Show HN: Junior devs don't know red flags we spot instantly & we never tell them(yourlead.dev)
17 pointsby err0r50025 days ago6 comments
  • Traubenfuchs25 days ago
    I have been in software engineering for more than 13 years, have interviewed and hired many people in that time…

    Never once did I look at any portfolio. Actually, no one had any they wanted to show!

    After screening the CV, they got a 1 hour first round for cultural fit and technical foundations, a simple take home exercise (e.g. build a service that sends emails), in the second round they had to go through their code and justify their choices and in the second part the had to code review the bad submission of a former applicant and in the third part they had to draw up how they‘d extend and embed that service in a microservice landscape.

    2 rounds. Never had a „mishire“. Hiring is that easy.

    • err0r50025 days ago
      yeah, that's often the case it always felt important to me (but I can't say I never "mishired")

      btw, I don't advertise it but junior devs can also use the tool for take home assignments (not sure if it would be a good or a bad thing as a recruiter)

  • materialpoint25 days ago
    Well, we sorely need something better than the current static code analysis tools, like sub-par products SonarQube and CodeQL that see massive overuse, because these tools do not understand that living and evolving code needs imperfections and that _most_ programmers have already thought through their code and made decisions that can't align with poor text book examples of "correct code".
    • err0r50025 days ago
      I totally agree, and even if the results here can’t be perfect I developed the approach more by the way dev is approached in different context (I never really realized it before reading Simon Wardley book)
  • err0r50025 days ago
    Senior devs spot red flags in junior portfolios in seconds, but we (almost) never explain them.

    After reviewing hundreds (thousands?) of junior developer portfolios, I realized two things:

    Junior devs do their best but don’t know the red flags senior developers spot immediately Nobody tells them

    So I built https://yourlead.dev to automate myself : it analyzes GitHub repositories and: - flags the issues a lead developer would raise during a real code review - explains why they matter - gives concrete tips on how to fix them - and even helps prepare for technical interviews

    I spent a lot of time fine-tuning it based on my experience across different contexts (because expectations are very different in an early startup, a scale-up, or a bank).

    btw, I'm giving free reviews in exchange for feedback ;)

    • morcus25 days ago
      It would be nice to be able to select / deselect folders in the file selector.

      note: I'm not a junior dev and the repo I'm trying to analyze is more of a side project than a portfolio piece. This may or may not be a feature relevant to your actual target audience.

    • hahahahhaah25 days ago
      Is this AI aware? E.g. I read on your examples a complaint ahout too many tests for a fast moving startup. That maybe used to be true but with AI you can go for more coverage and may be faster and more agile with it.
      • err0r50025 days ago
        I must confess that it analyzes the repos "the old way"... and I never agreed that too many tests are a problem anyways (too many bad tests are, ok) but I heard it from colleagues quite a lot when working in startups and that's what a candidate is likely to hear too
        • hahahahhaah25 days ago
          Yeah it is a nuanced topic. Maybe the response should be "think about..." rather than prescriptive.

          I have worked places where the sacred test suite slows people down to a grinding halt but it is hard politically (as in convincing 20 people with different concerns) to get that changed without being CTO yourself.

          But also I am thinking if tests feel "throwaway" and cheap to make then adding them is no big deal. If CI becomes too long just prune it up again.

    • kl3ist25 days ago
      is it the same codebase analyzed in the samples ? If so, I love how it gets destroyed in every possible way depending on the analysis context !
      • err0r50025 days ago
        hehehe, yes that's the same one ;) I must say I found it really cool too from the "super over-engineered" review in the startup context to "we can't imagine shipping such a hacky code" in regulated company context :D
    • milarepa725 days ago
      super nice ! ...but how do we get in touch for the free review ? :D
  • err0r50025 days ago
    ok, I updated a few things. thanks for your feedback : - a clear link in the landing to claim for a free review - add that it's useful to review portfolio but also take home assignments and side projects.
  • boxed25 days ago
    Should this be a "Show HN"?
    • err0r50025 days ago
      you're right but my title was too long to prepend the "Show HN" :D
      • err0r50025 days ago
        done, it wasn't easy to rephrase the title so it fits
  • kaapipo25 days ago
    SSL seems brokenn