
How I Hire Programmers (2009) - garymoon
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hiring
======
axaxs
I feel rather silly commenting as a voice of dissent here, against a man who
cannot defend himself, but here goes.

These are rather obvious metrics that a child could have drafted. Are you
smart? Can do you do things? The problem is that these are subjective
measures.

A smart person, who sets the world on fire and gets things done, perhaps like
Aaron did or could have done, has a different perspective than say a
50-something product manager. They may see smart as seeing the future, where
the programmer may see smart as knowing x86 assembly. And the fool may see
smart as someone who talks in technical jumble.

There is no golden key to hiring folks. My experiences say that in a good
company, the manager needing help should be in charge of hiring who he/she
deems fit. Some may, perhaps rightly, cry nepotism and other factors may run
amok. But putting that weight, and risks, on the manager is the point. If they
hire an unqualified buddy, they are responsible and ultimately fail with them.
I don't really see this as different than Aaron - someone who has their own
metrics.

In short, trying to put out any 'guide to hiring people' is a short sighted
goal, seeing as everyone has their own experiences and views. This is really
no different.

~~~
anon3_
> I feel rather silly commenting as a voice of dissent here, against a man who
> cannot defend himself, but here goes.

I agree. AS being dead makes it difficult to discuss issues related to him.

I don't view AS as wise sage. I always found he was a bit of a self-promoter;
a bit of a loose cannon. A person who was a hacker, but like some millennials,
the validation from publicity got to his head.

It's taboo. If you attack certain things on the merits - certain people will
believe you're attacking all freedom of information - because they relate AS
to some sort of representation of it.

Burglarizing MIT isn't hack in the sense of hacker culture. MIT hacks were
clever. Burglarizing for the attempt to swallow data isn't clever - it's a
hammer.

~~~
jamra
You really are speaking ill of the dead. Calling him a self-promoter and a
loose cannon isn't appropriate.

As far as the MIT incident... I don't really think he burglarized MIT. He
tried to bring documents that were hidden behind a paywall to the general
public. He didn't rob anyone seeing as how the documents were submitted
without compensation by the people who created them. Whether or not it's
hacker culture, it's a culture of social disruption aimed at the betterment of
us all.

There will always be shakers, people who raise their voices loud to stand for
what they believe in. Unfortunately, they will all be followed by people like
you and your parent poster who will attempt to defame their character and
negate their contributions.

~~~
hnnewguy
> _I don 't really think he burglarized MIT_

I think Mr. Swartz's actions at MIT are admirable, but I don't know how you
can deny that what he did was burglary.

~~~
jamra
Burglary is theft of valuables. What was stolen? Data was copied, not erased.
The moral ownership of that data is by the many authors who were never
reimbursed. JSTOR is a scam.

~~~
morganvachon
Burglary isn't theft. Burglary is breaking into a place you don't have
permission to enter, with the intent to commit a crime. If you then commit
that crime (whether it's theft, vandalism, destruction of property, etc.) you
are usually charged with that other crime alongside the burglary charge.

~~~
jamra
Ok so lets focus on the act of breaking in, though there was no financial
loss. Lets ignore the fact that he could have obtained everything without
"breaking in" if he did so at Stanford. It's clear to me that in Aaron's mind,
he was not breaking in. A laptop in an unlocked cabinet is not really breaking
in.

It seems as though there is some kind of personal hatred towards Aaron that
compels people to try and vilify him as if he was some sort of criminal.

~~~
morganvachon
> It seems as though there is some kind of personal hatred towards Aaron that
> compels people to try and vilify him as if he was some sort of criminal.

Not on my part, I've always thought highly of him. I was just correcting your
misconception about burglary laws.

> A laptop in an unlocked cabinet is not really breaking in.

Burglary, again, is gaining entry to a place you're not authorized to be, with
the intent to commit a criminal act. Whether the cabinet was locked or not has
no bearing on that charge. In many places, entering an unlocked car or house
that doesn't belong to you constitutes burglary, even if you don't do anything
while you're there. It's up to the court to prove whether you had intent to
commit a crime, but the simple act of gaining unauthorized entry is usually
enough to be charged with burglary.

One more thing: I agree with you in that I don't think Aaron felt what he was
doing was wrong. Given my background in law enforcement, I simply felt
compelled to correct a misconception.

You can read more about the charge of burglary in general here, though you may
wish to read about Massachusetts's specific laws as well:

[http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/burglary-
overvi...](http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/burglary-
overview.html)

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spookylukey
Working out whether someone is smart or not on the basis of how an entirely
informal conversation goes makes you extremely vulnerable to biases.

Read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman and you will become much
more suspicious of sentiments like "I think it’s pretty easy to tell whether
someone’s smart in casual conversation". We are actually extremely bad at
guessing people's competences on first encounter, and very prone to cognitive
biases such as the halo effect.

With no objective measures, it seems this method is likely to be subject to
massive bias towards people that you just get on with or like for some reason.

~~~
arsenide
Do you think, perhaps, after being aware of these biases it makes it easier to
determine someone's "smartness" based on a sequence of interactions as
described in the article?

~~~
learnstats2
Kahneman explicitly studies this and concludes that it makes no difference.
The biases apply just as much to people who are aware of them.

------
steven2012
I think the most effective way to hire is to do your best without giving into
to grueling whiteboard interviews, and take a chance on someone who seems
smart. But also fire the person quickly if it seems like they won't be a good
fit. After spending years interviewing people, this is the best conclusion
I've come up with, because nothing else works as conclusively. Yes, it's
brutal, and a bit ruthless, but effective. Whiteboard interview questions are
a terrible measure of whether someone will be able to contribute. Same goes
for the other types of interview questions.

Of course, you need to give the person a chance to ramp up, etc, but if they
can't be a contributing team member in 2 months, then it's better to give them
1-2 month's severance and get rid of them. I know one late-stage startup in
the city that is using this technique, and I believe (not sure) that both
Amazon and Netflix use this technique as well. It sucks, and kind of creates a
bit of a harsh environment, but it's a fast way to build out your team, and
probably has the same success rate as any other interview method, if not
better because you cull your bad performers quickly.

~~~
sbank
> Yes, it's brutal, and a bit ruthless, but effective.

I'm not saying that people who don't work out should not be let go, and I'm
certainly not saying that you "owe" people anything. It's a business and not a
charity. (Just remember that this goes the other way as well; people who show
loyalty to some company are doing themselves a great disservice, in my
opinion. I work for money. I'm passionate and will do great work, but I'm a
mercenary.)

That being said, I would be very hesitant to go work at a place known to err
on the side of just hiring someone and kicking them to the curb if it doesn't
work out. Why? Because it can say a great deal about the management at that
company, and how they will treat me. I also have no interest in being hired
unless you are confident that I'm a great fit. I don't want anyone to take a
chance on me. I want people to be delighted to hire me over someone else.

~~~
johnsberd
I guess I have the opposite stake on this. I'm a junior dev and I've been
interviewing multiple times a week for the last month and a half. I've gotten
better at interviewing but I still mess up on something and remember later on
what the answer was. Now I get passed on the job because I failed the
interview. I would rather an employer take a little chance on me and let me
prove that I'm a competent developer and a hard worker. I would rather prove
that on the job instead of in an interview.

Edit fixed some typos.

------
gohrt
I think Spolsky originally made this line of thought famous in 2006:

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html)

[http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done-
Technical/dp/15...](http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Gets-Things-Done-
Technical/dp/1590598385)

------
AceJohnny2
As I'm going through a new round of job interviews, this article resonates
well. It's kind of sad watching (and being subjected to) some otherwise great
companies still going at it the old way as described in the second paragraph.

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Bahamut
I somewhat agree on this as far as interviewing goes, minus the project part -
that part is too unreasonable/unfair/disrespectful.

------
zatkin
>"If you ask people at parties to name their greatest strengths and weaknesses
or to estimate the number of piano tuners in Chicago, you’ve got bigger
problems."

Well, it looks like I'm going to have to find better things to talk about...

------
manigandham
Really? So just have a nice conversation and ask questions?

Of course you want smart, curious people who can learn things and do stuff.
These "guides" are just various elaborations of (sadly uncommon) common sense.
There's no secret here.

~~~
affinehat
I think the three questions are his main focus. Having a nice conversation and
asking questions is just the example method used to determine the answers.
It's not revolutionary, but showing that individually they are all necessary
but not sufficient conditions was novel to me.

------
atom-morgan
> To find out whether someone’s smart, I just have a casual conversation with
> them.

I think the value of this is highly underestimated.

------
garymoon
How do you interview in your companies? I think it is a cool way to interview,
what do you think?

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minusSeven
I completely agree with this.

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omilu
aaron's writing style reminds me of PG's.

------
asmithmd1
Here is another Massachusetts resident whose life Carmen Ortiz has destroyed
that I just read about this week. She finally brought federal drug
distribution charges against a family doctor after he lived under a cloud of
suspicion during a 7 year "investigation." He was acquitted of all charges:
[http://needham.wickedlocal.com/article/20150515/NEWS/1505171...](http://needham.wickedlocal.com/article/20150515/NEWS/150517160)

