Jack:
IN GENERAL
In general a difficulty in communication was a common theme throughout the screening process with Jack. In almost all of the areas Jack had a reasonable superficial knowledge. When questioned deeper into the subjects he was found wanting (or unable to coherently communicate). For example, Jack said he had worked as a Scrum Master but when questioned about what happens at a stand up, he said "it's ongoing" and went on to talk about requirements and internationalisation issues - i.e. entirely off topic. Jack did however know some subjects in reasonable detail but not quite enough to mitigate the other issues. Poor communication characterised the screening.
Whether these issues were down to limited English, unusually poor listening skills or due to not knowing the subject is in some ways a moot point, since his level of skills and / or interaction was regrettably not up to the standard that would be expected in a modern software development team. Jack is a No. He was however a very polite gentleman and I wish him well.
JAVA & OBJECT ORIENTED PRINCIPLES
Jack understands what a .war file is and what to do with one. He has used the Spring framework along with Hibernate, struts and JSF. When questioned about interfaces he was able to explain what they are rather than what they're for. When questioned further he said "Interfaces are like abstract classes, so I'll talk about abstract classes..." - he diverted the discussion to his comfort zone, yet that was not what the question was about. He was able to answer a basic design pattern question but when he was asked the difficult one about singletons he got it wrong. That in its self is not a problem, but in combination with his other answers I'd have to give him a 50:50 or less in terms of his expertise in this area. Certainly, taking him on would be a risk.
JAVASCRIPT
When asked specific Javascript questions Jack consistently told me what "people" use and although his knowledge was accurate it was not possible to get good information out of him as to the extent of his own usage of javascript in the time available. I am convinced he has used it to some extent but in a very limited and very old fashioned way.
BASIC TEST DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT (TDD)
Jack understood the core principle of TDD - that the test is written first. Beyond that, communication broke down slightly and Jack went significantly off subject.
AGILE METHODOLOGY
We discussed the Agile view on documentation at some length, his view was defensible in the light of current theory, no problem there. However, that is a small, minor aspect of Agile. In the other areas he did understand some of it, mentioning story points but pointing out that his organisation does not operate in an agile way at all. He said he has worked as a scrum master in the past but when questioned about stand-up's he said "it's ongoing" and began speaking about something unrelated.
RESTFUL WEB SERVICES
He was aware of the verbs and what they were for, but not aware of REST end points. This is unusual, since without end points, the rest verbs are meaningless. He would struggle here.
SOURCE CONTROL MANAGEMENT
He has used CVS and a proprietary system that I was unaware of. He understands commits and understands code streams. He should be okay in this department.
CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION (JENKINS OR EQUIVALENT TOOL)
He said he hadn't used this. It was the responsibility of a different department. He did however understand what it was for. If the other sections were okay, this might not present a problem, but in combination with poor performance in other areas, this level of CI knowledge is not great.
BUILD AUTOMATION (ANT, MAVEN, GRADLE)
Has used maven, is aware of some of its main functionality, but is not aware of the standard maven directory structure. In other words he has used maven, but doesn't truly understand it.
CSS + HTML5
He has some knowledge of HTML and CSS, but it is old fashioned.
In general a difficulty in communication was a common theme throughout the screening process with Jack. In almost all of the areas Jack had a reasonable superficial knowledge. When questioned deeper into the subjects he was found wanting (or unable to coherently communicate). For example, Jack said he had worked as a Scrum Master but when questioned about what happens at a stand up, he said "it's ongoing" and went on to talk about requirements and internationalisation issues - i.e. entirely off topic. Jack did however know some subjects in reasonable detail but not quite enough to mitigate the other issues. Poor communication characterised the screening.
Whether these issues were down to limited English, unusually poor listening skills or due to not knowing the subject is in some ways a moot point, since his level of skills and / or interaction was regrettably not up to the standard that would be expected in a modern software development team. Jack is a No. He was however a very polite gentleman and I wish him well.
JAVA & OBJECT ORIENTED PRINCIPLES
Jack understands what a .war file is and what to do with one. He has used the Spring framework along with Hibernate, struts and JSF. When questioned about interfaces he was able to explain what they are rather than what they're for. When questioned further he said "Interfaces are like abstract classes, so I'll talk about abstract classes..." - he diverted the discussion to his comfort zone, yet that was not what the question was about. He was able to answer a basic design pattern question but when he was asked the difficult one about singletons he got it wrong. That in its self is not a problem, but in combination with his other answers I'd have to give him a 50:50 or less in terms of his expertise in this area. Certainly, taking him on would be a risk.
JAVASCRIPT
When asked specific Javascript questions Jack consistently told me what "people" use and although his knowledge was accurate it was not possible to get good information out of him as to the extent of his own usage of javascript in the time available. I am convinced he has used it to some extent but in a very limited and very old fashioned way.
BASIC TEST DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT (TDD)
Jack understood the core principle of TDD - that the test is written first. Beyond that, communication broke down slightly and Jack went significantly off subject.
AGILE METHODOLOGY
We discussed the Agile view on documentation at some length, his view was defensible in the light of current theory, no problem there. However, that is a small, minor aspect of Agile. In the other areas he did understand some of it, mentioning story points but pointing out that his organisation does not operate in an agile way at all. He said he has worked as a scrum master in the past but when questioned about stand-up's he said "it's ongoing" and began speaking about something unrelated.
RESTFUL WEB SERVICES
He was aware of the verbs and what they were for, but not aware of REST end points. This is unusual, since without end points, the rest verbs are meaningless. He would struggle here.
SOURCE CONTROL MANAGEMENT
He has used CVS and a proprietary system that I was unaware of. He understands commits and understands code streams. He should be okay in this department.
CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION (JENKINS OR EQUIVALENT TOOL)
He said he hadn't used this. It was the responsibility of a different department. He did however understand what it was for. If the other sections were okay, this might not present a problem, but in combination with poor performance in other areas, this level of CI knowledge is not great.
BUILD AUTOMATION (ANT, MAVEN, GRADLE)
Has used maven, is aware of some of its main functionality, but is not aware of the standard maven directory structure. In other words he has used maven, but doesn't truly understand it.
CSS + HTML5
He has some knowledge of HTML and CSS, but it is old fashioned.