
Coders Who Don't Job Interview: Zed Shaw - barce
http://www.codebelay.com/blog/2011/07/12/coders-who-dont-job-interview-zed-shaw/
======
zedshaw
I'll add one more thing. People ask me about getting work now that I'm
"famous", and I usually just tell them this:

Before I was famous I'd have to scrounge around for shitty jobs. Now they just
come to me.

Truth is, I still interview, I still do the stupid coding quizzes, I still
send my resume, not because I have to, but because I want to be taken
seriously and treated fairly with the understanding that I got hired because I
know what I'm doing. Not because of my "fame".

After that, the jobs are pretty uninspiring these days and while the work
environment may be pleasant, I rarely find any place that's interested in
taking a big risk with my ideas.

~~~
mgkimsal
"Before I was famous I'd have to scrounge around for shitty jobs. Now they
just come to me."

Do you mean shitty jobs just come to you? Or better stuff? Couldn't tell if
you were trying to be funny there or not.

~~~
enry_straker
Had to laugh cause i had a similar reaction. It's more a reflection of how i
view his words rather than the words themselves. Zed was being serious and was
talking about how he wants his recruiters to take him seriously,

I suspect that i am spending way too much time on reddit, and should learn to
take things at their face value.

------
pavel_lishin
Can we make this not happen after double-clicking text?

<http://i.imgur.com/YL9Xd.png>

~~~
KuraFire
We’ve taken it into consideration. It's designed for terms one is not familiar
with, so “didn't” is kind of unnecessary.

As a note here, though (also for others), it doesn’t pop up just from double-
clicking text; you only get a small “Learn more” after that, and the popup
only shows up if you _then_ click the Learn More button.

~~~
Almaviva
Maybe consider hovering over Zed's point about industrial autism? We have
dictionaries, we have Wikipedia, we have Google.

~~~
protomyth
Or on some operating systems, I highlight the word, right click, and select
"Look Up in Dictionary". I would add to Almaviva's observation, that webpages
should stop trying to do things that others do better.

------
arctangent
"I think I also tend to pick off the lower level work because most of my
original ideas are usually too weird for a professional setting."

I'd like to see some clarification on this. A lot of the work I do (inside a
large organisation) seems to involve inventive approaches to problems. Maybe
not like writing new web servers, but certainly the kind of non-routine stuff
that keeps a hacker happy. I don't (often) do this just for fun - there's
simply not enough time to solve problems the boring way.

"Professionally though, inspiration is for amateurs and I just do my work."

I'd also like to see some clarification on this. Is Zed saying that it's wrong
to take a novel approach to one's work? Or that maybe it's better to just do
things the way you're told and save the creative juices for personal
endeavours? I might just be mis-reading this completely. Any help much
appreciated...

~~~
zedshaw
I try really hard to get things done at work, sometimes that means doing shit
work so someone else can have a good time coding something interesting. That's
all there is to it. That doesn't mean I don't try to do the shit work in an
efficient novel way, it just means _what_ I'm willing to work on isn't
necessarily glamorous.

As for the second comment, I'm just saying that if you have to wait around for
inspiration before you can do anything then you're just an amateur. I may not
be as into what I do without inspiration, but in my day job I can just do what
I need without waiting around for a muse to strike me with Thor's hammer. I
find people who walk around screaming that they "MUST BE PASSIONATE!" are
either deluded, stupid, or just prima donnas who can't sit down and do the
damn job. Personally I'd take someone objective and little critical over some
passionate Yes-Man.

Now, that's at work, where usually I'm just slinging code for someone else to
make money off of and my interest is really only in doing my job well, not in
what I'm doing.

~~~
dmoney
It seems like success as a programmer (or at least Internet fame) requires
doing a lot of side projects. Do you ever find that doing the shit work at
work saps your interest for side projects? Like if you have to look at another
line of code you'll scream?

~~~
zedshaw
I don't use the same language and platform at home that I do at work. That's
how you stay sane. That and I play a lot of guitar which is way more fun and
makes me happy.

------
shazow
Does nobody care about personality and team fit?

You can be great on paper and by reputation, but turns out Zed and I don't
jive.

Edit: Interviewing can reveal these things, for both the applicant and the
hiring company.

~~~
jacques_chester
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted.

I admire Zed. His angry rants make me laugh. His ability to pump out decent
code is brobdingnagian. He's usually right.

But of course, part of what makes his rants so funny is that even the minimum
niceties are dispensed with. I'm not sure if that means Zed can be inserted
into a team of ordinary folk without wasteful drama from people with hurt
feelings.

I understand Zed's work mostly takes the form of freelancing. That's probably
the best fit.

~~~
zedshaw
No, I don't freelance, I actually work as an employee at companies. I
absolutely hate freelancing.

~~~
jacques_chester
Well don't I feel like a drongo. :)

------
heyrhett
Other creative professions have this phenomenon too. In film, there are actors
who audition for parts, and actors who have roles pitched to them.

Everyone knows that being famous for your work requires a combination of
talent, luck, and hard work, but everyone can't be Zed Shaw. There isn't room.
It would be like telling actors "Just do what Jim Carrey did."

~~~
kiba
You don't have to be famous or uber skilled to not have to be interviewed.

I got my first job a month ago simply by being knowing someone on IRC.

~~~
nostrademons
I think it depends a lot on the relative standing between you and the company.

There are a large number of startups and small businesses where I could get a
job simply by saying "Hey, I'm interested", walking in, and having a 15-minute
chat with the founder. I would probably not want to work for most of them,
though, because it's quite boring being the smartest guy in the room.

However, the number of people who could get hired at Google or Facebook
without an interview is probably in the dozens to low hundreds, worldwide. And
many of them probably aren't interested, because they've got their F-you
money, or they have a nice tenured research position somewhere where they can
do whatever they want.

~~~
swah
> having a 15-minute chat with the founder

How isn't that an interview?

~~~
nostrademons
Depends whether he offers you the job at the beginning of the chat or the end.
The former has happened to me before...

------
unbracketed
_I’d also say that going back to school is a good way to update your life and
change your profession. I’m a firm believer in getting government student
loans and using them to go to school. They’re cheap, low interest, and the US
government is usually very nice about letting you pay them back. I’m not so
sure about other places around the world though._

Another take on the student loan system:
[http://consumerist.com/2010/09/student-loans-gateway-drug-
to...](http://consumerist.com/2010/09/student-loans-gateway-drug-to-debt-
slavery.html)

~~~
nightski
Notice how he says government loans. That I agree with. The private loan
system is another beast altogether, one I am dealing with personally.
Fortunately with our profession it is not hard to pay off loans.

~~~
zedshaw
Yes, government loans. I wouldn't have been able to go to school if it weren't
for the government loans I could get. I was poor, and school was damn
expensive no matter where I went. Without the government handing me dirt cheap
loans and letting me pay them off practically indefinitely I'd be much worse
off.

Now, banks and private loan companies can go to hell.

------
varikin
One thing I think should be added is that to participate in the community. It
can be working on projects—your own or other open source projects, being
active on IRC and mailing lists, or going to local user groups. I like to
believe I got my current job by starting a Python user group. It helped me
network and find where the jobs in the area where.

------
moondowner
> "I first heard of him from a video Leah Culver linked to on a talk that Zed
> gave, “The ACL is dead.”"

I knew I wasn't the only one.

