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I completely agree. I see this sort of 'shotgun hiring' all the time. It is very difficult to hire a lot of very good developers in a short amount of time. S

I completely agree. I see this sort of 'shotgun hiring' all the time. It is very difficult to hire a lot of very good developers in a short amount of time. Sorry to say it, but there are an ever increasing amount of awful coders out there. I really do mean awful. Kevin is just telling it like he saw it. I am sure the good devs over at Digg would say the same thing.

Dylanlacey 16y ago
To be fair, I'm assuming that the percentage of terrible developers is constant, it's just that A: You're hiring more of them, and B: More people are being terrible web developers rather then terrible desktop application developers.
- dasil003 16y ago
  That doesn't seem like a legit assumption though. Combine the sensationalization of tech media with ever-lower barriers to entry for web and mobile development, and it seems almost impossible that there wouldn't be significantly more terrible developers than ever before.
Stormbringer 16y ago
The shotgun can work. Put them to work as interns, then mentally review their performance at the 2 week, 4 week, 2 month and 3 month anniversaries. If at any point you find that they are significantly underperforming, go and find out why. E.g. maybe for the first 3 weeks they were on database stuff, which they love, but they've been reassigned to UI which they hate. Maybe their dog died. If they underperform at any two of the reviews stages, get rid of them. If they are bad for morale, get rid of them. A great coder that is an energy vampire for your good coders is a net loss. One place I worked we had a guy who was supposed to be a good programmer. The first week there he was really depressed about Michael Jackson's death. I tried to cheer him up and he perked up for a couple of days in the second week. Then in the third week I discovered he was actively looking for work elsewhere (and telling other devs about it). I pulled him aside and told him to pull his head in. He came right for a while but the next week he was down again. He broke the build every second day, and nobody ever chastised him for it (there might have been some playful ribbing along the lines of 'you broke it, you bought it') but the one time I broke the build he lost his shit and started screaming at me, telling me (in front of managers) that I was incompetent. He had epic mood swings, when he was up he could be the most charming guy in the world, when he was down he was evil up to and including physically attacking and bullying other devs (but never in front of the managers). Naturally, the managers loved him, so I left.
- ojbyrne 16y ago
  There was never anything resembling performance reviews at digg, while I was there.
  - Stormbringer 16y ago
    And actually, I was careful not to call them performance reviews. Performance reviews are horrible, and consist of all sorts of minefields and HR BS. E.g. rate yourself from 1 to 5 in these areas, but nobody gets a 5. When I said mentally review their performance, I meant mentally ask yourself if the person is up to scratch. E.g. is their actual performance good. Now, most managers wouldn't be able to tell you this, so this shouldn't be something that is done by a manager. It should be done by a senior dev who has some kind of knowledge of the area the 'intern' is working in. Alternately, you could have a tribal council of say three senior devs, and they vote at the 2w,4w,2m,3m periods. Anybody that gets too many downvotes gets to leave the island :D But note also that if somebody is temporarily under-performing then you need to find out why and fix it (Note: not the same as 'fix them'). The goal is to as fast as possible identify the people who are consistently underperforming, or show enough signs of flakiness, so that you can utilise the built in 'thank you for playing, you are the weakest link, goodbye' clause built in to most contracts.

Dylanlacey 16y ago

To be fair, I'm assuming that the percentage of terrible developers is constant, it's just that A: You're hiring more of them, and B: More people are being terrible web developers rather then terrible desktop application developers.

dasil003 16y ago
That doesn't seem like a legit assumption though. Combine the sensationalization of tech media with ever-lower barriers to entry for web and mobile development, and it seems almost impossible that there wouldn't be significantly more terrible developers than ever before.

Stormbringer 16y ago

The shotgun can work. Put them to work as interns, then mentally review their performance at the 2 week, 4 week, 2 month and 3 month anniversaries. If at any point you find that they are significantly underperforming, go and find out why. E.g. maybe for the first 3 weeks they were on database stuff, which they love, but they've been reassigned to UI which they hate. Maybe their dog died. If they underperform at any two of the reviews stages, get rid of them. If they are bad for morale, get rid of them. A great coder that is an energy vampire for your good coders is a net loss. One place I worked we had a guy who was supposed to be a good programmer. The first week there he was really depressed about Michael Jackson's death. I tried to cheer him up and he perked up for a couple of days in the second week. Then in the third week I discovered he was actively looking for work elsewhere (and telling other devs about it). I pulled him aside and told him to pull his head in. He came right for a while but the next week he was down again. He broke the build every second day, and nobody ever chastised him for it (there might have been some playful ribbing along the lines of 'you broke it, you bought it') but the one time I broke the build he lost his shit and started screaming at me, telling me (in front of managers) that I was incompetent. He had epic mood swings, when he was up he could be the most charming guy in the world, when he was down he was evil up to and including physically attacking and bullying other devs (but never in front of the managers). Naturally, the managers loved him, so I left.

ojbyrne 16y ago
There was never anything resembling performance reviews at digg, while I was there.
- Stormbringer 16y ago
  And actually, I was careful not to call them performance reviews. Performance reviews are horrible, and consist of all sorts of minefields and HR BS. E.g. rate yourself from 1 to 5 in these areas, but nobody gets a 5. When I said mentally review their performance, I meant mentally ask yourself if the person is up to scratch. E.g. is their actual performance good. Now, most managers wouldn't be able to tell you this, so this shouldn't be something that is done by a manager. It should be done by a senior dev who has some kind of knowledge of the area the 'intern' is working in. Alternately, you could have a tribal council of say three senior devs, and they vote at the 2w,4w,2m,3m periods. Anybody that gets too many downvotes gets to leave the island :D But note also that if somebody is temporarily under-performing then you need to find out why and fix it (Note: not the same as 'fix them'). The goal is to as fast as possible identify the people who are consistently underperforming, or show enough signs of flakiness, so that you can utilise the built in 'thank you for playing, you are the weakest link, goodbye' clause built in to most contracts.