We are really proud to highlight that programmers from all around the globe, from all backgrounds, and at all levels of coding proficiency, can have their coding skills evaluated and validated on the Indorse platform — for free.

All levels and types of programmers land on Indorse and submit their code. From beginners to expert programmers, from Gandalf type programmers to Ninja like programmers, passing by the young genius type coder. What matters on Indorse, is your skills! It is based on your programming skills & code that expert developers (called Validators) will evaluate your programming proficiency and share their feedback & insights. Knowing at what level you stand is crucial to improving programming skills.

Our last blog post described the journey of an expert developer that eventually joined our community of Validators. In today’s story, we’ll present Edgars, a junior programmer from Latvia! But before we dive into Edgars’ story, let’s have a quick recap about what you can do on Indorse.

On the Indorse platform, there are 2 key actors: a Claimant (who claims to know a skill) and a Validator (a pre-vetted expert in this skill).

So this is what Indorse is about — a platform where you can either submit your code (GitHub, Bitbucket, etc.) or take an assignment and then have 10 expert developers assess your programming skills objectively and in a transparent manner.

These Validators reflect the richness of our user base & are based in different regions of the world. Curious to know a bit more about them? Here are some interviews that will help you understand who is evaluating your code and why they’re interested in the project: Athul Tuttu, Suhas Gundimeda, Liam Williams, Alexander Pankiv, etc.

“Sun, Dec 9, 2018 11:34 AM” — the journey begins

One of the claims created on Indorse the 9th of December 2018, came from a programmer who stated:

I can code in JavaScript at the level of Intermediate

As you’ve probably guessed, this programmer was Edgars! Let’s go over the simple journey he undertook to have his skills evaluated, and learn a bit more about his motivations and background.

In this post, we’re going to detail his encounter with the Indorse platform by adding some of his comments & answers which he kindly agreed to share!

Hello Edgars! Would you mind presenting yourself? Yep, of course. So I’m a 29 year old programmer from Latvia. I got acquainted with programming early in my childhood, when it was popular to create a website for computer gaming teams. I didn’t know anything more than HTML at that time. As time went by, I had to look for a job after high school and wanted to work with a computer, so I found my first job as a data entry operator. How was this first job of yours? The work was monotonous and to maximise productivity I decided to fill my time with programming. I started playing around with AutoHotkey and then with C#. Cool! Did you create anything? Yep, I created various gadgets to ease up my already easy work! My code was horrible and the most ridiculous thing I remember was the gadget that I had created. With it I could see how many documents I had been creating at any given moment, and it would take about 30 minutes to get this number while my maze code was being calculated. Later, of course, I got acquainted with SQL queries and optimized these 30' to a couple of milliseconds! I worked for several years at this workplace where my job was to push F1, F2, F3 but I had programmed various algorithms to handle documents. It was time to move on. From experience, programming skills open many doors; were you able to do something with these newly acquired skills? That’s exactly it, but I live in a small country and small city where good vacancies are rare. However, fortunately, I found my second and current job at www.aepartner.lv as a programmer — computer system technician! That’s great, are you happy with your new job & more importantly are you able to hone your programming skills and learn new things? At my new job, we are a small IT team that maintains systems such as ERP, CRM, NCR and Intranet on a daily basis. Yeah, I’ve mastered things like Laravel (PHP), Vue (JS), CSS / SASS, PostgreSQL, Git, and I’m confident enough to call myself a junior programmer!

Edgars first steps on Indorse

After creating his very own Indorse profile in order to confirm the level of his skills, Edgars had to select his preferred programming language, his level of proficiency and write down a small description. After doing so, he clicked on the Submit button and the gears started turning!

But, what brought you to Indorse and what motivated you to submit a claim? I found out about Indorse after sharing my first project online, on social media channels. While checking the feedback, I received a link from an acquaintance of mine with a suggestion to try the platform. After getting to know what this platform was about, I immediately realized that I had to try it!

When Edgars submitted his first claim, 10 randomly selected Validators received these 3 data points:

(a) Programming language: JavaScript

(b) Proficiency level: Intermediate

(c) GitHub repo: via GitHub

A ‘claim’: a code repo or an assignment

As you know by now, when a claim is submitted on Indorse, Validators are notified and start evaluating the code.

An important element to note is that Indorse’s validation mechanism (called AIP) is based on human intelligence combined with an optimised platform. That is not something to take lightly. Validators that review the code, apply their own specialised knowledge and tap into their own experience to determine if the individual has the skill that he/she has claimed to have.

Edgars, what claim did you make? Can you present your project? I submitted my first project called “Blog” to be validated on a JavaScript intermediate level. This blog is based on Laravel and all the functionalities are mostly on Vue.js. I see, and why did you submit this specific repo of yours? While working full-time, I always lacked time to practice because I am married, and I need to devote time to my son and family! But this summer I broke my leg and I had to recover at home; that allowed me to complete my project. The goal was to reinforce my understanding of project design, to get to know the new CSS framework, to practice Vue.js and Laravel. The result of these days of convalescence was the creation of a bilingual SPA. So far, my code has been rated by my manager and it was a great opportunity to get feedback from expert developers. I was expecting my rating to be around “medium”. I am very happy that I was indorsed!! Btw, I’ll gladly share my project with all your readers, maybe someone will find it useful: github.com/narkoze/blog

An ‘indorsed’ claim

Indeed, Edgars claim was indorsed! He, and any other coder that submits a claim, are evaluated according to 4 different criteria. Validators rated each one of these criteria on a scale from 0 to 5.

After this process, Validators either indorse or reject the claim.

Code Quality: Single responsibility principle, Liskov substitution principle, dependency inversion, open/closed principle, etc. Knowledge of Design Patterns: Database modeling principles, object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD) principles, etc. Source Control Usage (Gitflow): Consistent commits, degree of authenticity of repo, good usage of git principles, etc. Test Coverage: Good test coverage, contains unit and regression test, etc.

Comments added by the Validators

For each validation, Validators have the possibility to add relevant comments based on their evaluation of the material that was submitted by the coder. This allows for potential improvements to be made but also to foster cooperation within the community. Indeed, cooperation is at the crux of the open source community and it is a standard that Indorse holds dear.

What comments did you receive? Were these useful to you? And what part of our report would you say was the most useful? The main reason I submitted my project for validation was to get the comments of experienced programmers. Despite the fact that the comments are anonymous and sometimes negative — these were useful; outlining elements that I’ll be able to improve. I liked the comment that outlined that the code I submitted was a tad to simple and that it did not completely demonstrate my JavaScript experience. I would like to add, however, that all the ingenuity lies in simplicity.

Validation works by consensus, 10 Validators vote and once a consensus is reached, the claim is either validated or rejected. For Edgars, the claim was indorsed by 6 out of 10 Validators!

Since then, Edgars also created a claim for his PHP skills! Let’s see what the outcome will be… we hope to share with you all new updates from Edgars! If you’re interested in sharing your experience on the Indorse platform and talk a bit about your programming life, we’d be glad to hear you out — just sent us an email at: info@indorse.io or leave a comment below!

Indorse is the first Decentralized Professional Network for your skills. You can get started by simply creating your Indorse profile & evaluate your coding skills!

Interested in becoming a Validator? Then wait no more and send a “Hello” to Dipesh!

Considering using Indorse to filter candidates for your company’s new job openings? We got you covered with Naqib.