Re:Why I prefer making useless stuff
by TeMPOraL on Monday May 24, 2021 @03:15AM
(#27261758)
> put yourself in their shoes: how would you gain insight into gauging their suitability for "cog" work based on completely unrelated hobbies?
This is the core disagreement though: to 'ajxs, me, and many other commenters here, these aren't unrelated hobbies. Software engineering can't be neatly demarked along the lines of programming languages or frameworks. These are just the tip of an iceberg (and most of them are just flavors of the same thing, solving the same underlying problems).
You don't just write a OS kernel and become experienced in kernel development. These kinds of projects, done on the side, with no deadline pressure forcing you to do a half-assed, minimum-effort job, allow you to gain more generalized, holistic understanding, that's very much transferable into just about any kind of programming job you could do.
> your answers have to relate to the job you're interviewing for in some shape or form, hopefully in a good way
That's a very good point. Myself, when talking about my seemingly unrelated side projects, I consider it my responsibility to show how they connect to their domain and skills they look for.
This is the core disagreement though: to 'ajxs, me, and many other commenters here, these aren't unrelated hobbies. Software engineering can't be neatly demarked along the lines of programming languages or frameworks. These are just the tip of an iceberg (and most of them are just flavors of the same thing, solving the same underlying problems).
You don't just write a OS kernel and become experienced in kernel development. These kinds of projects, done on the side, with no deadline pressure forcing you to do a half-assed, minimum-effort job, allow you to gain more generalized, holistic understanding, that's very much transferable into just about any kind of programming job you could do.
> your answers have to relate to the job you're interviewing for in some shape or form, hopefully in a good way
That's a very good point. Myself, when talking about my seemingly unrelated side projects, I consider it my responsibility to show how they connect to their domain and skills they look for.