If you have enough energy to do your work but not enough energy that after work you can work some more, I don't want you.
What is it that makes employers so enamored of people with 'pet projects'? Are they easier to take advantage of? Do they work long hours without expecting compensation? Does not having dependents mean that it's easier to pressure then in to working harder?
Really, having or not having pet projects (and I have plenty, don't worry) shouldn't matter even a little bit a the hiring time. You judge people on their ability as good as you can and what they do in their free time is simply none of your business.
So, if you ask me about my 'pet projects' I don't want you.
The worst side-effect of this is actually "If you were really passionate about your last job, I don't want you."
I have old pet projects from times when my work at previous jobs was interesting but not all-consuming. The work I do for my current employer is so interesting and fun to me in so many ways that when I have spare coding time on non-work-hours, I'm still working on these work projects. My work projects are my pet projects.
Granted, someone like me is less likely to be in the market in the first place because I love my job, but if I suddenly were in the market (there are many very hypothetical reasons this could happen -- company runs out of runway, company is acquired by company that shifts focus in ways I don't care for, etc, etc) a filter like this would cut me out for all the wrong reasons.
Having said all of that, I think people hiring employees do need to employ some arbitrary filters that could potentially filter out stellar employees as a side effect, and I don't think that's a horrible thing.. it probably helps more often than not and is thus worth the rare corner case situations where it ends in a tragic mistake.
If I'm in the market looking for another job I have more than enough contacts with people I've worked with in the past that such arbitrary filters are a non-factor for me, so the take away is that if you're a great developer, develop contacts and then you don't have to worry about things like this.
I'm in the same boat as you, I got assigned to work on a project that keeps me really interested and my side projects right now are basically research and experimentation that might be useful for my main work project.
Looking at projects like Ruby on Rails, Node.js and others like it where the creator created for work reason.
Or look at Linus, his side project was Git. It was something he needed for work.
I agree here. Doing that extra pet project at work is a zero sum game vs. doing your own pet project. I find that it's easier to "find purpose" with a side project at work (whether it's an util, or just fixing a bug) because it directly addresses a pain point for you and the people you see every day.
pet projects answer a thousand questions that a cv and an interview cannot.
What type of work does this person enjoy, are they building libraries for developers or products for end users, A lot of time people will open source their side projects, you get insight into their working practices, how clean their code is, do they test, do they get caught up in details and not the end product.
Sometimes people pets projects are working on a large open source project, for employers I believe that is the jackpot, you have their communication with users and peers, the output of their work and the thought processes that go along with it.
Employing people is not about giving every developer in the world an equal opportunity for a job, its about finding the best people for your team in a minimum amount of effort
> pet projects answer a thousand questions that a cv and an interview cannot.
If the answer is 'no' you'd have to ask a lot of follow up questions, some of those may be illegal, to decide whether or not having pet projects is even a possibility for the applicant.
> What type of work does this person enjoy, are they building libraries for developers or products for end users, A lot of time people will open source their side projects, you get insight into their working practices, how clean their code is, do they test, do they get caught up in details and not the end product.
Yes, that may be true. But having pet projects is not a pre-requisite for employment anywhere.
If you can not assert the ability of your applicants during an interview by asking them job related questions then maybe you should let someone else do the hiring?
> Sometimes people pets projects are working on a large open source project, for employers I believe that is the jackpot, you have their communication with users and peers, the output of their work and the thought processes that go along with it.
That is absolutely the wrong reason to go for this particular applicant because that is simply none of your business. You get what you pay for, the time they spend on the jobsite and the output they generate during that time. You have zero title to 'their communications with users and peers' and so on, and if you lay any claim to those then you're a very bad company to work for (yes, I know there are companies that do just that).
> Employing people is not about giving every developer in the world an equal opportunity for a job, its about finding the best people for your team in a minimum amount of effort
Surprise. Employing people is all about fairness and treating your applicants - and your employers - with dignity. What they do or do not do during their time off is none of your business.
The reason I would not want to work for a company like that is because I would doubt the long term viability of a company that sticks their nose in places where it does not belong.
Typically this is indicative of a 'we hire people like us' mentality. You will likely find that places like that employ just stereotypical copies of the person that runs the place instead of being representative of the workforce in general.
"Sometimes people pets projects are working on a large open source project, for employers I believe that is the jackpot, you have full insight into how they communicate with users and peers, what work they produce and insight into the thought processes that go along with it."
If you're hiring a software engineer and that person programs in their spare time, it is a pretty clear indication that they not only want to be a software engineer but also enjoys programming.
I used to ask this question, but now I've generalized it to asking if someone has any hobbies. I find passion in any area to a good indicator of the type of people I want to hire.
>I used to ask this question, but now I've generalized it to asking if someone has any hobbies.
I think this is far better than "pet projects". Some people would rather socialize, read literature, play music, play or watch sports, work on cars/home improvement, paint, travel, camp, write, get involved in politics, read the news, or any number of things! Rest and relaxation are particularly helpful to mental health. Even playing video games, watching movies (with a certain amount of moderation), or doing things that are more classically endorphin-releasing "fun" than programming contribute to a well-balanced individual.
I'd rather hire someone with a sense of balance in their life.
I personally enjoy life more when I only work about 40 hours per week at the computer. Also since I have a small daughter I prefer not to spend extra time in meetings. I also like to travel a lot so I need time off. On the plus side (for my clients) I generally feel very productive once these conditions are met.
The problem is that programming in your spare time is not a necessary condition for enjoying or having passion for programming.
Further, its also discriminatory against people with families, or other hobbies, or against people who don't want to do the same thing that they did 40-50 hours during the week on the weekends too.
Let's be clear: it's only discriminatory against people that don't have pet projects. Having a family or other hobbies and having pet projects are not mutually exclusive.
And yet here you are, demonstrating that you have time to read Hacker News and participate in the discussion.
I'm not saying that parenting isn't time consuming but it's not as good an excuse when it's so obvious that your lack of time for more programming is also caused by much less noble activities than parenting.
That is a terrible argument as downtime is essential for humans to stay productive.
Of course people are going to watch some TV with their families, or play an hour of games to unwind a little, or go watch some sports game with their buddies, or spend god knows how many hours practicing their musical instruments. This is what keeps people sane, productive, balanced, and happy.
Having other hobbies after work is generally a good sign that the person is mature, and has good perspective on life.
Exactly. It's hardly as if there's a lack of time. The average geek, in my experience, seems to waste more than enough time playing computer games, watching movies, or bunkum on the TV. It's not a giant leap to suggest that people actually using their spare time to work on aspects relating to their career are, and should be, doing better than people who treat it as a 9 to 5. (Oh, and posting on HN.. hehe)
So doing things other than thinking about work is "wasting time", huh? I guess as an employer you want to hire people that will grind themselves into dust making you rich, but as an employee I work to live, not the other way around.
Like the person who wrote the article and as someone who has hired for more than a decade for my own businesses, I've noticed my best developers had pet projects. They tend also to be the most passionate about developing. It's not an absolute rule, but I found a good indicator.
As for having a life, let me tell you I have a 6 months old who spent 1.5 months of his life in the hospital, a wife, I'm CTO and co-founder of startup for which I code about 60 hours a week. On top of that, I have time to help my my wife with her business (my previous company), I have fulfilled time with my family, take the weekends off and have time for personal hobbies and pet projects. I sleep enough and sleep well and I'm happy and balanced.
A lot of the most involved and active people in the tech community in Montreal that I know personally have startups, children and time for their family. I'll tell you they're the most awesome, bright, funny and balanced people I ever met.
One thing that makes it possible for me is a 10 minutes walk commute. The other biggest factor is having priorities straight on how I want to balance my life. Is it easy? No. Do I always have the energy and passion to go forward? Yes. Seeing my son smile when I wake him up each morning helps a lot.
You don't have to be young, without a family and responsibilities to have the passion and energy to be able to do things you care about for yourself outside your work. Even if you work more than 40 hours a week...
Another thing: some pet projects or hobbies can take only a few hours a week or a month. So not having enough time is not a valid argument in my opinion.
I agree that not having side projects shouldn't be a disqualification, but I disagree that it shouldn't be a factor at all. Depending on the project it can show enthusiasm, a desire to learn technologies other than what your job uses, and the ability to carry through from an initial idea to a shipping product.
Seriously, there is a lot of judgement in that sentence.
"Having a life", having a family is a matter of choice. I can choose not to have a family and work on my pet projects. I choose how I spend my time. If I sacrifice relationships in favor of pet projects, does that make me a lesser person? could it possibly make me a better software developer?
Is it really unreasonable to imagine that there are many talented software developers in the "lifeless" set of people with pet projects? Perhaps the author is of the opinion that the set of people with pet projects have higher ratio of talent compared to the full set. That is not to say that there are not passionate talented people without pet projects.
You can read a judgement in there if you want to, it is actually the opposite. I think having/not having pet projects or other life choices you make outside of your professional hours should not have such a direct impact on being hired or not.
Of course you are free to make your choices any way you see fit and if you choose work over personal relationships that does not make you a lesser person.
So you can have your pet projects and another person could have their family (or both, or none!) and I think the only thing that should matter during the job interview is what they intend to do during their shifts and whether or not they are capable of doing that to the best of their abilities. Your free time is yours, not your employers and is non of your employers business.
My point is that having pet projects might actually increase software development skills. In the same way that practicing any activity generally makes you better at it. People who're good at socializing, basketball, football or whatever typically invests time in it. The more you do it the better you get at it. Why shouldn't the same apply to software development?
A person who invest their free time in relationships or sports will probably get better at those things than a person who only invests in pet projects, but why shouldn't the person investing in pet projects get better at his/her activity?
I think it's unfair to say that the employer should ignore all skills achieved your in spare time because other people choose to spend their time differently.
Is that really so unreasonable? I have a 1 year old daughter, and I'll be the first to admit that she'll take priority over any work project at any time. Looking around the office, the people without kids tend to work longer hours, to more unpaid overtime and take less days off. Is it really so unreasonable for an employer to want to those sorts of people.
This is bullshit. I have a full time job, a family and I've written a book in the past two years, and I still have time for side projects. Normally while commuting on the train or in the evenings, but still...
Pet projects are a good proxy for determining whether a developer can actually, you know, develop. Much better than asking trivial algorithm questions or getting someone to figure out a puzzle. They're also good fodder for interviews:
* "Why did you go with this architecture/data structure/library instead of Y?"
* "What's the next step in your roadmap?"
* "Why would I use this?" / "Why did you start it?" / "What's different about this and project Y?".
My fallback is to get them to provide a code sample "that they're proud of", which is not quite as good, but still indicative that they're still thinking about their craft. Hiring based purely on an in-person interview and a CV is incredibly risky - I've seen people who can talk a pretty good line, but write really obnoxious, poorly structured code.
Perhaps think of it this way: A critical part of any developer's job is figuring out what tech is coming in the next couple of years, or which is available now and not being used, pushing the envelope of what's possible. Hence why the OP says "When you tell me that your only projects outside of work are 5+ years old, that is a bad indication..."
Why the downvote? It is bullshit. This is the first stage in making yourself an obsolete COBOL developer - just say "I don't have time to keep up with the latest technologies." and twiddle your thumbs for 5 years.
- The first thing I think when I read "this is bullshit" is "fuck you, you are bullshit". You start by obliterating any chance for a constructive interaction
- You are not actually engaging the arguments of the person you respond to. It seems you didn't get past his first three lines.
- Not only does it seem like you didn't read the arguments, it also seems you cannot think of valid reasons why a decent programmer would not have pet projects. Otherwise your response would have been less vitriolic.
- You are complaining about being downvoted ... by repeating the offensive assertion that probably got you downvoted in the first place and then poisoning the well by asserting that anyone that disagrees is engaging in 'knee-jerk defensiveness'. That's the second time I thought "fuck you", without even having considered what you actually wrote.
Pot, meet Kettle. You're judging me on the first word of my response, when the rest of it responds to his argument in detail.
Here's another response. This time I've quoted what I'm replying to, to save you any more confusion:
> Really, having or not having pet projects ... shouldn't matter [at] hiring time. You judge people on their ability as good as you can and what they do in their free time is simply none of your business.
So, my choice is between a) someone who likes programming enough to have a personal project - code that you can see and ask questions about - and b) someone who claims to have been too busy raising a family or having a life to have done anything else but work, can't show you any code because it's either "none of your business", or so much of a drag that they can't bring themselves to do it outside of work hours.
It's a no-brainer who I'm going to pick, and it's nothing to do with exploiting him.
If you have a family, I don't want you.
If you have enough energy to do your work but not enough energy that after work you can work some more, I don't want you.
What is it that makes employers so enamored of people with 'pet projects'? Are they easier to take advantage of? Do they work long hours without expecting compensation? Does not having dependents mean that it's easier to pressure then in to working harder?
Really, having or not having pet projects (and I have plenty, don't worry) shouldn't matter even a little bit a the hiring time. You judge people on their ability as good as you can and what they do in their free time is simply none of your business.
So, if you ask me about my 'pet projects' I don't want you.