One was a small tech company in Sacramento (hiring local or remote) at ~$80k for junior - $150k+ senior. One was a multinational corporation (not a tech company) paying $75k-$300k (junior - senior) for US based people. One was a different multinational corp (web agency) paying $50k-$130k (junior - senior; this was 2013 or so).
Idk. My conclusion is that hiring a software engineer is like hiring an artist: without a portfolio, the requisite skills are barely quantifiable and rely mostly on the word of the applicant. There’s really no way to determine the quality of an engineers work without actually seeing that work. Therefore, the most useful interview is to actually pay them to do something. I’ve had a lot of success with this approach and it eliminates the need to consider credentials at all.
Idk. My conclusion is that hiring a software engineer is like hiring an artist: without a portfolio, the requisite skills are barely quantifiable and rely mostly on the word of the applicant. There’s really no way to determine the quality of an engineers work without actually seeing that work. Therefore, the most useful interview is to actually pay them to do something. I’ve had a lot of success with this approach and it eliminates the need to consider credentials at all.