I agree with: Smart, passionate and communicative. I'm less concerned with how you come by your experience/skills, whether it be through programming hobbies, work or school.
These indicator lists seem most useful for companies that have a consulting business model, and need eclectic programmers to rapidly deliver short to mid-term solutions across a broad range of clients and constraints. (maybe)
However, companies that are focussed on a single product or domain don't benefit as much from the dabbler personality in my opinion. Sure, having some of those personalities on the team is valuable to help introduce new ideas (is the grass greener?). And all developers should be open-minded. However, the vast majority of valuable man hours are spent on extending and refining existing components (UIs, databases, architectures). The best developers for this work are those that can tackle a single problem rigorously and exhaustively, and can stick with something through a long series of iterative improvements. That type of work is not always great resume material or the most exciting thing to discuss in an interview (or legal), but it's often the most valuable thing a humble individual contributes to the success of a product/company.
As long as the candidate meets the basic requirements of the job, then an engaging guide through a candidate's thesis work, or an informed description of complex project they've worked on, would probably gain more favor than a rundown of side projects they threw together or made minor contributions to. Now there are some superhuman developers who have worked at very high depth on multiple projects. If your company can afford them, then hiring them is a no-brainer.
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I agree with: Smart, passionate and communicative. I'm less concerned with how you come by your experience/skills, whether it be through programming hobbies, work or school.
These indicator lists seem most useful for companies that have a consulting business model, and need eclectic programmers to rapidly deliver short to mid-term solutions across a broad range of clients and constraints. (maybe)
However, companies that are focussed on a single product or domain don't benefit as much from the dabbler personality in my opinion. Sure, having some of those personalities on the team is valuable to help introduce new ideas (is the grass greener?). And all developers should be open-minded. However, the vast majority of valuable man hours are spent on extending and refining existing components (UIs, databases, architectures). The best developers for this work are those that can tackle a single problem rigorously and exhaustively, and can stick with something through a long series of iterative improvements. That type of work is not always great resume material or the most exciting thing to discuss in an interview (or legal), but it's often the most valuable thing a humble individual contributes to the success of a product/company.
As long as the candidate meets the basic requirements of the job, then an engaging guide through a candidate's thesis work, or an informed description of complex project they've worked on, would probably gain more favor than a rundown of side projects they threw together or made minor contributions to. Now there are some superhuman developers who have worked at very high depth on multiple projects. If your company can afford them, then hiring them is a no-brainer.