Hiring programmers using big data

In recent years, more and more scholars and entrepreneurs have applied big data in the processes of human resources management and talent searching, creating a new field called labor science. What Gild does is to see whether these technologies can also be used to predict how a programmer will perform at work.

When Gild began recruiting people, it assumed that talents in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley areas had already been picked clean. Therefore, the company let its algorithm sift through information from Southern California and came up with a list of programmers. Dominguez was ranked first. He has an excellent reputation on GitHub, a website where software developers share code, exchange ideas, and build their reputations. Gild combs through information on GitHub as well as other websites like BitBucket and GoogleCode, looking for smart people in this industry.

Dominguez's achievements are remarkable. The code he wrote for Jekyll-Bootstrap, a feature used when building websites, has been reused by 1,267 other web developers, leaving a deep impression. His language and habits show a passion for product development and a love for various programming tools such as Rails and JavaScript, which are useful to Gild. His blog and tweets on Twitter indicate that he is opinionated, a trait that Gild hopes its founding members possess.