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Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:What if the board has created a situation in which I am the bottleneck? Then I guess the board should get comfortable with your timetable.
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Mar 30, 2015 06:45
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Doctor w-rw-rw- posted:What if the board has created a situation in which I am the bottleneck? Congratulations. You just earned a pay-raise.
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Mar 30, 2015 06:46
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Investors hate risk. A single person that the company's progress relies on is a huge risk. They could leave, or get sick, or get hit by a bus and die. And then the company is in the shitter. If the board is not smart enough to recognize this risk and reduce it by fixing that bottleneck, that's 100% on them.
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Mar 30, 2015 06:52
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Ugh. I just discovered that the resume I've used to apply to a few jobs lately has the phrase "storing data in a the cloud" in it. 
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Mar 30, 2015 23:07
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Just be glad it doesn't say "storing data in my butt."
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Mar 30, 2015 23:25
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seiken posted:Just be glad it doesn't say "storing data in my butt." Considering where some people pull data from, that might be more accurate and it's at least grammatically correct!
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Mar 30, 2015 23:27
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Che Delilas posted:Ugh. I just discovered that the resume I've used to apply to a few jobs lately has the phrase "storing data in a the cloud" in it. Quite a the mistake, that is.
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Mar 30, 2015 23:28
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bartkusa posted:Congratulations. You just earned a pay-raise. I'm with this. If you're so god damned critical, they should be paying you more, and be looking for ways to make your life easier, not the other way around.
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Mar 31, 2015 03:12
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in_cahoots posted:We're trying to release a new product, and for various reasons I am the only person who knows how to tell if the code is working as expected. I've been in this situation before (by being the only person who cared about devops-y stuff). What worked for me was to come in Monday and say, "it seems like we should spread this knowledge out a bit among everyone! Let me give you all a tutorial on how to run the tests/deploy the code/whatever." Now it's their problem when they need to do something on the weekend. This assumes, of course, that you trust them not to wreck the servers and that you're not hoarding knowledge for job security.
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Apr 3, 2015 02:00
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It could be a security/secrecy thing and he's not actually allowed to spread the work around. Again if that's the case I say he has a healthy amount of leverage.
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Apr 3, 2015 11:56
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Che Delilas posted:It could be a security/secrecy thing and he's not actually allowed to spread the work around. Again if that's the case I say he has a healthy amount of leverage. In my case it's more of a skill set issue. We all have the same title, but I am the only person who knows how to perform certain statistical measurements. It's sufficiently complex enough that I can't automate it, and nobody else has the background to learn my methods. Which is why I say it's a failure of management.
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Apr 3, 2015 16:18
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in_cahoots posted:In my case it's more of a skill set issue. We all have the same title, but I am the only person who knows how to perform certain statistical measurements. It's sufficiently complex enough that I can't automate it, and nobody else has the background to learn my methods. Which is why I say it's a failure of management. We've all said it's a failure of management, but you're the one letting them get away with it. I'll assume when you said "my methods" you simply meant the standard statistical mathematics you are using are too advanced for your co-workers, and not that you alone have developed a new branch of study that is 'yours'. Either way though, you have leverage and should be using it. Or leave, and ply your arcane might somewhere else. And if nowhere else would appreciate your mystic powers, well, neither does this place, so you really can't do worse.
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Apr 3, 2015 17:26
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Have any older/experienced programmers posting here moved from EU to USA after working for a long time in the EU? If so, how was the experience, what difficulties, how did you find a job, how was relocating (especially wrt significant others)? I am from and live in the UK and am in late 20's, have an undergrad in CS and a masters from a good UK university. Have close to ten years professional experience as software engineer and am considering a move abroad, either to USA or Australia. Am curious to find out how others did this and hear any good advice.
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Apr 26, 2015 15:35
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I know a guy who is in the process currently of moving from the UK to the US for tech work. From what I can tell the finding a job part was pretty much identical to anywhere else; he applied to companies, they responded, did interviews etc. etc. The big hurdle is the visa process, and unfortunately you've just missed the H1B window for FY 2016, so assuming that you are an EU national with no secondary nationality you're poo poo out of luck for moving to the States any earlier than October 2016 (unless you are planning to stay with your current job and get transferred on an L1, but that doesn't seem like what you're asking). Even if you do apply for an H1B next April they get way more applicants than the quota allows so it ends up going to a lottery, so you're still not guaranteed. Additionally the H4 visa only applies to spouses, so if the significant other you mentioned isn't your spouse and is also not American you're not going to have a lot of luck there. If, by some stroke of luck, you happen to be Canadian, Mexican, or Australian in addition to British then you have way more options since you can go under TN for Canada/Mexico or E3 for Australia, none of which have quotas or the strict filing timeline of the H1B.
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Apr 26, 2015 17:13
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Moving to the US is probably predicated on a US company sponsoring your visa, which is going to cost them a fair chunk of change so you'd have to be worth it. I made it to the US on an intra-company transfer visa so it was a lot easier for me. Demand is very high for good people so I think setting up some interviews might land you a few offers. But I'd choose larger companies who are used to the whole H1-B visa 3-ring circus, not plucky startups without an HR or legal department. H1-B visas regularly run out their yearly quota very quickly, so there may be significant delays in actually getting you over. If you do travel to the US for an in-person interview, be honest with immigration officials and say you're traveling for business but do NOT tell them you're looking for work in the US. If you do land a job then you'll have to wait 3-5 years for a green card, and to some extent that puts you under the thumb of the company sponsoring you. If you ever leave that company for any reason then you've got 10 days to pack up and leave the country, unless you can find another US company to pick up the sponsorship process. Once you get your green card, you're free to do whatever. There's a yearly green card lottery system, but for people from the UK it's highly unlikely to win. Choosing where in the US might depend on a few factors. If you have a significant other with close ties to family, then the East Coast can be a little easier because of the smaller time difference (5 hours vs 8 on the West Coast). Weather has a wide spectrum on the East Coast - stultifyingly hot summers in NY, buried deep in snow in winter... and further down the coast nearer Florida there are hurricanes and terrible humidity. The West Coast easily has the best weather as it's temperate all year round (well, except Seattle which is famous for its rain). However if you're thinking of the San Francisco Bay Area, the cost of living is pretty nuts as rents are very high. Take that into account when comparing salaries - $70K in Kansas would let you live like a king, whereas $120K in San Francisco will get you a closet with a view of a brick wall. Moving to Australia is probably visa-wise easier as you're a member of the Commonwealth, but I'm not familiar with particulars. The two places people seem to go are Sydney and Melbourne. The time difference to the UK is as bad as it can get, which can make it harder to keep in touch with UK relatives. Overall I hear pretty positive things from people who've moved there. The weather's nice, the people are friendly, it's a beautiful country, and the culture is essentially homogenous with the UK so there's no chance of culture shock.
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Apr 26, 2015 17:46
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A working visa for Australia is pretty easy if you get an offer from a company that will sponsor you. You probably want somewhere that has been through the process before though.
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Apr 28, 2015 06:57
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Any interest in SO Careers invites? I got an interview through it last month and I like that they have a handy PDF export feature that'll turn your profile into a fairly nice-looking resume.
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Apr 29, 2015 18:59
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MrMoo posted:The Agile Waterfall development model wins again. My team has taken to calling it "Scrummerfall".
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Apr 30, 2015 04:01
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I'm not exactly an oldie, but I need some advice. I'm currently implementing an upgrade to our servers, and it's mind-numbingly awful. The service we use for them is unintuitive and frustrating, and makes upgrading a huge pain. It's impossible to debug provisioning issues because of how goddamn long it takes to bring servers up. It also fancies itself a clone of git, yet it's nowhere near as (relatively) usable. Tracking changes to server templates is nigh impossible as a result  Reason I came here to complain is that I'm getting pretty disillusioned by it, due to a mix of feeling somewhat railroaded into this responsibility (whole other story) and just plain hating the work. Additionally, I see other people who started in the same group after I did move on to other groups while I'm still here, and it makes me feel like I'm somehow worse than them. I'm afraid of burning out early and I really want to be able to branch out and do different things, and I'm worried about this putting that in jeopardy. How do I prevent getting crappy jobs like these given to me in the future?
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May 5, 2015 00:07
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Pollyanna posted:I'm afraid of burning out early and I really want to be able to branch out and do different things, and I'm worried about this putting that in jeopardy. How do I prevent getting crappy jobs like these given to me in the future? You're always going to have to do some amount of crappy work. So the first thing I'd tell you is learn how to find value in the crappy work you're doing. Is there some nifty tool that is tangentially related to the problem that you could try to use to improve the process? Can you make a solid business case for switching off of this tool entirely? Your mindset about the work is responsible for a good chunk of your misery. The second piece depends on how valuable the work is to the business. Is this something where if you screw it up real dollars are on the line or is this just a "this needs to get done" type of project? If the former, you have it because your boss trust you. You can leverage that to get interesting projects down the road. If it's the latter, it may mean that you just drew the short straw or it could mean a lot of other less fortunate things. It's hard to say with what you've provided.
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May 5, 2015 00:24
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Another thing to keep in mind, though perhaps not as useful as what wins said, is to be careful volunteering things you know if you don't actually like doing them. I try not to bring up that I have experience working with things like VB, VB.NET, or Office Interop, because there is no way I want to do those things again.
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May 5, 2015 01:21
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wins32767 posted:Two points: I don't resent the work per se, or anyone who gave it to me; it's just that I'm running into a whole lot of frustrating roadblocks and inefficiencies that make it a chore to work with and that's leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth. It is a pretty important fix/upgrade (read: $ on the line), so it will certainly get done, and I'll make sure it's done well - but holy poo poo do we need to move onto another system pronto. Ultimately, I'm annoyed at the roadblocks and frustrations with the lovely-rear end server architecture as opposed to anyone or anything in particular. I understand and appreciate the level of trust placed in me to handle this, but man, I can't wait to get onto a more engaging feature crew (or at least on a project that isn't a huge mess).
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May 5, 2015 03:27
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Skandranon posted:Another thing to keep in mind, though perhaps not as useful as what wins said, is to be careful volunteering things you know if you don't actually like doing them. True, but also be aware that as time goes on things change. I used to hate, and be awful at, public speaking. Then I had to do some public speaking. It turns out at some point in the past 10 years, I actually magically became pretty good at it, and it was fun.
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May 5, 2015 04:52
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Mid level here. I'm working for a disorganized, older corp that has recently grown like a weed seemingly overnight and has decided to not waste money on terrible poo poo by contractors or a C-level's kid, so they're building a team and ran off the no-effort lazy people who were roosting here before. They even hired on a VP from Deutsche Bank who set up business continuity, devops, and other things like "handling disasters" or "handling changeovers that lead to outages." So far he's still working on it. Personally, I'm just a dev, but I'm the more people-oriented one among the new team. There are a few immediate problems I'm finding, and they all center around a lack of organization, a lack of people being on the same page - multiple divisions grabbing at resources like a game of hungry hungry hippos with no real central authority over who has what running on which server - and a lack of clear responsibility for certain people. Every morning we have a standing room only meeting that lasts nearly 30 minutes, and sometimes 45. This is not a 'scrum.' The manager for "MIS" does actually keep us clued in, though the lack of room and standing for that long to just have a chummy meeting is kind of a pain in the rear end. Then about an hour later, the PM for a project I'm working on has me go to her floor, sit down, and then have another babble session about the project I'm working on, which is a 'scrum' that runs 15 minutes or more. Said PM also often asks me what to do about things and I haven't been here long enough to know poo poo - not even two months! I'm now wondering what exactly a PM does and doesn't do, since she basically got promoted from Senior Dev to PM and decided to keep her crazy workaholic attitude. so she apparently is trying to do everything but write it herself. Being an old company they just DO that, apparently, but haven't considered that PM training might go with the promotion and bigger office. Another thing is that she has a thick accent and she's often very hard to understand, Peruvian spanish is apparently quite different from the other accents I've heard before. I really hope she becomes more distant and just gives me poo poo in writing eventually. I've since started selling a BA/Scrummaster I know to the business, since we're basically doing not-even-waterfall and terribly disorganized. I keep hoping that CIO will restructure poo poo so we have a team or a person in charge of the servers, so we don't have one division's sandbox hosting another's production stuff. I've also tried to explain to the PM what agile is, and in 40 minutes we're going to try to shirt size a sprint over two hours. I do not look forward to this but I hope it will pay off. Assuming that BA/Scrummaster comes by and helps clean things up, things will improve quickly, since she's good at that. If that doesn't happen, though, what can I do? Note: This is just a pit stop anyway. Unless I'm given a huge raise and the authority to really fix poo poo, and meet the love of my life, I'm moving to a big tech market by the fall, so this is just to learn the hard way if this is worth trying to fix.
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May 5, 2015 14:29
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Hard to say without knowing the number of people you're dealing with or your relation to who's calling the shots. That said it could be a really good opportunity to try some poo poo out, and have some good and bad experience to talk about when you move on. "Yeah we didn't have agile down at my previous workplace, these were the biggest issues, this is how I tried to remedy something and I learnt blah" is great to talk about in interviews. Start with the biggest impediments to your daily work that you can affect. The infrastructure stuff sounds like it'll be slow and maybe above your level so not worth your time if you aren't sticking around. The 45 minute stand up is obviously terrible, how many people are involved? Is it really just everyone doing the "yesterday, today, impediments"? I'd start with privately asking whoever's calling or mandating that meeting what the goal is, whether it's getting there, and if it's worth the cost. Start pushing the same stuff at the PM, "I know you're really busy, is me coming here every day taking your time worthwhile? Could I pop it in an weekly email for you?"
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May 5, 2015 15:38
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Space Whale posted:Note: This is just a pit stop anyway. Unless I'm given a huge raise and the authority to really fix poo poo, and meet the love of my life, I'm moving to a big tech market by the fall, so this is just to learn the hard way if this is worth trying to fix. Fall's not too far away, just roll with the punches and start getting some bullet points for your resume, and maybe learn how to nap standing up.
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May 5, 2015 15:48
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fritz posted:Fall's not too far away, just roll with the punches and start getting some bullet points for your resume, and maybe learn how to nap standing up. Hiding phone behind my knee during useless prattling about how/why or triplicate, detailed explanations of what a thing I know how to do does? Already got that down. I'm gonna try to sell the scrummaster I know on one of the needlessly needed managers, but like you said, roll and get the bullets then go. One thing I am curious about is how to tell a PM to distill down info to developers in a tactful way. The reason we have a PM is so that they can gather info and tell us what features to do and decide what features we are to do, not tell us all of the info you collected then tell us what we need to know, then ask if we agree with your decisions - right? Right? TWO HOURS to go over every little useless factoid about "hey make some DDLs, wait on me to do X,Y,Z to the database and keep making sure you understand $API_ENDPOINT" and then schedule a 4pm to 5pm "ok now we're just gonna do time estimates!" final sprint planning meeting seems a bit, well, bad.
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May 5, 2015 18:41
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Space Whale posted:Hiding phone behind my knee during useless prattling about how/why or triplicate, detailed explanations of what a thing I know how to do does? Already got that down. I'm gonna try to sell the scrummaster I know on one of the needlessly needed managers, but like you said, roll and get the bullets then go. Hey, if the PM wants to have meetings until everyone is bleeding from their ears, it's her show. Just make sure to point out you only have 3h/day to do actual work due to all the meetings and that is factored into your estimates on when things will get done.
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May 5, 2015 18:53
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Pollyanna posted:I don't resent the work per se, or anyone who gave it to me; it's just that I'm running into a whole lot of frustrating roadblocks and inefficiencies that make it a chore to work with and that's leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth. It is a pretty important fix/upgrade (read: $ on the line), so it will certainly get done, and I'll make sure it's done well - but holy poo poo do we need to move onto another system pronto. Being pissed off that you're doing bad or inefficient work is a good quality to have and it may be the reason you got the project in the first place. Your boss may be hoping that you figure out how to clean the mess up as part of the process. If you really want to show value, put together a business case about why you should move away from the current mess and include some different approaches: "Our current deployment mechanism creates several key risks to the business. For example, in the case of an urgent security fix needing to be applied... These issues combine to impose an ongoing of X developer hours/days per year as well as the unmitigated risks listed above. In order to improve the situation, there are several different options..." Obviously adjust the tone/content to fit your job.
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May 5, 2015 21:52
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I get direct recruiter emails constantly, around 2-3/week. It's very flattering, but so far I've just been ignoring them since I'm not currently planning to move for the next couple years or so. However I wouldn't mind keeping an open channel for later by responding to some of them and declining "for now", at least for the ones from in-house recruiters. Has anyone tried this?
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May 6, 2015 16:42
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Do you folks use your company's education assistance money? Certifications are bullshit but there are some courses I am interested in. Should I just take them non-matriculated? I feel like I'm losing out on free money and I've always been a pretty good "class" learner - I like the structure of it as opposed to approaching a new area completely on my own.
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May 6, 2015 16:46
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Seems like at least at the bigger companies, internal recruiters either often are contractors or it's a high turnover line of work anyway.
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May 6, 2015 16:53
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Good Will Hrunting posted:Do you folks use your company's education assistance money? Certifications are bullshit but there are some courses I am interested in. Should I just take them non-matriculated? I feel like I'm losing out on free money and I've always been a pretty good "class" learner - I like the structure of it as opposed to approaching a new area completely on my own. It seems like there's literally no drawback. As you said, it's free money. And whether or not certifications help, they can't hurt. Plus you get to learn cool new stuff and the skills themselves can help your career.
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May 6, 2015 17:40
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Progressive JPEG posted:I get direct recruiter emails constantly, around 2-3/week. It's very flattering, but so far I've just been ignoring them since I'm not currently planning to move for the next couple years or so. However I wouldn't mind keeping an open channel for later by responding to some of them and declining "for now", at least for the ones from in-house recruiters. Has anyone tried this? I respond to almost all recruiters this way, with a polite e-mail thanking them for thinking of me, explaining that I'm not currently looking but if I were what my requirements are and that I hope they'll think of me in the future. And then I wish them luck. This is assuming the recruiter seemed like they'd actually looked at my profile/resume rather than just blanket-messaging every LinkedIn member in existence.
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May 6, 2015 17:48
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Progressive JPEG posted:I get direct recruiter emails constantly, around 2-3/week. It's very flattering, but so far I've just been ignoring them since I'm not currently planning to move for the next couple years or so. However I wouldn't mind keeping an open channel for later by responding to some of them and declining "for now", at least for the ones from in-house recruiters. Has anyone tried this? I ignore the obvious key word search mass email for a 6 month contract in another state ones but if it is a local group that obviously took time to read my resume I'll email back or take the call and chat with them. I've had a couple take me out to lunch, even though I was clear about not looking around, to talk about the local user groups and upcoming events/talks.
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May 6, 2015 17:59
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Progressive JPEG posted:I get direct recruiter emails constantly, around 2-3/week. It's very flattering, but so far I've just been ignoring them since I'm not currently planning to move for the next couple years or so. However I wouldn't mind keeping an open channel for later by responding to some of them and declining "for now", at least for the ones from in-house recruiters. Has anyone tried this? Accept LinkedIn request then go silent.
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May 6, 2015 18:03
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Hughlander posted:Accept LinkedIn request then go silent. Do people accept LinkedIn friend requests from recruiters in general? I've always ignored them because I figured it was just a way for them to dig through my network for leads for free. Among those I know, it seems people are pretty polarized on this, I know folks who will accept every recruiter who sends a request, and others who will ignore 100% of the time.
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May 6, 2015 18:07
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kitten smoothie posted:Do people accept LinkedIn friend requests from recruiters in general? I've always ignored them because I figured it was just a way for them to dig through my network for leads for free. I do. A) I don't care if they mine my connections there's no link back to me. B) Recruiters have a lot of connections with other recruiters and hiring managers increasing your chance of showing up on a search by a great value. C) I occasionally see if my HR guy is paying attention and will accept a bunch of recruiter connections and change my profile.
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May 6, 2015 21:29
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My former boss called me today and offered me a job as a developer in a smallish (~200 person) company. When she left my current company (a megacorp) 6 months ago, I was promoted into her old position. After a rocky adjustment period, I've really started to enjoy being a manager and I'd like to continue on that path over the long term. However, this new offer would be for substantially more money (30-40%), in a city I want to relocate to, and would lead to a management job in 6-12 months provided the company continues on it's current growth trajectory. It sounds like a great offer assuming the company does well, but my concern is if it fails to continue to grow. Am I wrong in thinking that going from manager back to developer after 6 months would be an issue if I wanted to find another management job in a year if things don't work out?
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May 13, 2015 03:01
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wins32767 posted:My former boss called me today and offered me a job as a developer in a smallish (~200 person) company. When she left my current company (a megacorp) 6 months ago, I was promoted into her old position. After a rocky adjustment period, I've really started to enjoy being a manager and I'd like to continue on that path over the long term. However, this new offer would be for substantially more money (30-40%), in a city I want to relocate to, and would lead to a management job in 6-12 months provided the company continues on it's current growth trajectory. It sounds like a great offer assuming the company does well, but my concern is if it fails to continue to grow. Am I wrong in thinking that going from manager back to developer after 6 months would be an issue if I wanted to find another management job in a year if things don't work out? Unless you're clearly the oldest among your peers, and you feel the step back at this point in your career is problematic, the upsides just seem overwhelming here. That said, if you can get one such offer, maybe you can find more, including one where you stay in management. It sounds like you were actually pretty happy where you were and weren't shopping around when this offer came, so figuring out where the extra 40% comes from may be interesting.
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May 13, 2015 08:34
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