I'm confused. Had an interview with a company, went really well. Felt we clicked in both interviews. They said my tech test was "impressive", just heard back from the recruiter that I didn't get it because I haven't committed to my personal repository since 2018. That being said, they didn't have my personal repo. I made a new GitHub as I can't even login to my old one (email got hacked). So I wonder if they may have found my social media accounts etc.
What the heck? I've been in this career for 8 years. I don't want to code in my spare time, ever. I enjoy coding, and I used to code a lot but I really can't be bothered in my spare time at all. I sit at a desk all day coding, why would I then want to spend several hours at night doing the same thing? I get some people probably do, but I sure as hell don't!
All I can think is they went for someone with either more experience or wanted less pay...
Anyone had a similar experience?
Top comments (10)
Believe me, you didn't want to work for those who do this nonsense.
The short answer to this is: Just try to move on. You can't control whatever (BS) factors a potential employer will look for. There are 1000 different "quirks" that hiring managers have - BS little pre-qualifications that they think are important, but don't really determine a coder's worth. There's literally nothing that you can do about this.
Is it good practice to have a robust GitHub profile full of your other (public) coding projects?? Sure. It certainly doesn't help. But I know tons of other "rockstar" devs that don't have a robust GitHub profile (some of them don't even have any GitHub profile). In the end, silly hiring managers are gonna make their own silly decisions. Period.
I'm guessing that you've dodged a bullet, if coding in your spare time is a requirement, it probably means they expect unpaid overtime from you :-)
As much as it's nice to see a passionate developer for whom coding is not only a job but a hobby as well, not everyone has that amount of time on their hands. I myself had year long gaps in my GH contributions.
Don't let it get to you and good luck!
I haven't had that specific experience, but have experienced many idiotic hiring processes.
I would guess that there is one specific individual at that company who has decided that good developers always code in their spare time (the individual codes in their spare time - they think they are good - they want to hire someone like them).
The individual has significant influence on the hire / don't hire decision (maybe they are the lead developer) and as a result the company lost a good recruit, and wasted everyone's time and money.
You probably dodged a bullet, they sound like jerks
Your spare time is absolutely yours by definition.
This behavior tells more about the company than about you.
Obviously they don't want / know how to foment the personal development of their workers (that's why they need such employee profile).
I recommend the book "the clean coder" from Uncle Bob, for dealing with the developer-employer / developer-developer relationship. It's not a coding book, and It can be very useful with real life cases, so you will be more certain about your rights (I know, we all now our rights but sometimes we could improve our ability to be more assertive in our claims) . I think that this book will be more helpful for a person with almost a decade of experience.
Just bought the book
"the clean coder"
It wasn't that long ago that the only people who became coders were those that had a passion for it. I know the landscape has changed, many now see coding as nothing other than a job, but I still only hire people that show that passion and if one doesn't have it then they wouldn't be a good fit with those of us that do.
This is literally a copy paste from a reddit post that you didn't write.
Why are you stealing?
Maybe just an asshole?
"No other industry expects you to do your job in your free time"
you have never worked as a teacher!