
Recruiting for privilege - ingve
https://medium.com/@drunkcod/recruiting-for-privilege-5f019741fac3
======
SamReidHughes
Privilege shmivilege. It’s your duty as a human being to make yourself useful
to the world. It is good that teaching yourself new stuff, or just playing
with it because it’s fun, is justly rewarded in your career, if it helps you
make useful stuff for other people.

When recruiting you should recruit for people that you think would be most
useful to you, and by extension your customers. If information about side-
projects helps then you should take that into account. Side projects are most
helpful for people that don’t have college degrees and that lets them bypass
an expensive credential. Basically anybody else doesn’t need to have side
projects on their resume anyway — they’ve got a job history.

~~~
geofft
> _When recruiting you should recruit for people that you think would be most
> useful to you, and by extension your customers. If information about side-
> projects helps then you should take that into account._

I don't think the author disagrees with any of that. The question is whether a
_lack_ of side projects is a reliable _negative_ signal. If you pre-filter for
who has side projects to show at all, and then look at who's good at them,
you're basically doing the same thing as the person who throws away half the
resumes to get rid of the unlucky candidates. Your job as someone doing hiring
is to find the best candidate, not the best candidate within some arbitrary
subset that just happens to be easier to evaluate.

> _Side projects are most helpful for people that don’t have college degrees
> and that lets them bypass an expensive credential. Basically anybody else
> doesn’t need to have side projects on their resume anyway — they’ve got a
> job history._

This is not my experience. My resume shows a degree and teaching experience
from MIT and multiple serious jobs, and I still get asked "So, what's on your
GitHub" at interviews.

~~~
extra88
Having a set of questions that are posed to every interviewee, regardless of
their background, can be helpful when comparing candidates and in reducing
unconscious bias (and the appearance of it, in case of lawsuit).

Of course asking about GitHub specifically could be a signal of an ageism
problem but I would hope your thoughtful answer would compensate in their
minds for an absent or sparse GitHub account.

It's reasonable for employers to seek people who are life-long learners. It's
probably better for interviewers to ask a candidate about learning and growth
rather than specifically something like GitHub but a savvy interviewee can
recognize why such specific questions are asked and respond with other ways in
which they've learned and grown, on company time or not.

------
jakelazaroff
A major factor in this is that a large swath of the tech industry doesn't
treat their job as a job, or their company as an employer. The blending of
work and personal lives, lack of unionization, lack of any sort of
professional ethics codes, standards of quality or real regulation — despite
the fact that in many cases we're building critical digital infrastructure.

Tech and startup culture gets romanticized as this kind of extended hackathon,
but in reality we're the means of production for one of the richest and most
powerful industries in the world.

Edit: spelling.

~~~
tudorconstantin
As long as I'm happy at work (relaxed, having reasonable deadlines, being paid
outstandingly), I don't mind being the mean of production of some wealthy
people. And I actually appreciate the tricks they pull (team buildings,
building a community, making me feel at home, etc) to make me more productive
as long as they also make me happier.

~~~
kiliantics
It's easy to feel this way while the going is good and your job seems certain.
But unions can make the security of your job guaranteed and can help those who
may not be in as fortunate a position as you and are more subject to
exploitative practices. Your comment just smacks of "I've got mine, screw the
others" but unless you're the person on the very top, you could become one of
those others at any time.

~~~
tudorconstantin
No job is certain. I do my best to make it as certain as possible by trying to
make the company as profitable as possible.

No union in the world is able to save the jobs in a bankrupt company, no
matter what they tell you.

Sure, they can try to blackmail and force the employer's hand from time to
time, as long as the company can survive, but I'd rather get my salary
increases because I was more productive, then to get them because somebody
used me in a blackmail deal.

What do you suggest, that I'm privileged because I'm doing my job properly and
that I have some sort of social responsibility for the incompetent and the
lazy in the company?

------
zdw
To take the initial premise of this and go in a different direction, maybe the
problem isn't "Why aren't people improving themselves outside of work hours?"
but instead "How do we help people do 'professional development' within work
hours?".

Developing a culture of learning and sharing knowledge, where passing on what
was learned to the rest of the team is valued, you end up in a stagnation
situation that seemed to inspire the frustration of this article.

I'm betting that other developers have different skills and something to teach
you, they just lack the proper venue and means.

~~~
Eridrus
> To take the initial premise of this and go in a different direction, maybe
> the problem isn't "Why aren't people improving themselves outside of work
> hours?" but instead "How do we help people do 'professional development'
> within work hours?".

This sounds great, but you're going to need a very supportive manager who
thinks that spending work time on professional development is more useful than
doing the work that you're capable of that's right in front of you.

Companies and workers are fundamentally not aligned wrt professional
development unless the labor market cannot provide enough trained folks with
specific desired skills.

People starting companies can build the company culture they want, but unless
the company lands on a gold mine, this kind of thing will probably get cut.

This is the same argument we get about how companies should invest more in
training rather than expecting the labor market to provide. Without a way to
capture the value of that training, they have very little incentive to do so.

So, while this definitely does benefit people who have easier life situations,
I don't really see this changing.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
> This is the same argument we get about how companies should invest more in
> training rather than expecting the labor market to provide. Without a way to
> capture the value of that training, they have very little incentive to do
> so.

Workplace culture changes are a _massive_ reason why popular support for
globalization is on the decline, and why a populist candidate gained traction
in both parties. Even though our economy is "better," most people have been
experiencing a declining quality of life.

I think if we as Americans support a busy-body work culture that OP describes,
our culture will go the same way that Japan did, except the inequality will
make our situation much, much worse.

Hopefully things will change, or else things could get very bad in our
country.

------
sudosteph
It's fine to be a coding hobbyist, I don't think the author would ever knock
someone who is (and admits to being one himself). Unfortunately many folks
here don't want to admit that their github "passion projects" are mostly
irrelevant to day-to-day job competence. I've worked with two different people
who dedicated tons of time to their side projects on github. I was impressed
with the time and effort they put in, and felt a bit like an imposter for not
doing the same myself or being able to add much input when they debated
framework X vs framework Y (nevermind that our mountains tech debt made it
totally infeasible to switch to X or Y). But these same people were fired 6
months later because they really sucked at estimating things, working with
others, and would make extra work for themselves by building tools from
scratch instead of using existing open-source ones. Amusingly, that last one
probably could have been predicted when you consider that many of their github
projects were just somewhat different re-implementations of existing tools,
usually in a different language. I still respect these people and in the right
environment, could see myself working with them again. But their passion did
not align with the companies needs, and it created more conflict than code.

Anyhow, I agree with the author completely. You can be great at your job,
while preferring other hobbies (or just preferring to prioritize self-care or
family care). Choice of hobbies does not make a candidate necessarily more or
less capable at a particular role.

Also, In case you haven't heard about it, I found "spoon theory" (see:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory))
to be a great analogy to explain how people with chronic illness or
disabilities can often be able to fulfill the core things they need to do in
the day (job, self-care) but not have enough energy left to devote to things
like hobbies. It's another potential cause to mind when you wonder why a
person is great in many aspects of a job, but doesn't work on side projects
after work.

~~~
solatic
That's the difference between a hobbyist and an engineer. A hobbyist enjoys
not having to pay attention to cost, and buys as much hobby as he can afford
(in this case, where framework choices are cash-free, in terms of hours
spent). An engineer weighs cost vs benefit and project budget.

Many people who turn their hobbies into a profession have difficulty with
that. Suddenly, "cost overruns" is something people actually care about.

------
perpetualcrayon
Come to think of it, the companies who sponsor open source projects are
offering an extraordinary sign of goodwill to their employees.

I never thought of it this way but they're essentially saying "Not only are
you going to be allowed to work on projects that can have immediate positive
impact on the entire world, but in the event that something should happen
where we need to have layoffs or if you decide to leave, we've got you covered
there too. You're not going to need to scramble to try to build up your GitHub
profile for your next opportunity, since your code you provided during work is
already out there in the open for folks to see".

------
weberc2
It seems like the author is overcomplicating the issue. Rather than worrying
about what are reasonable expectations, hire the candidate that brings the
most value. This likely means you'll be hiring privileged people, but at least
you're weighing that against market value instead of weighing it against an
even more abstract notion of "reasonability". I think viewing it this way
simplifies the moral calculus a bit.

------
chrisco255
I've never seen such a passionate article arguing to recruit for mediocrity.
To argue that the person pulling in 8 hour days, who clocks in at 9 and clocks
out at 5, is just as valuable as the person who spends another several hours
per day learning new frameworks, languages, architecture patterns and
techniques, technologies, etc...is ridiculous. I would hope that no one would
dismiss the "non-passionate" engineer outright, but to dismiss the passionate
engineer's extracurricular work is worse.

Our field is unlike other fields in that it moves at a blistering page.
Compared to say, carpentry or brick laying, software engineers have to keep
abreast. Software companies that ignore new trends in technology are at risk
of becoming obsolete.

~~~
perpetualcrayon
I've never been more productive at work than when I've had work life balance.
Unfortunately this gets translated as "unpassionate" to folks who don't have
that balance in their lives.

EDIT: And I've never seen a worse work product than from those who have the
worst work-life balance.

------
rhapsodic
I have always been of the opinion that if someone is hiring me to do a
particular job, it is incumbent upon me to show up with the skills and
knowledge I need to do that job well -- at least the skills and knowledge that
are not specific to their own organization. If they hire me to work with a
particular language I don't have any experience with, I'm not going to sit at
my desk on their time reading a book and doing Hello World programs. I'll
spend my own time getting ramped up in the language as quickly as I can.

In my long experience, the best developers I've encountered have had basically
the same attitude.

~~~
jakelazaroff
> If they hire me to work with a particular language I don't have any
> experience with, I'm not going to sit at my desk on their time reading a
> book and doing Hello World programs. I'll spend my own time getting ramped
> up in the language as quickly as I can.

Why is it ridiculous to expect your employer to give you the training you need
to be successful? This is standard practice in many other professions, some of
which even have ladders of apprenticeship.

If for example the language they needed you to use changed, would you then
learn it on their time?

~~~
rhapsodic
_> Why is it ridiculous to expect your employer to give you the training you
need to be successful? This is standard practice in many other professions,
some of which even have ladders of apprenticeship._

If you expect that, I don't think it's ridiculous, but I have not observed any
correlation between programmers who have that expectation and programmers who
are in the top echelon in terms of skills and productivity.

 _> If for example the language they needed you to use changed, would you then
learn it on their time?_

I'll be happy to answer that question, but I need clarification. Do you mean,
if my employer hired me to program in language A, and now they've decided that
future development will be done in language B? Or do you mean that a new
version of my current language has been released, and I need to learn and
apply the new features?

~~~
jakelazaroff
_> I have not observed any correlation between programmers who have that
expectation and programmers who are in the top echelon in terms of skills and
productivity._

I don't think this is a debate about what makes a better programmer (although
other commenters have argued that many skills gained with side projects are
not the same skills needed to succeed in a company) but rather whether it's
fair to penalize people who — for whatever reason — literally cannot devote
their out-of-work hours to what's essentially unpaid overtime training
themselves.

 _> Do you mean, if my employer hired me to program in language A, and now
they've decided that future development will be done in language B? Or do you
mean that a new version of my current language has been released, and I need
to learn and apply the new features?_

I didn't have a specific scenario in mind — IMO that's not a meaningful
distinction and a company should not expect you to learn it on your own time
either way. What do you think separates one case from the other?

~~~
rhapsodic
_> I don't think this is a debate about what makes a better programmer
(although other commenters have argued that many skills gained with side
projects are not the same skills needed to succeed in a company) but rather
whether it's fair to penalize people who — for whatever reason — literally
cannot devote their out-of-work hours to what's essentially unpaid overtime
training themselves._

I think it's perfectly fair, and I disagree that it's "penalizing" them. If I
choose to buy a product that gives me more of what I want, I'm not
"penalizing" the manufacturers of the competing products I didn't choose.

To flip it around, If I do choose to spend my free time acquiring skills and
knowledge that make me more valuable to my employer, why should I not be paid
more than those who, for whatever reason, provide less value to my employer
than I do?

 _> I didn't have a specific scenario in mind — IMO that's not a meaningful
distinction and a company should not expect you to learn it on your own time
either way. What do you think separates one case from the other?_

If an employer hires me as, for example, a Java developer, because that's what
I represented myself to be, and then she decides that all future development
will be in Perl, then she made that business decision knowing that her current
team was (presumably) not Perl experts, and she can expect that's going to
impact their productivity. I would be less inclined to let her business
decision impose a huge burden on my own time, learning a language that is no
longer very marketable. I might tell her to be patient while I develop Perl
expertise on the job, or, more likely, I would find another job.

Jake, I'm not going to keep going back and forth with you on this, because I
don't care whether or not anyone agrees with me or changing anyone's mind. In
fact, I'm really glad that a large portion of the developer population has the
attitude you do, because it makes it easier for me to stay at or near the top
of the heap. If 98% took my approach, then it would be much more work for to
be among the highest paid ones who have never had any trouble getting or
keeping a job in the software development field.

~~~
jakelazaroff
_> If I choose to buy a product that gives me more of what I want, I'm not
"penalizing" the manufacturers of the competing products I didn't choose._

 _> In fact, I'm really glad that a large portion of the developer population
has the attitude you do, because it makes it easier for me to stay at or near
the top of the heap._

I, too, would be really glad that a large portion of the developer population
considers others in their community _people_ rather than "competing products".

~~~
rhapsodic
_> I, too, would be really glad that a large portion of the developer
population considers others in their community people rather than "competing
products"._

You're obviously not familiar with what an analogy is. You should look into
it.

------
tbrownaw
How is this recruiting for privilege any more than paying little enough that
people need to make time to have two or three jobs is?

It's basically saying that learning on your own time counts as unpaid
overtime. How is that worse than _actual_ overtime or a second job?

------
home_boi
I don't like the conflation of time/effort with privilege.

That is the crux of meritocracy. The amount of time someone spends on a task
should have a strong correlation, if not a strong causation, to their
professional success.

And on the privilege side of the argument, not having the time to learn or to
do work makes someone less efficient at their job. Signals for high
involvement in programming tasks are most likely also signals for high
involvement in programming related jobs. That's just how life works. There
isn't any way around it.

~~~
aaron-lebo
Yes. The best athletes are usually not the most talented but simply those who
invest the most time. Kobe Bryant is a famous example of this.

You can't get good without putting in the time, and those who put in the time
usually have absurd passion. He's got some great points, but the "shaming" of
working hard here is a loud aside from his main (and better) points.

~~~
CalChris
Anyone who plays D-League is a 'talented athlete'. Kobe Bryant's father played
in the NBA as a first round draft pick; his mother was the sister of an NBA
player, Chubby Cox. Kobe Bryant is a talented athlete who also put in an
absurd amount of time. He wasn't voted least likely to play in the NBA in high
school.

Where Kobe Bryant excelled was in recovery from that absurd effort.

------
nopacience
I dont have patience for this

