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How to Find Good Programmers

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Great guide on how to hire a programmer. This guy was programming since 9 which I found rather amazing. I think I started maybe 7th grade or so when we got computers and doing it on my own when I got a Vic 20. I don't remember the price of Apple II's back then which we had at school but there was no way my mom could afford one so learning to program was hard until I got the Vic-20. I still remember that cursed tape drive and by the time I'd get half way through the game, it would take 30 minutes to save and I'd get dust in it or something and lose the whole damn things.

Apple's had disk drive's pretty early on if I remember and I was desperate for one. Damn you Steve Jobs. Always making expensive toys!
Ideas here on how to find good programmers. Good stuff:

“… what killed most of the startups in the e-commerce business back in the 90s, it was bad programmers. A lot of those companies were started by business guys who thought the way startups worked was that you had some clever idea and then hired programmers to implement it. That’s actually much harder than it sounds—almost impossibly hard in fact—because business guys can’t tell which are the good programmers. They don’t even get a shot at the best ones, because no one really good wants a job implementing the vision of a business guy.

In practice what happens is that the business guys choose people they think are good programmers (it says here on his resume that he’s a Microsoft Certified Developer) but who aren’t. Then they’re mystified to find that their startup lumbers along like a World War II bomber while their competitors scream past like jet fighters. This kind of startup is in the same position as a big company, but without the advantages.


The criteria in bullets

So, in summary, here are some indicators and counter-indicators that should help you recognise a good programmer.

Positive indicators:

  • Passionate about technology
  • Programs as a hobby
  • Will talk your ear off on a technical subject if encouraged
  • Significant (and often numerous) personal side-projects over the years
  • Learns new technologies on his/her own
  • Opinionated about which technologies are better for various usages
  • Very uncomfortable about the idea of working with a technology he doesn’t believe to be “right”
  • Clearly smart, can have great conversations on a variety of topics
  • Started programming long before university/work
  • Has some hidden “icebergs”, large personal projects under the CV radar
  • Knowledge of a large variety of unrelated technologies (may not be on CV)

Negative indicators:

  • Programming is a day job
  • Don’t really want to “talk shop”, even when encouraged to
  • Learns new technologies in company-sponsored courses
  • Happy to work with whatever technology you’ve picked, “all technologies are good”
  • Doesn’t seem too smart
  • Started programming at university
  • All programming experience is on the CV
  • Focused mainly on one or two technology stacks (e.g. everything to do with developing a java application), with no experience outside of it

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The preceding article is from one of our external contributors. It does not represent the opinion of Benzinga and has not been edited.

 

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