Community and Interviewing

I’ve been sitting in on more interviews at work with my new role. I’m surprised by the lack of answers when I ask how developers keep up to date with technology, and where they seek answers. “Google”, many reply. “Books”.

Maybe I’m asking too much, but here are some creative answers that would imply a real interest in career development.

• User Groups
• Social Networks (Twitter, Linked In, Forums)
• chat / irc

For online answers, I’m surprised at how many developers don’t yet know about StackOverflow. It is simply the best place for answers, on virtually any language or platform.

This criticism is particularly true of unemployed developers. Any unemployed developer should be working on a personal project, or contributing to an open source one. It keeps skills sharp and opens networking opportunities. And if you were doing this kind of development at home, you would naturally seek out some of the above answers.

Finally, not being prepared to answer this question can cause other issues. If you don’t interact with other developers and learn, then do you have flexibility issues? One candidate answered a question, and in order to back it up claimed that he knew the top people in the related field of technology, and they had all given him that advice. That may be true, but he had previously stated in the community question that he did not attend user groups or developer conventions at all. If so, then how do you meet the top authorities in that area of programming? I don’t assume he or she was lying, and I could have pushed with follow up questions. But the credibility would not have been a question if he was more active in the community.

Don’t misread this. I understand that different people have unique comfort zones for engaging other programmers. And life can get in the way of going to in-person meetings. As a new father, I really get that. And in a rough economy, travelling to conventions can be tough. I’m not saying that there is a right answer, but at least have an answer.