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How To Find Bad Programmers
AmberShah writes "The job post is your potential programmer's first impression of your company, so make it count with these offputting features. There are plenty of articles about recruiting great developers, but what if you are only interested in the crappy ones?" I think much of the industry is already following these guidelines.
You got modded down for this, but it's true. You get what you pay for. Just low-ball the salary or billing rate. The people who are worth anything will be kept by the employers who know better. And you'll just end up bottom-feeding. There's a reason Indian programmers are cheap. I've worked with many. Some were awesome programmers. But by far, most were just cheap. And this is true regardless of whether they're Indian or not. Cheap people are cheap for a reason.
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
You want a good coder? Look at their code. Make them take some written tests and an oral exam. Have them write you something small for free.
Maybe that is specific to rent-a-coder. I do a lot of interviewing for technical positions, and I don't give code challenges. Anything beyond CS101 fodder is too time-consuming, and asking CS101 questions doesn't really tell me anything.
I'm a big fan of "what's the difference?" questions. I'll take two similar technologies from their resume and ask what's the difference between them. It tests both the candidate's level of experience, as well as the candidate's ability to think and articulate an answer.
I have to say, I've gotten some pretty (ahem) creative responses, too. And for all you job hunters out there, if you put "C/C++" on your resume, I guarantee my first technical question is going to be, "What's the difference between C and C++?" All the while knowing that there is a >50% chance I'm about to get a "creative" answer.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Early on in my career, I showed up for an interview. I drove 30 minutes to get there, was in my suit, and ready to rock. I got there, and the front desk person handed me a 10 page document, and told me to sit down and fill it in. I hadn't even met anybody else yet. It was a programming test. I filled in a page or two, decided I didn't want to work at a place like that, and walked out.
I later interviewed at a large corporation as a Perl programmer. I passed all the interviews, and then they wanted me to write a Perl programme to show them I actually did know what I was talking about. I took their specs, which they said should take maybe an hour to finish. It took me 7 hours. I handed it in, along with my notes on where their specs were vague and why I'd taken the route I had. I got the job and they rewrote the test after that.
Maybe I'm a good programmer or maybe I'm not, but I'm with you that programmers will be more likely to take a test when the risk/reward balance is topped to the correct side.
www.clarke.ca
Proficiency matters more than years of experience, eventually. I haven't met a single fresh-from-the-mill coder with the architectural chops to lead a project or design major systems (though I know they exist), but I've also worked with plenty of 30-or-40-something senior devs who couldn't find their ass with a flashlight and two hours with Design Patterns (and, no, I don't think that the whole world lives in Design Patterns).
There isn't just one type of good programmer, just as there isn't just one type of bad one. When I was 19 and starting my first job, sure, I wrote terrible code. When I was 22, I architected major systems that were fairly well thought out and are still in use today (I'm 30). My improvement came from having my ass kicked by some truly talented older coders.
Of course, a good dev will look at what they wrote 2-3 years ago and say "who wrote this crap?!" Someone who thinks that any more than a few tiny gems of their prior code would be up to snuff today is a crappy coder.