Comments on: Recruitment and the Mythical Year of Experience http://imranontech.com/2007/12/06/recruitment-and-the-mythical-year-of-experience/ Musings on technology, development, and the world in general Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:34:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: David http://imranontech.com/2007/12/06/recruitment-and-the-mythical-year-of-experience/#comment-9401 Mon, 03 Mar 2008 19:06:22 +0000 http://tickletux.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/recruitment-and-the-mythical-year-of-experience/#comment-9401 What makes a “solid” programmer is instinct. While some people may have more natural talent and so are better programmers early on, the talent is not in code writing but in recognizing patterns and being able to make valid conceptual leaps. For most developers this instinct is developed over time, through many experiences.

Just as better musicians are those who play constantly and explore how their chosen instrument fits / works with different styles of music (jazz, classical, funk etc.); so to the bets programmers are those with several years experiences, across multiple industries, languages and operating systems.

I have interviewed developers who have ten plus years of experience pigeon-holed in the same job and found them to lack the ability to translate their acquired knowledge to other situations. Likewise I have interviewed and hired developers with as little as five years of experience, but experience with two or more industries, languages and operating systems, who already processed solid programming instincts.

I agree with Imran, you must look at the developer’s code. I would further add that you need to ask the developer to walk you through his or her solution and explain why he or she solved the problem they way he or she did.

If you are reading this and are not a developer (meaning that you would not feel comfortable or technologically savvy enough to walk through a developer’s code) I invite you to view a commercial solution to the problem of how to determine if a developer can actually develop (just follow the link for my Url).

]]> By: Marcin Tustin http://imranontech.com/2007/12/06/recruitment-and-the-mythical-year-of-experience/#comment-9388 Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:51:48 +0000 http://tickletux.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/recruitment-and-the-mythical-year-of-experience/#comment-9388 Of course by increasing the years of experience requirement, that means that they automatically cut out anyone who is better than the average on the market (unless they offer eye-watering salaries).

]]> By: Top Posts « WordPress.com http://imranontech.com/2007/12/06/recruitment-and-the-mythical-year-of-experience/#comment-9040 Fri, 07 Dec 2007 23:58:32 +0000 http://tickletux.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/recruitment-and-the-mythical-year-of-experience/#comment-9040 [...] Recruitment and the Mythical Year of Experience When it comes to recruitment the basic unit of measurement for ability is “years of experience” – this is […] [...]

]]> By: James http://imranontech.com/2007/12/06/recruitment-and-the-mythical-year-of-experience/#comment-9035 Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:59:48 +0000 http://tickletux.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/recruitment-and-the-mythical-year-of-experience/#comment-9035 It’s ridiculous to measure in years because there are some people who are just innately talented at programming and can learn and do more in a year than others can do in ten years. I’m not a programming genius but I have a friend who is and he went from being a relatively inexperienced ASP programmer to a highly skilled ASP.NET developer in a span of a few years. He now oversees a staff of Ivy-League CS graduates at a startup in San Francisco, checking and editing THEIR code for problems and inefficiencies. He’s just gifted with the ability to write ultra-efficient code and to look at programming problems and quickly come up with solutions. So he’s got maybe 4 years of experience now but that doesn’t tell the whole story.

]]> By: roland http://imranontech.com/2007/12/06/recruitment-and-the-mythical-year-of-experience/#comment-9031 Fri, 07 Dec 2007 13:54:19 +0000 http://tickletux.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/recruitment-and-the-mythical-year-of-experience/#comment-9031 Interesting that you can’t do this with new frameworks such as Ruby on Rails – your upper bound as a recruiter is 3 years (unless you want to look like an idiot). Maybe this contributes to the fear that you “can’t employ anyone” with new things. It isn’t that there is no one to be employed, just that the “average” yardstick can no longer be applied.

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