How to get great programmers for your startup

While working in Dane Maxwell's roundtable group, one of the topics that has come up is getting great talent, and knowing ahead of time rather than taking so many chances.

Dane Maxwell says to give them a task that should take a couple days, so you can get to know how they work before making a larger commitment.

Here's an example of how I am vetting talent for a health care startup. This particular idea is not the primary one for the startup, but it can be useful. Given that, I'm not worried about sharing it here. This is the content of the email I am using:

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Hi Joe,

I've decided to try something fun and different to filter candidates
for the startup. I'll give you a programming task that is somewhat
involved. Upon acceptance, you let me know how long it took, we pay
you for it (let me know your standard rate), then we talk some more.

Here's the challenge:

Use public government data (I will provide links below), create a web
page which allows the visitor to enter a zip code.
1. On a google map, show the nursing homes for that zip code, using
the google API to add points on the map.
2. When a user clicks on one, show the following data in the google
info bubble.
a. Name, address, phone
b. The government 5 star rating value (from a dataset I'll
provide a link to)
c. A link that says "X Complaint Deficiencies". When the link is
clicked, show a table below the map with any deficiencies for that
facility and if/when that deficiency has been resolved.

Constraints:
1. Use Ruby on Rails for the front end, or create a Java based REST
service to make an ajax call in an html only page.
2. Import the data into a MySQL or Postgre database.
3. Keep it simple.

Here are links to the datasets needed for the challenge:

1. Nursing Home Complaint Deficiencies:
http://data.medicare.gov/dataset/Nursing-Home-Compare-Complaint-Deficiency/nsyy-ktee
2. Nursing Home Compare Provider Ratings:
http://data.medicare.gov/dataset/Nursing-Home-Compare-Provider-Ratings/mufm-vy8d
3. Nursing Home General Information:
http://data.medicare.gov/dataset/Nursing-Home-Compare-General-Information/dg6a-rxvx

Fields needed:

1. All data sets use a provider ID, so key on that for all the data.
2. In the Provider Ratings table, there are star ratings for Overall,
Health Inspections, Nurse Staffing, Quality Measures, and RN Only. Go
ahead and show all these above the deficiency table with other general
info.
3. For the deficiency data, use the Deficiency Category, the
Deficiency, Scope, and Level of Harm in the table

Not all facilities will have deficiencies.

If you need any guidance, just let me know. This will test how well
we can work together, as well as your proficiency level in some of the
programming areas we are looking for.

Thanks,

Chris Pritchard

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Getting the developer excited about doing this task can involve different methods. The startup I am getting talent for has funding, so it's ok to spend some of that to make sure our people can handle the type of work we need to get done. Other startup ideas might simply use the idea itself and an offer of equity. I'm a great developer, so I have too many equity offers to count. Given that, your mileage may vary with those types of offers.

I'll add a post later that goes into the details of locating leads :)

Good Luck!