I think the major disconnect here is in the industry&#x27;s general inability to recognize ability through the standard interview processes.<p>On one hand you have the common whiteboard coding interviews popular among the big tech players (and much of the rest of the industry).  I&#x27;m definitely biased here, as someone who is average&#x2F;below average at these types of interviews but an above average (I hope) developer, but I don&#x27;t think these interviews are very good indicators of on-the-job performance.<p>On the other hand you have many startups who won&#x27;t even interview you if you don&#x27;t have side projects or open source contributions to show. As someone who has side projects to show, I understand that most people do not, and it&#x27;s unrealistic to expect everyone to.<p>The best way I can think of to predict how someone will perform is to have them do something relatively close to what they&#x27;d actually be doing, like going over some of your actual code with them and asking them to talk about what it&#x27;s doing, and doing some pair programming with them on an actual computer.<p>Has anyone had success with something like that?