Are There Any Good Programmers?

Jeff Atwood is writing about the dirth of programming talent available out there.  Not “good,” or even “satisfactory,” but even programmers with any talent.  A couple of highlights:

• Less than 1% of applicants for every programming job “…can’t write any code whatsoever.”
• Large number of applicants with degrees in Computer Science cannot answer the simple request “write a loop that counts from 1 to 10.”
• Most candidates can’t handle even the tiniest of programming problems.

I can’t say that I’m that surprised.  My inbox gets full of unqualified candidates pretty quickly when I’m hiring.  I’ve received a lot of bad resumes.  My favorite was from a hot dog street vendor that was applying for a Director level position in my technology practice. 

Whenever you post a position you will get an immediate, and usually overwhelming, response.   From my experience you can probably toss all resumes you get within the first 48 hours of a posting a job and save yourself the headache.   The vast majority of those resumes are being sent by job hunters that will apply to anything that moves.

Finding adquate talent is tough and finding great talent can be a heroic effort.  To find the best technical talent you need to always be in recruiting mode.  Bring in interns (and actually use them to do real work) and network as much as you can in the industry.  You are more likely to find your next star programmer, project manager or any other position from the connections you make than from postings on job boards.

The answer to the question of this post is “Yes, there are plenty of good programmers.”  But they don’t stay out on the market long.  Many don’t go on the market at all as they transition from one employer to another through their network.