pedrocarvalho's comments

Same here. Also working with enterprise customers, sometimes competitors (or at least, tangentially). Thinking of business reassons, there is absolutely no way that they would accept to "share" a database. On everyday ops, it's reason 8 - Independent upgrades on different time points.

The problem is that there seems to be only one definition for success (lots of money and being talked about in the news) and we tend to compare ourselves and others against that measure of success. Running a lifestyle business and creating a handful of jobs, taking care of your family and friends, helping the needed, being an excellent teacher, having an healthy lifestyle, (insert here what makes you get up in the morning) are also huge successes, they just don't make the news.

At first I didn't liked the idea, but it could work as a way to filter out US centric posts and focus more on Europe.

I think it needs some guidelines: is English the preferred language? If this is limited to Europe, is it ok to have posts related to other parts of the world?

I learned this the hard way, and went through burnout before I understood that I needed to take it easy. Exercising regularly, eating well, proper sleeping habits, friends and family time, all of these make me more productive, effective and happier. I still work long hours and finding this balance is hard. It's something you do every day and some discipline is needed, just like diet or quit smoking.

By free I mean it's not a direct purchase. I'm perfectly aware that the healthcare system in my country is payed by my taxes.

No, it isn't. In Portugal, the healthcare system is free.

It's not focused on programming languages or a particular technology, but on placing them outside their comfort zone (taking their hammer of their hands) and try to see how they react to it. See my reply to pbsd, that's what I'm trying to look for.

Yes, agreed. What I'm trying to see is how they behave with something they're not used to, how they take on the problem. These are some of the things I try to analyze:

Do they search and read about the problem? Are they able to implement what they just researched? Are they looking for recipes and trying to copy and paste the code from some website? Do they have critical thinking (what you mentioned) and propose better solutions with better tools? Do they communicate during the problem solving stage, or are quiet, closed and isolated? Do they ask questions? Or behave like asking questions is a sign of weakness?

My employee #1 was not the first or the second person I hired. I tried and failed a lot in finding the right person. I even made the biggest mistake of all of using a recruiter. What eventually worked for my company was someone straight out of college, with no previous experience, but that is smart and has the right small company culture.

This whole process was hard, but I learned a lot.I now have developers solve a small problem by writing code in a technology/language they don't master. If they know python, I give them a laptop with Visual Studio and tell them to solve the problem using .NET and C#, if they know Java and come from enterprise consulting, I give them a terminal window and python, if windows then linux, and so on. This gets them off their comfort zone and I can look for what I'm really looking: problem solving skills and being able to learn and pick up new things fast.

Another important thing is to be completely open about where your company stands: does it have money in the bank, does it have paying and happy customers, etc. I found that this scares away a lot of candidates, especially the ones coming from big companies, wanting to change their lives by working in a small company.

Wow, really cool. Great fun