Code samples and job postings that ask for them


  • Garbage Person

    So I'm looking for a new gig. This one [i]sucks[/i]. Horribly underpaid, and I've been here since May and don't have source control permissions yet.

    So while I was sending stuff out last night, I ran into a few listings that asked for code samples. WTF? I don't have permission to distribute 99% of the things I've written that has any sort of relevancy to the listing. Hell, I don't have permission to distribute a single web app I've EVER written. So I grabbed some random but well-written source files from scattering of personal projects, stripped out all the vulgarity from the comments, attached text files explaining the contents of each file, zipped that crap up and shipped it off.

     

    Why the hell would you want a code sample with the initial application? How do you know it's even real? Are they trying to weed out idiots who will share previous employer's property? Are they trying to make some sort of quirky 'personality judgement' based on what you send them - for example, throw out all the nerds who send answers to project euler problems?



  • No, they're hoping someone will send them something worth stealing.

    They're not intending to hire anyone, they just wnt teh codez.



    Yes, some people are that stupid.



    ...and I mean both sides involved.


  • Garbage Person

     Oddly enough, they just emailed me back and asked for an interview. I guess my hunch that "They're a trendy Web 3.52.2.7200b9 social networking consulting firm. If I send them this content scraper and this little thing that teases statistics out of the scraped content, they'll be all over me like flies on shit" hit home. Of course, I didn't send them teh codez that actually does the grunt work.

    Their office is in a mighty-damned-impressive place, too. Hell, the ONLY impressive place in that godforsaken city.



  • Good luck... but be careful.


  • Garbage Person

     It can't be any worse than where I'm at now.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    I guess the new product development thing didn't work out, then?


  • Garbage Person

    Oh, it's working out great. The prototype even works. Problem is that it's way behind where it rightfully should be because of insane meddling. As in people who don't know how to program at all being required to vet my code before it gets checked in. It's an unsupported, in-flux prototype - I shouldn't have to give a verbal defense to a glorified secretary of why I need to change x=y to x=y+1. And then there's what happens when my checkin contains a merge. Ugh. Conflict resolution merges are "a sign that your team is not working properly together. A cooperative team should produce checkins that are mergable automatically"

    Also, there's still no fucking air conditioning in the fucking office. Fuck.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Weng said:

    Also, there's still no fucking air conditioning in the fucking office. Fuck.

    Ouch. Been a pretty hot summer so far, too. I can see why you want out.



  • @boomzilla said:

    @Weng said:
    Also, there's still no fucking air conditioning in the fucking office. Fuck.

    Ouch. Been a pretty hot summer so far, too. I can see why you want out.

    I live in Seattle, you insensitive clod. Send some of that heat our way.


  • Garbage Person

     @blakeyrat said:

    I live in Seattle, you insensitive clod. Send some of that heat our way.
    You can have it. All of it. Take the humidity, too.


  • 🚽 Regular

    @Weng said:

    Are they trying to weed out idiots who will share previous employer's property?
     

    I actually had a potential employer pull that on me when I gave him some Javascript code for a custom-built photo gallery/slideshow from a web dev client, since like you, I couldn't really provide proprietary code from my previous employers. The interviewer gave me a stern face and asked, "Did you receive permission to disclose this code to us?" I answered, "It was from a pet shop owner in [local town]. It's public-facing Javascript code you could download and read by going to their site. It's perfectly fine. In fact, I purposely gave you this code because the code I do for my employer is indeed under NDA and this was the best sample code I could find that wasn't under NDA.

    He wrote something down in his notepad and continued from there. I'm not sure what he wrote down, but I don't think he understood my answer.



  • @Weng said:

    Why the hell would you want a code sample with the initial application?

    I should start asking for code samples. I do a lot of interviewing and the resumes I get rarely tell me a lot about the applicant. I now do a brief scan of the resume and immediately set up a phone interview. I can't tell you how many people write "Designed web application that gets 100,000 hits per hour" on their resume, but can't answer a single question about scalability during the phone interview. When I press them about the resume item they usually say something like "There were corporate standards in place for that stuff, I just followed them". I'm convinced that people use resumes to try to sneak into an interview that they aren't qualified for.



    Any chance your are interested in a few month long contract in the Buffalo, NY area?


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @Jaime said:

    I can't tell you how many people write "Designed web application that gets 100,000 hits per hour" on their resume, but can't answer a single question about scalability during the phone interview. When I press them about the resume item they usually say something like "There were corporate standards in place for that stuff, I just followed them".

    I envy you. I don't have any hiring responsibilities, but my cow-orkers have no compunction about thousands of DB round trips inside of a single method call. I doubt they could even spell scalability.


  • Garbage Person

    @Jaime said:

    I can't tell you how many people write "Designed web application that gets 100,000 hits per hour" on their resume, but can't answer a single question about scalability during the phone interview
    See, I must suck at resumes or something, because I don't put anything nearly that specific on it. One particular system I designed and led the development team on was directly responsible for throwing around TERRIFYINGLY large amounts of money (in increments of $1 and $2 - but in aggregate, the number was IMPOSSIBLY HUGE) until it became the target of executive assassination and a third party product and its associated contractors were brought in.The resume entry for that system is one line that says something like "Designed and led medium-sized development team for business-critical specialist application with financial components"

    Incidentally, the executive who did the assassinating had just came back from a junket thrown by said contractors. 

    @Jaime said:

    Any chance your are interested in a few month long contract in the Buffalo, NY area?
    I doubt you'd want to relocate a contractor.



  • @Weng said:

    @Jaime said:

    I can't tell you how many people write "Designed web application that gets 100,000 hits per hour" on their resume, but can't answer a single question about scalability during the phone interview
    See, I must suck at resumes or something, because I don't put anything nearly that specific on it.

    You don't suck, they do. I usually see people with 4 to 6 years of experience, maybe 4 contract jobs under their belt, and a twelve page resume. They include everything that anybody did on the projects on their resume. When I ask about the projects, they usually sound like salespeople trying to sell the product they worked on instead of selling themselves.



    Inevitably, I find out that they did very little of the work and aren't competent enough to get out of the "junior" level. I would prefer to see a few bullets about the person instead a hundred bullets about the projects they worked on. I also learned that if you want silence in the room, simply ask a developer why they did something. It seems 95% of them never consider alternatives to anything, they simply keep plugging away until the QA people go away.


  • Garbage Person

    @Jaime said:

    I also learned that if you want silence in the room, simply ask a developer why they did something.
    Sounds about right - though I personally don't have any problem justifying any decision I've made (even if that justification is "It seemed like a good idea at the time - it, however, was not")

     

    Additionally, why in the hell would you use the words "Sixty hour work week" during a phone screen? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? I knew there was something terribly wrong when the response to my initial inquiry came in at frickin' 6AM on the dot.



  • @Weng said:

    "Sixty hour work week"
     

    And I'm gone.


  • Garbage Person

    @dhromed said:

    @Weng said:

    "Sixty hour work week"
     

    And I'm gone.

    Yeah, at this point I'm like "Uh, how can I end this now without sounding like a total dick."


  • "I'm sorry, it sounds like this just isn't a good fit.  Thank you very much for your time."


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