Almost every development manager I have ever met has been looking for senior programmers. Some must set their sights lower for budgetary reasons, but they are all looking for the best they can hire. As you would expect, there are always fewer senior programmers than there are possible positions. This tends to make them relatively… Read More »
I’ve been spending a fair amount of my time the past few years helping hire programmers. I have also spent time training both entry-level and senior programmers. So, Jeff Atwood’s recent blog entry The Years of Experience Myth struck me as particularly interesting. While I agree that the number of years of experience a developer… Read More »
Smart & Gets Things Done Joel Spolsky Apress, 2007 This book represents Joel Spolsky’s approach to hiring programmers. Smart & Gets Things Done is based on Spolsky’s weblog, like his previous book, Joel on Software. In this book, Joel brings together his various writings on hiring software developers. Not surprisingly, Joel bucks traditional wisdom on… Read More »
In On Proficiency, I talked a bit about what characteristics make up the concept we call proficiency. In trying to hire programmers, a company often tries to measure proficiency to find the best candidate for the job. Over a year ago, I began thinking about how to measure proficiency, and found it to be harder… Read More »