On: How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical – Part II

[dominotw]

yea ofcourse, if someone is better at skills you are looking for then by all means coding hobby is irrelvant.

But what if all else being equal, why would you not choose coding hobby candidate.

[slg → dominotw]

If we are going the "all else being equal" route, one could argue the hobbyist is a worse candidate because they have spent more time working and thinking about programming but still haven't been able to demonstrate their skills are superior to someone who has spent much less time refining them. Give me the person who is able to get the same thing accomplished with less effort and time.

[FalconSensei → slg]

Also I would imagine that the person who also code as a hobby is more likely to have a burnout later on. Just a guess though

[lonelappde → slg]

There's no way to compare that "time" of course.