<story><title>Hire people who aren’t proven</title><url>https://leonardofed.io/blog/startups-hiring.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>maxxxxx</author><text>I think hiring has become more difficult now that programming has been discovered as a well paying mainstream career. When I started in the 90s most people I worked with had a passion for the craft but now I find we interview a lot of people who have a CS degree just for the career prospects but not out of interest for the craft.&lt;p&gt;I find it much easier to deal with someone who has no relevant experience but cares vs someone who had 10 years experience but doesn&amp;#x27;t care. Now someone who has 10 years AND cares is rare but pure gold.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>snowwrestler</author><text>By all means, you should use whatever criteria you would like to hire your own staff.&lt;p&gt;But in general, I would encourage folks in computer tech industries to be hesitant to assume such a binary approach to evaluating prospects. &amp;quot;Did you code for fun in high school?&amp;quot; might be a useful question now, because software development as a field is so young that high school students can try out significant work easily.&lt;p&gt;But in most high-end professional fields, that&amp;#x27;s not true. Imagine asking a prospective medical resident &amp;quot;did you treat any diseases in high school?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;how much surgery do you do in your spare time?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I think we should take it as a positive sign that people are approaching software and computer technology as a professional career that they can professionally pursue. That approach can produce great work too, and a growing field means a greater diversity in how people find and display their passion. Getting a CS degree is not easy, and requires some base level of interest and commitment to complete. Even a bootcamp is not free, and takes some focus and work.&lt;p&gt;Anyone above a certain age (like me) came into the industry sideways, as it was developing, as a result of personal passion and interest. Let&amp;#x27;s not mistake that for an inherent property of a good tech employee... every industry on Earth started that way at some point.&lt;p&gt;Computer technology industries are maturing, just like railroads, oil development, aviation, telecommunications, and dozens of other industries have over time. That&amp;#x27;s not bad, and we will have to take it into account as we consider the model employee.&lt;p&gt;Hiring people who are &amp;quot;not proven&amp;quot; might also mean hiring people who are well trained, but maybe have not yet proven their passion in a way you recognize.</text></comment>
<story><title>Hire people who aren’t proven</title><url>https://leonardofed.io/blog/startups-hiring.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>maxxxxx</author><text>I think hiring has become more difficult now that programming has been discovered as a well paying mainstream career. When I started in the 90s most people I worked with had a passion for the craft but now I find we interview a lot of people who have a CS degree just for the career prospects but not out of interest for the craft.&lt;p&gt;I find it much easier to deal with someone who has no relevant experience but cares vs someone who had 10 years experience but doesn&amp;#x27;t care. Now someone who has 10 years AND cares is rare but pure gold.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>collyw</author><text>Cares about what though?&lt;p&gt;Building simple,solid, maintainable software that does what it is supposed to?&lt;p&gt;Or cares about chasing every new fad, has ten frameworks listed on their resume and is currently midway through the machine learning &amp;#x2F; blockchain hype?&lt;p&gt;I care about the former, but plenty of people would see that as having little &amp;quot;passion&amp;quot;. For example, I don&amp;#x27;t have any experience using NoSQL databases on my CV, because I haven&amp;#x27;t had a use case for them and I could tell that they weren&amp;#x27;t all that they were hyped up to be 5 years ago when those were peak hype cycle. (I can design a relational database properly and know how to index it and optimize queries).&lt;p&gt;Ten years is plenty of time for this industry to kill any passion you started with. I still care about producing good work.</text></comment>