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Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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Touching on the non-English workplace posts from a few pages back, I'm having some real regrets about my current position. Six months ago, I took a job to move to Bangkok doing Microsoft and Hadoop B.I. for an American-run company.

My interviews were in English with a variety of nationalities, and I was assured over and over again that English is the work language.

What I found was that while that's true for almost all divisions (Web development, Mobile development, etc.), it is absolutely not true of my own. I am one of 2 non-Thai speakers in a 90 person Data team, and the only non-Thai speaker in about a 100 foot radius of my workspace/my direct team. This is especially obvious as we have the dreaded open concept office, and I am literally smack dab in the middle of gossip I can't understand 10 hours a day.

While meetings are always held in English for my benefit, they tend to run through many sidebars in Thai, and the end result has been that I'm falling way behind in my work. Changes are made to systems I'm working on or need to know about, and I only find out if I directly ask coworkers what's going on, or if it's major enough to warrant an e-mail. While learning the system I was put in charge of, I have to interrupt raucous conversations every time I had a question, and the result is I've tended to spin my wheels in situations where I'd normally be rapidly asking small questions.

I have to stay in Bangkok for another 6 months (surgeries I can't afford in the states), but I'm having trouble getting my rear end to work in the morning.

I brought up some of my concerns with my (Thai) manager, and she moved me between teams still within Data, and put me on a loving performance improvement plan, which has solved none of the actual issues. I'm thinking about asking for a transfer out of data, but that's where my entire career has been - I haven't touched any kind of non-SQL/MDX programming since college.


Anybody been in a similar situation? They invested a lot to bring me here, but I'm nervous about pushing for a major change like that, especially when my performance has been going down hill.

Edit: I don't begrudge my coworkers for speaking Thai - I took a job in Thailand after all. I just wish I hadn't been lured here with the promise of an English speaking workplace.

Loutre fucked around with this message at 10:53 on Jul 19, 2017

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Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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I started Thai lessons as soon as I got here - it's just not going fast enough for me to understand the brutally fast pace of fluent chat. I even started a club at work to exchange language lessons with Thais.

If I knew I could handle this for say, another year, I think it would pay off. Unfortunately I'm reaching a breaking point in handling the work in this environment. It sucks because I actually love living here, and do want to become fluent.

Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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Since I'll be applying for jobs in a few months, I'm really starting to consider making a move from Data Warehousing/BI (4 years experience) into a more traditional Software Engineering position.

I've done pretty much zero 'true' programming since college, but SQL/database are pretty ubiquitous in software engineering, right? I've also spent a lot of time in project management/team leading/requirements gathering, which transfer well.

Pros of switching:
-I'm pretty burnt out on 24/7 SQL
-Jobs aren't as limited to cities with company headquarters
-I miss traditional programming


Cons:
-Spending the next 4 months relearning all the poo poo I've forgotten since college
-I don't have any github/etc. contributions to help with a job hunt
-No idea if I'll actually enjoy doing python or whatever for a living
-Harder job hunt? BI developers are hard as poo poo to find.

Edit: Also I'm sure some of my burnout is from the god-awful situation I'm in (massive language barriers/isolation at current job), so I'm really struggling with this.

Loutre fucked around with this message at 07:58 on Aug 24, 2017

Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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Quit my job this week. On Monday there was a meeting held in Thai, and on Thursday I found out that that meeting had basically cancelled my current project - but no one bothered to tell me until I went to my manager and forced her to tell me what the meeting was about. I only realised it pertained to me when I overheard a conversation in Thai about my project. Someone out there can handle that kind of communication, but I can't. Working on a cancelled project for 3 days and only finding out by getting in a yelling match with your manager isn't a loving workable arrangement for me.

So on that note, anyone have any tips for landing a remote job? I'm on Flexjobs, Stack Overflow, and LinkedIn, but I haven't figured out a good way to find jobs that are totally remote. I need to spend some time taking care of my parents and they live in bumfuck, nowhere.

Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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Skype interview tomorrow, having never done a webcam interview before. First phone interview + online skills test went well, so not too worried - except the only webcam I have is running at around 5 FPS for some reason.

Time to go blow $40 bucks on a new one for a single hour long interview! Interview's with the manager and 3 technical leads in related areas, it's a SQL/BI job which is all I've ever done.

Any hot tips for a webcam interview? They mentioned the office is "casual" but it's still a fortune-500 manufacturing company, so I'm thinking blue dress shirt/no tie or jacket.

Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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My skype interview went pretty well, but their cameras didn't work so it was one sided.. kinda awkward.

Hopefully time to start bartering for a move package soon :toot:

Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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Here's a new one for me: my video interview went so well I have to take a new test and more interviews for a senior level position instead.

I'm at 4 years experience, and would be senior level amongst a team of mid-levels who nearly all have more years than me. My understanding of senior level is a greater focus on mentoring, design decisions, and business partner engagement, which I'm comfortable with.

The last test I took from them was half C#, for a position that's entirely in SQL, and I had to bullshit half my answers. I really hope that bombing a senior level test won't preclude me from the original, mid-level position. Anyone had this happen before, or have any tips for prep for a higher level position like this? I appreciated the advice on my last interview.

Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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I'm in a lovely double-edged sword situation right now with long hours. We're severely understaffed but we got loads of job reqs open a month ago. I'm also final say on the hires as the senior developer.

I keep having to turn down mid to senior developer candidates for being under qualified and simply not technically strong enough. I know we can get real quality developers, I've worked with dozens of people better than anyone I've interviewed so far. But the longer I stay this picky, the more time I'm going to spend stressed the gently caress out and overworked.

Not a great situation. I think our salaries must just be too low for the area period for experience BI developers (90k for a Senior Dev in Denver).

Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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ultrafilter posted:

Have you seen what we pay for healthcare?

Medical bills are actually the reason I can't leave this job. I have to pay back the signing bonus if I leave before next March, and medical bills destroyed my savings.

Though pay is high enough around here I guess it's not unheard of that I could get another $10k signing bonus to pay back the last one. I don't think I can sustain these 60+ hour weeks combined with 2+ hours of daily angry boss meetings for much longer.

Loutre fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Aug 1, 2018

Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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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. :thunk:


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

Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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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.

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.

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.

Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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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

Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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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

Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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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...

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?

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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Loutre
Jan 14, 2004

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Looking for some tips on my situation. Three months ago, our Data Architect made a political mistake at work and ended up shunned, so I was put in charge of his major projects as Senior Developer.

He just quit for another job making more money, and I was handed the rest of his workload, on top of mine which has already been laden with overtime. As he left, he happened to tell me his salary.. 147k, 57k more than I'm making.

He reported to the Director, I report to a supervisor below him. I'm planning on going to the Director and asking for the Architect title and a significant pay increase, considering I'm already doing the job. The problem is, his job postings for Data Architect are looking for people with 10+ years of experience, which I'm at half of - I've only been at Senior level for a year, and this is pretty much the final job title in BI work.

Anyone been through something like this? I'll probably jump ship from the company if I can't get the title, but wondering if there's anything I should prepare or plan on for this conversation. Another problem is that I'm pretty critical in my current role as the only one capable of supporting half of our production systems, so it's going to be hard to argue that I drop those responsibilities.

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