How to Hire Good Programmers

Few things will ruin a great team faster than a bad hire so how do you recognize a talented software developer in a 30-minute interview? The traditional method of hiring programmers is to hire based on what they know. I will argue that you should instead hire a programmer based on what they can learn.

Transcript

1. How to Hire
   Good Programmers
   Jennifer Bland
   

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2. 2
   Who Am I?
   www.jenniferbland.com
   @ratracegrad
   www.youtube.com/c/JenniferBland
   jennifer@jenniferbland.com
   github.com/jenniferbland
   

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3. 3
   answer at end of presentation
   Three Truths One Lie
   I made only 1 B at university rest were A
   I was in the 2nd largest California earthquake
   I have been to England 24 times
   I have more toy soldiers than Winston Churchill
   

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4. INTERVIEW PROCESS TODAY SUCKS
   let me show you how to improve it
   

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5. Improving the Interview Process 5
   Stop doing at-home programming challenges
   Implement short coding exercises
   Have casual conversations on topics
   

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6. Stop Doing At-Home
   Programming Challenges
   

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7. Create an AngularJS applicaOon using Sass/Less.
   The Page view of the applicaOon will contain 2 dropdowns (The dropdowns should
   be custom dropdowns created using Angular direcOve) – 1st dropdown will list 2
   makes – Ford, Acura. The 2nd dropdown will contain the corresponding models
   based on the selecOon of the make – Models dropdown will be hidden by default
   and will only be available in the DOM if the make is selected.
   · Models for Ford: Edge, Escape.
   · Models for Acura: ILX, MDX.
   The page view will also contain a content placeholder – Depending on the model
   selected, text will be populated in the first placeholder based on that specific
   model. The content should also display the corresponding image of the vehicle.
   Write unit tests validaOng the funcOonality above. Data should come from
   mongodb. Create a nodejs project for this exercise.
   

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8. Create the objects that you feel would best model a jungle using your best OO design or funcOonal approach
   and coding pracOces based on the following requirements, using any language of choice.

   1. The jungle contains several species of animals; Ogers, monkeys and snakes.
   2. All animals can do three things, make a sound, eat food, and sleep.
   3. Each species of animal knows how many others of its kind exist.
   4. By default when an animal’s energy level changes, it changes in the following ways:
   a. -3 for making a sound
   b. +5 for eaOng food
   c. +10 for sleeping
   5. The jungle can perform a sound off. This involves all of the animals in the jungle each making their sound,
   along with reporOng their energy level.
   6. Tigers get +5 energy for sleeping.
   7. Monkeys get +2 energy for eaOng and -4 energy for making a sound.
   8. Some animals have the ability to play.
   9. Only monkeys can play. When they do they say "Oooo Oooo Oooo" and get -8 energy. If a monkey doesn't
   have enough energy to play they say "Monkey is too Ored".
   10. The jungle contains several types of food; meat, fish, bugs and grain.
   11. Tigers can't eat grain because they have sensiOve digesOve systems.
   12. Bonus Item: The jungle can have each animal perform a random acOvity out of the ones possible for that
   animal. Include Unit tests if you would like to do so.
   

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9. You will be creaOng an applicaOon in the language/framework of your choice that plays the
   game "Connect Four”.
   • Level 1: Build a playable game of Connect 4 with 2 players, a command line interface being
   fine. Should have player moves, win detecOon logic, Oe detecOon, etc. 

   • Level 2: Implement a standard “AI” for the computer player. A standard computer
   opponent should block a human from winning when able to, but plays more ad hoc and
   does not operate with an advanced strategy.

   • Level 3: Make it playable online (Heroku or similar) with a SPA web interface, games
   persisOng to a database, etc.

   * Boss Level (Bonus): the computer player's decision engine should have a sesng for smarter
   vs standard opponent. The smarter version should employ any sort of intelligent strategy or
   look-ahead approach you choose, and be able to win most Omes (assuming it goes first and it’s
   not playing against a player with the same strategy), though it does not have to play
   mathemaOcally perfectly.
   

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10. Implement Short
    Coding Exercises
    

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11. Break Questions into Areas 11
    HTML/CSS
    JavaScript/jQuery
    Node.js
    

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12. HTML / CSS 12
    Test their knowledge
    What is the difference between an id and a class?
    

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13. HTML / CSS 13
    Test their knowledge
    What is the difference between an id and a class?
    What does the box model refer to in CSS?
    

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14. HTML / CSS 14
    Test their knowledge
    What is the difference between an id and a class?
    What does the box model refer to in CSS?
    reset css file and normalize.css - What are they?
    

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15. HTML / CSS 15
    Test their knowledge
    What is the difference between an id and a class?
    What does the box model refer to in CSS?
    reset css file and normalize.css - What are they?
    What is the difference between inline, inline-block
    and block?
    

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16. HTML / CSS 16
    Test their knowledge
    Write a CSS selector to select on the inner two li’s in
    the markup below
    

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17. HTML / CSS 17
    Test their knowledge
    Write a CSS selector to select only the first of the inner
    two li’s in the markup below
    

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18. HTML / CSS 18
    Test their knowledge
    Given this CSS What would the HTML look like?
    

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19. Scoring Potential
    Applicants
    

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20. Scoring System 20
    Consistency is the Key
    Have scorecard completed by every
    person doing interview
    Set points for each question
    Require minimum score to hire
    

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21. Scoring System 21
    Consistency is the Key
    

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22. Scoring System 22
    Consistency is the Key
    Does the candidate meet minimum score?
    How do they compare to other candidates?
    Resolution of same score
    

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23. Have a Casual
    Conversation
    

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24. HTML / CSS 24
    Test their knowledge
    What are Sass and LESS? Which one or none do you
    prefer to use?
    

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25. HTML / CSS 25
    Test their knowledge
    What are Sass and LESS? Which one or none do you
    prefer to use?
    Name some online resources that you reference
    when having CSS issues?
    

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26. HTML / CSS 26
    Test their knowledge
    What are Sass and LESS? Which one or none do you
    prefer to use?
    Name some online resources that you reference
    when having CSS issues?
    What are the various techniques for clearing floats?
    

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27. HTML / CSS 27
    Test their knowledge
    What are Sass and LESS? Which one or none do you
    prefer to use?
    Name some online resources that you reference
    when having CSS issues?
    What are the various techniques for clearing floats?
    What are some accessibility concerns that come up in CSS?
    

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28. General Questions 28
    Test their knowledge
    What is your favorite IDE and why?
    

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29. General Questions 29
    Test their knowledge
    What is your favorite IDE and why?
    What are your favorite programming languages?
    

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30. General Questions 30
    Test their knowledge
    What is your favorite IDE and why?
    What are your favorite programming languages?
    You are asked to write a palindrome function. What
    are some conditions you definitely want to test?
    

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31. Conclusion
    

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32. 32
    Additional Resources
    www.codeprep.io
    www.in5days.tech
    www.youtube.com/c/jenniferbland
    

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33. 33
    answer at end of presentation
    Three Truths One Lie
    I made only 1 B at university rest were A
    I was in the 2nd largest California earthquake
    I have been to England 24 times
    I have more toy soldiers than Winston Churchill
    

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34. 34
    Who Am I?
    www.jenniferbland.com
    @ratracegrad
    www.youtube.com/c/JenniferBland
    jennifer@jenniferbland.com
    github.com/jenniferbland
    

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