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Pixelboy
Sep 13, 2005

Now, I know what you're thinking...

apseudonym posted:

Nope, no policy like that AFAIK, just a delay between follow up applications if you get rejected.

Can confirm, I have friends that have swung at that ball waaaaayy more times than 3.

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Volguus
Mar 3, 2009

Pixelboy posted:

Can confirm, I have friends that have swung at that ball waaaaayy more times than 3.

They must really like google then. I had two interviews with them, failed both times, but I am not so sure that I would wanna try again. Just too drat long, eats the entire day. Start at 10am finish up at 3pm, sigh only to find a month later that "Please try again". Meh.

Pixelboy
Sep 13, 2005

Now, I know what you're thinking...

Volguus posted:

They must really like google then.

Funny what one will do for a $300k+ position.

Volguus
Mar 3, 2009

Pixelboy posted:

Funny what one will do for a $300k+ position.

Hah. Sure they have positions that pay 300k (and more, a lot more), but to think you'll get in there right away, hahahaha, got news for you. At least here in :canada: they start at 120k+ . Still good money, no question about it, but nowhere near that mythical 300k.

mrmcd
Feb 22, 2003

Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Volguus posted:

Hah. Sure they have positions that pay 300k (and more, a lot more), but to think you'll get in there right away, hahahaha, got news for you. At least here in :canada: they start at 120k+ . Still good money, no question about it, but nowhere near that mythical 300k.

That's total comp when you include bonus and RSUs. But the highest salaries are generally in Bay Area and NYC, yes.

apseudonym
Feb 25, 2011

mrmcd posted:

That's total comp when you include bonus and RSUs. But the highest salaries are generally in Bay Area and NYC, yes.

Yeah only look at big companies salary is a bit much, RSUs aren't certain but they're not exactly the toilet paper that is startup stock.

Volguus posted:

Hah. Sure they have positions that pay 300k (and more, a lot more), but to think you'll get in there right away, hahahaha, got news for you. At least here in :canada: they start at 120k+ . Still good money, no question about it, but nowhere near that mythical 300k.

Total? Bay cost of living is insane and all but I was making >300k before becoming a senior SWE.

geeves
Sep 16, 2004

There's a VP of Engineering post for a pretty well-known company to which I am applying. These don't pop up often (especially my city) so I'm going for it - what the hell?

I have never managed people before, BUT as a Principal Engineer and Team Lead, I have mentored nearly every engineer on my team. I work with the C-Suite often so I have no qualms about that. I've also written business cases for improvement to our application.

I know the full stack from sysadmin / devops to the front end and I know how to lean on and delegate tasks to those best suited for it (and when to delegate tasks to those to learn). I know when someone is bullshitting me vs when someone just needs to be pointed in the right direction.

What I'm worried about is becoming less hands off with code which I still love to do even with my long term goal of getting to the CTO level.

The description, despite the level, is everything that I do today, technology advocate, technology direction, etc.

It's not sure of if it's a question of if I'm ready... or more a question of if I really want this. It's the weekend so I have time.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

geeves posted:

What I'm worried about is becoming less hands off with code which I still love to do even with my long term goal of getting to the CTO level.

If you're aiming for C-level, you're gonna have to say goodbye to coding at some point.

hendersa
Sep 17, 2006

geeves posted:

What I'm worried about is becoming less hands off with code which I still love to do even with my long term goal of getting to the CTO level.
As a VP of Engineering, you will not do technical development. Period. If a company asks you to do such, you should decline the opportunity as it suggests mismanagement at higher levels. Simply put, that won't be your job anymore. Your job is to manage the managers that manage the doers. You are given direction from the president to arrange manpower, resources, and schedules within the engineering portion of the business as laid out per the business plan that was designed by the C-level staff and approved by the board of directors.

If you understand the technology, that's great. It will enable you to better communicate with your direct reports and better communicate the company's needs to them in such a way that it will make "sense" when passed down to the technical doers. If you have a reputation as being a strong engineer, that's great. It will give you some street cred with the doers and give them the feeling that someone in upper management understands the nuts and bolts of what they do.

Realistically, you're going to be repeatedly placed in the position of dealing with problems that you are unable to directly solve by getting hands-on. If you are a hands-on person, this is incredibly frustrating. You must rely upon your staff to actually fix things. For example, a big customer has a problem and complains directly to upper management via sales channels. You are told from upper management to get it fixed ASAP, but your staff are already overloaded because you have 10 job reqs sitting open and incoming resumes have been garbage. Something's got to give, so what is it going to be? What project is going to slip? Will the managers/developers actually support the context change and jump right on it to help? Will it generate lots of trash talk about marketing/sales from the doers and lower morale?

Ever had a bad manager that was really good at the tech stuff and awful at managing people? Those bad managers are now acting as your eyes, ears, and hands if you are the VP. Can you deal with that? Can you mentor bad managers into good ones? Can you spot good management skills in others and buoy them up via management training?

I would be quite nervous about any such opportunity until I could get the full story on how the position became vacant. A healthy organization should already have a senior manager or director that has been groomed for a VP position and is ready to step up. VP positions don't suddenly become available on the open market, bypassing a succession plan, unless something is going wrong.

2nd Rate Poster
Mar 25, 2004

i started a joke
The above post is correct and the interview might prove difficult if the above isn't immediately obvious.

That being said, a good way to leap frog into a permanent VP role is to start off with the title at a lovely place.

feedmegin
Jul 30, 2008

geeves posted:

There's a VP of Engineering post for a pretty well-known company to which I am applying. These don't pop up often (especially my city) so I'm going for it - what the hell?

I have never managed people before

This alone seems a bit alarming. How big is this well known company?

Keetron
Sep 26, 2008

Check out my enormous testicles in my TFLC log!

Weird thing happened this week, seems I recruited a recruiter.

All started off pretty weird, he called me a formal (local) version of you, like "sir" so something was off from the beginning and I asked him to be less formal as I am 40 and feel conflicted enough already. He mentioned he is 22 now and he is polite out of habit.
We talked a bit and he tried to interest me in a position where I would join a consultancy on a 1-year contract and would basically leave my current independent contracting gigs behind. I told him this is a bad deal for me on several levels and I am not interested in allowing some faceless corp to have all the margin. Not in the economy we are having, being a developer is to good, why should I limit myself? Somehow I mentioned how I became a dev, which is by sheer luck and bluff and some clarity of mind in looking at profitable career paths that don't require some sort of degree but where self-taught is accepted.

By now he started asking questions like, what resources did you use, how did you teach yourself to program? I said: Youtube, Bucky Roberts has a bunch of video's online and they will teach you the basics. After that it is just practice and persistence and a bunch of bluff to land a first gig and now I am making a ton of money without trying very hard.

He made a bunch of notes and thanked me for my time, he had a lot to think about this weekend. Considering he just started working after his degree, he was uncertain what direction to go into.

Maybe I saved a life!

geeves
Sep 16, 2004

hendersa posted:

As a VP of Engineering, you will not do technical development. Period. If a company asks you to do such, you should decline the opportunity as it suggests mismanagement at higher levels. Simply put, that won't be your job anymore. Your job is to manage the managers that manage the doers. You are given direction from the president to arrange manpower, resources, and schedules within the engineering portion of the business as laid out per the business plan that was designed by the C-level staff and approved by the board of directors.

If you understand the technology, that's great. It will enable you to better communicate with your direct reports and better communicate the company's needs to them in such a way that it will make "sense" when passed down to the technical doers. If you have a reputation as being a strong engineer, that's great. It will give you some street cred with the doers and give them the feeling that someone in upper management understands the nuts and bolts of what they do.

Realistically, you're going to be repeatedly placed in the position of dealing with problems that you are unable to directly solve by getting hands-on. If you are a hands-on person, this is incredibly frustrating. You must rely upon your staff to actually fix things. For example, a big customer has a problem and complains directly to upper management via sales channels. You are told from upper management to get it fixed ASAP, but your staff are already overloaded because you have 10 job reqs sitting open and incoming resumes have been garbage. Something's got to give, so what is it going to be? What project is going to slip? Will the managers/developers actually support the context change and jump right on it to help? Will it generate lots of trash talk about marketing/sales from the doers and lower morale?

Ever had a bad manager that was really good at the tech stuff and awful at managing people? Those bad managers are now acting as your eyes, ears, and hands if you are the VP. Can you deal with that? Can you mentor bad managers into good ones? Can you spot good management skills in others and buoy them up via management training?

I would be quite nervous about any such opportunity until I could get the full story on how the position became vacant. A healthy organization should already have a senior manager or director that has been groomed for a VP position and is ready to step up. VP positions don't suddenly become available on the open market, bypassing a succession plan, unless something is going wrong.

Thanks! This is pretty much my expectation of what should happen as well. I work at small company and the VP of engineering here used to do a lot of hands on coding but isn't as hands on these days as we've grown a bit. I've already been through letting go of bits of the codebase that I put significant time into and I know that will only continue to happen.

The potential job is another small company ~200 or so in size. So if the VP role is anything similar to my company's current position, I think I have a good view into what goes into it.

Outside of a 6-month stint many, many years ago, I've been fortunate to have really good managers and mentors throughout my career and I hope that I've been learning the right lessons. (and that stint wasn't a bad person, I was just ignored with no direction).

Could I mentor bad managers that are bad managers because they don't know what they're doing with others or just need to work on the soft skills - I think I could do that - that's what 1 on 1s are for. Could I mentor bad managers that are assholes? Doubtful because they aren't wont to change. I like "no rear end in a top hat" policies even if unofficial.

I'm still going to apply for it and see what happens. If anything it will show me what I need to work on the next year or so to get there.

feedmegin posted:

This alone seems a bit alarming. How big is this well known company?

I know. About 200 total employees. And I know I have nothing outside of mentoring junior devs to show for it. However, often times, they come to me before going to their manager on issues. And I'm not talking about bugs, more team dynamics, company politics, etc. I also act as a buffer given my role and tell the product owner it's on my shoulders for a project's success and failure. But I know that's not management. That's just me knowing I will get poo poo done.

I've always been in startup culture a second too late. So all of the management positions are rare for the companies that attract my interest. I should already have been managing people now, but there were some circumstances that prevented me from taking one of those roles in my own company and I accept that (it wasn't performance-based, I was recovering from surgery when someone left and that role needed to be filled now). The role I wanted a few years ago the person who was brought it is great, don't get me wrong. But really I don't think it was the best move for the company in the long run.

hendersa posted:

I would be quite nervous about any such opportunity until I could get the full story on how the position became vacant. A healthy organization should already have a senior manager or director that has been groomed for a VP position and is ready to step up. VP positions don't suddenly become available on the open market, bypassing a succession plan, unless something is going wrong.

I am too. The company: I know someone there, so I'm trying to get more info on this and it will be a major talking point on what's going on.

geeves fucked around with this message at 02:43 on Feb 25, 2018

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


geeves posted:

Could I mentor bad managers that are bad managers because they don't know what they're doing with others or just need to work on the soft skills - I think I could do that - that's what 1 on 1s are for. Could I mentor bad managers that are assholes? Doubtful because they aren't wont to change. I like "no rear end in a top hat" policies even if unofficial.

How will you tell the difference? The bad managers who are assholes will generally be trying to keep you from learning that fact, so it's not easy.

CPColin
Sep 9, 2003

Big ol' smile.

Keetron posted:

Weird thing happened this week, seems I recruited a recruiter.

All started off pretty weird, he called me a formal (local) version of you, like "sir" so something was off from the beginning and I asked him to be less formal as I am 40 and feel conflicted enough already. He mentioned he is 22 now and he is polite out of habit.

You're in Holland, right? I'm half-Dutch and curious what he called you. Was it "u" and is that out of fashion nowadays?

Keetron
Sep 26, 2008

Check out my enormous testicles in my TFLC log!

CPColin posted:

You're in Holland, right? I'm half-Dutch and curious what he called you. Was it "u" and is that out of fashion nowadays?

Yup, that was it. It makes a manperson feel old instantly.
And I would not call it out of fashion but it very definitely creates a separation of stature between the giver and receiver. I also use "u" when someone is being a dick and I want to distance myself, in which case I will become very formal and polite. Language is fun.

mrmcd
Feb 22, 2003

Pictured: The only good cop (a fictional one).

Keetron posted:

Yup, that was it. It makes a manperson feel old instantly.
And I would not call it out of fashion but it very definitely creates a separation of stature between the giver and receiver. I also use "u" when someone is being a dick and I want to distance myself, in which case I will become very formal and polite. Language is fun.

Since English doesn't really have formal vs informal pronouns, it's especially funny that in Dutch you can go around being all: u mad? u mad bro?

Good Will Hrunting
Oct 8, 2012

I changed my mind.
I'm not sorry.
What in the Java concurrency ecosystem would you ask a developer with ~4 years of experience? I haven't touched util.concurrent in a while since I've been doing 99% Spark stuff now but most of the microservice-y jobs I've been looking at stress great knowledge there and I'm definitely not as quick/knowledgable as I was 2 years ago. I could really use some tips on how to review it, most of the things that pop in my head are trivia type questions and I'm not sure what kind of system design questions I'd get that I can prep for.

geeves
Sep 16, 2004

Good Will Hrunting posted:

What in the Java concurrency ecosystem would you ask a developer with ~4 years of experience? I haven't touched util.concurrent in a while since I've been doing 99% Spark stuff now but most of the microservice-y jobs I've been looking at stress great knowledge there and I'm definitely not as quick/knowledgable as I was 2 years ago. I could really use some tips on how to review it, most of the things that pop in my head are trivia type questions and I'm not sure what kind of system design questions I'd get that I can prep for.

Not too much. I have run into threading and concurrency issues, but they are so rare for what I've done that I haven't done much more than knowing to use ConcurrentHashMap more often as a just in case.

If you've read Java Concurrency in Practice, you can probably pick a couple of questions there.

Good Will Hrunting
Oct 8, 2012

I changed my mind.
I'm not sorry.
JCIP has been on my list for so long (second only to this) so thanks for the reminder. I've dabbled a bit and picked it up a few times but it's probably the ideal time for me to just power through it. Plus, I enjoy this material so it's not an issue. Goetz had mentioned a while back he was "planning" on an update for fork join and some Java 8 related things but I'm not sure he ever got to it.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


Can you describe the difference between processes and threads? Can you describe the basic thread synchronization mechanisms and talk about what each one does? Can you describe a solution to the dining philosophers problem? How about several? Can you write a thread-safe queue? Can you design a thread pool that won't starve its workers or deadlock? Those are probably more important than knowing the specifics of any one language's library.

Edit: I misread the question and thought you were asking for yourself. All of these are reasonable questions from either side of the interview, but will you be able to tell the difference between a right and an almost right answer?

ultrafilter fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Feb 26, 2018

BurntCornMuffin
Jan 9, 2009


Good Will Hrunting posted:

What in the Java concurrency ecosystem would you ask a developer with ~4 years of experience? I haven't touched util.concurrent in a while since I've been doing 99% Spark stuff now but most of the microservice-y jobs I've been looking at stress great knowledge there and I'm definitely not as quick/knowledgable as I was 2 years ago. I could really use some tips on how to review it, most of the things that pop in my head are trivia type questions and I'm not sure what kind of system design questions I'd get that I can prep for.

Maybe work him over on the CompleteableFutures API? It might not be crunchy, since the API abstracts the usual topics pretty hard, but at least you can tell how well he keeps up to date with language features.

geeves
Sep 16, 2004

ultrafilter posted:

How will you tell the difference? The bad managers who are assholes will generally be trying to keep you from learning that fact, so it's not easy.

Agreed, it might not always be easy. I think empathy and accessibility go a long way and if you foster the right type of environment people won't stand for the wrong kinds of management or they will feel empowered to work alternate channels to effect change. Maybe that's idealistic. But a easier plan may be to simply get to know everyone. This is easier in a smaller company, obviously, but jesus, the poo poo I know about everyone in the company just talking with a coworkers is astounding.

Good Will Hrunting
Oct 8, 2012

I changed my mind.
I'm not sorry.
Oh yeah I am the developer with 4 years of experience lol, the question was for me. Thanks folks.

BurntCornMuffin posted:

Maybe work him over on the CompleteableFutures API? It might not be crunchy, since the API abstracts the usual topics pretty hard, but at least you can tell how well he keeps up to date with language features.

Used this a lot at my last job, definitely planning on reviewing though.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Ugh, the more I think about it the worse I feel that I'm coming up on 3.5~4 years of experience. I feel like I'm not nearly good enough to claim that I'm that experienced, cause I'm not that great even with that # of years.

fantastic in plastic
Jun 15, 2007

The Socialist Workers Party's newspaper proved to be a tough sell to downtown businessmen.
Well, your options are either give yourself more credit for your accomplishments so far, or go do something else that you're good at. I don't know which of those works better for you.

TooMuchAbstraction
Oct 14, 2012

I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.
Fun Shoe

Pollyanna posted:

Ugh, the more I think about it the worse I feel that I'm coming up on 3.5~4 years of experience. I feel like I'm not nearly good enough to claim that I'm that experienced, cause I'm not that great even with that # of years.

You have two options: either you have impostor syndrome, or you really do suck. I recommend assuming the former. In particular, I suspect you have a somewhat inflated idea of how capable someone with 3-4 years' worth of experience should be.

pokeyman
Nov 26, 2006

That elephant ate my entire platoon.

Pollyanna posted:

Ugh, the more I think about it the worse I feel that I'm coming up on 3.5~4 years of experience. I feel like I'm not nearly good enough to claim that I'm that experienced, cause I'm not that great even with that # of years.

Years measures time, not quality or experience.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


If you're making progress, somewhere around two to four years in is where you start to realize just how much further you have to go. Embrace the suck and keep pushing yourself to get better.

BurntCornMuffin
Jan 9, 2009


Pollyanna posted:

Ugh, the more I think about it the worse I feel that I'm coming up on 3.5~4 years of experience. I feel like I'm not nearly good enough to claim that I'm that experienced, cause I'm not that great even with that # of years.

Part of being good at this field is realizing that there is far too much content and development to realistically not be clueless about the vast majority of it all. If you know your fundamentals, and can leverage them to get up to speed on a new technology, language or api quickly, then you have everything you need for the job. When you start being able to leverage similarities between things you messed with in the past to comprehend the new shiny thing you're working with faster, you can claim experience.

BurntCornMuffin fucked around with this message at 04:37 on Feb 26, 2018

hendersa
Sep 17, 2006

ultrafilter posted:

If you're making progress, somewhere around two to four years in is where you start to realize just how much further you have to go. Embrace the suck and keep pushing yourself to get better.



One of the best indicators of how well you're coming along is how mortified you feel when you think back to how much worse you were only two or three years ago. If you're doing it right and always learning and pushing yourself, well... that feeling probably won't ever go away.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


It makes sense that this is normal, but it sure as hell doesn't help when I compare myself to others. :( Maybe that in itself is the problem.

Reason I ask all this is that I've got an offer! It's with a smaller startup that works on an interesting product with cool problems to solve and tech to work on, but it's also one of those startups that has like 6 months of runway and a somewhat skewed work-life balance from what I can tell. It was my top pick for a while until I got to thinking that a larger, more established company would be better for me - and there's a couple companies like that in the area that I'm interested in and that I'm setting up technical interviews with this week. I'm torn between saying gently caress it and taking the first offer, or holding out to see whether these two upcoming ones are good fits before I make a decision.

Some advice I've gotten for my situation is to accept the first one and continue interviewing, and if the other ones have more compelling offers I should just jump ship from the first one. Is that advisable? Bailing on a company just as I join it sounds pretty horrible.

TL;DR pros and cons of the new offer are that it's interesting and has more opportunity for improving skills, but is a less established startup and work-life balance is a bit egh. I'm a bit reticent to accept offers at a smaller startup given my previous experience, should I go for it anyway?

Good Will Hrunting
Oct 8, 2012

I changed my mind.
I'm not sorry.
Best case: It's good
Worst case: It's bad and you leave

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Good Will Hrunting posted:

Best case: It's good
Worst case: It's bad and you leave

Actually, worst case: they figure out I suck and fire me, but that's not realistic, so...yeah, basically. I'm more concerned about the optics of leaving a job I've already accepted if it comes to that, which I think is a bit poo poo. But given the geohell we live in, I shouldn't feel so bad about that.

Jose Valasquez
Apr 8, 2005

Pollyanna posted:

It makes sense that this is normal, but it sure as hell doesn't help when I compare myself to others. :( Maybe that in itself is the problem.

Reason I ask all this is that I've got an offer! It's with a smaller startup that works on an interesting product with cool problems to solve and tech to work on, but it's also one of those startups that has like 6 months of runway and a somewhat skewed work-life balance from what I can tell. It was my top pick for a while until I got to thinking that a larger, more established company would be better for me - and there's a couple companies like that in the area that I'm interested in and that I'm setting up technical interviews with this week. I'm torn between saying gently caress it and taking the first offer, or holding out to see whether these two upcoming ones are good fits before I make a decision.

Some advice I've gotten for my situation is to accept the first one and continue interviewing, and if the other ones have more compelling offers I should just jump ship from the first one. Is that advisable? Bailing on a company just as I join it sounds pretty horrible.

TL;DR pros and cons of the new offer are that it's interesting and has more opportunity for improving skills, but is a less established startup and work-life balance is a bit egh. I'm a bit reticent to accept offers at a smaller startup given my previous experience, should I go for it anyway?

Wasn't one of the big issues with your last job the expectation of working more than 40 hours per week?

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Jose Valasquez posted:

Wasn't one of the big issues with your last job the expectation of working more than 40 hours per week?

It was, yes, and the fact that it wasn't communicated well that I wasn't interested in doing that - that's one of the sticking points to the offer. If it wasn't the case that people at the company regularly worked 12+ hour days and felt pressured to do so, then it wouldn't have been so bad - and that's not the case at the current offer, but some stuff they've said gives me pause.

Good Will Hrunting
Oct 8, 2012

I changed my mind.
I'm not sorry.

Pollyanna posted:

Actually, worst case: they figure out I suck and fire me,

No, the job sucking is worse than this. Trust me.

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


At least with a sucky job, you get paid. :shrug: Though you pay back in your sanity. Alright, I see your point. I think I'll communicate my sticking point with them before I accept the offer, and see what happens - does that sound reasonable?

Good Will Hrunting
Oct 8, 2012

I changed my mind.
I'm not sorry.
With unemployment you get paid, albeit only a little, to look for a new job full-time! You can also invest in yourself full-time, which is absolutely more efficient in terms of finding a new job (with a non-zero chance of being good or bad) than sticking in a poo poo job (zero chance of being good, non-zero chance of being bad).

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Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Unemployment payment is alright, true. As long as you actually DO invest in yourself fulltime and don't just play video games all day :v:

Okay, I guess the plan is to accept the offer and if another company comes by with a more compelling offer (which is basically more stability+better work/life balance) then I'll take it.

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