I’ve been musing on developer skills, certification rorts, hiring, and a whole lot more recently and I’ve been thinking that it’s about time we had something akin to the Windows Experience Index, but for developers – what I’ve whimsically titled the Developer Experience Index.  A representation of a persons skills and abilities in various areas of development and maybe some way of rating them overall as a developer.

Because my thinking on this is still solidifying, instead of writing down all my thoughts and having a long rambling post that gets misunderstood, I’d instead love for you to have a listen to Episode 24 of Talking Shop Down Under and get a feel for what I’m really talking about. It’s only 24 minutes so it won’t take forever to listen to.

I’m after feedback and thoughts on this to decide if it’s worth pursuing, so even if you don’t subscribe to my awesome podcast (and why not!?), have a listen to this episode and see what you think.  Even better, spread the word about it so that others can talk about it as well and we can get some conversation happening.

Would you be willing to contribute to such a community? Would you be willing to go through a community certification process?  If you are in a position to hire people, would you rather interview people who are rated well by their peers or those who are certified by an organisation that makes money from people attempting certification exams? Am I completely bonkers and this is a really dumb idea? Let me know

P.S. For those wondering (and who haven’t yet listened to the episode) I am aware of the Java Black Belt exams, and while that’s a good approach and shows the potential of this, it’s not quite what I’m after.