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Unfortunately using open source work, even if only for programming, introduces all sorts of biases as well. A lot of very competent programmers work at jobs that do not have open source contributions and also have families which limit the time they can spend coding after work.

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Good point! I didn’t mean to propose it as a solution, but rather as an enumeration or one possibility I’ve considered, and ruled out because it doesn’t work for everyone.

I didn't mean to assume you did, sorry. Its just fun to be the jerk that points out that hiring without bias is actually really hard.

We've had quite a lot of discussions about this internally, and even with humans at the helm with best of intentions about being unbiased, its really easy for a lot of bias to slip in. Even things like the phrasing of questions can introduce bias (i.e. the ol' apocryphal SAT word association problem that had 'regatta:boat').

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