????今年夏天，來自舊金山的招聘軟件公司Gild想要招聘一個程序員，但是與硅谷的高科技公司競爭，追逐那些具有耀眼背景的本地精英并不是這家小公司的長項。于是公司老總謝羅伊?德賽和他的團隊做出決定，嘗試尋找那些名聲不大、工資要求不高的程序員。這時，這家公司需要用到自己一直在大力推銷的軟件就有這樣的功能，它能對程序員按照其編寫的免費開源代碼的質量進行排序。

????Gild想要找一名熟悉Ruby on Rails編程軟件的程序員。按照Gild的排名系統，杰德?多明格斯是洛杉磯地區最好的候選人之一。多明格斯沒有接受過正式的大學教育，全靠網上的免費工具自學成才。現在他已經是Gild的在線應用開發者。

????多明格斯正好揭示了德賽試圖解決的問題：缺乏傲人學位的優秀程序員埋沒于成堆的簡歷中，無法脫穎而出。“目前的招聘系統太多偏見，”德賽說。“歧視無處不在。我們試圖讓人盡其才的精英體制重新回歸。”他說，Gild已經找到精確定位人才的方法，不再依賴傳統的資歷考核。

????德賽本人擁有麻省理工（MIT）的電子工程學位，這對他的早期職業生涯頗有助益，所以很難想象會是這樣一個人來領導這場招聘革命。但他說，自己親眼目睹過不少優秀程序員由于種種莫名其妙的原因沒能得到工作，他希望能夠改變這種狀況。

????德賽的最終目的是要顛覆招聘者和求職者網絡對接方式。“商務社交網站LinkedIn在收集簡歷方面成就卓著，但最重要的問題并沒有得到解決，那就是：哪些人合適？他們到底有多優秀？”

????至少對招聘程序員來說，Gild在這個問題上取得了一些進展。公司在周一正式發布了一個軟件，能夠自動檢測程序員在免費的開源程序平臺上提交的代碼，這類平臺包括谷歌代碼（Google Code）和SourceForge。然后根據代碼質量對程序員進行排名，最終向招聘程序員的公司推銷這個排名系統。當然，如何確定某些代碼優于其它代碼是個難題。德賽認為，程序的簡潔是關鍵。用少量而優雅的代碼就能解決問題可以證明了程序員的功力。Gild也會考察代碼是否得到認可：有多少其它用戶，是否被Linux這類著名的開源項目所接納。

????按照德賽的說法，Gild“剛剛完成測試階段”，意味著公司已經開始擁有付費用戶，其中不乏知名企業如Box、SalesforceCRM和紅帽 (Red Hat)等。

????但在掀起高科技行業招聘革命之前，Gild還得對其系統做出改進。首先，公司的軟件只對在開源平臺發布代碼的程序員排名，而很多人才并沒有參與這類平臺。其次，該軟件能給出某人編程質量的信息，但卻無法告訴你此人是否合群，是否可靠，這類信息只能來自于傳統的面試。

????德賽不得不承認，目前，很多使用Gild服務的公司同時還在依賴他所試圖打破的招聘系統：人力資源部門首先在LinkedIn上搜尋程序員，然后再在Gild的排名系統里查詢其編程能力。

????此外還有一個潛在的障礙，那就是隱私，這也是數碼世界里人所共知的一個問題。獲得Gild排名的程序員事先并不知道他們是數據庫的組成部分，直到有意招聘的公司聯系他們。德賽承認，Gild的系統需要選擇退出，而不是選擇加入。但問題是，在加入排名的100多萬名程序員中，很多人并不知道這一點。

????Gild所推動的精英體制對高科技公司會有所幫助，特別是這個軟件可能在意想不到的地方發掘出急需的人才。但由于該軟件并不追蹤用戶公司和程序員之間的后續發展，德賽不能確定通過Gild的幫助到底有多少人最終得到聘用。展望未來，這家公司將在網上繼續搜尋整潔代碼背后的天才，同時，它還需要調整商業模式。

????When a San Francisco-based job recruitment software firm called Gild was looking for a programmer this summer, it had to compete with tech companies in Silicon Valley also chasing local developers with stellar pedigrees. So Gild CEO Sheeroy Desai and his team decided they were going to try to hire someone less known and more affordable. They used the software they're trying to market, which ranks developers based on the quality of their free, open-source code.

????Gild executives searched for a developer versed in a coding language called Ruby on Rails. Based on Gild's ranking system, Jade Dominguez was one of the best in the Los Angeles area. Dominguez has no formal post-secondary education and taught himself to code using free tools available online. Now he is a web application developer for Gild.

????Dominguez exemplifies a problem that Desai wants to solve -- great coders without killer degrees get buried in the resume pile. "The system today is totally biased," says Desai. "Discrimination is rampant in this industry. We are trying to bring meritocracy back into recruiting." Gild, he says, has found a way to pinpoint talent without getting hung up on traditional credentials.

????Desai, at first, seems like an unlikely leader for this crusade, given that he has a degree in electrical engineering from MIT, which he admits gave him a big boost early in his career. But he's seen talented coders passed over for jobs for questionable reasons, he says, and he wants to change that.

????Ultimately, Desai wants to upend the way recruiters and jobseekers connect online. "LinkedIn is doing great work collecting resumes, but what hasn't been solved is the problem of who is good and how good they are."

????Gild is taking some steps to address this problem, at least for developers. The company officially launched a software product on Monday that scans code that developers submit to free, open-source platforms such as Google Code or SourceForge. Then, it ranks developers based on the quality of the code they produce. The idea is to sell the ranking system to companies looking for developers.

????Granted, it can be difficult to tell what makes some code better than others. One key indicator is simplicity, Desai says. People who solve a problem using relatively few, elegant lines of code are generally considered good. Gild also looks at how well-documented the code is -- how many other people use it, and whether it's been accepted to a high-profile open-source project, such as Linux.

????Gild is "just getting out of the Beta phase," according to Desai, which means it's got paying customers, some of them well-known, including Box, Salesforce (CRM), and Red Hat (RHT).

????But before it revolutionizes hiring in tech, Gild must handle a few kinks in its system. For one, its software only ranks coders who submit to open source platforms, and plenty of talented people still don't do that. And while Gild's software can tell you something about the quality of code people produce, it can't tell you if an employee is likable or dependable -- that's information that still comes through in an old-fashioned interview.

????For now, Desai says, many companies use Gild alongside the systems he's trying to disrupt: human resources personnel looking for developers will search LinkedIn (LNKD), then check people's coding abilities against Gild's ranking system.

????There's another potential hurdle, all too familiar within the digital world, and that's privacy. Coders that Gild ranks might not know they're part of the database until an interested company calls them. Gild's system is opt-out, not opt-in, Desai says, although many of Gild's more than a million ranked coders may not know there's a system to opt out of.

????A Gild-driven hiring meritocracy would be useful for tech companies, especially if the software could really unearth coveted talent in unlikely places. But Desai isn't sure how many people have been hired through Gild, because the software doesn't track how companies follow up with developers. Going forward, the company will have to iron out glitches in its business model as it keeps trolling the Internet for the masterminds behind clean code.