The GitHub hiring experience

Am I reading right that it's 4 days from first contact to hire? That is extraordinarily fast.<p>I wonder how much of the work of screening candidates is done "for free" for Github tech hires, since most of the techs Github would want to hire are also users of the site.

Wow. I think back to when I first tried to go out as a contractor. A headhunter got me an interview with a local telecom. During the interview, the manager asked me if I was one of the people named in a recent ComputerWorld article about families with multiple generations in IT. I said I was. He said the whole staff of the telecom IT were curious as to why everyone in the article had given their salary, but I had not. I told him it was because I had merely filled out a questionnaire before I found out the reporter was going to write a nationwide article, and that I subsequently declined to reveal my salary to the world. The manager asked how that went down. I told him not very well--the reporter dunned me to find out my salary, sent me a disposable camera with instructions to send him a photo of myself for the article (I also declined that honor). I told the manager I was a private person and had not consented for my image and my salary to be plastered in a magazine. Then I tried to steer it back to IT, and mentioned that I had recently started using Linux (this was 1998, when that was a daring thing for a mainframer to have done). He said, "Oh, you're one of those Unix guys? We hate that sh<i>t!" So, no fab whiskey, no dogs, no hotel, not pool and air hockey--just a quiz about an article I had tried not to be in, and a curse for liking Linux. </i>sigh<i>

I like github as a tool and use it daily, but am I the only one to think this hiring article is pure PR speak woven with some artificial coolness?<p>To compare with other companies: Google communicates in a more traditional way with possible candidates so it is visibly PR speak and don't try to hide it.<p>Facebook had a nice shot recently with a fake negative view. That was cool and did not smell the strong fragrance of PR speak.<p>Github here has a middle ground I would love to love but...

I find articles like these disheartening only because it is impossible for all workplaces to be this way. What if you are at a mediocre job with mediocre teammates? How would you ever get to experience the joy that is working at a Google or a Facebook or a Valve or a GitHub.<p>It's nice that this strategy works for them, but I wonder why everyone isn't doing it if it is so successful?

My own experience with their hiring process was sadly not as positive. After the initial screen (which was face-to-face with one of their engineers and which I thought went well), I got the runaround. All I really wanted to know was whether it was a "cultural fit" issue or a "skills aren't up to par" one.<p>Mostly I'm just disappointed because it seems like an awesome place to work.

I find these cultural pieces fascinating. One point that I'd love to know about in more companies is around how hiring is prioritized. Coby calls hiring "one of the most critical activities we do as a company" whereas at Valve it is <i>the</i> most important thing you can be doing.<p>Is this prioritization common (or key?) at exceptional workplaces?

It's funny, as seemingly unrelated as it is, the one thing that comes to mind after reading about how GitHub sees value in flying people to San Francisco from around the globe despite the cost is that the essence of that practice is the same as what we Americans SHOULD be seeing in our education system: People willing to invest enormous sums of money up front with the intention of producing graduates who, in turn, will generate much larger sums of money for the economy. Too bad all American politicians are too short sighted to see it.

From their build/deployment process to their hiring experience, it's hard to think of a company more open than GitHub these days (not including all that open source code ;)!

I love Github's hiring process and their software building process. More companies should implement similar things. Now obviously you can't expect all companies to shell out this kind of cash, but I've read so many blogposts of Githubbers that all say the same thing: we just want to work with awesome people and make great products. It doesn't seem like there are a lot of politics going on. One post I've read by Zach Holman showed that the interview process was more about working on a project that you cared about rather than rambling off tiny utility methods or impractical algorithms.<p>Hire people who show enthusiasm (and of course talent) instead of those who have memorized interview questions from glassdoor.com

Fantastic read. As a current CS student (Junior), I'm hoping a GitHub employee might let me know if there are internship opportunities for next Summer? I'd love to try some SlowMerge(TM) ... and work really hard of course.

Seems more of a blogvertisement for GitHub

So long as you're younger than 35 har har ...

I ate that article up like a starving raccoon.<p>Working at github is sortof a personal fantasy.

This is what happens when you keep HR out of the hiring process.