I’m going into a new round of interviewing developers for my team so I’ve been giving a lot of thought to what I look for when I’m interviewing people to work with.
Joel Spolsky says that you need to look for two things, brains and the ability to get things done. His reasoning is that developers who are smart but never finish jobs belong in never ending research projects, developers who get things done but aren’t smart end up causing you more work and if your candidate has neither then you should run a mile!
While I like his logic I have a few other criteria.
Joel doesn’t mention the candidate’s passion, their ability to learn, to form relationships with their team, or to empathise with the customer. In my eyes a developer who doesn’t have these qualities will negatively impact your team’s dynamic and product just as much as someone who produces bugs for a living.
So why an ability to learn? I hope this one fairly obvious. In our fast paced development world a developer’s ability to learn new technologies, absorb ideas and keep up with current trends is (in my opinion) more valuable than whether they have an in depth understanding of bitwise operators or lambda expressions. I’m not saying don’t ask about the technical side, but make sure your candidate can learn your code, your technologies and whatever comes along next!
Relationships? How many times have you worked alongside someone who can’t work in a team? They’re territorial, overly sensitive and horde knowledge with the misguided belief it makes them invulnerable. Look for people who enjoy the camaraderie and take time to teach and learn from their colleagues.
Empathy for the customer? This is, in my view one of the most important. Can your candidate put themselves in the shoes of your clients? Can they envisage how a bad release will impact your reputation? Do they understand the consequences to people’s working day when your code doesn’t work as expected? Find someone who understands the frustrations of bad software and poor customer service and you’ll find someone who will strive to prevent it!
Passion? Simply put I want a developer who wants to develop software! I don’t mean you have to spend every evening and weekend writing code or contributing to open source projects but demonstrate to me that you enjoy what you do. Tell me about what you’re working on, explain that bug fix you’re really proud of but please prove to me that you’re there’s something about the job you actually enjoy (other than just the £££s).
So there you have it, a few of the qualities I want my developer candidates to demonstrate for me. What do you look for when you’re interviewing? What personality traits do you try to show when you’re being interviewed?
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