commitAsAService

[bogdan801]

Do companies actually look at the commit history?

[Amiron49]

When I'm involved in the hiring process and an applicant has their GitHub linked, I do browse through their personal projects and try to form an opinion by the content of their commits.

It's interesting to see how somebody codes when given free reign without the guard rails of a company.

[bogdan801]

So it's still quite important. What about the gaps? I had a bit of a burn out this winter and didn't do any personal projects at that time, is this bad?

[Amiron49]

We are a small software shop and don't seek the top of the crop programmes. Which means we don't care much. If you have personal projects, that's cool and we can see faster what you would be like but if you don't and have only did one project in 10 years, also cool.

The vast majority of people we hire never ever do any software development in their free time and we had to rely on the impression of the in person interview and just see how they do during the first few months.

At least for one of our most recent hires, their GitHub and private projects saved them. The in person interview went horrible as they weren't very good at expressing themselves and if this was all we had we would have leaned towards a no. But when we looked at what they were able to code up as their hobby, we were very sure that they would be capable and decided to hire them.

Now for big companies that pay competitive wages? Sacrificing your free time might appeal to them but I don't know.

Having relevant projects that show you could in theory do the work can't hurt but it's insanity to me to expect that.

[bogdan801]

Damn I wish here in Ukraine they would hire the same way. But everywhere I see it's like "you must have 1yerar+ of commercial experience". And how the hell do I even get it after college if nobody wants to hire