So, hiring people who engage in doing something as a hobby and practice at it outside of (or in addition to) regular "schooling" do well? Whodathunk? We didn't even have programming classes in my day (well, not until 9th grade for me, and that was pretty advanced - many neighboring school districts didn't offer any at all). (edit: so... for many years the only people I knew who programmed were all hobbyists/extracurricular folks)
> “Every time I have hired someone who is good at these contests, they have crushed the job. They tend to be fast, accurate, and into getting things done.”
Wondering how well people like this fit in to team-oriented environments. I'm certainly not a programming-olympian like the subjects of the article - have never done competitive stuff (did "olympics of the mind" back in the day, but not quite the same thing). However, I think I'm a reasonable problem solver and software developer. I don't typically fit in well with teams. Do the benefits of these 'super-coders' outweigh any diminished team capabilities? Is that a tradeoff that can be made for a season, but needs to be rectified later?