We shouldn't neglect to mention If Carpenters Were Hired Like Programmers as at

http://www.jasonbock.net/jb/News/Item/7c334037d1a9437d9fa650...

And similarly we should not miss the paragraph in the OP:

> We always tried to be creative about probing people and their résumés. Bethany once decided to analyze the résumés of our best data-science people for common features. She found that those people shared an avid interest in music. From then on she and her team looked for that quality. She recalls, “We’d get really excited and call out, ‘Hey, I found a guy who plays piano!’” She concluded that such people can easily toggle between their left and right brains—a great skill for data analysis.

"Music"!!

WOW! On violin I got through the D-major section of the Bach Chaconne. Guess I should have applied to Netflix!!!

Then there is the:

> Say you need a software engineer. Do you want a senior programmer fluent in the best new techniques in search engine development?

Hmm .... My work "in search engine development" is based on some original applied math I derived in an infinite dimensional Hilbert space. So, can Netflix advise me if my work is "in the best new techniques"? Hmm. Who in Netflix can (A) give an example of an infinite dimensional Hilbert space, (B) say what the connection with search might be, and (C) review the "best new techniques"? Hmm ....

But (A) I've written some C code, but regarded it as like digging a ditch with a teaspoon, (B) never wrote any C++, (C) never touched PHP, (D) never wrote any JavaScript, (E) never used Linux, (F) used only a little, simple CSS, (G) never used an IDE (integrated development environment), (H) never used Python, R, Matlab, etc.

But I've done a LOT of scientific, engineering software with lots of algorithms, data structures, etc. I've done a lot in applied statistics and published peer-reviewed original research in mathematical statistics. I hold a Ph.D. in applied math from a world class research university.

But, no doubt, I couldn't be hired at Netflix!!!!

My one, short, telephone Google interview stopped when I gave the wrong answer to their question "What is your favorite programming language?"; apparently the only correct answer was C++; I said PL/I. I'd still say PL/I. How many recruiters at Google understood the pros and cons of PL/I versus other languages?

With all this nonsense, as in many posts in this thread, in hiring for computer programming, I gave up and am doing my own startup.

I picked Windows over Linux. On Windows I picked Visual Basic .NET (apparently essentially equivalent to C# but with a different flavor of syntactic sugar), type into my favorite text editor, KEdit with a few hundred macros instead of an IDE, used ASP.NET for the Web pages, used ADO.NET for the SQL Server access, etc. Works fine.

If I need Python, etc., then I'll learn it and use it. So far, I have all the software development tools I need.

For SPSS, SAS, R, Matlab, etc., my work in statistics has always been too advanced for those packages -- so I wrote my own code.

Yup, I wouldn't get hired!!!

Flip side: I should be able to compete well with the people Netflix, etc. do hire!!!!

If I need to hire for my startup, then I will emphasize first -- technical writing.