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Comment by mcfunk | Hacker News Reader

Some good questions in here, with one exception: > Programmers are unique. They're one of the few professions where outside the boundaries of their working hours they choose to do the same exact thing they do at work: programming.

Hiring managers should definitely not be assuming that all programmers do apps in their spare time. It's one thing to expect them to have a code sample (anyone should), but many strong programmers have interests and responsibilities that take them away from computers in their spare time. This doesn't make them less effective or dedicated programmers, so while it's always interesting to hear about the projects of those who have them, it shouldn't be assumed (and you shouldn't consider it 'points off' in an interview if a dev doesn't do side projects)

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Please read the article further down. The author explicitly says:

> It's OK too if an engineer doesn't have any side projects.

I always ask about side projects to give candidates an opportunity to highlight their side projects, not because we require candidates to have side projects.

I'm sure some hiring managers out there have side projects listed under their "must have" criteria, but in my experience the good hiring managers are just collecting as many data points as possible. In fact, I've known many hiring managers who take side projects as a potential risk factor, because they can pose a distraction to the candidate if they become too demanding.

All other things equal, a candidate with extensive side projects is going to have more experience than a candidate who has never worked on any side projects. In the real world, you never find two candidates who are identical in every way except for their side projects. The goal of an interview is to collect as much information as possible about the candidates in the limited interview time. Asking about side projects is just one more place to search for those data points. It would be equally unfair to disqualify side project experience from the consideration process.

In my experience, have side projects is largely a boost for junior candidates who haven't had enough opportunity to build a long professional resume yet. I can't remember the last time we interviewed a senior developer where side projects were the tipping point in our decision making process.

One thing that I've never disliked about hiring managers asking for side projects, is that when I work on one, I do what interests me. I like trying new things, experimenting on stuff that I don't know how it will turn out. When I get bored or I hit a dead end, I stop. A lot of it is unfinished and messy. It's for me, not anyone else. My time is valuable, especially outside of work.

Yeah. I'm building an http server for fun. Last year I wrote a JSON parser one weekend. A few years ago I wrote a YAML parser. I make things like this fun & learning, not because I'm trying to impress anyone. When someone asks why I'm reinventing the wheel, or is generally unimpressed that I didn't do something they view as more useful, it can be awkward.

Not only that, but when you are programming for yourself, you can take on practically infinite risk. There is no downside. When you are programming for the company, you have to err on the side of conservatism. Sometimes the only way to break through to another level is to take on that risk and see how it turns out. It says a lot about a programmer that their portfolios consist of lots of efforts that don't end up with a "product". They have tried a lot of stuff that you can't reasonably try in a work setting.

fair point, I did miss that further down in the section. It's still unfortunate to lead with a generalization that plays into a common trope/assumption about developers that does play out in the hiring process, but it's good to see it called out explicitly below that it shouldn't be required. I certainly don't disagree that side projects are a good data point especially for junior developers who don't have the direct professional experience.

Fair criticism, point taken. Thanks for the feedback here. Def did not mean to breed a culture of always being "on" and "crushing it" which might also be part of the trope.

We also should not propagate the caricature of the developer. You know, the all I need is gallons of coffee and I’m off grokking code all day in a hoodie. I’m off to my Kubernetes meetup! Whoops, just dropped my giant math is fun textbook.

/me looks at a pile of empty coffee capsules, /me looks at the hoodie, /me looks at the (unread) giant math is fun book, I hide in shame.

I do agree though, especially in hiring I find it weird to expect people to have their hobby being the same as their job. I'm quite curions if there is another profession where this is the case. Photographers maybe?

> I'm quite curions if there is another profession where this is the case.

Any artist, really. The line between work and leisure are blurry at best.

Musicians https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/10/03/programmers-an...

Pilots to some extent (the senior airline pilots who can afford to fly privately), but that is often to get back to the joy and freedom of roaming the skies at will in light aircraft vs the demanding and rigid world of commercial flying, so arguably not the same thing.

I'd say anyone who is a maker. Someone who creates things creatively.

There is a good chance your carpenter has a workshop at home. If you have the kind of mechanic who likes will modify your car, they probably do their own car too.

Well if you’re the real deal, you’re the real deal :p I guess only celebrities/insta influencers have to keep up the image.

Casually hides Cracking the Coding Interview book

> Casually hides Cracking the Coding Interview book

Ironically, I'm pretty sure that owning that book is part of the image :)

No, the image is that you own CLRS. Cracking the Coding Interview is to the programmer image as Cliffs Notes are to the Shakespeare nerd image.

I feel like owning a print copy of CLRS just implies that you studied Computer Science at a university, not necessarily that you're some super gifted hacker. But then again, most people who own print copies of Shakespeare are probably not uber-Shakespeare nerds, but took some English Lit courses.

> Hiring managers should definitely not be assuming that all programmers do apps in their spare time.

It baffles me how much this is an assumption. Like all the developers should not have any hobby that doesn't involve coding.

I don't think I've ever run into that assumption.

Then again, maybe those shops just don't hire me, so I don't get exposure to it...

but don't you think its a fair guess that someone who hobby is X might be better at X than someone whose hobby is Y.

I see your point, and I partly disagree. First because, they are doing it for fun, to solve things they want to make it work. That doesn't say they are learning something, or following clean code guidelines.

But let's assume they DO. They are better at coding. But are you sure coding is the only skill you want? I've seen my fair share of developers that lack "real world" experience, to the point they cannot see that what they are doing is not what a user wants, or how they want to do it.

In some cases, open source projects are made for developers, and managed/prioritized by developers, not someone with experience in project management, or with a roadmap with the users in mind. So, they might be lacking a lot of other important skills, and I would dare say that some also lack empathy towards non-programmers - the paying customers.

I'M NOT GENERALIZING GUYS!

I'm just point out things that I saw in some instances, with some people.

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.

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.

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

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

This seems to be a pretty sensitive claim, but it also seems completely reasonable to me that people who practice something more are better at it than people who practice something less. Even if it's a completely different domain than your work, it's still developing your intuition and exposing you to new abstract concepts.

As someone who runs interviews occasionally, when you're sitting in an interview room, you're not making an immediate decision whether the candidate is better or worse - that comes after the interview. During the interview itself, your job is to learn as much as you can about the candidate. The biggest problem for both you and the candidate is that you might get to the end of the interview and still not be sure whether they're a good candidate, and therefore have to reject them.

You've got two probabilities to work out, "how likely is this person to succeed in the role we're hiring them to do?" and "how confident am I in the previous number?" Side projects usually don't change whether you think the candidate is a good fit (at least for me), but they usually do increase your confidence in your prediction, and turn some no-hires into hires.

Could go either way, right? I've seen folks who have side projects spend most of their work day working on their side projects. They might be "better programmers" (also debatable), but if they don't get their work done - does it matter? I've seen folks who do really solid work for 8 hours and then go home and do other things, some of those folks have said that the separation is helpful so they can really be at their "programming best" at work.

(I say this as someone who generally have multiple programming side projects going on at any given time and also freelances...)

If "Time technically participating in an activity" directed overall skill that clearly, yes. Unfortunately there are plenty of 10 years exp devs with thousands of hours in their chair that also just aren't very good.

No, because that doesn't say anything about the quality of his code. He could be sitting around writing complete chicken scratch if he doesn't have a team with good leadership and code review guidelines.

I write hobby code sometimes but I don't write unit tests for it and I almost never go back to refactor it. Once I achieve my initial goal, I tend to be bored with it and set it aside.

Not necessarily. My hobby could be, say embedded programming and I could be a front end engineer.

For me it varies with how much stress I'm facing at work. When I log out feeling fine, I'm going to develop things in my free time for sure. But when I'm just constantly stressed out, I don't have the fortitude to keep the pace up at work while making things on the side. One of them has to go.

Not only that I’m sure programmers are not unique in that regard. Surely musicians do music in their off time. Artist do art. Carpenters build. Mechanics have beaters, etc. etc.

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