We have a candidate for a full-time development gig (contract to possible perm) who runs his own small business with 7 employees and lists himself as CEO. He's technically strong and his rate is reasonable for his skills. I understand he will not be here in 3-4 years, but if we need someone for 1-2 years should this be a red flag? W...
Two years ago, I was hired right out of college as a 'Software Engineer in Test' which I was told was going to involve mainly developing frameworks to support things like load testing and UI automating scripts, developing various tools to be used internally, etc, at a company that has < 40 full-time developers. This was not to be a QA p...
I am programmer from a Linux/Unix background with experience in Perl, Java, Sybase, Oracle. I recently switched jobs and now I am working on C#, ASP.NET, Classic ASP and SQL Server. Do you think you have to pick your camp and stick to it, or can you effectively live\work in both worlds? Comments from people with experience would be he...
A lot of us in IT begin as coders/developers and some as coder/developer/business developer depending on whether you work for someone else or your self. While there is the list of what ideally the Architect should be doing and should know, I've found from asking around that it is not always so. It probably depends on the location at whic...
I'm 30 years old, a programmer in DC, and I do not have a degree. I currently am taking community college classes, but I am bored out of my mind. I am actually thinking of switching to physics or some other field other than CS just to keep interested. I know Joel has mentioned several times that he would only hire someone who maintain...
I have spent (too) many years in the wonderful world of audio recording and am now looking at returning to one of my original loves: programming. It has been a number of years since I wrote any useable code (originally in C, Pascal, and Basic) and am unsure how to advance. I am interested in programming in C, Objective-C, Python, and ...
Most of the programming that grabs headlines (the glamor programming) is either Web or game development. I'm thinking that these are not what most programmers work on for a living. Since I am considering making programming my career, I was wondering what programmers REALLY work on, and by extension, what are the most used skills that a...
I have been programming for about 9 years and want to move into leading a small team. I have a good technical knowledge & qualifications, a number of successful projects and have decent interpersonal skills. I like the comapny I work with and do not want to change jobs. Most other team leader jobs seem to want management experience any...
I'm finishing my final year in college this year and am starting the process of interviewing with various companies. I had an initial interview with Microsoft already and will be having a second round interview in a few weeks. I am wondering what experienced programmers feel about working at a large company versus a small company. I'm n...
I'm a senior CS student, I have been wondering what is better? Studying a Masters right after school, or get real world experience before studying a Masters? Also, how hard is to find a good job, with either a BS or a Masters in CS? ...
Any answer is fine, but focus on actual coding, rather than management or entrepreneurship. Inspired by this question at Reddit. ...
So, I'm a college senior, with a pretty good foundation of Comp sci.. data structures/ algorithms, etc. My Comp Sci department uses linux exclusively. My OS for example had projects to write kernel code. There is no standard language for the program, so for the last 3 years, I've used Java, C, C++,scheme, and a lot of classes have been u...
I am looking for good, objective ideas and examples of a resume for a Software Engineer. By all means, post a link to your own resume if you are comfortable with doing so. Mostly I am looking at how it should be formatted and what kind of information should be included (and in what order on the resume.) ...
As a web developer, what languages do you think would be widely used (most popular) in a couple of years? Currently I am coding in PHP, but I would like to know if I should start heading into a new direction. Many companies are going with ASP.NET and ColdFusion, should I start switching/learning these languages, or does PHP still have a ...
Related questions: http://stackoverflow.com/search?q=great+developer Let's say you've been learning a new tool/language for a few months (read the book, got the t-shirt, that sort of thing) and you've got to a level of "proficient" - you can build stuff, but slowly and with constant reference. How do you go about moving above that le...
I am a software generalist, a polyglot, with some bias to web-based applications. This is only my software hat. I also wear a business hat. Most every system that I have worked on in my career has had a been a logistical management system, sometimes more on the inventory side, sometimes more on the procurement side... but logistic...
What is a good non-programming question to ask a candidate during a job interview? I'll post my two favorites below, but I'd like to hear others. Clarification: By "non-programming," I mean you are not asking them to solve a problem by writing or describing code. ...
I'm currently in the military but need to plan for the future. I program as a hobby but I don't want to program professionally when I get out; I don't think I would have fun programming for someone else. However, I wouldn't mind having a job that either required programming knowledge, e.g. some sort of management position, or let me mak...
Who is telecommuting? What is the best way to find these arrangements? Is it working out for you? ...
What choice did you make that you felt had the most positive impact on your career as a programmer? There've been lots of questions here that suggest possibilities: Was it getting a higher education? Masters vs. Work Experience Should a programmer go back to school if he/she doesn't have a degree? Is there any mandatory certification...