As long as Ptacek’s hiring post got attention I figured I’d submit this, which I coincindentally posted to my blog last week. About six months ago I saw some of Ptacek’s YCombinator News comments about hiring. I was really impressed, sifted his comment history for more gems, and redesigned the process for hiring junior developers at my workplace. (I’m pushing to expand this to more experienced positions, but we haven’t wanted to hire any recently.)
Sounds quite interesting. Being a person still in school at the masters level, I know I can develop quite a few things. But that lack of “real industry experience” does tend to let me question my ultimate competencies.
Make a project by yourself. It can be something you put together in a couple weekends or a week of free time, but anything you can show off and call “done” is a huge help. Many developers, even with advanced degrees, can’t code at all. And of those that can code, many can’t finish anything. So if you make something small and coherent - maybe a command line utility, a small website, anything - you leap above other candidates.
In your opinion, does it matter what language it is in?
I have done a bit of Java (and lightly look after an older swing project somebody else did), but I have become very interested in Rust because of the features it offers and the relatively open space for things in it.
No. Nice if it’s the language the employer uses, but as long as it works it’s valuable.