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Comment by VincentEvans | Hacker News Reader

I don't have any interest in "coding socially" for the same reason that I don't like attending meet-ups and office parties.

I am dismayed at the fact that what used to be a good choice of a career for nerdy and introverted people, where you could surround yourself by technical problems and be left alone to it - has been high-jacked and turned into yet another social networking competition.

Apparently to have a chance at getting a job nowadays I need to have a github profile, contribute to foss, write a blog and speak at the user groups.

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I don't think that's entirely true that you need all of those things to get hired. Your resume still speaks volumes about you. It's just that things like github and stack overflow show an interest in engaging in the larger community of software development, and are a strong signal when evaluating a candidate. Having been on both sides of the table it's important to remember that the person hiring you is taking just as much of a chance on you being the right fit. I think anything makes that decision clearer is a positive.

I've encountered a number of studies using randomly put together groups which are rewarded based on performance of some task - organically select a leader based on display of confidence, rather than competence.

I reason that it is not uncommon to assume competence from an extroverted person. I can't really argue with that, it's a fact, use whatever card you got dealt to get ahead.

I am just bemoaning the fact that slowly but surely the field becomes skewed towards that, losing a good amount of original core values in the process.

Hasn't something similar already happened to academia for example?

I don't think you need to be social at all, but it is helpful to have meaningful work samples for potential employers to evaluate. Github's just the easiest place to put those. It's similar to a design portfolio for a designer or writing sample for a writer. Otherwise, people end up making decisions based on their interview impressions, which can be very inaccurate.

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