[AvenueIngres]

>I wouldn't want to hire someone who didn't enjoy coding enough that they didn't have something on publicly visible repo.

There is lots of reason why competent developers would not actively participate to OSS or have public repos. I think you are holding applicant to an unreasonable standard that does not entails they are bad if not upheld. I have worked with some extremely talented people - far more than I ever could be - who had 0 contributions, 0 repos and publicly available code.

Why? Because they valued the time spent with their family and friends more. They got the job done which is ultimately what I pay them for. Which is all that matter really. Are they competent? Do they get work done? Can they potentially take-up bigger engineering challenges (i.e can they grow). Yes? Welcome at X co.

[sqeaky]

I agree that it is possible to be great developer with no public code.

Unfortunately their competence is not directly important, my ability to assess their competence is. I have no reliable way to evaluate a person without public code. They could be the greatest or the worst coder without public visibility.

[mancerayder]

You could ask them to e-mail you a code sample or complete an exercise.