MrDHat

I had the exact same thought when I was transitioning into an employee and have been wanting to write this post for a long a time. I hope to share more details in a few follow up posts soon.

Author of the post here. Yes, AI did help me frame it because I am an average write at best. I have never been a good writer while I have a few experiences to share. I never shared anything earlier exactly because of that reason. AI helps me put my thoughts into a coherent structure.

I, mostly, figure out the best use-case for the project and then translate it into some other language to get a cool name. For example, I am currently working on a 2 way synchronization system which will mostly be used as a queuing system, so, I translated 'Queue' to 'Qatar', which is Hindi for queue :)

Sometimes, I like to get the closest match in any other industry (Communications in this case). We recently named a notification system 'satellite', and similar names for publishers and subscribers.

There's one tool I've always wanted - An analysis tool for my database queries. Something which directly injects into my framework (Django/RoR etc) and gives me detailed analysis of the time and memory used by the queries.

AFAIK, New Relic provides one such tool but I think there's still a long way to go.

Too much text on the website! I, personally, find it difficult to follow/go through a site with more text than images/demos.

> 7) People will move away from native app development

I don't really see this happening. At least not in 2015! IMHO nothing gives better performance than native apis. Nothing at all.

It feels really nice to see that the Indian Government is developing responsive sites now. About time! Welcome to Web 2.0 NIC :)

I have been deep in programming for the better part of my student days/professional career but now want to focus product and marketing. Working on my startup now, hence, have a lot of opportunities! :)

Scala, for sure!

I've been procrastinating learning Scala for a long time and have a project this year on Spark, so, yay! :)

> How is a small team of programmers to know that you will be able to collaborate with them effectively within the space of an interview ?

Isn't my github profile enough proof to show that I can collaborate with people? Also, as I pointed out in my recent comment: Eran Hammer, (creator of OAuth and Hawk) presents a new way to hire engineers. He suggests the concept of a 'Homework' wherein prospective employees are presented with a problem/bug that they are actually facing in their product. One of my acquaintance from Mozilla also pointed out that he was hired in a similar way.

> 2. What exactly do you mean by "competitive problems" or "puzzles"? What is off-limits?

For me, competitive problems are the kind problems for which interviewstreet/codechef etc are known for. At times, they involve the kind of problems which a developer is not likely to face during his time at the company. For example, being a web developer, I don't think that there will be a time when I need to write a string matching program from scratch. Wouldn't questions related to scalability/databases/some selected data structures make more sense for such a profile?

Don't take me wrong, I am not against questions involving string matching/sorting/kernel concepts, all I am saying is that they should be asked from those who are really going to face such problems while working.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6828411

While researching on this topic, I stumbled upon this post: http://hueniverse.com/2013/02/hiring-engineers-a-process/

The point of 'Homework' really intrigues me. It actually ensures that a candidate has the skills to contribute to your product. IMO, it is a far better way to judge than programming puzzles.

> Also I see that your GH page lists that you're from India? Many companies may find it difficult bringing on a candidate from overseas (HN's audience is predominantly US), although with the right company, remote work would be possible - however, remote work is probably difficult to pull off unless the company is absolutely confident in you as it is.

I am not a fan of remote work either. However, I am willing (in fact want to) to relocate if I am satisfied with the profile offered!

P.S. This post was supposed to be a reality check for me(and others like me) and not a shameless plug for getting a job :-)

> why do you say you can't solve puzzle problems? How many have you tried?

Frankly speaking, they do not interest me.I would rather collaborate with friends and work on a project than solve competitive problems or puzzles.