
Finding Great Dev Talent   - zeph
http://edurev.com/blog/2007/04/10/finding-great-dev-talent/
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phony_identity
These guys are doomed.

To repeat what I've said elsewhere: we need a succinct term for non-technical
people who think they should be doing startups and just have to find some
programmers to realize their visions. You can't call them suits or MBAs
because most of them didn't go to B-school and don't wear suits. What to call
them?

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lindsayrgwatt
What about "Free Lunchers"? They think that it's a hot market so they can
easily create a company and then flip it for some cash?

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Tichy
Whereas you are in the market for the hard work, I suppose?

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lindsayrgwatt
I prefer to think of it as being in the market because you've a passion to
solve a problem. There's going to be hard work involved in solving a real
problem that people are facing and solving it in a way that's pleasant for the
average user.

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patryn20
Maybe a lot of startups also need to realize that an enthusiastic person with
years of experience and an incomplete degree is better than most college
graduates with no real-world experience.

Seriously. The amount of degree snobbery in these startups founded by Stanford
(and other top-level school) graduates is ridiculous. They are turning down
tons of great developers everyday, most likely.

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gyro_robo
It's one of those silver lining things. You end up doing your own start-up
instead, which is usually what you preferred anyway.

I wonder how many top developers are vanishing from the workforce because
their start-up succeeded. A year or three of hard work and then retirement.

Or they end up owning/running some other business, where they aren't using
their most highly developed skill, programming.

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budu3
Startups think they can just say they use Ruby on Rails and that will attract
super star hackers. Just because it 'seems' that many hackers are moving to
RoR doesn't mean they wanna work for you. You should tell them why they should
work for you. Just as you're looking for good talent, they're looking for a
good environment in which they can be learn and practice they art.

~~~
lindsayrgwatt
As someone who's looking for talent, let me ask you what you'd be looking for.
Here's what I think high quality developers are looking for; I'd love your
thoughts on whether I'm out to lunch or not: 1) Chance to be part of a great
engineering team 2) Chance to solve complex problems facing users 3)
Opportunity to push the limits of what's possible with technology 4) Ability
to influence company's strategy and design

Let me know your thoughts.

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aston
I think your list cuts across the spectrum too broadly. Younger, more
inexperienced developers should be looking, number one, to work with people
who know a ton more than they do so that they can learn from the greats.
Older, more experienced devs will want more influence on design (although
maybe not strategy).

I think the solving complex problems part is not a real factor. Every business
has its problems, and most of them are non-trivial (otherwise, everyone would
be in the business), so while it's maybe your job to convince someone that
your problems are worth solving, it's not necessary to prove that your
problems are hard.

I also think most hackers get less joy out of pushing technology to the limits
and more joy out of doing something well. Sometimes those may coincide
(scaling Rails, for example) but often times pushing technology to the limits
means you're not solving the problem elegantly/economically. Take Google for
example; they've got the most powerful distributed computation system in the
world, but it's done on some really crappy PC's.

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gyro_robo
> Younger, more inexperienced developers should be looking, number one, to
> work with people who know a ton more than they do so that they can learn
> from the greats

Do you know anyone who actually learned this way? I, and others I know,
learned mostly from reading (docs, books, code, tutorials, etc.). Great
developers who are actually working don't want to be interrupted every time
some inexperienced person needs help.

I also find presentations at conventions to often be painfully slow at
conveying information. I can read in 5 minutes what it takes a presenter 30
minutes to talk about, and further, I can get answers to specific questions
that always pop up when a presentation glosses over the details. Plus, if I
already know something about it, I can just grab the knowledge "diffs" rather
than sitting through 15 minutes of introduction.

Google is the #1 tool I use when programming.

~~~
zeph
mentors are a great thing to have, and good ones are hard to find. It's not
someone you bug every time you have a little problem with your code, but
someone who's been where you are now and can give you advice over a few drinks
after work.

I can think of two colleagues who were critical in me ditching wage slavery
and becoming a freelancer, one is a programmer, the other is a CTO but started
as a network guy. I didn't learn much from them about being a developer, but I
sure learned a lot about being a professional.

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ivan
This is big shit

~~~
budu3
Elaborate

