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Jose Valasquez posted:I'm just going to assume that until I'm in the office on my first day that something is going to fall through Well, I've heard that Google is an "at will" employment company. Which essentially means (for those, like me, who have no idea what that is) that they can fire you any time for any reason and for no reason (boss doesn't like people with blue eyes anymore). Which is awesome for employers, sucks for employees. So be prepared for anything, anytime.
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Dec 22, 2016 12:22
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Volguus posted:Well, I've heard that Google is an "at will" employment company. Which essentially means (for those, like me, who have no idea what that is) that they can fire you any time for any reason and for no reason (boss doesn't like people with blue eyes anymore). Which is awesome for employers, sucks for employees. So be prepared for anything, anytime. Almost all US companies are at will, and they still have restrictions on what they can fire over. Eye color is strongly correlated to race, for instance, so if they fire you over that you can get a bunch of money from them in a settlement after you sue them for discrimination. It's such a minefield that large corps have people who only check that stuff just to make sure they don't screw anything up. America is weird.
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Dec 22, 2016 13:39
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leper khan posted:Almost all US companies are at will, and they still have restrictions on what they can fire over. Eye color is strongly correlated to race, for instance, so if they fire you over that you can get a bunch of money from them in a settlement after you sue them for discrimination. Right, if they're dumb enough to admit to the racist reason then sure, sue the hell out of them. But, as you said, they have an army of people ensuring that this doesn't happen. And since they don't need to give a reason, why would they bother?
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Dec 22, 2016 17:20
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Volguus posted:Right, if they're dumb enough to admit to the racist reason then sure, sue the hell out of them. But, as you said, they have an army of people ensuring that this doesn't happen. And since they don't need to give a reason, why would they bother? Because this is such a massive legal minefield. If the employee can point to specific events that demonstrate that their employer was biased against them due to race (or gender or other protected categories), then even if you have a good cause for firing the employee, you might still be open to a successful suit (IANAL, TINLA). Certainly you'd still be open to an unsuccessful suit because anyone can sue anyone at any time, and these kinds of events tend to be murky enough that the judge won't necessarily just dismiss it out of hand. This is part of what the interview process is meant to catch, incidentally: detecting employees who are potential liabilities if they get fired.
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Dec 22, 2016 17:33
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Volguus posted:Right, if they're dumb enough to admit to the racist reason then sure, sue the hell out of them. But, as you said, they have an army of people ensuring that this doesn't happen. And since they don't need to give a reason, why would they bother? Because it's not only about the reason they give. The actions taken by your boss matter far more than the reason or lack of one. The way companies ensure that they don't get sued is to put policies in place that ensure that if they fire someone it's either for something egregious or because of actual bad performance and not a bullshit reason made up by a manager. This is why at Google and other large companies it takes forever to get fired for bad performance because they have to go through multiple review cycles, put you on some sort of performance plan to try and help you, etc and only after that do you get fired. In my experience it's pretty rare for someone fired out of the blue. Layoffs are different and can come out of the blue. I'd reccomend finding out what the severance policy is and how the company normally handles layoffs. Since we're talking about Google I believe that have a generous severance and normally give employees 3+ Months to find another job within the company.
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Dec 22, 2016 18:44
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Volguus posted:Well, I've heard that Google is an "at will" employment company. Which essentially means (for those, like me, who have no idea what that is) that they can fire you any time for any reason and for no reason (boss doesn't like people with blue eyes anymore). Which is awesome for employers, sucks for employees. So be prepared for anything, anytime. What the poo poo are you talking about? Most of the US is "at will" employment, and shockingly people do not often get randomly fired out of the blue for no reason. Has that ever happened? Yeah, probably. Is that a 'thing' you should "be prepared for"? Maybe if you have a track record of punching your bosses or something.
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Dec 22, 2016 19:38
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At will works both ways. If you don't have that, then you can't just go looking for a new job whenever you want to leave your current position.
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Dec 22, 2016 22:54
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At will just means you don't have an employment contract. You can argue about whether the US should have more or less worker protections, but as many other people mentioned most workers here fall into that category. It's not a red flag any means.
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Dec 23, 2016 01:11
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ultrafilter posted:At will works both ways. If you don't have that, then you can't just go looking for a new job whenever you want to leave your current position. Sure you can. You just need to give notice (whatever it may be in your country, 2 weeks is what I've heard is common). And you can't come and say that a job that cannot wait 2 weeks for you is serious. VOTE YES ON 69 posted:What the poo poo are you talking about? Most of the US is "at will" employment, and shockingly people do not often get randomly fired out of the blue for no reason. Has that ever happened? Yeah, probably. Is that a 'thing' you should "be prepared for"? Maybe if you have a track record of punching your bosses or something. Well, it was shocking for me to find out that this is a thing, when i heard about it for the first time. But yes, you are right, probably people don't get fired for no reason. Usually. Most of the time. Except when they do. But I've learned to stop being surprised when you guys defend policies/laws that are against your own interests. leper khan posted:America is weird.
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Dec 23, 2016 13:36
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How am I going to quit in a glorious display of emotional outrage if I have to plan ahead?
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Dec 23, 2016 15:11
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withoutclass posted:How am I going to quit in a glorious display of emotional outrage if I have to plan ahead? I know of a guy that pretended to have a mental break after he got an offer for 40% more money than he was making.
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Dec 23, 2016 15:21
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pr0zac posted:Really hope you land it and its cool and good work, cause seriously man you seem like a pretty good developer and the poo poo you've been dealing with to find a job is just nuts.  Thanks dude, I still haven't heard back though and it's been a week. I know it's the holidays but can I follow up?
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Dec 23, 2016 16:02
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Good Will Hrunting posted:I know it's the holidays but can I follow up? Of course you can, just don't expect to hear anything back on the Friday before a holiday weekend.
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Dec 23, 2016 16:42
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Volguus posted:Well, it was shocking for me to find out that this is a thing, when i heard about it for the first time. But yes, you are right, probably people don't get fired for no reason. Usually. Most of the time. Except when they do. But I've learned to stop being surprised when you guys defend policies/laws that are against your own interests. Thanks for worrying so much about them Americans (mostly), but when the people experiencing it are telling you it isn't a problem, maybe just take their word for it instead of assuming you know better.
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Dec 23, 2016 19:05
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Does it make sense to move on from a workplace because the work has stopped being interesting to you and you want to work on a significantly different field of study? Reason I ask is that I've been moved from being a Rails monkey for a not very interesting internal application at work, to a kind of poorly managed project that is mostly front-end design and Javascript with little opportunity for the interesting back-end/API/functional core work that I personally find more interesting, engaging, and more promising for developing my career. But the position I have right now is relatively comfortable and not very demanding, so I'm having trouble deciding between staying at a relatively stable-and-secure-but-not-very-good-for-my-development job doing random bullcrap I'm not interested in, and leaving for a less-sure-but-possibly-more-interesting-and-better-for-my-professional-development job in something that's more pointed towards building skills that are in demand for software engineers. Should I stay or should I go? And yes you are free to get on my case about being mercenary about how often I jump jobs, whatever. Let's just ignore that right now, please? It's the principle of the thing.
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Dec 23, 2016 20:25
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rsjr posted:Thanks for worrying so much about them Americans (mostly), but when the people experiencing it are telling you it isn't a problem, maybe just take their word for it instead of assuming you know better. The people experiencing it in this thread are generally higher paid middle - upper middle class employees who aren't 100% expendable.
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Dec 23, 2016 20:27
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Pollyanna posted:Does it make sense to move on from a workplace because the work has stopped being interesting to you and you want to work on a significantly different field of study? Reason I ask is that I've been moved from being a Rails monkey for a not very interesting internal application at work, to a kind of poorly managed project that is mostly front-end design and Javascript with little opportunity for the interesting back-end/API/functional core work that I personally find more interesting, engaging, and more promising for developing my career. But the position I have right now is relatively comfortable and not very demanding, so I'm having trouble deciding between staying at a relatively stable-and-secure-but-not-very-good-for-my-development job doing random bullcrap I'm not interested in, and leaving for a less-sure-but-possibly-more-interesting-and-better-for-my-professional-development job in something that's more pointed towards building skills that are in demand for software engineers. Should I stay or should I go? Do whatever you want? It's really up to you, what are you expecting to hear exactly? I can sympathize; I am at a job that's pretty blah. But I think that a lot of jobs are kinda like that.
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Dec 23, 2016 20:35
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Pollyanna posted:Does it make sense to move on from a workplace because the work has stopped being interesting to you and you want to work on a significantly different field of study? Reason I ask is that I've been moved from being a Rails monkey for a not very interesting internal application at work, to a kind of poorly managed project that is mostly front-end design and Javascript with little opportunity for the interesting back-end/API/functional core work that I personally find more interesting, engaging, and more promising for developing my career. But the position I have right now is relatively comfortable and not very demanding, so I'm having trouble deciding between staying at a relatively stable-and-secure-but-not-very-good-for-my-development job doing random bullcrap I'm not interested in, and leaving for a less-sure-but-possibly-more-interesting-and-better-for-my-professional-development job in something that's more pointed towards building skills that are in demand for software engineers. Should I stay or should I go? Yes it makes sense, but are you sure this isn't a problem with you? I don't mean to sound harsh, but this is almost a running joke in this thread... Sure, start looking for better opportunities if you truly are not interested in front end work, but how many places have you been at since you started as a developer?
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Dec 23, 2016 20:35
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Skandranon posted:Yes it makes sense, but are you sure this isn't a problem with you? I don't mean to sound harsh, but this is almost a running joke in this thread... Sure, start looking for better opportunities if you truly are not interested in front end work, but how many places have you been at since you started as a developer? Speaking as someone who has averaged a job per year over the past ~5, I'm much happier having switched jobs to better align myself with interests and career goals. And I have no issue continuing the trend if something that comes up will give me a 50% raise and significant increase in responsibility, or my current job pigeonholes me in technologies or projects I have no interest in. I've also had astoundingly bad luck in picking companies to work for, with two of the five either going bankrupt or losing all of their contracts (not my fault  ).
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Dec 23, 2016 20:47
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Pollyanna posted:Does it make sense to move on from a workplace because the work has stopped being interesting to you and you want to work on a significantly different field of study? Reason I ask is that I've been moved from being a Rails monkey for a not very interesting internal application at work, to a kind of poorly managed project that is mostly front-end design and Javascript with little opportunity for the interesting back-end/API/functional core work that I personally find more interesting, engaging, and more promising for developing my career. But the position I have right now is relatively comfortable and not very demanding, so I'm having trouble deciding between staying at a relatively stable-and-secure-but-not-very-good-for-my-development job doing random bullcrap I'm not interested in, and leaving for a less-sure-but-possibly-more-interesting-and-better-for-my-professional-development job in something that's more pointed towards building skills that are in demand for software engineers. Should I stay or should I go? career stagnation is a really good reason to move on and smart employers would look on a candidate giving that as a reason for moving on from their last job as a positive. caveat: most employers are pretty loving dumb
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Dec 23, 2016 21:12
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leper khan posted:Speaking as someone who has averaged a job per year over the past ~5, I'm much happier having switched jobs to better align myself with interests and career goals. And I have no issue continuing the trend if something that comes up will give me a 50% raise and significant increase in responsibility, or my current job pigeonholes me in technologies or projects I have no interest in. I don't have a problem with any of that, my average is only slightly higher at 1.5 years between jobs. But Pollyanna has a somewhat unique level of anxiety over all this and I think some introspection would be beneficial in resolving this. But yes, if you are getting a big raise and more interesting things to work on, seriously consider it.
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Dec 23, 2016 21:17
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Skandranon posted:Yes it makes sense, but are you sure this isn't a problem with you? I don't mean to sound harsh, but this is almost a running joke in this thread... Sure, start looking for better opportunities if you truly are not interested in front end work, but how many places have you been at since you started as a developer? It's only a running joke because I'm neurotic about my job prospects and post way too much, not because I actually job hop all that much. Granted, my history is relatively little (2 years, 2 jobs so far), but still. I'm not that jumpy. I think. It all comes down to what makes me feel happy with a job, which is a combination of stability, growth/opportunity, and culture fit. I have an innate fear of stagnation, I guess. Like, I don't want to end up like my old boss. She was in her mid 50's and worked the same lovely deadend job for years with no real prospects, not due to any social/economic justice issues but more just...apathy and not a whole lot of brain cells. I saw that kind of future and I really, really don't want to end up there. It's horrid. My goal in life is to be the opposite of my old boss.
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Dec 24, 2016 00:55
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Pollyanna posted:It's only a running joke because I'm neurotic about my job prospects and post way too much, not because I actually job hop all that much. Granted, my history is relatively little (2 years, 2 jobs so far), but still. I'm not that jumpy. I think. Don't worry about that; it's effectively impossible now. The reason people used to do that was because of things like pensions and long-term benefits. If you worked the same job from 25 to 65 you were basically set after that so you just slogged away at the same company your whole life. Then again this was also before the whole "you're salaried so we loving own you; 90 hours a week or gently caress you" thing cropped up. The 1970's were truly a different era entirely. Some of the worker's benefits from that era lasted through the 1980's but Reagan and Pals had a few things to say about that. Now businesses are bitching about churn while they destroy everything that people were willing to put up with decades of drudgery to earn. Pushing a pencil or being a generic middle manager for 40 years may not be exciting but it sure as gently caress beat losing the comfortable middle class life it used to earn you. Sure it meant you were just another cog in the bureaucracy of the company but you'd otherwise have a pretty decent life. Stagnation used to pay well. Not anymore! Techies tend to only get stuck if they either want to, land a real sweet gig, or aren't very good. You can entrench yourself in a big bureaucracy with the right skill set but techies also tend to have the attitude you do. The worst thing you can do to a tech nerd is to put them somewhere they get bored. Most other people will be bored for enough of a paycheck. Techies go crazy.
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Dec 24, 2016 01:32
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rsjr posted:Thanks for worrying so much about them Americans (mostly), but when the people experiencing it are telling you it isn't a problem, maybe just take their word for it instead of assuming you know better. Well they are saying that it isn't a problem, but are they representative of the whole spectrum? I mean, US has 0 vacation days mandatory, but I don't think anyone here is even considering not having at least some vacation days from their employer (however laughable it may be for a german the 10-15 days of vacation americans get). We started the entire discussion from a google employment offer. Well, let's be serious, if you're good enough to work for Google, you're good enough to work anywhere. You don't have to worry about a thing, as probably already have several jobs that you can pick from at any point in time you feel like it. And get at least 20% pay raise when you're hopping jobs. But how do the weakest members of your society feel like? That Walmart or McDonalds employee who has two jobs working 15 hours per day and barely getting by? The social safety net is not there to protect the powerful, but to help the weak get up on their feet. How often are they fired for no reason (or racist reason) and they just simply have no way to retaliate? How often do they go without vacation the entire year? The fact that the law exists it means that it opens an abuse avenue that can be taken advantage of by those with power against those without it. This entire thing looks like that health care debate from days past: "gently caress you, got mine". Just because Google would never take advantage of this kind of law (since their employees are smart enough to make it not worth it) it doesn't mean that is a just law or that it doesn't gently caress over people.
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Dec 24, 2016 02:39
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Volguus posted:Well they are saying that it isn't a problem, but are they representative of the whole spectrum? I mean, US has 0 vacation days mandatory, but I don't think anyone here is even considering not having at least some vacation days from their employer (however laughable it may be for a german the 10-15 days of vacation americans get). We started the entire discussion from a google employment offer. Well, let's be serious, if you're good enough to work for Google, you're good enough to work anywhere. You don't have to worry about a thing, as probably already have several jobs that you can pick from at any point in time you feel like it. And get at least 20% pay raise when you're hopping jobs. Thanks for your input on US employment law. How are the First Nations doing?
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Dec 24, 2016 02:57
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Volguus posted:Well, let's be serious, if you're good enough to work for Google, you're good enough to work anywhere. Let's be serious: no, Google's bar is pretty low.
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Dec 24, 2016 05:57
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fantastic in plastic posted:Thanks for your input on US employment law. How are the First Nations doing? From bad to worse as of course, is tradition.
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Dec 24, 2016 06:03
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fantastic in plastic posted:Thanks for your input on US employment law. How are the First Nations doing? Just because other places are bad doesn't mean the US isn't bad. The employment law in the US is bad (for workers).
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Dec 24, 2016 07:03
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Pollyanna posted:Does it make sense to move on from a workplace because the work has stopped being interesting to you and you want to work on a significantly different field of study? Reason I ask is that I've been moved from being a Rails monkey for a not very interesting internal application at work, to a kind of poorly managed project that is mostly front-end design and Javascript with little opportunity for the interesting back-end/API/functional core work that I personally find more interesting, engaging, and more promising for developing my career. But the position I have right now is relatively comfortable and not very demanding, so I'm having trouble deciding between staying at a relatively stable-and-secure-but-not-very-good-for-my-development job doing random bullcrap I'm not interested in, and leaving for a less-sure-but-possibly-more-interesting-and-better-for-my-professional-development job in something that's more pointed towards building skills that are in demand for software engineers. Should I stay or should I go? Before you jump ship, tell your boss what you're feeling. A lot of bosses actually do care for their employees happiness level. (Even if for no other reason than working around unhappy people sucks.) There might be a way back to doing something you enjoy. But whatever you decide, don't let your skills stagnate. No matter what.
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Dec 24, 2016 08:49
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return0 posted:Just because other places are bad doesn't mean the US isn't bad. The employment law in the US is bad (for workers). True, but as wage labor goes we're in pretty good shape.
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Dec 24, 2016 16:40
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Volguus posted:Well they are saying that it isn't a problem, but are they representative of the whole spectrum? I mean, US has 0 vacation days mandatory, but I don't think anyone here is even considering not having at least some vacation days from their employer (however laughable it may be for a german the 10-15 days of vacation americans get). We started the entire discussion from a google employment offer. Well, let's be serious, if you're good enough to work for Google, you're good enough to work anywhere. You don't have to worry about a thing, as probably already have several jobs that you can pick from at any point in time you feel like it. And get at least 20% pay raise when you're hopping jobs. It's not gently caress you, got mine. It's you're in the god drat tech thread and even if you suck you have a ton of opportunities so this isn't an issue and thus we don't need to derail into discussing the lack of employee protections in the US as it has zero bearing on the thread topic.
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Dec 24, 2016 23:02
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asur posted:It's not gently caress you, got mine. It's you're in the god drat tech thread and even if you suck you have a ton of opportunities so this isn't an issue and thus we don't need to derail into discussing the lack of employee protections in the US as it has zero bearing on the thread topic. That's not entirely true. As unions have declined wages for literally every job that rich people don't do has stagnated. The tech world has also suffered from collusion to keep wages down. Worker protections definitely benefit tech pros as well.
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Dec 25, 2016 00:53
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So there are these programming education sites, Skillwise and Pluralsite. They both offer online training courses on different programming languages and IT skills. Skillwise is running a big sale on its courses. I was wondering if it's worth buying for these courses to acquire new skills and knowledge. I am very interested in learning new programming skills, especially cyber security stuff. I believe as a professional we will be dealing with cyber security more often. I assume these learning courses can't be put on a resume. But I am mostly looking to learn cyber security stuff on my on time and I'd like to know if these sights are rip offs.
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Dec 25, 2016 01:30
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Mappo posted:So there are these programming education sites, Skillwise and Pluralsite. They both offer online training courses on different programming languages and IT skills. Skillwise is running a big sale on its courses. Buy one of the top books for whatever specialization and read it. For security stuff do that and then don't roll your own crypto.
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Dec 25, 2016 01:45
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Mappo posted:So there are these programming education sites, Skillwise and Pluralsite. They both offer online training courses on different programming languages and IT skills. Skillwise is running a big sale on its courses. I don't know if those specific sites are worth it, but I've seen people put stuff like that on a resume when they're looking to make a slight career shift. It's an indication that they're serious.
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Dec 25, 2016 02:07
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leper khan posted:roll your own crypto
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Dec 25, 2016 02:40
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lifg posted:Before you jump ship, tell your boss what you're feeling. A lot of bosses actually do care for their employees happiness level. (Even if for no other reason than working around unhappy people sucks.) There might be a way back to doing something you enjoy. Even if they care, if you have a particular level of domain knowledge around a client / product, good luck getting most of them to do anything about it but make empty promises. In my personal experience, when I start getting pigeonholed, that's the beginning of the end of my employment there. It just happened with a coworker last week. I'd be surprised if it doesn't happen to me again here. Sure, "it's called work for a reason", but there are too few of us and too much demand to be the resident X client or Y product bitch for longer than a year or two.
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Dec 25, 2016 04:07
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Mappo posted:I assume these learning courses can't be put on a resume.
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Dec 25, 2016 05:54
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Scott Allen on pluralsight is pretty good
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Dec 25, 2016 06:13
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csammis posted:Of course you can, just don't expect to hear anything back on the Friday before a holiday weekend. I didn't email them but they just emailed me: "Hey Good Will, hope you had a nice holiday, just wanted to see what you thought of the interview and where you were at with your other interviews". They definitely have an offer out and they're waiting on someone.
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Dec 26, 2016 20:43
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