Dear HN, how do I hire a good coder? | Hacker News Reader

Dear HN, how do I hire a good coder?

11 pointscodeclueless8 comments

Hi guys, long time lurker here.

I run a (semi) successful Australian startup that requires very little technical knowledge to operate. Now that I have some cashflow, I'd like to hire a software engineer (either virtually, or in the flesh here in Sydney) to work with me on a couple of ideas I have for web applications. I myself have basically no programming knowledge, so pretty much the best I'll be able to do are (CSS coded) mockups.

I was wondering if HN had any hiring tips for me? Specifically, what are some ways for a non technical person to tell a good hacker from a bad one?

A few other questions if you're feeling generous:

- Bearing in mind I'm going for web applications, what kind of language specialisation should I be looking for? From my own research, it seems like Ruby, PHP, and Python are all good contenders.

- I know this varies greatly from place to place, but how much do I need to pay to attract the talent? Is equity a more attractive option than a salary?

- How much does experience play a role? Is a naturally talented coder fresh out of university a better option than an average one with 5 years of 'real world' experience?

Codeclueless -

I've heard good things about the hiring posts that show up on HN every month on the first. Post something tomorrow and see what comes up. Also, if you wouldn't mind, would you shoot me an e-mail? I'm looking to move to Sydney in the next 3 years, and I might be interested in starting a relationship.

As for language specialization, if you yourself don't have any preference, it might make sense to be flexible with your first hire. Ruby, Python and PHP are all sensible languages, but you could go a long way with someone with Java or .NET experience and a web applications background. That also opens the door to alternate JVM or CLR languages without throwing the experience in the "primary" language away. The only thing you don't want to do is hire someone whose only experience is in something that's either very hard to apply to the web or very hard to replace if this person leaves.

For example, I once met a guy on a contracting interview whose day job was writing filesystem extensions for a government agency out in Boulder. The discrepancy between what he assumed he knew about the web because he'd been programming for 20+ years and what he actually knew was PAINFUL. I'm sure he's an excellent programmer, but the leap from filesystems to GoogleEarth mashups is a big leap to make, and the startup that hired him as CTO made a mistake.

I'm not sure what salaries are in Sydney, so I can't speak to that. The ? of equity is a tough one. I know what cash is worth, for example, so if someone offers me $X an hour, I can say with relative certainty whether that's worth my time. An ownership stake can be worth wildly varying amounts depending on what it's an ownership stake of.

Regarding experience, since this is your first hire, and you don't have much programming knowledge, I would strongly recommend against someone fresh out of university. You're giving this person a significant amount of responsibility, and decisions that get made this early on about architecture, tools and other systems will be important down the road.

Again, would you mind shooting me an e-mail? I'm interested in talking more. My contact information is in my profile.

Good luck!

Hi,

I'm working currently for a small startup as a developer. My personal opinion would be to find someone who can write and deploy code and can build a relationship with you. Ask for references, live website, repository and so on. But be careful with people who quote a lot of technology without using them. Student or 'real world' experience are good options.

This person would do all the major coding task for you. On top of that if you can create a good relationship, this person would be able to find you other tech people for tasks he/she can't handle and can give you nice advice.

The programming language at this stage is not very important IMO. But focusing on a popular programming language with a big community is something to have. Imagine if you need to recruit 2 others coders to do the job. Or if you main developers can't work for you anymore.

Something which may help for recruting someone is to write a draft of your needs (setting-up servers, level of front-end/backend programming...)

Hope that help

I would like to say, it depends. The first question to ask is, how big do you feel comfortable growing? Once you figure that out, then the next part is basically a gigantic art form that you pray that you don't mess up on.

There's like 9,000 questions you must ask but all them really boils down to this - can the person do (or figure out what to do) what you want the site to grow into and does this person get along with you that you get things done?

Since this is your first technical employee, you better get along with him/her/it because you'll be spending a whole bunch of your life communicating with them. After that, you have to make sure they have some competence in the technology field. Language specification and stuff doesn't matter as long as they understand how the web (HTTP) really works. The rest of the guys here can probably give some decent advice on that and how to find them.

Just my two cents.

As a freelance developer, I think that for a first project, a salary (either fixed or hourly) is always better than equity unless you (the recruiter) have a great portfolio of successful products.

I think experience matters if you have a tight schedule and technology constraints, and being fresh out of university doesn't necessarily mean you have no experience.

If you are NOT looking for a full time developer, I'll be happy to have a chat with you and see if you can work out something (profile for CV/contact)

You might try to mitigate your risk by spreading it on a number of developers. Can you divide the work into smaller chunks? You can hire different developers on part time basis, and then eliminate the one's you are not happy with and stick with the ones you like.

Whatever you do, try to stay away from recruiters.

Sounds like you need a technical cofounder. Search the archives -- there are a bunch of requests -- and talk to some of those people.

Since you have no existing codebase, try to limit the technologies used as little as possible. You'll cast a wider net this way.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com