November 4, 2017 at 14:21No, I do not have third-party projects to show you
- Transfer
I know for sure the moment when I lost the chance to get an interview at a shopping app development company in the center of Austin. They wanted to see examples of my code. Of course, they understood that I could not show them the code of my current or past employers. But that should not be a problem. After all, they allow me to show the code of one of my many third-party projects, which I undoubtedly have.
But I do not have third-party projects. I do not have an account on GitHub. I do not have open-source projects that I spend in the evenings. I have exactly zero pull requests in any of the latest fashion projects in which all the cool coders participate. I do not practice Haskel exercises. And I hate hackathons.
And when I said that I could not show them third-party projects - for them it sounded like I'm not the best. I am not a passionate developer. I do not devote enough time to maintaining my education and skills at a high level. Programming is “just work.”
And to some extent this is true. I am not the best. I met some of the best, and these are fundamentally different creatures. If you allow a comparison from my last long distance run, I could finish among the first 5-10%, but the distance between me and the elite was equal to the distance between me and the last 1%. Yes, I was passionate about running, running 80+ kilometers a week. Squeezed everything to achieve perfection. Perfection, which is possible within the boundaries of time and the balance of life that I have established for myself. To achieve elite status, I would have to make life sacrifices that I did not want to make. This meant running at the expense of all other activities.
There is a small group of people who hear the code talking. They are not looking for work, they hear a call. Code is art, and they are artists. For each of these guys there are thousands of excellent, reliable developers who are much better than 90% of the rest of the mass of graduates of IT specialties. But they are not the best.
When a company says that it is looking for “enthusiastic developers” who program in their free time, when it says that it is looking for the “best”, I start to get nervous. This is a short-sighted approach to team building. This is an insidious way to find human robots.
I made it a rule to add to the resume and online profiles the things that I like. That ridiculous art project that opened in Austin. My dog business. Running, drawing, writing. It is important for me that these qualities are valued in the workplace. If they value such things in me, they will appreciate them in other people, and that says a lot about corporate culture.
The world is slowly moving towards this reality. San Francisco, Seattle, New York - these can be hot, modern cities to host your startup or giant conglomerate, but you greatly limit the choice of potential candidates to only a tiny handful of people who can afford to live in these cities. I have four children. I have a whole separate business for the care and entertainment of dogs (playcare business) with my wife. I am an active member of the local art community. I could never live in any of these cities. And although some companies understand that there are a lot of people like me - Facebook, Google, Amazon, all of them are present in Austin in particular because talents have run out in other places - many others are still sure that the "best" live for programming. What “best” can be attracted to your company, because you have a room to take a nap, you can work 80 hours a week and play table tennis. That on Friday night, the "best" get drunk on the insole and they have absolutely no plans for evenings or weekends. Never.
I didn't get a job at a shopping app development firm in downtown Austin. I have no third-party projects to show you. On Thursday evenings, I go to the studio and, together with other artists, make three-hour sketches of our model in various poses. Most often in the evenings, having made dinner and spending time with my wife and children, I sit down and write 2,000 words for my fifth novel (like the four previous abominations, he will remain in my Corner of shame and he will never be seen by any living creature). On weekends I go hiking. I am deeply immersed in art. I am a passionate developer because I am a passionate person. But I can’t show you the code here.
But I do not have third-party projects. I do not have an account on GitHub. I do not have open-source projects that I spend in the evenings. I have exactly zero pull requests in any of the latest fashion projects in which all the cool coders participate. I do not practice Haskel exercises. And I hate hackathons.
And when I said that I could not show them third-party projects - for them it sounded like I'm not the best. I am not a passionate developer. I do not devote enough time to maintaining my education and skills at a high level. Programming is “just work.”
And to some extent this is true. I am not the best. I met some of the best, and these are fundamentally different creatures. If you allow a comparison from my last long distance run, I could finish among the first 5-10%, but the distance between me and the elite was equal to the distance between me and the last 1%. Yes, I was passionate about running, running 80+ kilometers a week. Squeezed everything to achieve perfection. Perfection, which is possible within the boundaries of time and the balance of life that I have established for myself. To achieve elite status, I would have to make life sacrifices that I did not want to make. This meant running at the expense of all other activities.
There is a small group of people who hear the code talking. They are not looking for work, they hear a call. Code is art, and they are artists. For each of these guys there are thousands of excellent, reliable developers who are much better than 90% of the rest of the mass of graduates of IT specialties. But they are not the best.
When a company says that it is looking for “enthusiastic developers” who program in their free time, when it says that it is looking for the “best”, I start to get nervous. This is a short-sighted approach to team building. This is an insidious way to find human robots.
I made it a rule to add to the resume and online profiles the things that I like. That ridiculous art project that opened in Austin. My dog business. Running, drawing, writing. It is important for me that these qualities are valued in the workplace. If they value such things in me, they will appreciate them in other people, and that says a lot about corporate culture.
The world is slowly moving towards this reality. San Francisco, Seattle, New York - these can be hot, modern cities to host your startup or giant conglomerate, but you greatly limit the choice of potential candidates to only a tiny handful of people who can afford to live in these cities. I have four children. I have a whole separate business for the care and entertainment of dogs (playcare business) with my wife. I am an active member of the local art community. I could never live in any of these cities. And although some companies understand that there are a lot of people like me - Facebook, Google, Amazon, all of them are present in Austin in particular because talents have run out in other places - many others are still sure that the "best" live for programming. What “best” can be attracted to your company, because you have a room to take a nap, you can work 80 hours a week and play table tennis. That on Friday night, the "best" get drunk on the insole and they have absolutely no plans for evenings or weekends. Never.
I didn't get a job at a shopping app development firm in downtown Austin. I have no third-party projects to show you. On Thursday evenings, I go to the studio and, together with other artists, make three-hour sketches of our model in various poses. Most often in the evenings, having made dinner and spending time with my wife and children, I sit down and write 2,000 words for my fifth novel (like the four previous abominations, he will remain in my Corner of shame and he will never be seen by any living creature). On weekends I go hiking. I am deeply immersed in art. I am a passionate developer because I am a passionate person. But I can’t show you the code here.