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School of How posted:At the end of the day, what they are doing is trying to predict the future, which is not possible. Also, that article is just pure mumbo-jumbo. Well right now we're basically beyond full employment according to https://www.comptia.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/2019/06/07/u.s.-tech-unemployment-rate-at-record-low-comptia-analysis-reveals who aren't the BLS
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Aug 6, 2019 17:00
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School of How posted:I have a github account with over 70 repositories that I've been working on since 2007. how!! are we this far in the discussion without a link
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Aug 6, 2019 17:01
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Pie Colony posted:Is this the hilarious How poster of yesteryear? I forget his exact name, just that he was wrong about every single thing he said. Oh poo poo I didn’t even notice their username. I like how!!
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Aug 6, 2019 17:01
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Pie Colony posted:Is this the hilarious How poster of yesteryear? I forget his exact name, just that he was wrong about every single thing he said. I was thinking the same thing. They're great at demonstrating the sorts of candidate problems you can catch early by asking for a code sample. Turns out the system works after all.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:02
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I do think that the hire fast, fire fast mentality should be present more. But the hiring process costs companies so much, I can understand them wanting to be choosy. If you're willing to relocate or are in a hot market, then you'll have offers out of your ears. If I went on the market in Austin, I'm pretty sure I'd have a bidding war on my hands. But I don't like going in to an office. Since I'm remote only and going for very senior level positions, people are being much more careful with their approach apparently. Honestly, more companies should consider a remote-first mentality. You get the same quality of developer, it's less expensive (by my experience, about 25% less than in-office employees), and since you can cast your net nationally, you have a lot more candidates. I'd say the EU countries should consider looking for remote US workers too, but they pay a lot less and would have a harder time finding devs that would work for their wages.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:09
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I’m not going to quote the night club example because it is cringey af, but all the experienced devs I know turn down multiple recruiter contacts per week. Obviously those are not all great jobs, nor would they all lead to an actual job offer, but the market is thirsty. Experienced folks absolutely get to be picky about which companies they want to even talk to. Interviewing is a dumb game we all have to sometimes play, and a bad attitude about it will sink you right away. If we want to fix it, I think an accrediting body of some kind has to exist (think Professional Engineers, Doctors, Lawyers, etc). I don’t know what that has to look like to be successful though, and I could also easily see it being a big old mess of red tape and wasted time. And even my friends in other accredited professions still have intense interviews for a lot of the same reasons we’ve all discussed here.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:10
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School of How posted:Then that should be part of the specification. If having it all crammed into a single 5000 line is not acceptable, then that should be listed in the specification.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:16
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Munkeymon posted:Well right now we're basically beyond full employment according to https://www.comptia.org/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/2019/06/07/u.s.-tech-unemployment-rate-at-record-low-comptia-analysis-reveals who aren't the BLS If you'd read the link, the first sentence explains that it's based on the BLS data: quote:Washington, D.C. – The unemployment rate for technology occupations in the United States fell to a 20-year low of 1.3 percent in May as hiring gains were recorded in both the tech sector and across the economy, according to an analysis of today’s U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics “Employment Situation” report by CompTIA, the leading technology industry association.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:17
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Employers can be desperate for engineers, too. Not every company is rolling in 9 figures of VC money or have problems that decent engineers want to stake as their next career step. Some ditches need to be dug now and then but a nightmare engineering scenario oftentimes by companies going out of business is: massive technical debt + insufficient bandwidth to address maintenance and feature needs to keep the company afloat. Like seriously, who in a higher cost of living area would apply for lower than market pay for an outdated tech stack and a lot of crunch time in... insurance software? Maybe if they offer fun perks to get over the monotony? Maybe a good location to work / telework? Ok, now strip out those. Welcome to at least 40% of the software shops outside tech hubs. Also, my company of like 50 engineers gets maybe a couple hundred applications and we reject 40%+ quickly in the first recruiter call, and maybe 60% of the rest get code screened out. Most on sites fails are issues with communication rather than technical ability. We hire maybe a handful as a result but our retention is the best I’ve seen.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:18
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Ralith posted:marks "No Hire" on the form Yeah, one of the things I’ve learned to do is not to follow specs blindly. I’m not building anything that’s poorly specced out - I’m going to ask lots of questions and make sure I’m convinced that everyone knows what the gently caress we’re doing before we invest engineering time and effort into something. Incomplete, vague, and buggy specifications are part of the job. Our job is therefore to make sure they don’t suck rear end before we execute on them instead of blindly following crap. Note: more than five years in, and I still don’t consider myself senior. Seniority is a function of how familiar you are with a given domain, e.g. being the go-to for a particularly heinous codebase or service.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:19
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What does the bureau of labor statistics know about labor statistics anyway.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:19
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pokeyman posted:Oh poo poo I didn’t even notice their username. I like how!! i love how!!
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Aug 6, 2019 17:19
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JawnV6 posted:Have you ever seen a good software spec, one you’d be happy working off of that didn’t leave ambiguities like this? Could you link one that we could see as an example? Usually interview homework problems have a pretty clear spec. In general, whenever you get a cloudy spec, the first thing you do is try to clarify the details. The most cloudy detail about interview homework problems is the guarantee that if I complete the project as described, that I will get a job. Literally every time I attempt to get clarification, the answer is always "No, we can't guarantee you anything". It's not surprising that detail is always left off the initial spec...
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Aug 6, 2019 17:20
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Also, I’m willing to believe that the number of jobs is going up. I am still not yet convinced that the percentage of good jobs is going up or staying stable.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:22
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FWIW, I've seen so many inflated and outright false resumes that I can only trust someone solving a problem in front of me.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:22
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School of How posted:Usually interview homework problems have a pretty clear spec. In general, whenever you get a cloudy spec, the first thing you do is try to clarify the details. The most cloudy detail about interview homework problems is the guarantee that if I complete the project as described, that I will get a job. Literally every time I attempt to get clarification, the answer is always "No, we can't guarantee you anything". It's not surprising that detail is always left off the initial spec... can't imagine why you're having trouble finding work
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Aug 6, 2019 17:22
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Guinness posted:If we want to fix it, I think an accrediting body of some kind has to exist (think Professional Engineers, Doctors, Lawyers, etc). I don’t know what that has to look like to be successful though, and I could also easily see it being a big old mess of red tape and wasted time. And even my friends in other accredited professions still have intense interviews for a lot of the same reasons we’ve all discussed here.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:23
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I don't think the market is oversaturated, but the idea that "when you're a senior developer you'll be inundated with recruiters" comes with a giant caveat: 90% of those recruiters are external recruiters, and they're all recruiting for the same 10 companies. A couple years ago in Boston it felt like everyone was recruiting for just Wayfair.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:24
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necrobobsledder posted:Also, my company of like 50 engineers gets maybe a couple hundred applications and we reject 40%+ quickly in the first recruiter call, and maybe 60% of the rest get code screened out. Most on sites fails are issues with communication rather than technical ability. We hire maybe a handful as a result but our retention is the best I’ve seen. This is proof of oversaturation. The fact that you even have the luxury of rejecting anyone at all in the first place means the market is oversaturated. If it wasn't oversaturated, you'd just have to take what you can get. Progressive JPEG posted:What does the bureau of labor statistics know about labor statistics anyway. They only know what is measurable. There is no way for the BLS to know how many people are self teaching themselves code. Everyone knows that college is expensive, and student debt is debilitating. More and more young people are forgoing college and taking their chances on a self-taught career you can get without needing massive loans. Computer programming is one of those few industries where you can self teach yourself on.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:26
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The good news for How is that they're getting to disqualify a whole bunch (indeed, right around 100%) of companies early on in the interview process! But yeah, I would never guarantee employment based on completion of any one specific task. Anyone that would give that guarantee isn't worth working for, because they're desperate and stupid.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:31
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:But yeah, I would never guarantee employment based on completion of any one specific task. Maybe if the task was something like "Solve P=NP" or "Build a distributed system that is consistent, performant, and can handle arbitrary nodes getting dropped without issue".
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Aug 6, 2019 17:34
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"Can you guarantee that if I fill out this job application accurately, I'll get the job?" "Can you guarantee that if I answer all the questions in the phone screen, I'll get the job?" "Can you guarantee that if I get the entire in-person interview correct, I'll get the job?" "Can you guarantee that if all my references answer the phone and say, 'Yes, that person worked here.' I'll get the job?" It would be absurd if the answer were "yes" to any of those, but somebody seems to think the question about the take-home assignment warrants a "yes."
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Aug 6, 2019 17:36
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There is so much more to hiring the right engineer than just technical competency.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:36
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CPColin posted:"Can you guarantee that if I fill out this job application accurately, I'll get the job?" "If I buy you a drink , I'll get to take you home?"
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Aug 6, 2019 17:37
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lifg posted:I don't think the market is oversaturated, but the idea that "when you're a senior developer you'll be inundated with recruiters" comes with a giant caveat: 90% of those recruiters are external recruiters, and they're all recruiting for the same 10 companies. I have a pretty good variety of recruiters in my inbox, some of them try to get me to take a 50% pay cut to work at a lovely megacorp in the suburbs, while others try to get me to take a 50% pay cut to work for a lovely startup on the west coast.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:41
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Doh004 posted:There is so much more to hiring the right engineer than just technical competency. I'm not even sure we're agreeing on technical competency? If a 'senior' is pitching a fit that the spec didn't say 5000 character lines are frowned upon and balks at that feedback when given, I've got a vastly different set of expectations and we're probably not going to get along.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:42
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CPColin posted:"Can you guarantee that if I fill out this job application accurately, I'll get the job?" None of those are work. Take home projects are work. If you want me to do work for you, you need to promise me I'll get something in return.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:43
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Travel time and attending meetings are still billable hours. I'm not expecting to get something in return just because I turned up at the office and sat through the interview.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:44
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JawnV6 posted:I'm not even sure we're agreeing on technical competency? If a 'senior' is pitching a fit that the spec didn't say 5000 character lines are frowned upon and balks at that feedback when given, I've got a vastly different set of expectations and we're probably not going to get along. Yeah 100%.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:45
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Pollyanna posted:Also, I’m willing to believe that the number of jobs is going up. I am still not yet convinced that the percentage of good jobs is going up or staying stable. minato posted:FWIW, I've seen so many inflated and outright false resumes that I can only trust someone solving a problem in front of me. Doh004 posted:There is so much more to hiring the right engineer than just technical competency. i think these 3 quotes are a pretty good capsule of takeaways. E: also beware of career/job advice from anyone who, when pressed, starts sounding like a Tragic Incel
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Aug 6, 2019 17:52
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I mean, I appreciate when a company offers to pay me for an interview project. $250 seems to be a going rate for companies that do a pretty good pre-screen. Most companies are totally OK with you substituting their project with a different one you already have done. This year I did an app early in my looking around and have code-reviewed and demo'ed it for 2 of the 3 other companies that I pursued.
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Aug 6, 2019 17:55
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Ensign Expendable posted:I have a pretty good variety of recruiters in my inbox, some of them try to get me to take a 50% pay cut to work at a lovely megacorp in the suburbs, while others try to get me to take a 50% pay cut to work for a lovely startup on the west coast. The positions that you're getting emailed and cold called about by third party recruiters are generally bottom tier trash. By the time they've gotten to you, they've already gone through their network and nobody took the bait. They've probably even tried posting it to a few boards and still got nothing. The position is so bad that they're now resorting to spamming random people on a list they bought years ago in hopes that somebody out there might bite. In short, don't treat recruiter spam as an indicator of anything.
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Aug 6, 2019 18:06
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kayakyakr posted:I mean, I appreciate when a company offers to pay me for an interview project. $250 seems to be a going rate for companies that do a pretty good pre-screen. Not once have I been offered to be paid for my take home. quote:Most companies are totally OK with you substituting their project with a different one you already have done. This year I did an app early in my looking around and have code-reviewed and demo'ed it for 2 of the 3 other companies that I pursued. Not in my experience. I've asked many times if my github account can act in lieu of a take home or whiteboard, and every time I'm told "No."
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Aug 6, 2019 18:07
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I think they just wanted to stop talking to you
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Aug 6, 2019 18:09
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School of How posted:Usually interview homework problems have a pretty clear spec. In general, whenever you get a cloudy spec, the first thing you do is try to clarify the details. The most cloudy detail about interview homework problems is the guarantee that if I complete the project as described, that I will get a job. Literally every time I attempt to get clarification, the answer is always "No, we can't guarantee you anything". It's not surprising that detail is always left off the initial spec... That's not how the world works. Not at all. Good luck though.
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Aug 6, 2019 18:10
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School of How posted:If you'd read the link, the first sentence explains that it's based on the BLS data: Oh good - that means it has a solid foundation in gold-standard data. You were objecting to BLS's projection and complaining that you didn't understand their statistical methods, so I figured something showing that the current market is well beyond full employment would placate you but you moved the goalposts and I suspect the next move is going to be getting into epistemological territory.
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Aug 6, 2019 18:11
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School of How posted:Not once have I been offered to be paid for my take home. Twice in maybe 6 interviews that over the last 5 years? It's not common and it's not necessary, but it's not bad. School of How posted:Not in my experience. I've asked many times if my github account can act in lieu of a take home or whiteboard, and every time I'm told "No." I didn't say github account. I said project. Saying, "here's my github, it should be good enough" is stupid. Saying, "hey, that looks like a fun little project and I'll have time next week to work on it, but in the meantime, here's a project that I did a couple of months ago that's very similar in function. Let me know if you'd like to review that instead," works. Progressive JPEG posted:I think they just wanted to stop talking to you I think that's the sense that I'm getting so far here too.
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Aug 6, 2019 18:16
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School of How posted:This is proof of oversaturation. The fact that you even have the luxury of rejecting anyone at all in the first place means the market is oversaturated. If it wasn't oversaturated, you'd just have to take what you can get. So if an employer rejects any candidate for any reason then the market is oversaturated?
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Aug 6, 2019 18:21
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School of How posted:Not in my experience. I've asked many times if my github account can act in lieu of a take home or whiteboard, and every time I'm told "No." When you go to a company office for an interview, and the receptionist offers you a coffee or a water, do you say please and thank you?
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Aug 6, 2019 18:21
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prisoner of waffles posted:E: also beware of career/job advice from anyone who, when pressed, starts sounding like a Tragic Incel I had to look this up and holy poo poo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...l?noredirect=on 
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Aug 6, 2019 18:21
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