Summary
How Slashscore was born
The idea behind Slashscore started in 2017 when we were internally debating “What defines who you are” as a developer? We took this to the next step by asking ourselves “Having so many developers with various skills around the world, what metrics would you use to determine what makes developer A better than developer B?” for your projects pending implementation.
At that time we asked this question on several Slack channels frequented by developers, and the outcome was crazy. Some of the more hilarious answers were:
- Lines of code
- Number of ping-pong matches won
- Numbers of monitors used
- Pints of coffee consumed
- Trolls trolled
The majority of them, however, were on point and professional. These were pointing out that it would be cool if we could find a fair system that can be:
- Measurable in a meaningful way
- Applicable to ALL developers in general (especially considering how much work can vary)
We’ve started to add some metrics into a spreadsheet and then step by step we put an entire system in place that we called "the resume of the future for anyone who codes."
The first version of Slashcore had just one big score. As you might already know, some football players have a higher rank in Defense, others have higher ball control skills, and others are better at scoring goals. It can be the same with developers. Some of them are really good professionals but lack communication or soft skills, or the other way around. This determined us to split the score in three - professional, extra and community.
After launching this first version of Slashscore we are happy to discover that there are so many developers out there having both.
Made by Developers for Developers
As Slashcore is built by developers, each feature was created with a “we are building this for ourselves” mindset. Because of this, we'll always care deeply and understand intuitively what our audience values.
We know what core problems developers are facing because we’ve faced them too:
- Need to not be bothered by recruiters when they aren’t hunting for a job, in order to stop the spam.
- Need to stop wasting time in technical interviews for irrelevant jobs.
- Need to realistically auto-evaluate their own activity.
- Need a platform where to add all the info in one single place in a well-arranged manner to give them real. leverage in discussions with recruiters and technology partners.
- Need a product that shows WHO THEY ARE AS DEVELOPERS.
Wherever Slashscore will continue this amazing journey, we promise that the model of dev-centricity will be forever in our hearts.
What kind of challenges can Slashscore help solve?
Being a software engineer is not without challenges, regardless of how many years of experience you accumulate. In fact, each new level of experience can come with a whole new set of challenges related to the tools of the trade, code quality, work values and many others. This can make it difficult for developers to evaluate themselves, which in turn can diminish their value when hunting for a job.
Slashscore has been developed as a self-assessment tool that uses machine learning to analyze and combine activity statistics from multiple relevant & undisputable sources. In doing so, the platform offers software engineers a helping hand not only when looking for a new professional challenge, but also when comparing to other peers.
Junior developers might find it difficult to measure their progress because they lack accurate criteria or info. Senior software engineers, on the other hand, often receive job offers that can be very annoying and irrelevant, especially if they’re not looking to switch employers.
Also, if you’re not currently looking for a job, you can still use Slashscore. In this scenario, you need to switch your status to Not Interested.
Slashscore tackles both of these challenges successfully. It offers beginners an objective way to self-evaluate by bringing together information from web-based version control repository hosting services (GitHub, Gitlab, Bitbucket) and community websites (Stackoverflow, Medium, Meetup).
More advanced software engineers can also benefit from Slashscore’s data aggregation features. On top of that, they can make themselves available for new jobs, or disable this feature completely, in case they’re not interested in job hunting.
What are the benefits of the Slashscore developer modules?
Slashscore profiles take into account three different perspectives, based on professional activity, community contributions and spare time hobbies. Our machine learning algorithm calculates the Professional, Community and Extra scores using integrations with several platforms.
When it comes to the Professional score, we rely on integrations with GitHub and Gitlab, but Bitbucket will also soon be available. The Extra score is based on activity on Stackoverflow, Medium and Meetup, while the Community score is calculated using reviews from peers, supervisors, employers or customers. Additional integrations will be announced as they become available. A 4th score, Popularity Score, will be launched soon to measure the trendiness of the technology stack used by each software engineer.
Recruiters don’t only pay attention to the professional traits when making a decision, but also in the software engineer’s soft skills, their level of communication, involvement with the community, work values and so on. This is why working on your Community and Extra scores can help you stand out during the recruitment process and after.
Ultimately, Slashscore is meant to help developers:
- Land better jobs, especially since they lose a lot of time discussing with HR, only to find out that the offer doesn’t match the expectations. Specifically because of that, Slahscore asks recruiters to make an offer before the interview, so that the software engineer has the option to accept or decline it without wasting time.
- Have all the professional info at hand, which might come in handy during negotiations with recruiters, current employers, and even technology partners.
If what you’ve read up until this point resonates with you or with a software engineer that you know, all that’s left to do is to join Slashscore, to also see in practice how it works.
