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toiletbrush
May 17, 2010

Boiled Water posted:

britain is weird. half the computer - software kind of jobs are way way below what you'd get even in neighboring countries, with a couple of sky high salaries. I wonder what their end game to that is.
Not sure what countries you're talking about, but this puts the UK pretty high up the list in Europe, only Switzerland is significantly higher (US is way out in front)

This also doesn't seem to take contracting into account. Exactly the same work, but more money and freedom, at the expense of not getting paid during holidays/sickness, not getting company benefits like pensions/shares/insurance etc, and potentially less security.

Given 8 weeks off a year and paying in €1000/month to your pension, the equivalent of €90-140k is pretty realistic for a mid-senior dev, in London at least.

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distortion park
Apr 25, 2011


toiletbrush posted:

Not sure what countries you're talking about, but this puts the UK pretty high up the list in Europe, only Switzerland is significantly higher (US is way out in front)

This also doesn't seem to take contracting into account. Exactly the same work, but more money and freedom, at the expense of not getting paid during holidays/sickness, not getting company benefits like pensions/shares/insurance etc, and potentially less security.

Given 8 weeks off a year and paying in €1000/month to your pension, the equivalent of €90-140k is pretty realistic for a mid-senior dev, in London at least.

there's definitely a big split between some london jobs, mostly finance, which pay well, and almost everywhere else which pays like poo poo.


current pet peeve: remote jobs which are US only, but don't think it's worth mentioning at any point in the job ad or application process

sports
Sep 1, 2012

pointsofdata posted:

there's definitely a big split between some london jobs, mostly finance, which pay well, and almost everywhere else which pays like poo poo.


current pet peeve: remote jobs which are US only, but don't think it's worth mentioning at any point in the job ad or application process

that is really goofy. I have many friends based here (chicago) who do remote work based in france/uk/holland/germany. I don't know if it has anything to do with weird sponsorship stuff or tax treaties; a lot of the remote workers I know are practicing lawyers in insurance/reinsurance and have to visit the EU office quarterly

Asleep Style
Oct 20, 2010

Asleep Style posted:

Just had a phone interview with a company that saw my 1.5 years of development experience and thought I would be a fit for a senior software engineer. It went well and they're moving me on to step two. Keep your fingers crossed for me because this would nearly double the ol salary

Update: got an offer :toot:

Nearly double ended up being an exaggeration, but I'm pretty pumped about a >60% raise and two more weeks of PTO. I'm not really looking forward to giving notice because I like a lot of things about my current job, I'm just underpaid big time

Sapozhnik
Jan 2, 2005

Nap Ghost

Asleep Style posted:

Update: got an offer :toot:

Nearly double ended up being an exaggeration, but I'm pretty pumped about a >60% raise and two more weeks of PTO. I'm not really looking forward to giving notice because I like a lot of things about my current job, I'm just underpaid big time

:yotj: congrats friend

FMguru
Sep 10, 2003

peed on;
sexually

Asleep Style posted:

Update: got an offer :toot:
:woop:

nicely done. stack that paper

Devonaut
Jul 10, 2001

Devoted Astronaut

Asleep Style posted:

Update: got an offer :toot:

Nearly double ended up being an exaggeration, but I'm pretty pumped about a >60% raise and two more weeks of PTO. I'm not really looking forward to giving notice because I like a lot of things about my current job, I'm just underpaid big time

congrats you deserve it

Asleep Style
Oct 20, 2010

Thanks friends. It feels kind of gross to be celebrating when so many people are unemployed and the job market is real bad, but obviously that wasn't enough to stop me

vodkat
Jun 30, 2012



cannot legally be sold as vodka
whats a good book for revising stupid fizzbuzz problems?

Sleng Teng
May 3, 2009

Asleep Style posted:

Thanks friends. It feels kind of gross to be celebrating when so many people are unemployed and the job market is real bad, but obviously that wasn't enough to stop me

Don't feel bad unless you're directly pulling someone else down imo, like spilling coffee on them in the wait room on purpose or something. Congrats!

Eldred
Feb 19, 2004
Weight gain is impossible.

vodkat posted:

whats a good book for revising stupid fizzbuzz problems?

I think Cracking the Coding Interview is still the standard? Or you can just go on Leetcode, though the explanations there are a little hit or miss and some of the problems are just plain bad.

Chopstick Dystopia
Jun 16, 2010


lowest high and highest low loser of: WEED WEE
k

vodkat posted:

whats a good book for revising stupid fizzbuzz problems?

I usually use Hackerrank for interview prep but CTCI gets the most recommendations.

qsvui
Aug 23, 2003
some crazy thing
lol i have to give a presentation for my interview. is this common? has anyone done anything like this?

Trimson Grondag 3
Jul 1, 2007

Clapping Larry
very common for sales and presales roles, but I’m guessing it’s not one of those?

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


qsvui posted:

lol i have to give a presentation for my interview. is this common? has anyone done anything like this?

I've run into that a few times, but for various "scientist" roles. What are you interviewing for?

Achmed Jones
Oct 16, 2004



a friend of mine had to give a presentation in the interview for an infosec job at activision

MononcQc
May 29, 2007

had a job where the interview was essentially a full day on a hands on small technical project and the final step was presenting your work with a short written report (think email) and small 5-15min presentation over video to show how you could communicate your project on a remote team.

it was gruelling poo poo but the report part was kind of clever to spot people who’d have a hard time communicating while remote.

Blinkz0rz
May 27, 2001

MY CONTEMPT FOR MY OWN EMPLOYEES IS ONLY MATCHED BY MY LOVE FOR TOM BRADY'S SWEATY MAGA BALLS
we close out our interview process with a team presentation where we ask candidates to present on something they've worked on (that they're allowed to obv) or something they're interested in

we don't really care too much about the content of the talk. we've had candidates present on frontend frameworks, load balancing strategies, microservices vs monolith, and even one guy who presented about nuclear submarine cooling mechanics. what's important for us, and we're very upfront about it with the candidate, is that we want to see how they discuss things they're interested in. how do they handle questions? what kind of opinions do they have about what they're presenting? etc.

it's been a really good way for us to double check whether there are any communication issues folks might have noticed and to also give us all a chance to listen to the candidate at the same time rather than in groups of 2 for the other parts of the interview

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


I'd take a presentation over a whiteboard round any day.

Sleng Teng
May 3, 2009

ultrafilter posted:

I'd take a presentation over a whiteboard round any day.

Cosigned.

Blinkz0rz
May 27, 2001

MY CONTEMPT FOR MY OWN EMPLOYEES IS ONLY MATCHED BY MY LOVE FOR TOM BRADY'S SWEATY MAGA BALLS
we do both but our whiteboard exercises are 1 reasonably simple algorithm session and 1 systems design session that both scale in difficulty and complexity depending on the role and the candidate's experience. for frontend positions, the systems design one is usually swapped out for a frontend-specific exercise but for senior and lead candidates we sometimes will do all 3

interviewing is hard to do well and even though our process is designed to be as accommodating as possible to the candidate i still feel like it needs to be better but idk how

EIDE Van Hagar
Dec 8, 2000

Beep Boop
yeah my current job I got doing all-day whiteboard sessions, an hour or so with each person, 6 different people, and lunch.

presentation would be a little nerve-racking, but at least you can thoroughly prepare for it and have it down cold.

whiteboards can go anywhere and I have seen them go to dark dark places.

EIDE Van Hagar
Dec 8, 2000

Beep Boop
A bad interview can build on itself.

like, where everyone knows this is going badly at 9:45am and you still have to keep whiteboarding until 4pm. a bad start in the morning can really mess with your head.

i had one interview where they didn’t have me on the schedule at reception, so I tried to call my contact (a recruiter) but got a voicemail saying she was no longer an employee. tried to get reception to call the hiring manager, they left him a voicemail but couldn’t find him. turns out they were all in a room waiting for me and not at their desks, but reception didn’t know it.

after 25 minutes sitting in the lobby I told security I was leaving but they should call me if they wanted to reschedule.

i got a call from the manager 5 minutes down the road and after a little talk he wanted to go ahead with it anyway.

i had blocked off the whole day for it so I agreed and turned around. I ended up walking into a room pretty flustered myself and meeting three people who were not happy about sitting in a conference room for 45 minutes now, and it just went downhill from there.

Schadenboner
Aug 15, 2011

by Shine

EIDE Van Hagar posted:

A bad interview can build on itself.

like, where everyone knows this is going badly at 9:45am and you still have to keep whiteboarding until 4pm. a bad start in the morning can really mess with your head.

i had one interview where they didn’t have me on the schedule at reception, so I tried to call my contact (a recruiter) but got a voicemail saying she was no longer an employee. tried to get reception to call the hiring manager, they left him a voicemail but couldn’t find him. turns out they were all in a room waiting for me and not at their desks, but reception didn’t know it.

after 25 minutes sitting in the lobby I told security I was leaving but they should call me if they wanted to reschedule.

i got a call from the manager 5 minutes down the road and after a little talk he wanted to go ahead with it anyway.

i had blocked off the whole day for it so I agreed and turned around. I ended up walking into a room pretty flustered myself and meeting three people who were not happy about sitting in a conference room for 45 minutes now, and it just went downhill from there.

Jesus, how many :redflag:s did you need?

E: That might not be fair, I certainly don't know about the situation you were in at the time and I've certainly been in situations where I wasn't in a position to turn down any interviews no matter how lovely the setup/firm/gig.

EIDE Van Hagar
Dec 8, 2000

Beep Boop

Schadenboner posted:

Jesus, how many :redflag:s did you need?

E: That might not be fair, I certainly don't know about the situation you were in at the time and I've certainly been in situations where I wasn't in a position to turn down any interviews no matter how lovely the setup/firm/gig.

in Jan/Feb I resolved to change jobs and just did every interview I could get. that one was a design / verification job at a big (top 5 largest) semiconductor company so it was pretty surprising that it was that disorganized.

the questions I got on the bad interviews really helped a lot after not interviewing for about a decade. i’m at a fabless design place now and it’s pretty great.

asur
Dec 28, 2012

EIDE Van Hagar posted:

A bad interview can build on itself.

like, where everyone knows this is going badly at 9:45am and you still have to keep whiteboarding until 4pm. a bad start in the morning can really mess with your head.

i had one interview where they didn’t have me on the schedule at reception, so I tried to call my contact (a recruiter) but got a voicemail saying she was no longer an employee. tried to get reception to call the hiring manager, they left him a voicemail but couldn’t find him. turns out they were all in a room waiting for me and not at their desks, but reception didn’t know it.

after 25 minutes sitting in the lobby I told security I was leaving but they should call me if they wanted to reschedule.

i got a call from the manager 5 minutes down the road and after a little talk he wanted to go ahead with it anyway.

i had blocked off the whole day for it so I agreed and turned around. I ended up walking into a room pretty flustered myself and meeting three people who were not happy about sitting in a conference room for 45 minutes now, and it just went downhill from there.

This is terrible. You can't blame the candidate for sitting in the lobby for 30 minutes while the company is trying to get it's act together.

Arcsech
Aug 5, 2008

asur posted:

This is terrible. You can't blame the candidate for sitting in the lobby for 30 minutes while the company is trying to get it's act together.

yeah lol I would extend the same courtesy I would want them to extend to me if I hosed up and was late: offer to reschedule on another day. poo poo happens sometimes, balls get dropped, and you work around it when you can.

but if they give you poo poo about their fuckup, then just laugh and hang up

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


https://twitter.com/JohnCleese/status/1273352081718472706

https://twitter.com/JohnCleese/status/1273352694950801413

Sleng Teng
May 3, 2009

"2–99 years of experience working on a software engineering team building robust production software, with knowledge of how to write maintainable, reliable code (our engineers use Python, but it's OK if your experience is in another language)"

99 years of software

Achmed Jones
Oct 16, 2004



do you get upset when toy packaging says "ages 4-104"?

Sleng Teng
May 3, 2009

the idea of 99 years of software for an entry level position was funny, to me.

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


They're probably still not going to hire anyone over 25.

champagne posting
Apr 5, 2006

YOU ARE A BRAIN
IN A BUNKER

ultrafilter posted:

They're probably still not going to hire anyone over 25.

but also not hire any actual junior who might require training

Sleng Teng
May 3, 2009

My experience searching right now would agree with both of those assessments in general! But that may be sour grapes

champagne posting
Apr 5, 2006

YOU ARE A BRAIN
IN A BUNKER

Sleng Teng posted:

My experience searching right now would agree with both of those assessments in general! But that may be sour grapes

slaps thread title. This bad boy can contain so much of your resume you have to fill in yourself

ultrafilter
Aug 23, 2007

It's okay if you have any questions.


https://twitter.com/blelbach/status/1276423353113276417

silvergoose
Mar 18, 2006

IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS




I've asked this in interviews at my lovely retail store for 30 years. What do you upsell to your family at home?

jesus WEP
Oct 17, 2004


how many companies that ask that q also have a weasely “any code you create on your own time is the property of $company” clause in the contract, i bet it’s a lot

bob dobbs is dead
Oct 8, 2017

I love peeps
Nap Ghost
its kinda weird cuz the fact that we can touch computers at home massively improves our batna which is why i got paid more than 90% of aerospace eng peeps at my first job out of school

"tell us about your capability to gently caress us" is not sneaky i guess but it seems like a question to answer w/ a little dissembling

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Private Speech
Mar 30, 2011

I HAVE EVEN MORE WORTHLESS BEANIE BABIES IN MY COLLECTION THAN I HAVE WORTHLESS POSTS IN THE BEANIE BABY THREAD YET I STILL HAVE THE TEMERITY TO CRITICIZE OTHERS' COLLECTIONS

IF YOU SEE ME TALKING ABOUT BEANIE BABIES, PLEASE TELL ME TO

EAT. SHIT.


jesus WEP posted:

how many companies that ask that q also have a weasely “any code you create on your own time is the property of $company” clause in the contract, i bet it’s a lot

mine had that, that's why I showed them the one other offer without it and thus it was gone

well it actually took two steps, they tried to slip it in again in an addendum when making me sign various health and safety bits and bobs

they say they're very keen on treating employees as family, and I mean it does fit in a way, for some families

Private Speech fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jun 27, 2020

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