On Clojure Hiring

On hiring Clojure programmers

I’ve been in a position for the last five years where I’ve been involved in the hiring process at various companies. As an architect/senior-dev, I’ve been involved in writing the job-descriptions, reading resumes, interviewing candidates, and onboarding the ones that got through. And this for positions as Javascript, Java, and Clojure programmers, as well as general purpose contractors.

When it comes to hiring, at least here in Oslo, Norway, most developers seem happy in their current jobs. Now, most hiring processes are set up as if there were houndreds of qualified applicants for every position and that the purpose of the process is to find the very best of that log.

Unfortunatly the reality is quite different. It seems like you’ll be lucky if you manage to get at least one somewhat qualified applicant. This means that the moment you understand that this is the candidate, you need to start convincing the candidate that the position you’re offering is worth the hassle of changing jobs.

Is it easy to hire Clojure devs?

So the question is, is it easier to hire for a Clojure position than for a, say, Java position. To me it seems like, with the current job-marked, it doesn’t really matter. It’s hard getting good people any how. The one thing I can say though, is that I have a feeling we’re getting fewer, but more qualified applicants for the Clojure positions. Which is a good thing, as it means less work on the people doing the hiring. Now, if you open up to remote workers, it seems easier to get a hold of people.

How hard is it to bring a non-Clojure programmer up to speed?

I’ve found that bringing people up to speed in Clojure is not very hard. I think it’s important to have some experienced Clojure programmers around to mentor the new hires. Tools like Figwheel and Cursive/Intellij makes the transition easier. Also, it’s much easier for someone with limited Clojure experience to join an already up and running project, than to start a green field effort where she has to pick libraries and set up projects and such.

What’s the retention for Clojure devs?

Personally, I’m stuck with Clojure for quite some time, as I cannot imagine what other language I’d be as happy in. having said that, I’ve had colleagues who were quite happy when they went back to the languages they were familiar with, be it Javascript or Python. As a side note. The fact that a company uses Clojure might be an indicator that the company has values that are developer friendly, and as such it might be the culture that makes people stay as much as the language itself.