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#jobs-discuss
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2018-05-23
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alexlynham08:05:05

esp when you have an open github and a blog etc you've got a bunch of real code out in the wild anyway

kwladyka09:05:24

I believe it should work like that: 1) If you have your own project to show, show it and talk about it. 2) Do pair programming. Could be better than 1). Both are perfect. 3) If you have nothing to show do technical task. Unfortunately company demand 3) to make it consistent for everybody. Others have to do it, so you have to do it too. Equality…. or pathology 🙂 Depend on your point of view 🙂

kwladyka10:05:20

While people candidate to 3-5 work at the same time do all this technical tasks which should take “only 2 hours”, but take a few days of free time or more. It means people consume whole they private life for some period of time. It is not the right process to make them unhappy 🙂 Also coding fake solutions for fake issues don’t motivate. Unless somebody begin his adventure and it could sounds cool to do some technical challenge.

alexlynham11:05:04

haha yeah, the last technical interview I did they said "approach this like you would at work"

alexlynham11:05:33

so I said "okay, what's the business case or the user need?" troll

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alexlynham11:05:45

(it was a bad joke but ended up being an icebreaker, so hey)

kwladyka11:05:10

heh yes, I understand you 🙂

Drew Verlee13:05:07

I think @U79NZHC6A is right. In some ways, i believe the coding challenge sets a bad president That devs shouldn’t be involved in strategic business decisions. From my perspective, the most important job a dev can do is find ways for technology to help their team succeed. Sometimes this means brining something to light that no one else is thinking about. Sometimes it means saying no to a decision that will cripple your company later. Those types of decisions are much harder because they involve winning over people, tackling abstract and wide scoping issues.

alexlynham13:05:57

> From my perspective, the most important job a dev can do is find ways for technology to help their team succeed that's literally 70% of what I do now

alexlynham13:05:18

a bad decision costs more money than code written to support a good one will often earn

alexlynham13:05:39

so sometimes you're using your technical skill base just to help with the bigger picture

Drew Verlee13:05:33

Do you have any suggestions on how to convey that ability to people? Does it make sense to blog your thoughts and point potential employers at it? I dont get the impression that most times people dont have the motivation to read blog posts.

kwladyka13:05:39

youtube popular video or FB popular post, that is what matter in 21 century to share knowledge trollface

Drew Verlee13:05:24

its not a bad idea. I think the trick is to make sure that someone, at a glance, can see that other devs trust you.

Drew Verlee13:05:53

That way, they dont have to understand or even read your material, they can just defer the choice to a larger group.

kwladyka13:05:10

But if we go deeper into it I am afraid source of the issue is in different place. Political game in companies. Sometimes people have to wait for fail to remove somebody or protect themselves against such action. It creates pathology on developers level, while they don’t have power to make decisions and really understand what they solve. Indeed sometimes there is no real issue to solve. It is just about somebody’s job.

kwladyka13:05:34

It could be confuse, because it is wide topic…. but I am afraid there is some true in it.

kwladyka13:05:11

Like as long as you prove your job make sens that is fine. So you can’t allow developers to prove it doesn’t make sense. They will do it when have access to users, all data and decisions.

kwladyka13:05:41

Do you know what I mean?

Drew Verlee13:05:48

i understand. The only way to make sense of any of it, is if you have a goal. In this case its usually very personal. What can i do to get what i want. If the political structure of your company is the issue, then its on you to navigate those issues. I get the impression, that many devs shy away from those types of problems because, unlikely the the logical world of mathematics, those issues are chaotic and random. I feel that attitude is crippling, i feel the process of software development is bringing order to chaos. To find the cross section of human needs and laws of nature and tie them together. I guess i’m saying that its possible to approach the humanities with the same open mind and critical thinking skills that we apply to software development. We cannot deny the primative instincts in ourselves or others. I wouldn’t wait for someone else to fail, i would help them understand that we can help each other. Unfortunately, the way most companies, especially in tech, are run, everything is a competition. We reward risky behavior, shows of dominance and leaders. Even if what allowed those people to succeed was other peoples support and all the guard rails that allowed them to take those risks.

alexlynham13:05:13

yeah, a lot of the time if a project manager is attached to 'a project' it means that thing is going to be bought/built even if it's not necessary or totally rubbish

kwladyka14:05:22

yes, most of my life I am entrepreneur and IT contractor in the same time. In my habit is to make solutions and make them in good perspective of maintenance and changing business needs in the future. Sometimes I have impression regular developers have habits to deliver things on time and don’t care too much about business. Like there is business and IT as separate things. I guess company are not without fault. They teach people to do things which don’t solve real issue, everybody feel project doesn’t make sense, but money come. All in all developers start to think about project like about temporary things. They can change job, project will fail, whatever. Developers are not really involved in business, they are involved in tech.

kwladyka14:05:06

BTW I am showing dark side and use generalisation. This is not objective true.

kwladyka14:05:29

I could even say sometimes make right decision about IT is against business. Sometimes business want to work it in that way, because for example software house can earn more money while “borrow” more developers. While having such number of people is mistake for project.

kwladyka14:05:20

+ scrum master + product owner etc. extra people, extra money

kwladyka14:05:50

if you want sell company and you have datascience section you can sell it for more money telling you have this income because of they research and IT products

nilrecurring10:05:28

Having the same task for all the candidates is the closest thing we have to “science”, since it makes it actually possible to compare choices/assumptions/style/patterns/mistakes

nilrecurring10:05:46

As an interviewer for me it’s priceless

nilrecurring10:05:57

As a candidate with tons of code on github I ask to be interviewed on the public code (and sometimes it happens) but I understand when the company says “we would like every candidate to take the same test”, because it’s a really valuable thing

kwladyka10:05:32

heh I agree and disagree in the same time 🙂 But good to know other side opinion. Both sides have right.

kwladyka10:05:06

I guess all is about supply and demand law. Many candidates, so companies makes process of recruitment easier for them. They lose some quality of the process, but they can process more people. All in all it works.

sveri10:05:58

I'd like to throw in, at my team, we did not once do a technical test in the last 7 years and only hired after one hour of talking to a potential employer.

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sveri10:05:10

No, only onsite, unfortunately, although we can work from home throughout the week as long as we attend the meetings.

alexlynham11:05:25

we do pairing in our interviews at my current place but it's really about seeing communication skills, because not all teams actually pair all the time

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