Rate Yourself From 1-10

This… is genius.

In technical programming interviews a common (terrible) question that interviewers may ask is, “rate yourself from 1-10 on x”, where x=one or more programming languages.  I’ve been asked that myself, but I’ve never seen what 1-10 would actually correspond to until now.  It’s a very fuzzy measure and most everybody (from junior to senior) seems to rate themselves about a 7.

Without further ado:

• 10 – Wrote the book on it (there must be a book)
• 9 – Could have written the book, but didn’t.
• 8 – Deep understanding of corner cases and esoteric features.
• 7 – Understanding and (appropriate) usage of most lesser known features.
• 6 – Can develop large programs and deploy new systems from scratch.
• 5 – Can develop/deploy larger programs/systems using all basic (w/o book) and more esoteric features (some w/ book, some without)
• 4 – Can develop/deploy medium programs/systems using all basic (w/o book) and a few esoteric features (w/ book). Understands enough about internals to do nontrivial troubleshooting.
• 3 – Can utilize basic features without much help, manage a small installation competently.
• 2 – can write hello world without looking at a book, kind of figure out how a system works, if necessary.
• 1 – Can read programs, make small changes to existing programs, or make adjustments to already installed systems, w/book handy.
• 0 – No experience.

Credit goes to /u/icydocking for providing the list on reddit.

Author: H Walker Jones, Esq

A professional programmer with a sordid past involving sysadmin, tech support, and cooking. View all posts by H Walker Jones, Esq