Engineering Manager Igor Kopanev named the problem of hiring programmers No. 1 in 2025. Aitov residents are discussing it.
Engineering Manager Igor Kopanev named the problem of hiring programmers No. 1 in 2025. Aitov residents are discussing it.
«For me, the biggest problem for hiring, and for those looking for a job, is a lot of people with fake experience. This is not just some isolated case, Djinni is now filled with candidates who write 3-5 years of experience in various companies on LinkedIn, but when they come to the interview they can’t even write a line of Python code (no exaggeration, they really can’t create a dict). What’s most interesting is that you warn them that there will be a short live coding session at the interview, of course some drop out, but most go to the interview with the hope of something… I have almost a dozen such candidates for one normal one over the past month,» he said .
Aitivets suggests that perhaps he has some too high expectations. «But it’s like for a programmer you need to be able to program. I want to say right away that it’s normal to have no experience in programming and go for junior or trainee positions. That’s what you should do. It’s not normal to have no experience and say that you have it,» the specialist believes.
Igor described a case that illustrates his hypothesis: «A candidate comes, let’s say his name is Mykola. He lists three years of experience in a top outsourcing company in Ukraine, and another year in some no-name company. Before the interview, we do a background check on a well-known company — and they haven’t even heard of him there. During the interview, he looks at the task, tries to generate something via chatgpt (we allow this), but can’t even understand what kind of code is in front of him. Everything is clear here. For the finale, I ask how it was working at the top outsourcing company, and whether it’s possible to contact someone for feedback, and he replies, „I don’t remember anyone from anywhere, it was almost a year ago.“ A day later, my dev sends me a link to his LinkedIn, and there it’s not a top outsourcing company in terms of experience, but some no-name company.»
According to Kopanev, this situation has three consequences. First, normal candidates are lost in the stream of fake ones, second, much more time, resources, and nerves are spent searching for candidates, and third, Ukraine loses its attractiveness in the eyes of foreign employers.
«How to solve this globally? I don’t know, but maybe Djinni.co or another candidate search platform will find a solution. We solve this problem through a live coding session during the interview. By the way, we start with this. We talk very briefly about the company, and then we start writing code, we are programmers, we should be able to write code, right?» explains Igor.
In the comments to the IT expert’s post, industry representatives agree that such a problem exists. There are 10+ comments under the specialist’s post.
Android & KMP software engineer Oleksiy S. believes that the problem may lie in the selection of resumes. «Those candidates who know something cannot make a good resume. Conversely, those who do not know, turn to consultants, who make them a beautiful resume that slips through the PBX beautifully. I once encountered the fact that a recruiter at the first meeting immediately asks several technical questions to weed out those who do not understand anything at all,» he said.
«We encounter fakes of various levels every day, from inflated spies, helpers in conversations, and to decoys who are working out whether to pass an interview or provide a reference. We have developed a number of checklists for each stage and also do employment verification at the early stages,» says Recruitment Company Owner Volodymyr Okhotyuk .
Oleksiy Chekalyuk, Java Developer, notes that a lot of people hate the online coding approach. «But to be honest, I don’t understand why. In my opinion, this is the easiest way to check whether a person knows how to write and understand code. Googling a solution is certainly good, but if there is someone who understands what Googling is and how everything works, and someone who only knows how to Google, then, probably, the choice is quite obvious,» the IT expert is convinced.
Roman Manzhula, a Java Developer, believes that this situation is a consequence of courses that instill «professionalism» in people. «Especially with guaranteed employment, where HR teaches you to „embellish“ your resume to easily enter IT,» he says.
In Roman’s opinion, live coding is good, but not from the start, 20 minutes for getting to know and adapting the candidate, then architecture by packages and content, preferably with minimal adherence to SOLID with a bias towards the topic of the vacancy. The rest is already checked by the probationary period.
«Algorithms are difficult if you don’t prepare. I write a memorized base every other day: binary search in a sorted array, bubble sort, reverse, Fibonacci number, factorial, greedy search, dfs, bfs, map sort, palindrome — I can say that I haven’t had to use it in any project, but understanding how to work with data structures makes it clear. Today, a candidate should have a structure, a proposal for a solution, reasons for choosing technologies, and basic security fundamentals. He should voice all this during the interview, as a manifestation of his competence and highlighting his personal education,» notes Manzhula.
Senior Fullstack Developer Artem Bohdan, on the other hand, says that he has a huge amount of experience that allows him to write any medium-sized project from scratch. «But I couldn’t write a forex cycle in live coding. Literally. Then, after n sessions and trainings, I started to pass live coding quite well. Recently, I passed 1.5 hours of pure live code with flying colors. Live coding is a very big stress and not everyone passes it,» the specialist states.
And developer Vitaliy Chernooky believes that live coding skills are in no way related to work experience. «I have 5 years of experience with Python, and I will 100% fail a live coding attempt. Because live coding is different,» he notes.
