A great example of a different perspective, thank you. For mostly my own benefit, but hopefully other readers as well, could you explain some of the reasons people can’t contribute to open source? Is this mostly about time constraints (e.g. working several jobs, raising kids) or some sort of strict contract? Or is there something else entirely I’m overlooking?
The primary purpose of my post was actually to try and help people improve their resumes without access to some more traditional sources of experience. Specifically people who are unable to get a college degree. Too many positions I see posted require a bachelors degree and X years of professional experience. Both of those things, from my perspective, are less accessible than open source contribution.
Thanks for the reply! I'm mostly referring to those with time constraints, yes. Folks working multiple jobs, or raising children - but I also know devs who are carers for disabled parents, or have limited access to a computer/internet from home. I also know plenty of folks that simply have other hobbies outside of coding, and don't want to come home after 8 hours of work to do more work.
I absolutely agree that open source is a great way to demonstrate skills for those who don't have degrees or experience. I'm highly critical of job ads that require bachelors degrees, or junior positions that require X years experience, so I completely agree with you!
The other thing I will mention is that there is also an inherent amount of bias that comes with looking at open source contributions. Women and PoC are much more likely to fall into one of the categories in my first paragraph above than men are!
As I said, I don't want to discourage those who can contribute to open source from doing so! I just think that as an industry we should equally focus on trying to change the inherently biased requirements that have lead to our industry being so inaccessible to those who don't come from privileged backgrounds.
Thank you again for your insight! This sort of discussion is the thing I love most about this site. To round out this train of thought, do you have any suggestions related to the rest of the process post- resume review? Any specific dos/don’ts for things like coding assessments, phone screening, or the actual interview itself?
Sure! I'll probably do a proper write up of my thoughts in a post later on, but basically:
Resume review - We have HR remove as much personal information as they can before we see a resume. Name, social links, etc. We focus on the previous experience of the candidate. Community involvement is a plus (e.g. mentoring, speaking at meetups or conferences, etc), but we focus as much as we can on whether we believe the candidate has some experience relevant to the position.
Phone screen - We do a short 45 min phone screen that is mostly focussed on cultural questions, and how they think about software engineering and the work they do. Some example questions:
How do ensure quality in the software you create?
What do you look for in a code review?
Tell us your experience with working with diverse teams, including teams with different genders, nationalities, neurodiversities, ability , race etc…
Tell me about a team experience you found rewarding?
We have very few technical questions in the phone interview, outside some basic sanity questions such as:
You’ve been paged, your app is throwing 500 error what steps do you take to resolve this?
How would you architect a basic web application?
What happens when you type in google.com to your browser?
After the phone interview we provide the candidate with a short (2 hour) technical test. We emphasise to the candidate that we do not want them to spend more than 2 hours on it. We also book the face-to-face interview at the same time. The technical test is not a gate, but rather provides us with insight into the way they think, and a point of discussion for the face-to-face interview.
Face-to-face interview - A large amount of this interview is based on discussions around the technical test, followed by some more generic cultural and technical questions. We will never ask a candidate to write code on a whiteboard.
A great example of a different perspective, thank you. For mostly my own benefit, but hopefully other readers as well, could you explain some of the reasons people can’t contribute to open source? Is this mostly about time constraints (e.g. working several jobs, raising kids) or some sort of strict contract? Or is there something else entirely I’m overlooking?
The primary purpose of my post was actually to try and help people improve their resumes without access to some more traditional sources of experience. Specifically people who are unable to get a college degree. Too many positions I see posted require a bachelors degree and X years of professional experience. Both of those things, from my perspective, are less accessible than open source contribution.
Thanks for the reply! I'm mostly referring to those with time constraints, yes. Folks working multiple jobs, or raising children - but I also know devs who are carers for disabled parents, or have limited access to a computer/internet from home. I also know plenty of folks that simply have other hobbies outside of coding, and don't want to come home after 8 hours of work to do more work.
I absolutely agree that open source is a great way to demonstrate skills for those who don't have degrees or experience. I'm highly critical of job ads that require bachelors degrees, or junior positions that require X years experience, so I completely agree with you!
The other thing I will mention is that there is also an inherent amount of bias that comes with looking at open source contributions. Women and PoC are much more likely to fall into one of the categories in my first paragraph above than men are!
As I said, I don't want to discourage those who can contribute to open source from doing so! I just think that as an industry we should equally focus on trying to change the inherently biased requirements that have lead to our industry being so inaccessible to those who don't come from privileged backgrounds.
Thank you again for your insight! This sort of discussion is the thing I love most about this site. To round out this train of thought, do you have any suggestions related to the rest of the process post- resume review? Any specific dos/don’ts for things like coding assessments, phone screening, or the actual interview itself?
Sure! I'll probably do a proper write up of my thoughts in a post later on, but basically:
Resume review - We have HR remove as much personal information as they can before we see a resume. Name, social links, etc. We focus on the previous experience of the candidate. Community involvement is a plus (e.g. mentoring, speaking at meetups or conferences, etc), but we focus as much as we can on whether we believe the candidate has some experience relevant to the position.
Phone screen - We do a short 45 min phone screen that is mostly focussed on cultural questions, and how they think about software engineering and the work they do. Some example questions:
We have very few technical questions in the phone interview, outside some basic sanity questions such as:
After the phone interview we provide the candidate with a short (2 hour) technical test. We emphasise to the candidate that we do not want them to spend more than 2 hours on it. We also book the face-to-face interview at the same time. The technical test is not a gate, but rather provides us with insight into the way they think, and a point of discussion for the face-to-face interview.
Face-to-face interview - A large amount of this interview is based on discussions around the technical test, followed by some more generic cultural and technical questions. We will never ask a candidate to write code on a whiteboard.
Excellent info, I'd definitely be interested in a full post about how you go about finding candidates. Thanks again!