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Comment by tablespoon | Hacker News Reader

> No no, it's trivial to prove. You just ask them to work from a supervised location for a short period of time and that they can't have their phone at their desk. You just have to care.

Something like that would have taken extra time and effort, and the problem took care of itself. He had more important things to focus on.

And I think it would have been more difficult to catch than you think. We don't do pair programming, and it's kind of reasonable to ask for time to figure something out. I think the best he could have determined was the guy wasn't good, not any of the suspicions about the scam of cheating on the interview and getting outside help.

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>the problem took care of itself

Yeah and how many other employees took themselves out the door because they had to compensate for the nonperformer? I've been in teams with these sandbags and it's infuriating.

> Yeah and how many other employees took themselves out the door because they had to compensate for the nonperformer?

None.

> I've been in teams with these sandbags and it's infuriating.

The guy was on something like a three month contract, and a good chunk of that time was on-boarding then slowly getting suspicious. When we bring on contractors we expect some of them to be duds, the only thing interesting about this guy was his weird behavior.

>The guy was on something like a three month contract, and a good chunk of that time was on-boarding then slowly getting suspicious.

My perception after reading a lot of this thread is that there's so much bloat and checked-outness in the tech sector that it's probably very feasible as an employment strategy to bullshit your way into multiple 3-month contracts, sandbag your way through the onboardings then fail to be renewed (without having done a day's productive work) then rinse and repeat indefinitely.

I don't know how much longer that will persist now that the free money tap has been turned off, though.

It's another world from the startup sector I know where you could tell within a week that a guy wasn't any good and you'd instantly show them the door because you couldn't afford the dead weight for literally another day. shrug

If you're willing to front load the effort you can also just work hard for a year or two and then coast. There are plenty of holes like this.

Sure; if you can do the work. If you can't do the work...

I think any one with average intelligence can probably do software development, it's just a matter of putting in the effort.

>probably do software development

Could they get hired at a tech company and put in level-appropriate work for two years? Without domain-specific knowledge and experience? You're saying 'work hard for two years' presumably by that you mean produce level-appropriate or above-level-appropriate work?

You're basically saying that you think just anybody off the street with a 100+ IQ can 'just get hired' at a tech firm and do dev work, for two years, and then coast?

Studying to get the job is also part of the effort you put in.

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