The end of the post talks about hiring him, and honestly, if anyone’s hiring, here’s one heck of a bargain: Someone who’s just starting out but who’s already shown he’s perfectly capable of figuring stuff out by himself.
If I was a hiring manager, I would certainly appreciate this attitude. However, I would value as well a person who would use an already made tool for doing the job (such as yt-dlp). Only problem is that the second type wouldn't write a blog post about it and get traction on HN :D
> However, I would value as well a person who would use an already made tool for doing the job (such as yt-dlp).
Agree, but I think this is the easier of the two skills to teach. So for a junior, I would hire the former if the company has the capacity to mentor them.
Definitely shows good intuition. Even if not doing the actual figuring out, still finds a possible solution and reverse engineers it. Forget 10x developer, this is the 10% of developers.
Open to any ideas how this level of intuition can be imparted at scale...
To most employers it’s more that he can pass two Leetcode mediums and one Leetcode hard in tight time constraints. Just to make sure he’s good, make him do multiple rounds. The Leetcode grinder is quite representative of what software engineering is like in the real world.
If they would just learn that "a lot" is two words.
Given that their resume says Coding Ninjas tutor and Coding Ninjas is one of the worst websites out there for coding challenges and tutorials, while using incorrect syntax for Python and C++ (probably to lazily port problems from one language to another), this makes sense.
I'll probably get downvoted for my comment because of all the "touchy feelys" around here, but a lot of people can do what OP did sans college. What makes them extra hireable? Because they had a hacker news story catch some action on a holiday weekend?
