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Look at this as an opportunity to expand your skills. Being able to evaluate other developers' skill levels is a useful skill for more senior devs, not to mention this way you get to help pick your teammates.
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Feb 20, 2017 21:28
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Good Will Hrunting posted:I've been here 3 weeks and have done basically nothing on a project that is still in early planning phases, how can I evaluate someone's ability to succeed in a job on this team or even a tangentially related team that I know hardly nothing about? You don't see a problem in that? Sure, I can interview someone and ask them some problem solving bullshit white boarding or about their last job but uhhhh yeah. I'm not even a "Senior" engineer by any means of the word. "In the absence of top-down direction, are you able to suss out what the business needs are for your role and start to execute on them?" I've never had formal training on how to conduct interviews. Like at a certain point they just throw you in there and assume you can come out with a thumbs up / thumbs down. Bonus points if HR bothers telling you what can't be asked. TooMuchAbstraction posted:this way you get to help pick your teammates.
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Feb 20, 2017 21:31
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I guess that's a different outlook. I'm just frustrated because of my lack of any sort of stories or work so far. I just keep getting told that specs are coming and design decisions are being made by upper management. When I ask to get involved in that my boss says "I'll send you some stuff" and never follows up. And it's not just me, my non-managing teammates are saying it as well. It really does seem like growing pains from the parent company down, but no less frustrating. I like doing poo poo!!!!!
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Feb 20, 2017 21:41
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Good Will Hrunting posted:How clueless do you have to be to ask your new employee, not even a month into the job, who has yet to do any work on the project they were hired to work on, to help you in the hiring process lmbo Yeah it's pretty clueless to enlist the help of the person on the team who most recently went through the hiring process as a candidate, still has it fresh in their mind, and thus can offer a unique and knowledgeable perspective on it
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Feb 20, 2017 22:06
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Just see if he can do fizz buzz and call it a day
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Feb 20, 2017 22:07
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Pollyanna posted:Well, if it's not blocking, then what does it hurt to leave it there? Poor styling and practice pains me as much as anyone else, but I've learned to keep my mouth shut when it pisses people off to be questioned/criticized. Then again, if it's a job that sucks completely, then gently caress it, might as well try and make it better.
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Feb 20, 2017 22:12
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kitten smoothie posted:Yeah it's pretty clueless to enlist the help of the person on the team who most recently went through the hiring process as a candidate, still has it fresh in their mind, and thus can offer a unique and knowledgeable perspective on it There's a huge difference between asking for feedback and actually asking your new employee to conduct an interview lmao that's a pretty dense reply my dude
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Feb 20, 2017 22:14
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Everything's going to be okay, Hrunting
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Feb 20, 2017 22:28
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kitten smoothie posted:Yeah it's pretty clueless to enlist the help of the person on the team who most recently went through the hiring process as a candidate, still has it fresh in their mind, and thus can offer a unique and knowledgeable perspective on it I'm with you. I was hired during a big hiring burst, and started sitting in on interviews a month after I joined. I wasn't the final say on *any* applicants, I just passed on my impressions of their programming abilities up to the director.
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Feb 20, 2017 22:41
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lifg posted:I'm with you. But if you're not satisfied, you can totally go to management and whine that you're unqualified and unable to do the one concrete thing they've asked you to do. That could work out well.
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Feb 20, 2017 22:45
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We don't even have enough work for the other two engineers and myself, why are we hiring MORE people!  Is every company poorly managed? I'm 3/3 so far on finding teams with good engineering minds but just god awful resource management.
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Feb 20, 2017 22:46
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Doghouse posted:Just see if he can do fizz buzz and call it a day ^this but also ask about sql injection and you'll filter out 90% of applicants
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Feb 20, 2017 22:55
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Hire a bunch of lovely developers so that you'll look significantly better than them when performance review time rolls around 
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Feb 20, 2017 23:06
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Good Will Hrunting posted:We don't even have enough work for the other two engineers and myself, why are we hiring MORE people! Not enough to do now? Good thing they're finding things for you to do rather than sit and look at the wall!  As someone who a few lifetimes ago did the checking of the programming test (This one was just thrown at everyone who sent a resume and no one would look at the resume until the test came back.) pick one or two good parts of problem space and only ever really look at that. It'll save a lot of time. IE: The one I used to go through was about 20 questions / problems with a role your own C linked list at the end. That's the only one I'd look for and would just check: Did you handle the empty list cases? Do you have any fence post errors? Great let's look at the rest for any red flags and then your resume gets read! If you missed those two I'd just move on to the next one.
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Feb 20, 2017 23:14
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Doghouse posted:Just see if he can do fizz buzz and call it a day This just makes me wish someone would create a popular dance called fizz buzz
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Feb 20, 2017 23:19
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Good Will Hrunting posted:We don't even have enough work for the other two engineers and myself, why are we hiring MORE people! One of the three programming jobs I've had so far has been like that. It was very poorly managed and a political clusterfuck. The work was interesting though, and I liked everyone on my team.
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Feb 21, 2017 00:03
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JawnV6 posted:But if you're not satisfied, you can totally go to management and whine that you're unqualified and unable to do the one concrete thing they've asked you to do. That could work out well. If you spent a few hours doing a take home assignment, how would you feel if the person who reviewed it had spent maybe a cumulative 5 hours (writing incredibly simple automation scripts) with the language you chose to use and would be the person assessing you? Sure I can see how it runs, if he did the features adhering to the spec, did anything obviously boneheaded, etc. and I will without whining or saying anything to anyone. Anyway, management is my boss, he's the VP of engineering on our side. But it feels unfair to the candidate. I'll do as I'm asked and gladly collect my generous paycheck, but there's a lot of disconcerting signs so far. My manager told me he's not going to be involved in the day to day of my project, hopefully upper management of our parent company will do a better job, but after our "kick-off" I could absolutely see things falling apart. They have tons of other responsibilities and my side is merely a small portion of the platform. They seemed totally uninterested in being at the first planning and kick-off meetings and I got a weird vibe regarding their attitude towards my entire team.
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Feb 21, 2017 01:25
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Good Will Hrunting posted:Is every company poorly managed? Yes, mostly.
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Feb 21, 2017 01:41
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Good Will Hrunting posted:If you spent a few hours doing a take home assignment, how would you feel if the person who reviewed it had spent maybe a cumulative 5 hours (writing incredibly simple automation scripts) with the language you chose to use and would be the person assessing you? Sure I can see how it runs, if he did the features adhering to the spec, did anything obviously boneheaded, etc. If you're interviewing for general programming skills, and not language-specific, then that really is all you need to do. Can they build an algorithm. Do they understand space/time trade offs. Is their code readable. Done. It's a low bar, but it's just one step in a large, multi-step filtering process. If you passed through that process, you're qualified to do this step.
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Feb 21, 2017 02:34
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Good Will Hrunting posted:If you spent a few hours doing a take home assignment, how would you feel if the person who reviewed it had spent maybe a cumulative 5 hours (writing incredibly simple automation scripts) with the language you chose to use and would be the person assessing you? Sure I can see how it runs, if he did the features adhering to the spec, did anything obviously boneheaded, etc. and I will without whining or saying anything to anyone. Anyway, management is my boss, he's the VP of engineering on our side. But it feels unfair to the candidate. At what point did you woefully internalize the concept that "interviews are fair"? That's going to cause problems. Best get rid of it.
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Feb 21, 2017 03:11
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Good Will Hrunting posted:If you spent a few hours doing a take home assignment, how would you feel if the person who reviewed it had spent maybe a cumulative 5 hours (writing incredibly simple automation scripts) with the language you chose to use and would be the person assessing you? Sure I can see how it runs, if he did the features adhering to the spec, did anything obviously boneheaded, etc. and I will without whining or saying anything to anyone. Anyway, management is my boss, he's the VP of engineering on our side. But it feels unfair to the candidate. I used to actually do a thing in my in-person interviews where I'd give a person a code sample to read and explain. I wouldn't pay any mind whatsoever to their thought process or how well they understood the code. I would watch them instead. If they looked pissed about having to do it, it was a yellow flag.
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Feb 21, 2017 05:01
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You cynical bastards should really read this book: https://leanpub.com/developerhegemony I've been a fan of Erik Dietrich's blog for a while. It really fits with the vibe of this forum.
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Feb 21, 2017 11:27
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So I've been getting feedback for a while related to being proactive on a team and reaching out to get work done as opposed to taking a more reactive role where work is handed to me and I just send it off to review. It ranged from seeming unfocused on the work to be done, to seeking out work and getting involved without prompting (hackathon mentality), to the rest of the team working overtime whereas I wasn't so much, which is hard to tell since I'm one of two developers physically in the office and the other works remotely a lot. This kinda feels like making excuses, though. It's definitely taken a toll on perception of me as an employee and I would be lying if I didn't say some of it was due to slight burnout and dissatisfaction with the job. Still, I'm not happy about it. It's not something that comes naturally to me, but I can tell it should be addressed ASAP. This might not be specific to software development, but how have people tried to become a more proactive person?
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Feb 21, 2017 23:03
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Pollyanna posted:So I've been getting feedback for a while related to being proactive on a team and reaching out to get work done as opposed to taking a more reactive role where work is handed to me and I just send it off to review. It ranged from seeming unfocused on the work to be done, to seeking out work and getting involved without prompting (hackathon mentality), to the rest of the team working overtime whereas I wasn't so much, which is hard to tell since I'm one of two developers physically in the office and the other works remotely a lot. This kinda feels like making excuses, though. It's definitely taken a toll on perception of me as an employee and I would be lying if I didn't say some of it was due to slight burnout and dissatisfaction with the job. Still, I'm not happy about it. If you lack tasking, ask whoever is in charge of the project what the current priorities are if it's unclear in the backlog. If everything on your project is blocked, go down the list of all other project leads in the org; organized either by technology or people you want to work with. If your manager yells at you for helping other teams, say you thought all pending tasks were blocked and start the process over. If your manager yells and has nothing for you, forward the message to his boss and ask what you should be doing with the company's time (this is equivalent to hot wiring a bus so you can drive it over them).
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Feb 22, 2017 02:07
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Or reddit; up to you. If I'm honest with myself, I'll just slow down for a day or two if tasking is light. Longer than that and I just get bored so desperately look for something to do.
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Feb 22, 2017 02:10
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Good Will Hrunting posted:If you spent a few hours doing a take home assignment, how would you feel if the person who reviewed it had spent maybe a cumulative 5 hours (writing incredibly simple automation scripts) with the language you chose to use and would be the person assessing you? Sure I can see how it runs, if he did the features adhering to the spec, did anything obviously boneheaded, etc. and I will without whining or saying anything to anyone. Anyway, management is my boss, he's the VP of engineering on our side. But it feels unfair to the candidate. I would want the most checked-out, idiotic, and unobservant member of the team to be the one who reviewed my code, provided that they're not also hostile to new blood.
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Feb 22, 2017 03:13
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Pollyanna posted:So I've been getting feedback for a while related to being proactive on a team and reaching out to get work done as opposed to taking a more reactive role where work is handed to me and I just send it off to review. It ranged from seeming unfocused on the work to be done, to seeking out work and getting involved without prompting (hackathon mentality), to the rest of the team working overtime whereas I wasn't so much, which is hard to tell since I'm one of two developers physically in the office and the other works remotely a lot. This kinda feels like making excuses, though. It's definitely taken a toll on perception of me as an employee and I would be lying if I didn't say some of it was due to slight burnout and dissatisfaction with the job. Still, I'm not happy about it. Being criticized that other people are taking OT while you're not is insane. I'd have hit back by asking why the rest of my team is so incompetent that they can't do their work in 40 hours.
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Feb 22, 2017 03:57
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Good Will Hrunting posted:If you spent a few hours doing a take home assignment, how would you feel if the person who reviewed it had spent maybe a cumulative 5 hours (writing incredibly simple automation scripts) So I'm not sure about this. For example, I've never programmed a single line of go, but I expect that if I were reviewing a candidate's go code I'd be able to categorize it into 'yeah this looks ok' or 'oh why would you do that'. (And there was a time once where I had never written any java but I was interviewing candidates who decided to solve a coding exercise with it, and it was: fine) (this obviously is not going to apply if they choose to work in something a little more off the wall, but that would be a reason for me putting in a couple hours effort getting the basic idea)
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Feb 22, 2017 05:14
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For some background, we're currently in a bit of a death march where we're working in a project that's way behind schedule and we're scrambling to get everything done by the new website launch at the end of March. It's hampered by the fact that we have two devs, me and a colleague, that for a variety of reasons aren't as effective as the lead (it's complicated). Project manager has been spotty and rough, devs have left the team, and our workflow is kinda poo poo. I feel unproductive and useless as a result, and feel like that blame is being put upon me.leper khan posted:If you lack tasking, ask whoever is in charge of the project what the current priorities are if it's unclear in the backlog. If everything on your project is blocked, go down the list of all other project leads in the org; organized either by technology or people you want to work with. fantastic in plastic posted:Being criticized that other people are taking OT while you're not is insane. I'd have hit back by asking why the rest of my team is so incompetent that they can't do their work in 40 hours. Here's the feedback I got on the matter: quote:You need to be more focused on getting the work done. This means spending all your time during the day completing the work assigned to you. If it is completed early, great you can help others or take on more tasks. We are all professionals and need learning time but during critical project periods this may not be possible. Translation: do only work, no learning. I've been doing some Elixir+Clojure book reading as part of our weekly "how much personal learning/development have you done this week" organization thing, which confuses me. quote:If the team is working harder/longer hours, you need to be there with them. You are an exempt professional meaning that 40 hours of work is a normal week but you are expected to work more if the team/deliverables need it. If you are done with your work, this might mean helping someone else pair program, test, etc. Ask yourself, how can I help reduce the burden on others. Translation: work overtime like the rest of us, rear end in a top hat. Also don't look only to tickets for work that can be done. I've been helping and pairing with the other dev on getting stuff done, but this seems to be a similar thing to the proactive part. For a variety of reasons, our tickets and stuff aren't very well handled and we've recently been switching between Scrim and Kanban and all that, it's been a whirlwind. Honestly, I think this all just boils down to "look busy". The biggest thing that worries me is that this (and the stuff about being proactive) is feedback I've received before, and that this appears to be a pattern with me. That's really bad. That's the kinda thing that tanks confidence in me and I need to avoid it. Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Feb 22, 2017 |
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Feb 22, 2017 15:33
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Vulture Culture posted:There sure are a lot of morons self-labeling themselves despite having never seen a qualified medical professional about the matter What would they get out of a formal diagnosis, exactly, if their condition doesn't require medical intervention?
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Feb 22, 2017 15:56
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Pollyanna posted:For some background, we're currently in a bit of a death march where we're working in a project that's way behind schedule and we're scrambling to get everything done by the new website launch at the end of March. It's hampered by the fact that we have two devs, me and a colleague, that for a variety of reasons aren't as effective as the lead (it's complicated). Project manager has been spotty and rough, devs have left the team, and our workflow is kinda poo poo. I feel unproductive and useless as a result, and feel like that blame is being put upon me. If your entire team is on a death march and you're chilling doing 40 hours and reading books on the job it's really not surprising you'll get this kind of feedback. If I was in your teammates shoes I'd have already bitched you out. Now, if you don't give a poo poo and you just want to do your 40 and go home that's cool and I feel you because this is also my opinion on work in general, just don't expect people that don't realize that there will always be more work to understand why they're busting their rear end and you're not.
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Feb 22, 2017 16:02
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Pollyanna posted:The biggest thing that worries me is that this (and the stuff about being proactive) is feedback I've received before, and that this appears to be a pattern with me. That's really bad. That's the kinda thing that tanks confidence in me and I need to avoid it. Have you considered that perhaps the feedback is true, and that instead of avoiding it you should address it?
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Feb 22, 2017 16:42
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On one hand, it's kinda ridiculous that the two seniors and VP of Engineering who interviewed me aren't the people I'll be working with at all? Weird to me at least, maybe it's normal at other places. On the other hand, it's great because the other people seem to be way better so far, since my boss has gotten less involved in the day to day, and the changes are apparent even over a span as short as 48 hours. Planning has finally increased in productivity, exponentially. Also not a single person on my project team works out of my office so I'll be remote a lot. I also can't tell if my boss-boss is smart or not. He did his PhD and is a very academic person but seems to be remarkably weak at execution.
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Feb 22, 2017 16:59
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The March Hare posted:Have you considered that perhaps the feedback is true, and that instead of avoiding it you should address it? That's what I meant.
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Feb 22, 2017 17:27
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Pollyanna posted:That's what I meant. You can decide for yourself what your work ethic is. If you want work no more than 40 hours per week because you've decided this is a job and you'd rather live as much of your own life as possible, that's fine. But you have to realize that this may alienate the people on your team that put in more time, as well as many management types who just expect you to break your own back for the company because this is 'Murrica dammit. Me, I have an unspoken agreement with the people I work with and for: I won't be a clock watcher if you won't. That means if you need me during a midnight maintenance window or an emergency outage triage or even several weeks of crunch time, I'll be there. In return, you don't get on my case if I have to be in late in the morning or leave early in the afternoon because I have to take care of some personal business of whatever nature, or want to take a nap, or want to sleep in because I was with you in that aforementioned midnight maintenance window. Evaluate my work, not my time. If I'm not getting enough done, let's talk about it. But do not frame the conversation in terms of when I start and when I leave. As far as your immediate situation, crunch is crunch and whether you're working 40 hours or 60 you should probably be laser-focused on the immediate problem, not learning other tech that you don't need right this minute (yes, long-term goals and policies about training never take this into account. Ignore these during emergencies). Now if your company is in a state of permanent crunch because management can't plan, that's something else entirely. But again you're going to get resentment from the people who don't realize that the failure is coming from a lack of planning, not because the devs aren't working 24 hours a day. Long-term, if you want to be a 9-5 programmer and not get resentment over it, your best option is probably to go into the corporate world. Small corporations looking for one programmer to do internal applications for other teams. Brainless CRUD factory work.
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Feb 22, 2017 18:17
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Che Delilas posted:As far as your immediate situation, crunch is crunch and whether you're working 40 hours or 60 you should probably be laser-focused on the immediate problem, not learning other tech that you don't need right this minute (yes, long-term goals and policies about training never take this into account. Ignore these during emergencies). Now if your company is in a state of permanent crunch because management can't plan, that's something else entirely. But again you're going to get resentment from the people who don't realize that the failure is coming from a lack of planning, not because the devs aren't working 24 hours a day. Yeah, exactly this. It's fine (or at least not that bad) if you stick to 40-and-out even during a deathmarch as long as you are productive and appear productive. Self-improvement time doesn't have any place in a poorly managed crunchtime project. Which is not your problem really, but recognizing and adapting to the workplace you're in *is* your problem.
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Feb 22, 2017 18:29
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Che Delilas posted:Good stuff 
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Feb 22, 2017 18:56
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I'm pulling an effective 9-to-5 each day, and while I'm there I'm productive and working on all the tickets and pieces of work that I need to get done, so I'm not sure what the problem is there. Of course, there's tickets that are slow due to dumb blockers like laggy, broken deployment pipelines, unfamiliarity with tech, etc. - nothing takes exactly as long as you think it will. And productivity is hampered across the organization by issues with project management (our new org lead that just replaced the 3 highest people in the office had a big ol' rant about it today), so I have a bit of an issue with taking a lack of productivity personally. Dunno if it's possible to convince anyone in the organization of that, though. I'm perfectly capable of the hackathon mentality, working myself to the bone on something, god knows I've done it a lot before - but that sort of thing needs a particular environment set up for it and invites a lot of emotional investment and personal connection for an engineer, and I don't find it here. It's hard to get fired up for crunch time when you have low confidence in your codebase, your team still has kinks to iron out, and you're not particularly attached to the product you're working on. You see this kind of thing in startups more because individuals are closer to developing and designing the product, are more likely to be personally invested in the product itself (e.g. ideologically), and have a small enough size to feel the kind of camaraderie that leads to the Fruit of Hard Work effect. Not so much in big corporations. There's also the recent org changes/firings/angry C-levels and the looming feeling of instability as a result. I'll admit that most of my on-the-job learning is me hedging my bets on the future. I work best heads down and tackling work on a regular, manageable schedule. gently caress staying in the office past 6~7 and the poo poo some people do, at least not for my current job. Che Delilas posted:Long-term, if you want to be a 9-5 programmer and not get resentment over it, your best option is probably to go into the corporate world. Small corporations looking for one programmer to do internal applications for other teams. Brainless CRUD factory work. That's a bit awkward, since this is one of said corporations. We're in a weird in-between state where we have the trappings of a corporation but the inherent anxiety and crunch of a start-up looking to launch an MVP. In general the org is set up for exactly that sort of scenario you mentioned, but it's been breaking down as the company starts freaking out over startups taking bites out of their market share.
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Feb 22, 2017 19:07
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Pollyanna posted:I'm pulling an effective 9-to-5 each day, and while I'm there I'm productive and working on all the tickets and pieces of work that I need to get done, so I'm not sure what the problem is there. Of course, there's tickets that are slow due to dumb blockers like laggy, broken deployment pipelines, unfamiliarity with tech, etc. - nothing takes exactly as long as you think it will. And productivity is hampered across the organization by issues with project management (our new org lead that just replaced the 3 highest people in the office had a big ol' rant about it today), so I have a bit of an issue with taking a lack of productivity personally. Dunno if it's possible to convince anyone in the organization of that, though. I don't like playing therapist for an internet comedy forum stranger, but you sound extremely unhappy and like you're in an organization which makes you miserable. You'll save thousands on therapy bills later and possibly on months/years of income lost or diminished due to burnout by finding a new job.
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Feb 22, 2017 19:18
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If 40 hours of decent work isn't good enough, gently caress em.
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Feb 22, 2017 19:32
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