I have now conducted and have sat in on literally dozens of flash developer interviews. Either we find that the person doesn't cut it or we find that they are great. Sometimes we find flash designers mascarading as flash developers. I think that this is because in a lot of agencies a designer is also the developer.

How do we find out if the person is a real flash developer you might ask? We give a test. The testing isn't difficult if you know your stuff, but you do have to know your stuff to get a job. I have had a various reactions to the testing since we have been giving a test. Some good and some very bad. I can't go into details about what happened here.

But we have found that talking to a person, reviewing their code samples and testing to be a very effective judge of the level of a developer.

Do you as part of your organization test potential flash developers? If you don't how do you judge how a person codes, by code samples? I think if you don't have testing, it leaves a big gap for the kind of developer that is going to copy and paste his way into your organization.

If you are interested in talking to someone about a flash position and are willing to relocate to New York City, then you should talk to my friend over at R/GA. I know that they are looking for some with OOP Flash Programming Experience, Experience with AS2, Classes, XML, Flash Video, etc. Check out the post that I made for her last week here:

http://thewarp.org/blog/index.cfm/2007/6/22/Flash-Developer-Jobs-in-New-York-City

Be sure to reference this blog or tell her Jeff sent you so that she will know that this is working.