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Got two second-round interviews tomorrow morning, with my first and third choice for new job!  pretty excited for this, first choice job has all the cool gadgets and techniques and I really really want in.Which makes it all the more sad that my second-round interview with my second choice job went so bad last week. It's almost like my recruiter pitched me there as a senior dev well-versed in the Symfony2 framework, when I am neither. I consider myself a medior dev and told both my recruiter and that employer. My only experience with that framework was tearing it out of an old project and rewriting it from scratch, which I told my recruiter. It's almost as if he knew he was overselling me and did it anyway. So of course their take-home assignment bombed since I basically spent an entire sunday figuring out how to use that framework and didn't have time/energy left to prettify it. 
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Aug 10, 2016 14:42
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Merijn posted:Got two second-round interviews tomorrow morning, with my first and third choice for new job! Recruiters and employers play this game where employers request senior devs but only offer a high enough salary for a junior dev, so the recruiter sends junior devs to interview with the employer to try and convince them to pony up more cash. This is part of why you always hear companies saying, "We're hiring, but we can't seem to find anyone." It really just means they can't find anyone willing to work for bad pay.
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Aug 10, 2016 15:59
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Zero The Hero posted:Recruiters and employers play this game where employers request senior devs but only offer a high enough salary for a junior dev, so the recruiter sends junior devs to interview with the employer to try and convince them to pony up more cash. This is part of why you always hear companies saying, "We're hiring, but we can't seem to find anyone." It really just means they can't find anyone willing to work for bad pay. This explains so many weird happenings in my current job search.
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Aug 10, 2016 17:44
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RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS posted:Walking while carrying those groceries probably sucks. You can get your own little pushcart so you don't have to actually carry them.
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Aug 10, 2016 18:02
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Necc0 posted:This explains so many weird happenings in my current job search. That or they'll only settle for a unicorn. A competent developer who knows most but not all of the frameworks or technologies can get up to speed pretty quickly. However that time is greater than zero and some places only will consider somebody who can perform miracles on day one. Even if they do manage to find that perfect fit, well, good luck convincing him to work for less than six figures. It's like yeah hey we get that you want strong devs but you best be ready to pay for them. You might net a good dev who needs a job right now but good luck keeping him of he's underpaid. The answer to "how do we get top talent cheaply?" Is "you don't."
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Aug 10, 2016 18:19
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fritz posted:You can get your own little pushcart so you don't have to actually carry them. Just borrow one from the homeless you step over every day.
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Aug 10, 2016 18:25
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Necc0 posted:This explains so many weird happenings in my current job search. There's also some sort of fuckery with H1B visas or something - I've read about it, but I don't know the deal. It sounds like companies post jobs offering salaries well under what the position is worth so that they can justify hiring immigrants. Or something. I've applied to some of these just for fun - never gotten a response back. It kinda sucks being rejected for a low-paying position you're clearly qualified for, it feels like they think you're not even worth bargain prices.
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Aug 10, 2016 18:46
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an skeleton posted:So for a multitude of good reasons I've had to wait until the final day (the deadline) accept my offer letter (tomorrow). I was going to call the HR person I've been corresponding with tomorrow and negotiate salary and accept the offer, but I don't know if its a bad idea to do so now because its so late in the acceptance timespan. It's my first job out of college and I've stopped pursuing other opportunities, so I don't want to screw this one up; is it a bad idea to ask for $5000 (ish) more in salary or should I go ahead and go for it? A few other things I was going to do were get clarity on the dispensing of my relocation bonus, and ask to get their WFH/vacation policies in writing in my offer, which they currently are not. Don't let the "deadline" worry you. If they want you its definitely flexible. If you haven't negotiated at all, yeah ask for the $5k, esp if you have any other offers on the table/interviews lined up. Heck, ask for 10. Also though, the vacation policy isn't written down, did they actually make an real offer? Things like that should be written in the offer contract. Zero The Hero posted:This is part of why you always hear companies saying, "We're hiring, but we can't seem to find anyone." It really just means they can't find anyone willing to work for bad pay. Sometimes you're hiring for really specific roles and it actually IS that difficult to find good candidates. 
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Aug 10, 2016 19:22
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Zero The Hero posted:There's also some sort of fuckery with H1B visas or something - I've read about it, but I don't know the deal. It sounds like companies post jobs offering salaries well under what the position is worth so that they can justify hiring immigrants. Or something. I've applied to some of these just for fun - never gotten a response back. It kinda sucks being rejected for a low-paying position you're clearly qualified for, it feels like they think you're not even worth bargain prices. With H1B the company has to prove that there is a need that can't be filled by the local talent. If they have a stack of interviewed candidates that were "bad fits," it probably meets that criteria. Essentially, they need people to "fail" their interviews, but the job postings must match what they're looking for. I could see posting well, below average salary bands (or equivalent) would skew the candidates towards the under qualified and not qualified. This is, of course, all guesses on my part, but it doesn't seem that far fetched if this is, indeed, the case. Also, do people still mail in resumes? Like, I saw a Senior Dev job posting on a company's website that ended by saying "Interested parties should mail their resumes to [ACTUAL loving POSTAL ADDRESS]." It just baffled me, because even the one COBOL position I've seen required an online application.
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Aug 10, 2016 19:24
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Zero The Hero posted:Recruiters and employers play this game where employers request senior devs but only offer a high enough salary for a junior dev, so the recruiter sends junior devs to interview with the employer to try and convince them to pony up more cash. This is part of why you always hear companies saying, "We're hiring, but we can't seem to find anyone." It really just means they can't find anyone willing to work for bad pay. Nah, it's definitely not just that. Perhaps it is for some companies, but it is often hard to get qualified candidates into the interviewing/hiring pipeline, well before pay is even discussed. So unless people aren't interested at all because either they are all preemptively checking glassdoor and making a judgement based on that, or it's because we're not enticing with massive numbers up front. It may be that instead, hiring standards are too high, but reading some of the horror stories others have in their workplace, I'm not convinced of that, either.
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Aug 10, 2016 20:10
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BirdOfPlay posted:With H1B the company has to prove that there is a need that can't be filled by the local talent. pr0zac posted:Don't let the "deadline" worry you. If they want you its definitely flexible. If you haven't negotiated at all, yeah ask for the $5k, esp if you have any other offers on the table/interviews lined up. Heck, ask for 10. Also though, the vacation policy isn't written down, did they actually make an real offer? Things like that should be written in the offer contract.
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Aug 10, 2016 20:32
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Steve French posted:Got it. Absolutely. My initial comment was to highlight the fact that rent prices will vary significantly by location, along with some other costs (e.g. transit, food), but others are pretty much the same everywhere (in the US anyway), like video games or anything else you can/would order online. Yeah it's like, for me, my rent is about to double going from north county SD to the Bay Area, and my salary is not quite going to double (but my total comp is when you include bonus and stock vesting), but my food budget is going to decrease overall because Google has free meals. So it's still a net gain in discretionary spending.
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Aug 10, 2016 21:59
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BirdOfPlay posted:Also, do people still mail in resumes? Like, I saw a Senior Dev job posting on a company's website that ended by saying "Interested parties should mail their resumes to [ACTUAL loving POSTAL ADDRESS]." It just baffled me, because even the one COBOL position I've seen required an online application. Some places, for some mysterious reason, still want paper resumes sent in an envelope. I honestly don't have a single clue why. Maybe it's some old guy doing the hiring that hates using a computer?
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Aug 10, 2016 23:05
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Zero The Hero posted:Recruiters and employers play this game where employers request senior devs but only offer a high enough salary for a junior dev, so the recruiter sends junior devs to interview with the employer to try and convince them to pony up more cash. This is part of why you always hear companies saying, "We're hiring, but we can't seem to find anyone." It really just means they can't find anyone willing to work for bad pay. I'm stuck in a terrible job search in Los Angeles where the opposite of this occurs. Recruiters posting 120-150k jobs for low experience requirements. I wonder how that goes down for the person who actually gets the interview.
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Aug 11, 2016 00:50
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Necc0 posted:This explains so many weird happenings in my current job search. This is my current works problem. But they have said they get people that turn in the assessment empty, call in because a pet is sick, or act totally disinterested. We live close to a big hotspot for jobs, so maybe that is what is stealing all the good candidates. I already work at this company so I am hoping it lands me a good opportunity in to this career path.
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Aug 11, 2016 03:09
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Do personal game dev projects which required a lot of coding look good when trying for a normal programming job?
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Aug 11, 2016 03:25
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And almost as if on queue I got contacted by a google recruiter for a Mobile position. Let's see where the goes.
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Aug 11, 2016 03:44
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Sex Tragedy posted:Do personal game dev projects which required a lot of coding look good when trying for a normal programming job? Yes.
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Aug 11, 2016 04:21
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KidDynamite posted:And almost as if on queue I got contacted by a google recruiter for a Mobile position. Let's see where the goes. Good luck sarehu posted:Yes. Thanks, makes me feel much more confident.
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Aug 11, 2016 05:02
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Merijn posted:Got two second-round interviews tomorrow morning, with my first and third choice for new job! Update: 1st choice didn't offer me a job. I wasn't a 'warm enough' personality or something.3rd choice made up for it by making a really loving awesome offer so I'm taking that. Job hunting sucks.
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Aug 11, 2016 14:30
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Is it better to leave a question blank on an assessment if you're clueless, or give it a horrible try? Thinking of turning in my resume and some code examples over to the Software department head today, so we'll see how that goes.
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Aug 11, 2016 14:45
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jabro posted:Just borrow one from the homeless you step over every day. Have you seriously not seen one of these https://smile.amazon.com/Whitmor-Deluxe-Rolling-Utility-Shopping/dp/B001DZ4QTC/
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Aug 11, 2016 15:09
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fritz posted:Have you seriously not seen one of these https://smile.amazon.com/Whitmor-Deluxe-Rolling-Utility-Shopping/dp/B001DZ4QTC/ The stereotype is that only the homeless and old ladies use them because that's what overwhelmingly happens in car-dependant cities.
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Aug 11, 2016 17:49
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Is it normal at a dev job to often have nothing to do?
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Aug 11, 2016 18:03
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Sex Tragedy posted:Thanks, makes me feel much more confident. I would qualify that yes with "it depends". Yes, they shouldn't be horrible spaghetti but as long it shows some semblance of order it should be enough. It is a showcase of what you can do though, so I'd be wary of hiring someone who's only project in github is a mess with one commit that says "First commit". ToxicSlurpee posted:Is it normal at a dev job to often have nothing to do? It happens sometimes but it's kinda bad if it happens too often. It can mean that your job is either dispensable or the place where you are working is having problem getting enough projects (which means money flow problems sooner or later). Where I work we deal with it by having internal projects. There are always things to do to make our lives easier or to sell later. lunar detritus fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Aug 11, 2016 |
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Aug 11, 2016 18:06
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Is it normal at a dev job to often have nothing to do? Maybe once or twice a year I'll have a week where there's straight up nothing to do but you should largely have something to work on- even if it's backtracking and cleaning up / improving / documenting things you've already done. If you're severely underutilized make sure your boss knows. If it's a regular issue you may want to start looking for other work.
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Aug 11, 2016 18:37
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On the other hand at my last job I knew a consultant who managed to fall into some sort of blind spot and got away with doing nothing but play WoW for three years before anyone caught on and fired him. It's up to you
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Aug 11, 2016 18:38
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Is it normal at a dev job to often have nothing to do? If its happening regularly its either an indicator something is broken in your company's engineering workflow or you aren't being very ambitious and looking for ways to get involved. If no one (including yourself) cares though enjoy catching up on forums threads.
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Aug 11, 2016 19:54
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I work at a government organization and I frequently have long periods of nothing to do because people need a month and three reminders to respond to a goddamn email. I spend a lot of time just learning new things on my own or building things that I think will be helpful in the future. Sometimes I go back and rewrite things. I've had to nag my boss to give me work because I was bored out of my mind.
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Aug 11, 2016 20:52
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Necc0 posted:Maybe once or twice a year I'll have a week where there's straight up nothing to do but you should largely have something to work on- even if it's backtracking and cleaning up / improving / documenting things you've already done. If you're severely underutilized make sure your boss knows. If it's a regular issue you may want to start looking for other work. Some places that bill clients per-head per-person have no short-term incentive to drop useless personnel and will retain anyone who doesn't rock the boat about it.
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Aug 11, 2016 22:06
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gmq posted:It happens sometimes but it's kinda bad if it happens too often. It can mean that your job is either dispensable or the place where you are working is having problem getting enough projects (which means money flow problems sooner or later). Where I work we deal with it by having internal projects. There are always things to do to make our lives easier or to sell later. I don't work for a software company so there's literally zero income coming in from the programming I do. I work on an internal tool that makes it easier for other people to do their job. The guy I effectively report to told me he'd have a big backlog of Stuff to Do for me and tried but...uh...well, I burned through it very quickly. I get the feeling they expected some mediocre programmer to do mostly boring, easy things (much of the program is just interacting with a database, tracking stuff, and communication, really...nothing exciting but totally necessary) and instead managed to snag somebody good. Necc0 posted:Maybe once or twice a year I'll have a week where there's straight up nothing to do but you should largely have something to work on- even if it's backtracking and cleaning up / improving / documenting things you've already done. If you're severely underutilized make sure your boss knows. If it's a regular issue you may want to start looking for other work. Of course I'm underutilized! I'm also underpaid!  I'd love to go work on the code base but it's a horrifying abomination made years and years ago by underpaid contractors. I can't even look at it without having to undo everything and roll back to the master branch. The code base is just so unfathomably bad.
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Aug 11, 2016 23:03
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fritz posted:Have you seriously not seen one of these https://smile.amazon.com/Whitmor-Deluxe-Rolling-Utility-Shopping/dp/B001DZ4QTC/ Yes. Refer to my homeless statement you quoted.
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Aug 11, 2016 23:31
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My career thus far has been mechanical engineering undergrad, with two internships, then Peace Corps as a civil engineer and now I've been job searching for almost 8 months. Seems that Peace Corps kind of screwed me over and left me in the dust in terms of mech eng. Anyways, I started learning web design for fun about a year and a half ago and a few weeks ago decided to really put an effort into looking for web design jobs. Had like 5 head hunters after me in a week and 4 interviews. Just got an offer and I'm really ready to peace out from this lovely job search. The offer is for $22/hour temp to hire after 3 months. The company is very reputable and one of my very good friends has worked there for 5 years. I'm drafting up an email now to negotiate and I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts. I'm thinking either way, it'd be good experience and they'll either hire me after 3 months or I'll have lots more skills and can return to the temp job I have now. (they'll have me back at any time).
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Aug 12, 2016 00:10
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Are the other three interviews potentially going to result in offers? Anyway, congrats.
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Aug 12, 2016 02:03
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huhu posted:My career thus far has been mechanical engineering undergrad, with two internships, then Peace Corps as a civil engineer and now I've been job searching for almost 8 months. Seems that Peace Corps kind of screwed me over and left me in the dust in terms of mech eng. Anyways, I started learning web design for fun about a year and a half ago and a few weeks ago decided to really put an effort into looking for web design jobs. Had like 5 head hunters after me in a week and 4 interviews. Just got an offer and I'm really ready to peace out from this lovely job search. The offer is for $22/hour temp to hire after 3 months. The company is very reputable and one of my very good friends has worked there for 5 years. I'm drafting up an email now to negotiate and I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts. I'm thinking either way, it'd be good experience and they'll either hire me after 3 months or I'll have lots more skills and can return to the temp job I have now. (they'll have me back at any time). If you don't have any other interviews lined up that you think will pan into better offers then take it and perform to your best. Leverage your friend there too and make him sell you to his manager so you can for sure get an offer at the end of the 3 months.
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Aug 12, 2016 11:27
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Steve French posted:Nah, it's definitely not just that. Perhaps it is for some companies, but it is often hard to get qualified candidates into the interviewing/hiring pipeline, well before pay is even discussed. What kind of company advertises for a job without even the slightest indication of how much they're willing to pay, though? (And if they are doing the 'competitive pay' thing and not saying, that's not going to help getting qualified candidates, just saying)
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Aug 12, 2016 12:27
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Is it normal at a dev job to often have nothing to do? Not really. It's happening at my job at the moment and I get the feeling it's because either the management's focus is on other projects, or the new scrum master we hired isn't up to speed yet. We haven't had a proper sprint in 2 months.
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Aug 12, 2016 15:13
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You have a dedicated scrum master but no sprint in 2 months? What does he do?
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Aug 12, 2016 15:15
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pr0zac posted:If its happening regularly its either an indicator something is broken in your company's engineering workflow or you aren't being very ambitious and looking for ways to get involved. If no one (including yourself) cares though enjoy catching up on forums threads. This is what I'm doing. Strangely enough, if I were to start working on a personal project and improved my skills on company time, that would be a big problem. But actually wasting the time? That's tolerable, within limits.
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Aug 12, 2016 15:18
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Zero The Hero posted:Strangely enough, if I were to start working on a personal project and improved my skills on company time, that would be a big problem. But actually wasting the time? That's tolerable, within limits. The difference is that other companies can't profit from you wasting time 
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