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Presto posted:Careful. Expertise counts for exactly poo poo these days. My last company had a Navy contract since forever. We were the experts. We lost the contract because another company underbid us by a couple million dollars. The bid was so low the government awarded them the contract but said they didn't think the company could do the work for the bid amount and tacked on some extra money. Fair point, but even so I don't think the company would be like, oh no we're immediately out of business. There'd be time to see the ship sink. Mniot posted:It's hard to really know without actually seeing you at work, but I feel like "I'm bored" and "I'm not learning anything" are not a good combination. Why isn't this something you can fix? Two ideas: The big issue is ultimately that my company is *ridiculous* about testing absolutely every minute change (not inherently a bad thing) and we just don't have the resources to do the testing that my boss would want to do. I spent almost a year using some code analysis tool (blanking on the name right now) - we opened up a new branch in SVN for this tool explicitly, but by the time we made all the changes there was too much to test and we scrapped it, returning to the old code base and just doing our annually mandated tweaks to that codebase. Also, I should clarify. This company is a very small company (~60 people between IT, clinical, and all the other departments). They primarily contract a code writing firm in India to do major projects - including initially writing the application. Then I just do bug fixes, smaller scale new functionality and things like that. So if I want to include some new framework, then we also need to give that to India so when we need them in the future then our projects will match. So I guess I wouldn't say that I'm micro-managed, it's just that there's tons of red tape. I think you have a really good point about "not relying on the employer to hand you interesting work" though. I mean, whenever I do get new stuff to do (rather than bug fixing) I try to do it as well as I can while still maintaining our practices, but sometimes you can only do so much. I think I'm going to at least start interviewing. Worst case scenario I just stay where I am 
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Sep 10, 2018 01:42
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Never not be interviewing.
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Sep 10, 2018 15:53
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Keetron posted:Never not be interviewing. That sounds stressful.
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Sep 11, 2018 19:22
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If I had a choice I would never interview again, it sucks and job hunting sucks.
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Sep 11, 2018 20:18
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Portland Sucks posted:That sounds stressful. It can be at first, but then once you realize you don't care if you get the job offer or not the whole experience becomes much more chill and possibly enlightening. The questions others ask of you can be informative to larger trends or even deficiencies of your own resume. I've been taking regular interviews for a while and there are two places that if I decided I wanted to do a new thing I could call and have an offer immediately because of it.
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Sep 12, 2018 00:18
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Keetron posted:Never not be interviewing.
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Sep 12, 2018 04:03
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SardonicTyrant posted:So like, keep interviewing even if you already have a job? The thing is that when you have been at a place for a while (very relevant to this thread), you will decrease a few things if you do not keep your interview game up. Things like network, interviewing skills and simple knowledge of what is out there in terms of job market. If you do not keep this up and the eventual downturn, right-sizing or plain bankruptcy happens, you are without options and have to start from scratch. Now as a software developer you think yourself invulnerable to this but imagine you have been working at the same company for a while on a dead-end tech without realising it. You only find out what is current in your local hiring market by talking to those doing the hiring. The half-life of a recruiter is only something like 12 months, so you get to know those who stick around and are worth a bit more so you connect to those and have conversations every 6 to 9 months. Other prime benefit is interviewing skills and experience, by being relaxed about the whole process. Disclaimer: I work as a contractor so keeping a warm network of those who are looking for developers is kinda in my job description.
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Sep 12, 2018 06:00
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Definitely agree that interviewing is way less stressful when you already have a job, rather than being unemployed and needing a job. But it still sucks, in my opinion. Also I often have fairly regular doctor appointments between seeing a counselor and some extensive dental work, so trying to take even more "sick time" so that I can interview is a huge pain in the butt Sab669 fucked around with this message at 13:30 on Sep 12, 2018 |
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Sep 12, 2018 13:22
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Sab669 posted:Definitely agree that interviewing is way less stressful when you already have a job, rather than being unemployed and needing a job. But it still sucks, in my opinion. it also gives you more freedom. yesterday, in a job interview, someone asked me, literally, "do you know the difference between a left join, right join, inner join, outer join." He didn't ask what the difference was, he just asked if I knew it, so I decided to be literal and say "yes", in a slightly annoyed, joking manner, and we immediately moved on me babbling about the different kinds of orms. if i didn't have a job, i feel like i'd be forced to answer questions like that if i were a trained seal.
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Sep 12, 2018 14:15
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Situation at my job is getting weirder and weirder. Still can't hire anyone because we offer Greenville, South Carolina salaries for a job in Denver. I'm now the only BI Developer at my billion dollar company. Last week, I got sat down by our Director of Data Science (boss's boss) and told that our Data Architect had "failed to handle our integration" with the $100m+ dollar company we bought, and wanted me to "please act as the architect for our data integration. Take it over completely, you are the owner of this project." The DA has been openly arguing with him for the last couple weeks over reasonable things, like "You just gave us a two week deadline on a project with 300 hours of work, for me and one developer." So now I'm the single BI developer, and acting data architect for our highest profile project.  edit: also shoutout to anyone else who has to conduct technical interviews.. I'm doing a dozen a week right now, and mother of god is it awkward when you interview someone claiming multiple years experience and they can't explain the most basic concepts of your language. I had a woman with three years SQL experience tell me that a "having" clause was "just like a where but more specific" Loutre fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Sep 23, 2018 |
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Sep 23, 2018 00:38
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Loutre posted:edit: also shoutout to anyone else who has to conduct technical interviews.. I'm doing a dozen a week right now, and mother of god is it awkward when you interview someone claiming multiple years experience and they can't explain the most basic concepts of your language. I had a woman with three years SQL experience tell me that a "having" clause was "just like a where but more specific" I've had people with over a decade of experience fail to be able to sanely calculate the distance between two points on a 2D grid. I have to assume that there's a large body of developers out there that basically download code off the Internet that sounds like it's related to what they're trying to do, and then tweak it until the compiler/interpreter stops complaining. The ability to understand a problem and devise a solution ex nihilo just doesn't enter their worldview. Good luck with those increased responsibilities. I hope they come with a pay bump. The paranoid in me says you may be being set up for failure. Watch out for that architect too, because they might be peeved at you.
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Sep 23, 2018 00:55
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I've had people with over a decade of experience fail to be able to sanely calculate the distance between two points on a 2D grid. I have to assume that there's a large body of developers out there that basically download code off the Internet that sounds like it's related to what they're trying to do, and then tweak it until the compiler/interpreter stops complaining. The ability to understand a problem and devise a solution ex nihilo just doesn't enter their worldview. I'm friends with the Data Architect. He's smart, 30 years experience, and he's in a situation where he can easily just hop ship to another company. He's not taking it pettily, he's been honest about how our projects are going - after we switched he immediately gave me every piece of info he had on the project and has been openly answering all my questions. I could be being set up to fail for sure; I reviewed the project timeline he was working off of and it was unreasonable given that he was not only the DA but the only developer on his project. The new timeline "we" agreed on for the project is theoretically reasonable, but has four or five different features that rely on the data being as we expect. I basically have a 1/5 chance of this project following estimates and being reasonable, and a 4/5 chance that we'll find out "add sales by product channel" means a separate, 40 hour project of translating Japanese data.
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Sep 23, 2018 01:17
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Back on hiring-decision chat though, I recently told my boss to give up on hiring mid and senior level developers unless they're clearly desperate. It's much easier to hire someone straight out of college for 5k~ under average, than to hire a mid or senior who knows what they're doing for 10k under. I've seen so many straight-out-of-college guys end up amazing developers in less than 6 months, I've never seen a "mid level developer", with poor technical interviews, without some extenuating circumstances, become an amazing developer. Dunno about you guys. Loutre fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Sep 23, 2018 |
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Sep 23, 2018 01:23
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Isn't a mid level developer just someone with a certain amount of experience? That's what it sounds like from the first part of your post.
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Sep 23, 2018 01:28
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ultrafilter posted:Isn't a mid level developer just someone with a certain amount of experience? That's what it sounds like from the first part of your post. That's exactly what it is. And the expectation is that anyone with that level of experience can simply receive "Add column X to stored procedure Y so that the Sales team can do analysis Z", can do that. The problem is that my company has a payscale that doesn't equate with where we're hiring (Denver Tech Center). So because we pay so low, I'm interviewing basically the worst mid-level developers, who technically have the years of experience to do it, but demonstrably don't know a god damned thing about their job. Edit: and i don't hold it against them, we're hiring at 75% asking price for a decent dev. But I'm the one in the situation of solo developer and acting architect. I have to bring in people who I don't spent more time teaching/managing than I do directing. It's just pure poo poo all around, I don't want to be minmaxing my hiring based off of ripping people off, I want to find people who are early in their careers and help them become senior devs/supervisors or whatever they're going for. It's just a pure poo poo situation. Loutre fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Sep 23, 2018 |
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Sep 23, 2018 02:27
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I dunno man, I think you're also screwed trying to underpay new hires too because they'll just leave right when they're getting good if they're that low beyond the rate. You're otherwise preying on people with, like, the lowest self-esteem in a group already plagued by a terms like "imposter syndrome." Also, you're talking about Denver versus South Carolina here. Are you in South Carolina? If so, do you really intend to be able to mentor somebody across the country like that?
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Sep 23, 2018 04:45
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:I dunno man, I think you're also screwed trying to underpay new hires too because they'll just leave right when they're getting good I mean a revolving door of new hires who leave after 1 year would have the added benefit of your onboarding process getting really polished... and Loutre's mentoring skills getting way better... Loutre, I don't know if you're being set up to fail or if your upper management is just incompetent and unable to read the writing on the wall. But you definitely aren't being set up to succeed. Would you rather be the dev who just manages to get something barely working against all odds, or a dev whose projects are well planned and well funded, where you have a chance to do something actually high quality and superlative?
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Sep 23, 2018 13:33
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vonnegutt posted:I mean a revolving door of new hires who leave after 1 year would have the added benefit of your onboarding process getting really polished... and Loutre's mentoring skills getting way better... I'd rather the latter, of course. I just don't have the option to look at other offers right now. We talked about it earlier in the thread, even with a signing bonus at a new place, I basically have to have the cash on hand to pay off my moving bonus pre-tax, which I just don't (medical bills). But the other thing is that doing this project puts me firmly in Data Architect territory, which is the end-goal of my career. Even if they won't give me the title for it, I can highlight the project/my acting role on future applications for Architect jobs. So I'll be getting something out of it no matter what - I need something to help me bridge the gap from Senior Dev to Data Architect. On the other thing, I don't want to be loving over juniors either, I don't set salaries. I guess I feel less bad offering a 22 year old 65k than a 35 year old 75k? On the upside, there is a rumor that my company is finally going to conduct a regional salary analysis. Our sister division, the web dev team, was originally our CIO's separate company, so when they had trouble hiring a QA person, suddenly fixing our payscale was a priority. Edit: oh and I just like working with smart, totally new developers. I love to teach, mentoring is one of my favorite job duties, and I think I'm pretty good at it. Even if it ends up adding to my workload for a while. Loutre fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Sep 23, 2018 |
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Sep 23, 2018 13:52
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Code comments like these are how you know you are working with reliable professionalscode:By copying I obviously mean I plan to abstract it out into functions which can be invoked everywhere it is needed instead of just blindly pasting and doubling the maintenance needed in the future.
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Sep 24, 2018 22:55
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LLSix posted:By copying I obviously mean I plan to abstract it out into functions which can be invoked everywhere it is needed You monster!
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Sep 24, 2018 23:07
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LLSix posted:Code comments like these are how you know you are working with reliable professionals Just wait until you see that at least 2 of the copy/pastes have different logic that breaks in subtle ways if you invoke a generic version.
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Sep 25, 2018 01:34
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Or how they're integrated with the source file that they're in.
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Sep 25, 2018 01:36
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Keetron posted:Absolutely. Not in a "I really need this job, please hire me" but more "let's see where this goes".
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Sep 25, 2018 21:36
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SardonicTyrant posted:I'll try doing this. So what do you do if you end up getting an offer? What should you say? If you like the offer, take it. If you don't like it or simply don't want to change right now, politely decline. You dont have to provide a reason for declining the offer.
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Sep 25, 2018 22:07
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You don't have to be sneaky, either. I tell the recruiter, "I'm totally happy with my current job, but I like to keep my options open and this sounded interesting."
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Sep 26, 2018 03:57
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code:
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Sep 26, 2018 16:07
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Anybody know of a good course on Project Management, preferably non-video? Lynda is a loving shitheap. I'm desperate to add some PM knowledge to this organization, aside from my boss's alleged PMP certification.
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Sep 26, 2018 16:22
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CPColin posted:Anybody know of a good course on Project Management, preferably non-video? Lynda is a loving shitheap. I'm desperate to add some PM knowledge to this organization, aside from my boss's alleged PMP certification. I'd like to know too. Been reading Rapid Development by Steve McConnell for this purpose.
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Sep 26, 2018 18:35
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lifg posted:Steve McConnell His other book, Software Project Survival Guide, has been important for my career growth after not knowing anything about how to run a project
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Sep 26, 2018 18:54
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Hey sweet I work on-campus and the library has both of these books on the shelf right now!
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Sep 26, 2018 18:58
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CPColin posted:Anybody know of a good course on Project Management, preferably non-video? Lynda is a loving shitheap. I'm desperate to add some PM knowledge to this organization, aside from my boss's alleged PMP certification. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6278270-the-principles-of-product-development-flow
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Sep 26, 2018 19:16
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CPColin posted:Anybody know of a good course on Project Management, preferably non-video? Lynda is a loving shitheap. I'm desperate to add some PM knowledge to this organization, aside from my boss's alleged PMP certification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Key_principles
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Sep 29, 2018 14:40
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Supposedly getting an offer soon, having been interviewed and vouched for by the superstar of this team and another member who is ramping down as (basically) "the only person we know who can replace $LEAVING_TEAMMATE"-- both are former coworkers and both have been very successful. The whole process is taking much longer than I expected. I've been warned that the HR is Not Fast. I guess I should treat everything as just hot air until I've got an offer and not over think any part of the process.
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Oct 3, 2018 19:58
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You should assume it will fall through; luckily you've kept on interviewing (right?).
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Oct 3, 2018 21:06
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return0 posted:You should assume it will fall through; return0 posted:luckily you've kept on interviewing (right?).
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Oct 3, 2018 21:23
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Looking for some feedback on my resume. I tried to inline my language and technical skills with their relevant tasks and job experience to make space for more work experience examples. I've worked primarily in embedded devices and for family reasons have moved to an area without any companies that need embedded developers. So I'm primarily applying to remote work, most of which is CRUD and web-based it looks like which I'm happy to do. I took a semi-local job with a company that makes a CRUD app to be able to put something on my resume that's shows I can do that kind of work. Is it better off at the bottom of my job experience list since its the position I've had that involves the least responsibility and is least impressive; or if it needs to be at the top to highlight that I've done the kind of jobs I'm applying to before?
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Oct 8, 2018 03:35
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I always organize mine newest job to oldest job because I figure my more recent experience is going to be more relevant, so it should be closer to the top.
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Oct 8, 2018 14:08
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I have a friend who started coding as a child, was one of the best coders of his generation, made a small software company, got acquired by a large software company, ran the large company as a CEO, got fed up and went back to programming. He has 30+ years experience with software development. Now he wants to do remote consulting for ~$100/hr. The thing is, he lives (as I do) in Croatia and most of his contacts are local. There aren't many companies here that pay that much. He tried Toptal but it discriminates based on location, so someone from EE is offered less than say from US. He's not very keen on self-promoting and networking so I'm helping with that and will take a cut for any job I find him. I work for an American IT publishing company and I'm good with the IT department, I know personally several developers in western Europe, Dubai etc, and I can finally put my LinkedIn to use, so I do have some paths forward. Still, I'd appreciate any advice before I start working on it seriously.
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Oct 9, 2018 11:00
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is Toptal good otherwise?
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Oct 9, 2018 17:10
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His impression from a few years ago was that it was good but required you to be a bit proactive/pushy. Just sitting and waiting didn't get you far. It depends a lot on who they connect you with but they don't interfere much and generally it works smoothly. They are probably the best outsourcing company for this kind of work ATM.
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Oct 9, 2018 21:28
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