What I found when I hired an engineer based on their work history was that, with a modern tool stack, I was nearly 10 times faster than that dev. In other words, I could get done in 4 hours what would take that dev the whole 40-hour workweek.

Sure, they may have been great with jQuery and Bootstrap, and they had the work experience.

But there was no sense in hiring that way. It was a major mistake for me and the entire company.

What I learned is that, unless I can see code from a portfolio and/or a take-home assignment, then work history is meaningless. That's unfortunate, but it's also the reality -- technical skill trumps work experience.

Of course, as a candidate I hate completing a 16-hour take-home assignment as 1 of 50 candidates in the round -- there's only a 2% chance of landing the job.

It's a bad situation, but tech also pays 2x or more per hour than the degree I spent 8 years of college and $140,000 of graduate student loan debt to get.

So, compared to working 55 hours every week for 1/2 the hourly rate, working 40 hours and spending the occasional weekend on a take-home assignment is a much better deal, in my case.