Ten traits to look for when hiring a programmer

• Tags:
• Programmer,
• Developer,
• Skills

Justin James

Published: 14 Mar 2008 17:06 GMT

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...tend to be much better to have on your staff than those who don't like to learn outside a formal training program.

7. Passion
Some programmers are "daycoders": people who write code 9 to 5, Monday to Friday. They don't think about it in the slightest outside those hours. That's perfectly fine; not everyone can be a super geek who lives and breathes code. I have hired people like this in the past to fill a gap or to work on the sections of a project that are routine. But when I need to hire a top programming candidate (regardless of skill or experience level), I need to be hiring someone with a passion for the work.

Passion is a "make or break" during crunch time or on a project that requires tricky techniques, rare skills, and so on. After all, daycoders won't be motivated to learn the best way of doing things and will instead just do what they've always done, which may not be the best way of doing things. Daycoders are also difficult to retain without a steady stream of raises and a high level of perks, since they are there for the money, not for the work. Passion will be fairly obvious during the interview. Candidates who get excited when you talk about your project or who are talking about their past projects are the ones who display their passion for the role.

8. Adaptability
Have you ever worked on a programming project that ended with the same specs it started with? Neither have I, and I am including short projects that lasted less than a day! Programmers who don't handle change well will probably not be very successful, except on long-term, waterfall-type projects that last years, usually under government contract. That is not to denigrate those kinds of projects or programmers, of course. But most projects are simply incompatible with a lack of adaptability.

It's pretty obvious during interviews when candidates are not adaptable or handle change poorly, particularly if you ask questions such as: "Did the requirements change often?" Candidates who say something like: "Sure, but that happens on all projects and it's a fact of life", are winners. Those who roll their eyes and respond with: "Yeah, that's why I could never get anything done!" will probably not be a good fit for most environments.

9. Good communication skills
"Communication skills" doesn't mean the same thing as "speaks perfect English": it means "being able to convey an idea accurately and effectively". Pictures, sounds and hand motions are all part of communication skills. Programmers who have a hard time getting their point across or understanding what others are trying to tell them will not be effective in the long run. This is a difficult ability to properly measure in a phone interview, but when candidates have difficulty communicating even in a face-to-face interview, you can be sure that they'll have a hard time on the job as well.

10. Who's the boss?
Programmers are a notoriously independent group of people. Indeed, I believe that's one of their strengths and it's great not having to micro-manage people working on technical projects. However, a good portion of programmers struggle with the idea of "I am the boss and you are not." I know, it sounds tyrannical. In a way, it is. Managers often need to make decisions for nontechnical reasons and they may not be able to explain those reasons to their team (secrecy, politics, not enough time, etc).

A little bit of pushback, particularly on bad decisions, is something I encourage and fully support, especially if the boss doesn't realise that it is a bad decision and if the feedback is delivered correctly. But when the boss says, "I know from the technical perspective this is a bad idea, but this is how we need to do it," it's final. All too often, certain "rogue coders" will ignore their marching orders and go do their own thing. Even worse, they have a tendency to run their mouth to anyone and everyone about how stupid the boss is and how he or she obviously does not understand programming — which may or may not be true. This sinks projects and does nothing but cause animosity and hurt team morale.

This mentality can often be seen during the interview process, especially when you're asking about past work experiences. Rogue coders love to talk about their "evil, idiot, pointy-haired slave driver" former managers, even when it is wholly inappropriate to do so, like in a job interview. Well-adjusted programmers will say things such as, "I disagreed with some of my manager's decisions at a technical level, but I know that those decisions had to have non-technical issues factored into them."

Credit: 10 traits to look for when hiring a programmer from TechRepublic.com

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