Asymptomatic

I've had the occasion over the past few years in my capacity as a long-time developer to interview candidates for jobs within my company and for clients I've contracted for. As a result, I've had some time to formulate some opinions about what questions to ask developers who are applying for a position, and the types of answers to expect from a candidate that you'd want to hire.

Sadly, I think the market of good developers is far, far too small. I do subscribe to the philosophy that great developers are born, not made, although I also believe that you can produce adequate developers with good training and persistent oversight. It is really unfortunate that coders who want to get jobs aren't as versed in what makes a great developer great, and it's a frequent topic of discussion when hiring rounds begin.

I'd like to share a few of the qualities I like to look for in a web developer to both educate would-be coders as to what I expect, and educate would-be interviewers who wouldn't know a good developer if he hacked into his bank account and stole all his cash. ...

We were discussing in our meeting yesterday why it's so hard to find developers. I had a long-winded and complicated explanation.

Developers come in many varieties, with a wide range of experience. There are lots of people that call themselves "developers", but a .net developer is not a PHP developer which is not a java developer. Each has different skills, and while picking up a new language may be easier for someone who already codes, they will lack all of the special knowledge of that language.

Within that language specialty, there are different skills and skill levels. For example, there are aton of Drupal and Wordpress theme developers out there that "know" PHP enough to do that work. But anything beyond a theme is likely beyond them. They could probably learn it, but it would take a while - you couldn't just hire one of these guys and expect them to build you a new web app from scratch. At least, not one that's any good....