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Comment by IshKebab | Hacker News Reader

> in the absence of a CS degree you need a portfolio

If you can demonstrate good programming skills I think most companies would still hire you even without past job experience (I assume that's what you mean by portfolio - if you mean Github projects then in my experience nobody really looks at those).

A CS degree is also irrelevant - pretty much all programming jobs in the UK just want any technical degree. In all the companies I've worked in most people did maths, physics, engineering or CS, but CS was still a minority.

If you can program well then the real difficulty will be getting your CV past HR since they probably will dismiss it based on lack of experience. I'm not sure how to solve that but asking here seems like a decent thing to do.

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> if you mean Github projects then in my experience nobody really looks at those

This makes me so sad. As a hiring official I love reading through an applicants commits. It says so much about their personality, what they choose to say, when they choose to commit, their attention to detail when they think nobody is “really” looking.

If they link their github profile to show, the commits you see are what they allowed you to see. So you’re not really seeing what they do when “nobody is looking”.

It's a culture thing, I think.

I've spoken to recruiters who pretend I didn't say anything when I mention my GitHub account. I think if enough people don't have open source / pet projects, it seems hard for a non-tech to evaluate it.

Whereas a CTO / hiring tech lead would probably learn more about a person by viewing commits than the resumé.

It’s super easy to favour people who have a github profile with a bunch of projects in it, but that biases you towards a certain style of candidates — é.g. It’s definitely easier for single, childless candidates to devote their time to a side project than for somebody who has a family.

I help decide on hiring decisions (company in California) and I absolutely look for a Github account with genuine content in it. Of course, many good candidates who get hired don't have one, but if you do, and if it shows that you have some ability to write/discuss/maintain software independently, then that's a big plus.

Agreed. From time to time I've interviewed candidates for junior position and it's the first thing I look for.

What do you think of a github account that's full of unfinished projects and commits that are rushed and not necessarily made for general consumption?

If it indicates that the person enjoys writing software enough that they’re spending spare time doing that, then that’s positive.

I don’t know why you’ve been downvoted. I’ve observed pretty much every point you listed.

I agree. Every point he's listed is more or less accurate in my experience.

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