How to Hire a Hacker
rtigger.com
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I'm very sceptical of the ability to do a good, fair "culture" interview; I've never seen a cultural line that divides good hackers from bad, and it's easy to use "didn't fit the culture" as a cover for discrimination.
Project experience you often can't tell about, and passion is a red herring - the best developer I ever worked with was the guy who'd rock up at 11, hung over more often than not, slump in his chair and give every impression of not giving a damn about anything. He still got more done than anyone else, in higher quality, and teaching the rest of the team as he went.
And passion comes in many forms - the fact that they were willing to teach the team alone speaks volumes. If someone didn't care about programming, they wouldn't want to spend the extra time teaching their peers about it.
The question is hypothetical, but lmm's comment is valid. A lot of companies use 'cultural fit' as a cover for discrimination. Plausible deniability isn't hard to find, but it's still an unfortunate practice.
The best protection is to be able to change jobs, and to stick with environments which do not contain toxic people who abuse their power or want to hurt you.
If you are older and a company does not hire you due to 'cultural fit' then you are probably dodging a bullet. Forcing them to hire you wouldn't make things better even if it were possible.
Sure, if your loose definition of a hacker is someone with diverse language experience then it applies, otherwise it's nonsense.
To hire a great hacker you need to have a problem they WANT to work on: something that hits right in their area of interest. And then you need to give them the freedom to do it in whatever way they want (cause they know best).
I really like C#, and I prefer to do most of my projects with it, but learning new languages interests me (a problem I want to work on) and is a challenge that I'm passionate enough about to do in my spare time.
Your premise is that there's a compromise required. If I'm a Ruby shop, then ideally I'd want to hire someone who loves Ruby, loves what I'm doing, loves my team, and lives where I live. But I don't often get all four, so I should sacrifice the language preference for the fit stuff. This makes sense, but I'd take it a step further and say that oftentimes (at least in this day and age) you get one, maybe two of the four and the required compromise is much deeper. Of course if you plan for it (make training available, remote work possible, etc.) then things can still work out.
I think the post is missing a key element though. How do you find these people in the first place?
Out of your 4 criteria, I'd say (personally) that the important ones are "Loves what you're doing" and "Loves your team". If you hire someone who is a Ruby god but has no passion for the problem they're solving, or causes problems with your existing company, culture, or team, you're probably going to have a net loss. Working remotely is a different topic and can be done well (http://blog.davidtate.org/2013/01/companies-that-support-rem...)
I did want to talk a bit about finding those passionate developers, but thought it'd make for a separate blog post later on. One key quote I've heard good recruiters say: "The good developers you want to hire aren't looking for jobs, they already work somewhere".
I for one would be interested in reading your proposed next blog post. ;)
So obviously if you're hiring someone and your code base is all Ruby, you should at the very least mention it somewhere, even if you don't look for Ruby coders in particular. I don't think I need to point this out though, I'm not sure I've actually seen any job adverts that didn't mention programming language. Obviously most people get this.
This is true, but more in the long term. If I hire a brilliant and experienced .NET guy for my python team, sure he'll pick it up quickly and achieve some sort of productivity until he's up to par on PEP8 and idiomatic python. But I feel there are many cases where companies are looking for someone with experience in a specific language/framework in order to 'hit the ball running' aside from the usual getting-their-feet-wet with the codebase, learning the business, and other mythical man month issues.
[Edited for clarity.]
That being said, if you can find a great Python developer who is also passionate and a good fit, you've hit the jackpot!
Anyone know any specific advice or discussion on how to do a culture interview? This is a big topic lately, but it seems many times the details are assumed to be understood. In terms of culture, what are the bullet points you're looking for, and what are the disqualifiers, and how do you surface them in an interview?
1. Are they a cock? If they're a cock, or they exhibit signs of being a cock, they fail the test. Signs of being a cock include:
- Lying on the interview - Being overly confrontational - Irritating people - Being extremely fixed in their ways
Good signs include, but are not limited to:
- Decent sense of humour that fits in with at least one other person and doesn't irritate anyone. - Positive attitude towards work and people in general. - Is able to tell us about things that interest them with some energy and passion (but not to the point of boring us)
The other thing we do is we take people to the pub after the interview finishes so they can meet everyone. It's almost technically part of the interview but the main thing is for them to see as many of the people they'll be working with as possible and vice versa. Even if someone passes our cock test, we don't necessarily pass theirs and the important thing with hiring that I've found is that the person is the right match for the company at the time.
The day after the pub I'll generally ask what people thought of the candidate in the pub, and afterwards I (or whomever's hiring) will give the candidate a call and see what they thought of us.
I imagine that disqualifiers fit into two categories. 1. Subjective differences between you and the other people at the company. 2. Objective personality flaws.
There isn't much you can do about 1, and you shouldn't. If your personality doesn't fit in with a team, you should not try to alter your personality; it would get tiring and stressful, and you won't enjoy your job.
Things in the 2nd category (e.g., compulsive liar, arrogant douchebag, wet blanket) should be worked on in general, regardless of whether you're trying to find a job or not.
Unless you have someone managing them who can see from all the perspectives you need and ensure that the developer doesn't break compatibility, you're better off finding someone who isn't a one-trick pony.
I'd have no problem hiring someone without C# background to write C# if they already know Java, but my gut feeling is to think twice before hiring someone to write C++ who has no previous C++ experience. Maybe it's because some languages are more unforgiving than others, I don't know.
When it comes down to it, most programming languages are just syntax and patterns. Most intelligent people can pick up on this. The people who are going to contribute the most to your project and company in the long term are those who love what they do and are passionate about doing a good job.
Programming languages are syntax and patterns, but sometimes they're inextricably linked with productivity tools, libraries and testing frameworks, a set of best practices, a compiler tool chain, and even an execution platform.
As programmers work with these things all day every day, many of us have preferences - or at least I do. I'm happy to switch between languages that have good tools available - but if you use VB6 or PL/SQL you might as well tell me up front so we don't both waste our time.
Cultural fit is important also but it's a very vague notion. It's so easy to say that someone is a good cultural fit if you like them. That does not make them a great developer. That makes them likeable. Not denying that this is important, but it's down the list, it's not the number one factor to consider when hiring someone.
Downvote me to hell if you want, but I had to get that out of my chest.
Especially consider dropping lines like "5 years in X required." - you're just filtering out the fast learners.
...give the potential developer a box of Lego. If s/he does a Quagmire-esque "giggidy!", hire them.
How to hire a "hacker" or at least a great fit for your team? Make sure you offer a great place to work, make sure your people are happy and pay and treat them well - word of mouth from "hacker" to "hacker" will be ten times more valuable than anything some nameless derp wrote on their blog and it will ultimately work very well towards building a team that fits and sticks together.
It's also funny to hear one nameless derp giving out advice while saying you shouldn't hear the other ;)
The "choosing" part was included in my suggestion, you let your people recommend someone and you give that person a chance and it will become very apparent very quickly if they fit well or not.
But yes, thank you for your critical feedback.
Despite your comment, I think we're kind of getting at the same point - if you have a great place to work and focus on building a team that works well together, you're going to have more success as opposed to hiring someone with X years of Ruby experience just because they know how to code. Focus on cultural fit, the technical stuff can be taught.
Signed, nameless derp
But on focusing on cultural fit, we certainly agree.
- another nameless derp
Word of mouth however is a pretty reliable way of finding solid developers provided you start with a good developer or two to begin with, and is a great way to build your team and culture - odds are if your team is recommending someone, they'll fit in with and extend the culture your company is going for. We saw an example of this when we opened our Vancouver office - after a few key hires we were able to attract a lot of talented developers who fit in nicely.