So over the past few weeks we've been looking for developer types at my company. Unsurprisingly there's been quite some interest on exactly 'how' to hire a good developer; what traits they exhibit, etc etc. So we start looking around for some good references. It seems the quintessential starting point for hiring (certainly for us) has been Joel's Guerilla Guide to Hiring Developers . Now Joel's an opinionated guy, but here that bodes well, and he gives a pretty good starting point for benchmarking candidates.
My esteemed colleague passed to me an article where the guy's basically saying "There's a lotta devs out there who in an interview can't write real simple code logic" which made me kinda think why apply to code if you're unable to express in code, even the most basic logic. Its like turning up to a roofing job without your ladder - just don't make sense.
While i'm not aware of any particular science behind it, I doubt developer aptitude can't be determined by the number languages they mention,buzzwords on their CV, nor letters after their names. Picking a guy who wrote "i do code" is effectively as arbitrary where ability is concerned. In any case, being on a development team myself, I probably spend 30% of my time writing "code"; the rest i'm fiddling in config scripts, reading how to make stuff better - in essence, finding out how I can write the 'least amount of meaningful code possible to get the job done' and using existing tools to help me get there.
When you think about it, you're probably actually looking for a *very* specific sort of person when you're going for a hire. Joel puts it down to being intelligent, and being proven to get things done.
So really all in all, sitting your candidate down in front of a PC and getting them to write some code is probably going to be a good starting point. You can't forget the other stuff though, so assuming you're looking for a great coder, you probably want to get someone who is able to code in front of you and is comfortable with people. We have a load of awesome úber-geeks working with us and what makes it great is that they're really smart, and really good guys.
Maybe the answer is to look beyond just coding ability and consider the behaviours your guy exhibits, who's blogs he reads, what (if anything) keeps him at his PC til 11pm (no, i'm not talking about mammaries) - so i guess although it is the main reason for the hire, its important to realise,
there's more it than just the code.
