way.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Otherwise you might as well say that Ferrari should only hire race drivers who have no real interest in driving or airlines should only hire pilots who have no interest in flying outside of sitting in a 737 pilot seat monitoring systems for 3 hours.
I don't suppose you've met very many 737 pilots have you? Flying a 737 or other large aircraft is like driving a bus in the sky. For most, at least of the 10 or so I know personally, flying may have once been a great passion but it has been replaced as something they do as a job.
As far as the article is concerned, I am a programmer, a damn good and distinguished one as a matter of fact, but my experience has taught me that in order to lead a healthy and productive life, there needs to be balance. Which for me, means leaving my work at work, and enjoying other interests in my off time. Don't get me wrong, I still have a great passion for programming, but like I said, I need balance. I would also wager that the majority of programmers who do a lot of coding in their spare time are fairly young in the craft. Once you get about 10-15 years experience of busting your ass day in and day out as a programmer, most will begin to find out that need other things in their life outside of programming.
Then again, I've met quite a few other programmers that really just had nothing better to do with their spare time.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
You don't know that. Doing something for ~8 hours a day can lower ones intensity to do it in their "free time".
What I've found is that I`m more inclined to work on the opposite of what I do at work.
I worked at a place where the code base was a disaster .. there was no planning or design work.. no requirements management.. no semblance of order to anything (though we were working to fix that) .. and I found in my free time I enjoyed coding in a very designed and managed way.. kind of refreshing to work on nice tidy Java code.
Now I work at pretty much the opposite. Every line of code is reviewed and re-reviewed.. then the review process is reviewed and a binder of documentation is produced tying it to the requirements, testing, and phase of the moon. The design process of even a simple change can take months followed by (literally) years of testing. And when I get home.. I immerse myself in Perl and just "code the damn thing already".
On the original point.. it's been my experience that while there are some programmers who are very good at their job despite treating it like a 9 to 5 .. the vast majority of good coders I know at least dabble with stuff at home. I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask what (if any) projects a person works on at home. I wouldn't use it as a sole judge of whether they are a good candidate.. but it would certainly factor into things.
As for what a person does (non programming) in their off time.. again.. I think perfectly reasonable. Also on the table in my opinion are what their favourite classes in high school were, what books/movies that like, what music, what they do with their friends on a Friday. When you hire someone into a team.. you arn't just hiring an automaton that is capable of performing a set list of tasks. I've met brilliant programmers whom I'd pass over for a high school kid.. because despite being good at their job.. they would have been a negative person to have around and would make work hell (yes.. having a fun and happy work environment is important..)
Please note that I did say "professional experience". This was not by accident or to make my post appear longer.
This guy sounds similar to myself. If the job is a 9-5 coding, I don't want to spend my free time coding. If my 9-5 is working on cars, I don't want to spend my free time working on cars. If my 9-5 is being a doctor, I don't want to spend my free time working in the clinic.
It comes to preferences. My job is a job. Not a career. Not a stepping stone. Not a direction to a greater path in my field. Once I've reached a particular spot and I'm happy and/or comfortable with it - that's it. But when all is said and done and I come home for the day, I have more important things to worry about like my family, my hobbies and/or what other fun things I want to do. Not sitting on my arse in front of a computer. Not unless I need to, and those needs are defined by staying relevant in my field, like all fields. Medical, programming, mechanic etc. All else is purely extra and it sounds like this guy doesn't want that extra to be on the computer like a hobby. Can't fault him for that.
Those of you who don't have kids, won't get it.
I know, because it's not like we don't have any siblings with kids or friends with kids or were kids ourselves. We know nothing about kids, or parenting, or... what is it you call it? Family?
Please never, ever, ever say this. It is so unbelievably insulting. I actually can think of a couple childless people I know who seemed to be clueless about the lifestyle of coworkers with kids, but I can count them on one hand.
No, I don't know personally what it's like to be responsible for someone's physical and emotional well-being, but I've seen it done, and it looks pretty hard. I don't whine about coworkers with kids until it seems like they use it as a blanket excuse for why they can't do anything even when every other parent is fine with it. You know exactly what I'm talking about (unless you're the one who is always dropping the ball "because of the kids"). It's a mean trick to play on someone, to make them feel like they are directly harming the development of a little child by asking that someone pull their weight.
Then there's the other side. My wife and I can't have kids. That's okay with us; we've gotten over being depressed about it, and have just decided to be active with our families in other ways in the hopes that maybe a niece or nephew might visit us in the nursing home, or at least pick up our ashes. But try selling that to a boss if you don't have kids. People without kids still have families and still want to be connected to them, but unless those family members fell out of your own crotch, they don't really count. It's not like I'm saying "I can't make it to that meeting; my dad has the sniffles." But "Any way I can get out of that unscheduled meeting you threw right in the middle of my family reunion weekend?"
Ugh, why am I even bothering?
Those of you who have kids won't get it. ;-)
The managers you work for, to keep their jobs and get raises, are literally vultures these days. If you come up with something really neat, and the bosses think it might somehow fit into what the company might want, to keep YOUR job, you turn it over to them. Unpaid hours of development = the company making profit just so you can keep your job?
The main reason back in the old days that the unions didn't get so much as a foothold into the tech culture is because tech companies were smart enough to treat their talent really, really well. (If you weren't, well, sorry about your misfortune, but you were in the minority.) You got paid solid pay much higher than the area average, you got full benefits, you had a degree of job security, and you could goof off from time to time and no one held it against you. Over the last 5 years, I've noticed the total number of months I've actually worked for pay drop to literally 6 months a year. I've had "jobs" where I discovered I was competing against an offshore team for consulting teams (and obviously losing because I was unwilling to work for 10 bucks an hour). Benefits? Haven't had even remotely decent coverage for many years. And the last few jobs I've worked, I was (along with my team) highly pressured to "innovate" on my own time in order to keep my job. In order to keep my contract position with no benefits, I was expected to "take ownership" of things on my own time.
An auto shop is not going to threaten to fire their contract employees if they don't work overtime for free. You won't see that in most industries. But because a lot of developers are basically pussies and won't stand up, get together, and fight back, companies are going to do this more and more because they can get away with stealing the fruits of labor YOU create on YOUR OWN time. No, developers are more willing to lay down, call themselves libertarians, rag on the unions, bitch and moan about having no free hours in their days, cry when they get laid off, and stay in that cycle until they drop dead.
I'm just surprised that this kid is burned out already. Usually takes several more years of being used like a whore by managers who contribute nothing more than their ability to lie and cover their own asses. He must be REALLY smart.
The point is that you can be pretty darn sure that the person is NOT more skilled or knowledgeable.
Though imperfect, desire to hack on personal projects is a damn good lameness filter.
Every top architect I worked around at NeXT and Apple had families and never programmed outside of work. They were normal.