Hiring criteria: looking for the ability to …

criteria.txt

Write a program that does what it’s supposed to do
Write idiomatic code
Debug a program that you wrote
Debug a program someone else wrote
Debug the interaction between a system you wrote and one you didn’t
File a good bug report
Modify a program you didn’t write
Test a program you wrote
Test a program you didn’t write
Learn a new programming language
Explain a program you wrote
Explain what a program should do
Explain your ideas
Simplify a piece of code
Simplify a design
Understand someone’s explanation
Disagree fruitfully
Teach someone something
Clarify the points of a disagreement
Make engineering tradeoffs in an appropriate way
Ship code
Create abstractions
Optimize code
Come up with ideas
Listen
Talk
Measure things
Write clear documentation
Write clear emails
Write clear design documents
Work cooperatively with other people
Help other people improve their ideas
Help other people explain themselves clearly
Apply relevant algorithms to real problems
Review other people’s code and help them improve it
Divide work into reasonable pieces for other people to work on
Find appropriate algorithms to use to solve problems
Recognize good ideas from other people
Stick with it
Know when to give up
Hold yourself to a high standard
Hold other people to a high standard
Focus your efforts on what’s important
Recognize what’s important
Inspire your teammates
Do what needs to be done
Lead
Follow
Defuse interpersonal tensions
Tell people hard truths
Identify problems
Devise solutions
Start things
Finish things

Good list!
Diffuse => Defuse

Finally, somebody with reasonable criteria for employment/collaboration :)

Fantastic. Thanks for putting it together.

Love. This.

Note, I've put this up on the web at: http://gigamonkeys.com/engineering/