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Doh004 posted:Same here. I'm trying to make the jump between Engineering Manager -> Director right now which is an awkward spot. Oh? What are you seeing? The few director listings I've seen are looking for folks with 6+ years IC experience and 3+ management experience.
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Aug 5, 2019 18:51
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kayakyakr posted:Oh? What are you seeing? The few director listings I've seen are looking for folks with 6+ years IC experience and 3+ management experience. Back when I was looking several months ago, I was hitting resistance because I didn't have the title. Even though my experiences are at that level, it was a big jump for an org to say "This person is a Director even though they've never been called it". I'm also younger than most at this level (a lot of luck) at 30 so there's a little bit of reverse-ageism at play (I'm not complaining).
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Aug 5, 2019 19:20
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Start a little company on the side so you can direct it.
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Aug 5, 2019 19:21
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Doh004 posted:Back when I was looking several months ago, I was hitting resistance because I didn't have the title. Even though my experiences are at that level, it was a big jump for an org to say "This person is a Director even though they've never been called it". Ah, that makes sense. Making the transition in title requires some buy-in or desperation. Conning your current company to give you a title bump would also help...
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Aug 5, 2019 19:36
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At some point executive recruiters come into play, but I'm not at that level so I have no idea what those are like.
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Aug 5, 2019 19:44
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Doh004 posted:Back when I was looking several months ago, I was hitting resistance because I didn't have the title. Even though my experiences are at that level, it was a big jump for an org to say "This person is a Director even though they've never been called it".
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Aug 6, 2019 03:10
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Vulture Culture posted:At my last job I was an engineering manager with a director title. In my current job I'm a director with an EM title. I want to (and largely do currently) do product management. The title treadmill is unwinnable. Just try to solve real problems. Why product management?
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Aug 6, 2019 03:20
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Can we talk about oversaturation for a minute? This is a hot topic on reddit whenever it comes up. Some people are . completely convin ed the market is oversaturated, other people vehemently deny that it is. Oversaturation is when there are more people than there are jobs. So for a given market, there are 20,000 developers looking for jobs, and only 10,000 job openings. I'm firmly in the "oversaturation is real" camp for the US market. Most people will agree that the junior level is oversaturated, but will say that senior developers are super scarce, and if you have 5 or more years of experience, and can perform fizzbuzz, you'll be flooded with 100K+ job offers all day long. I have 10 years experience as a professional software developer (and can perform pizzbuzz and much more), but finding a job has been an absolute SLOG since 2012. I think the biggest bit of evidence of oversaturation is the interview process. When I first started in this industry in 2010 the typical job interview was orders of magnitude more easy to pass than interviews today. My first job in 2010 consisted of a single conversational phone screen, and only one technical question which was just "explain to us what a lambda expression is". Now-a-days no one will hire you after a single conversational phone screen. There is always some kind of programming puzzle involved. In 2012 I experienced an 8 month long bout of unemployment where I frantically shotgunned my resume and interviewed with any company that would give me the time of day. I experienced a handful of companies that made me perform some lengthy take home project, only to end up not offering me the job, despite me completing the take home exactly as they wanted it. SInce then I've developed the habit of asking "If I complete this take home project exactly as it's described, will you guarantee me with 100% certainty that you'll offer me a job" when asked to do a homework project. So far, literally 100% of the time I ask this, the answer is always "No". If the programmers were truly scarce, then the answer would always be "Yes, if you complete the take home project, then we'll definitely offer you a job" The truth is it was MUCH easier for me to get a job offer back when I had less than 2 years of professional experience. Now that I have 10 years of experience, it's gotten much much harder. That to me is proof of oversaturation.
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Aug 6, 2019 07:06
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What market are you in? The super hot markets are really quite concentrated in half a dozen or so metro areas. I don’t personally see any hints of oversaturation where I am. We are still literally importing thousands of people a year to fill tens of thousands of open job postings across countless companies. Also I do think that there is a higher bar for a more senior person in an interview. It does make it tougher, but on the other hand you are looking at 200k+ in total comp in a lot of these senior roles and companies and engineering teams don’t want to risk a bad hire. Most interview processes I’ve participated in have outright said they anything but a “strong hire” decision should be considered a “no hire”, lest they hire a false positive. Yes it is a poo poo process, but it’s a poo poo process for everyone involved. There are also legit a shitload of imposters out there. Years of experience are not all equal. A person can have ten years of experience, but it could have just been the same crappy year over and over again. I am now at about the ten year mark in my tech career and feel more employable than ever, but that could largely come down to being in a major tech hub with way more jobs than people. Until it all comes crashing down again? 
Guinness fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Aug 6, 2019 |
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Aug 6, 2019 07:26
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England; the market is dry as gently caress, given your example of 20,000 going for 10,000, we have 500 going for 10,000. And because we're about the same size as Alabama there's no way to escape it either; recruiters will go on a literal feeding frenzy the moment you tick "looking for work" on LinkedIn. It's accross all levels but mostly developer & QA roles, also a ton of "learn coding fast" Additionally; a fairly big org went into administration at the start of the month and everyone is going hungry hippos on the now jobless. Personal update: I passed the Amazon technical phone screen, now onto the management screen! Cancelbot fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Aug 6, 2019 |
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Aug 6, 2019 07:52
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School of How posted:SInce then I've developed the habit of asking "If I complete this take home project exactly as it's described, will you guarantee me with 100% certainty that you'll offer me a job" when asked to do a homework project. So far, literally 100% of the time I ask this, the answer is always "No". Maybe it's just me, but this seems like a really weird question to ask. If I were in the hiring seat, not only would I absolutely answer "no", but the fact that you asked would be a red flag against you. Yes, lengthy take-home projects suck, and yes, getting rejected after hours of unpaid work sucks even more. But the point of these projects - especially the longer, more free-form ones - usually isn't just to see if you can solve the problem, but how you solve problems. If you hand in something that is 100% according to specification, but significantly flawed in other ways (like, I don't know, if you crammed the whole thing into a single 5000 line file or something), you are still going to fail. And on top of that, the technical take-home projects usually come fairly early in the interview process, and there's a bunch of non-technical reasons why a company wouldn't want to hire an otherwise perfectly competent developer. Again, I'm not defending these hiring practices, but asking for a 100% guarantee for anything at any point in the interview process seems like a dumb move. cave emperor fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Aug 6, 2019 |
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Aug 6, 2019 08:41
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School of How posted:I experienced a handful of companies that made me perform some lengthy take home project, only to end up not offering me the job, despite me completing the take home exactly as they wanted it. SInce then I've developed the habit of asking "If I complete this take home project exactly as it's described, will you guarantee me with 100% certainty that you'll offer me a job" when asked to do a homework project. So far, literally 100% of the time I ask this, the answer is always "No". If the programmers were truly scarce, then the answer would always be "Yes, if you complete the take home project, then we'll definitely offer you a job" Take home tasks are not like quiz questions, you don't just get it right or wrong. You complete them with varying degrees of competency and the person who appears most competent will (maybe, when factoring in everything else) get the job. I don't understand why you thought this, I mean what do you think happens when multiple applicants get the take home task "technically correct"?
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Aug 6, 2019 08:46
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Cancelbot posted:England; the market is dry as gently caress, given your example of 20,000 going for 10,000, we have 500 going for 10,000. And because we're about the same size as Alabama there's no way to escape it either; recruiters will go on a literal feeding frenzy the moment you tick "looking for work" on LinkedIn. It's accross all levels but mostly developer & QA roles, also a ton of "learn coding fast" This is my experience in the UK too. We try to fill a role and sometimes get as little as 2/3 cvs. I'm listed as not looking for work on LinkedIn and i still get messages from thirsty recruiters 2/3 times a DAY. it's insane. Somehow though the average salary for devs hasn't risen to reflect this. Mega Comrade fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Aug 6, 2019 |
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Aug 6, 2019 09:59
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Vulture Culture posted:At my last job I was an engineering manager with a director title. In my current job I'm a director with an EM title. I want to (and largely do currently) do product management. The title treadmill is unwinnable. Just try to solve real problems. No doubt, it mostly comes down to effectiveness - I get that. In the end, titles also get mixed up when it comes to the stage/size of the organization. What I'm more going after is the ability to help facilitate engineering organizational direction. More often than not, that leads to: taqueso posted:Start a little company on the side so you can direct it. Pretty much.
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Aug 6, 2019 11:56
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Mega Comrade posted:Somehow though the average salary for devs hasn't risen to reflect this. I am in the Netherlands and my experience is similar. I think that at a certain price point it is just as cost effective to hire from abroad and pay the relocation costs as well as having a cheaper dev with fewer options on board. Or to offshore / nearshore so you get less control for a lovely product at a few percent savings (not counting maintenance costs or additional deliverables).
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Aug 6, 2019 13:32
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School of How posted:The truth is it was MUCH easier for me to get a job offer back when I had less than 2 years of professional experience. Now that I have 10 years of experience, it's gotten much much harder. That to me is proof of oversaturation. Like other people have posted, you now have more experience, which means you need to do more to prove your level of experience to justify the salary that being experienced gets you over a new grad, which means a more involved interview process...it's just kinda how it goes.
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Aug 6, 2019 14:21
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School of How posted:Can we talk about oversaturation for a minute? This is a hot topic on reddit whenever it comes up. Some people are . completely convin ed the market is oversaturated, other people vehemently deny that it is. Oversaturation is when there are more people than there are jobs. So for a given market, there are 20,000 developers looking for jobs, and only 10,000 job openings. I'm firmly in the "oversaturation is real" camp for the US market. Most people will agree that the junior level is oversaturated, but will say that senior developers are super scarce, and if you have 5 or more years of experience, and can perform fizzbuzz, you'll be flooded with 100K+ job offers all day long. I have 10 years experience as a professional software developer (and can perform pizzbuzz and much more), but finding a job has been an absolute SLOG since 2012. Unfortunately it's really hard to get accurate data, and experiences vary wildly. I live in CONUS and I wanted a remote job. With 8 years experience in the industry, 80% of that working with a .NET stack. I was able to be picky and choosy. I was offered a remote job paying $100k after two phone calls. I was turned away from another job, I suspect, because they didn't like that I was being picky. The job I landed, they were salivating over me. Several other companies were interested that I had turned down after a few initial phone calls. For serious offers I had to go through pretty rigorous interviews, being flown out to places, etc. I think that's just the name of the game when you consider that, including benefits, a company has to spend about a fifth of a million dollars _per year_ for an experienced computer toucher.
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Aug 6, 2019 14:51
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I still strongly think the market is oversaturated. Imagine you're in a nightclub. There are 2 women and 98 guys. The women get to be picky who they choose to dance with. If a girl wants to reject a guy because his hair is ugly, or his teeth aren't white enough, then she can do that. On the other hand, the guys don't have that luxury. A guy in that scenario can't refuse to dance with a girl because her hair is ugly or whatever, because he doesn't get a choice. In a market, there are two sides. One side has the advantage, and the other has no advantage. The side with the advantage gets to be subjective. The side without the advantage doesn't get to be subjective at all. Over the past 5 or 6 years I've come to the realization that its the companies that get to be subjective. They have all the power. quote:Maybe it's just me, but this seems like a really weird question to ask. No it's not. If you're a contractor that is hired to install cabinets in someone's kitchen, it's not uncommon for the contractor to ask "If I install these cabinets correctly, will you pay me when it's done". If the customer says "No", then the contractor will absolutely not install those cabinets. Why the hell should I potentially waste my time for potentially no pay off? It's loving stupid. Its like the one woman at the nightclub telling any guy that asks her to dance, "I'll dance with you but only if you buy me a drink". Then the guy says "If I buy you a drink can you guarantee me 100% that you will dance with me?". Then the girl says "Maybe, I can't guarantee anything. The guy then buys the girtl a drink, but when she gets it she says "I wanted my whiskey without ice, you got it with ice. Sorry I won't dance with you". Its exploitative. quote:If you hand in something that is 100% according to specification, but significantly flawed in other ways (like, I don't know, if you crammed the whole thing into a single 5000 line file or something), you are still going to fail. Then that should be part of the specification. If having it all crammed into a single 5000 line is not acceptable, then that should be listed in the specification. quote:and companies and engineering teams don’t want to risk a bad hire. This is bullshit. A bad software developer hire is no more detrimental to a company than any other hire. A bad HR hire is also bad for the company, but when companies hire HR people they don't put them through the same gauntlet programmers go through. A bad brain surgeon hire can be [i]way[/] imore detrimental to a hospital, yet hospitals don't put brain surgeons though the type of crap companies put programmers through in the interview process. The difference is that there are no brain surgeon bootcamps to flood the brain surgeon market like the software industry has with programmer bootcamps. School of How fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Aug 6, 2019 |
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Aug 6, 2019 15:38
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Given your attitude I'm not sure I'd hire you if I was in charge.
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Aug 6, 2019 15:46
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Careful Drums posted:Given your attitude I'm not sure I'd hire you if I was in charge. What "attitude"? Not wanting to be exploited? If you're requirement for all new employees is that they have to be willing to be exploited then I don't want to work at your company either.
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Aug 6, 2019 15:55
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Careful Drums posted:Given your attitude I'm not sure I'd hire you if I was in charge. Yeah uh maybe consider the problem you're facing in getting hired isn't all the legions of unemployed experienced programmers you apparently think are out there...
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Aug 6, 2019 15:55
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School of How posted:No it's not. If you're a contractor that is hired to install cabinets in someone's kitchen, it's not uncommon for the contractor to ask "If I install these cabinets correctly, will you pay me when it's done". If the customer says "No", then the contractor will absolutely not install those cabinets. Why the hell should I potentially waste my time for potentially no pay off? It's loving stupid. That's really not a good metaphor, the contractor in that case in already hired and doing real work. You're still interviewing for the job, and aren't doing real work. No one is, or should be, gauranteed a job for passing just the tech portion of the interview. I get that you're frustrated with unemployment, and yes we all know that long take home assignments suck, but you have some weird and wrong ideas on how hiring works.
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Aug 6, 2019 15:59
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I’m also very bearish on the market - I’m still not convinced that this is an engineer’s market, or will stay/become one. I have no hard proof, but neither do the bullish ones.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:12
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Pollyanna posted:I’m also very bearish on the market - I’m still not convinced that this is an engineer’s market, or will stay/become one. I have no hard proof, but neither do the bullish ones. Here's some evidence: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/Computer-and-Information-Technology/Software-developers.htm quote:Employment of software developers is projected to grow 24 percent from 2016 to 2026, much faster than the average for all occupations. Software developers will be needed to respond to an increased demand for computer software.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:15
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School of How posted:Then that should be part of the specification. If having it all crammed into a single 5000 line is not acceptable, then that should be listed in the specification. Dealing with incomplete, vague, and buggy specifications is part of the job, especially as you become senior. Which is beside the point because having good basic hygiene does not need to be part of any spec.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:18
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lifg posted:That's really not a good metaphor, the contractor in that case in already hired and doing real work. You're still interviewing for the job, and aren't doing real work. No one is, or should be, gauranteed a job for passing just the tech portion of the interview. If you're asking me to do a homework assignment, you're asking me to do real work. How often are carpenters asked to "interview" for a job by installing cabinets for free? An exploitative person looking to renovate their kitchen could just "interview" contractor after contractor, asking each one to do a little bit of the work with the promise of hiring them if they do a good enough job, but rejecting them all. You could get your whole kitchen done without paying a dime, by exploiting the desperation of contractors within an oversaturated market.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:20
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School of How posted:If you're asking me to do a homework assignment, you're asking me to do real work. How often are carpenters asked to "interview" for a job by installing cabinets for free? If you believe this to be true then you ought to be crushing it running your own software shop this way.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:23
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Careful Drums posted:Here's some evidence: I don't believe those numbers one bit. First off, no one has a crystal ball to predict the future. There is no way for them to know what future growth will look like. Secondly, I believe what I've seen with my own two eyes over some retarded "study" published by the government. I've seen first hand the oversaturation grow over the years. Also, if you read the report, nowhere does it explain their methodology on how they come up with those numbers. All they say is that the numbers are based on "projections". In other words the numbers are pulled out of their asses.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:24
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Lengthy unpaid take-homes are bullshit though. Find something short or pay for your candidate's time.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:24
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School of How posted:If you're asking me to do a homework assignment, you're asking me to do real work. How often are carpenters asked to "interview" for a job by installing cabinets for free? Carpenters do usually have to show previous work that they have done. Them taking a picture of cabinets is perfectly acceptable. You taking a picture of work code is not. Since the code that you write on the job does not belong to you and therefore you are not allowed to share to a 3rd party, you have to show your work in other ways. Some employers are fine with a github repo. Some require some work at home. You can refuse to show/do any if you so desire, but they can refuse to hire you as well.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:24
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School of How posted:words This is a rough post and I would heavily suggest you reevaluate your approach to finding new employment in technology. The market is oversaturated with junior engineers, I agree, but that quickly dissipates once you get around a year of experience. I say this as someone who hires across the board (and just recently got a new role) in the US. Pollyanna posted:I'm also very bearish on the market - I’m still not convinced that this is an engineer’s market, or will stay/become one. I have no hard proof, but neither do the bullish ones. Technology has become a necessity for almost *every single company and industry* out there. This is radically different than it was 10 years ago. It's the new normal. Markets might cool slightly, but I've also found even in down markets, technology will still thrive because of its efficiency gains that it provides. I graduated from college and worked through the great recession in FinTech - companies threw more money at us than before it happened.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:27
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pokeyman posted:Lengthy unpaid take-homes are bullshit though. Find something short or pay for your candidate's time. Yeah. If an employer wants an extensive take-home project, just pay the candidate for it. I've even heard of paying a candidate to come in and pair up with a few people for a day. Paying for that kind of thing would make it reasonable. I've turned down jobs after having gone through phone call after phone call then hit with a big take-home.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:28
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School of How posted:If you're asking me to do a homework assignment, you're asking me to do real work. How often are carpenters asked to "interview" for a job by installing cabinets for free? Writers are asked to submit writing samples all the time, which is a somewhat more apt comparison. Until we have a credentialing authority, be that a professional association (guild) or a union, we have to re-credential every time someone in the hiring chain doesn't know us.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:32
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School of How posted:I don't believe those numbers one bit. First off, no one has a crystal ball to predict the future. There is no way for them to know what future growth will look like. Secondly, I believe what I've seen with my own two eyes over some retarded "study" published by the government. I've seen first hand the oversaturation grow over the years. Also, if you read the report, nowhere does it explain their methodology on how they come up with those numbers. All they say is that the numbers are based on "projections". In other words the numbers are pulled out of their asses. Oh, well, if you're not going to pay attention to evidence, then 
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Aug 6, 2019 16:37
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School of How posted:I don't believe those numbers one bit. First off, no one has a crystal ball to predict the future. There is no way for them to know what future growth will look like. Secondly, I believe what I've seen with my own two eyes over some retarded "study" published by the government. I've seen first hand the oversaturation grow over the years. Also, if you read the report, nowhere does it explain their methodology on how they come up with those numbers. All they say is that the numbers are based on "projections". In other words the numbers are pulled out of their asses. They note their source, which is their projections program which has a pretty long explanation of their methodology actually.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:37
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Volguus posted:Carpenters do usually have to show previous work that they have done. Them taking a picture of cabinets is perfectly acceptable. You taking a picture of work code is not. Since the code that you write on the job does not belong to you and therefore you are not allowed to share to a 3rd party, you have to show your work in other ways. Some employers are fine with a github repo. Some require some work at home. You can refuse to show/do any if you so desire, but they can refuse to hire you as well. I have a github account with over 70 repositories that I've been working on since 2007. Yet I still get asked to do takehomes or a whiteboard session literally 100% of the time. Not once have I come across a company that lets my github stand in place of a take home or whiteboard. Every single company I've interviewed with want me to do the take home or else I'm not considered. The reason for this is that the takehome/whiteboard is purely for elimination. This bullshit about "they want to see if your code is good enough" is not why they do it. They receive 1000 resumes but obviously can't hire 1000 people, so they have to eliminate 999 of them. So they give them all a lengthy take home, hoping that most can't finish it, and then go from there.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:41
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No Safe Word posted:They note their source, which is their projections program which has a pretty long explanation of their methodology actually. At the end of the day, what they are doing is trying to predict the future, which is not possible. Also, that article is just pure mumbo-jumbo. A huge part of oversaturation is caused by bootcamps and self taught developers. How the hell is the BLS supposed to predict how many people are self teaching themselves how to code?
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Aug 6, 2019 16:44
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I've been pretty discouraged in recent job searches. The other jobs look like: - Are you a 5-10 year senior engineer? Do you want to make 90k at a startup? oh but wait we have a keg in the kitchen brah. - We'll pay you two hundred k salary. Have you heard about our lord and savior TDD? Let me tell you about test driven development... - Hi, we have an immediate position for a lead engineer for medical device software. You will be working on software that controls heart pumps using node js. Do you have five years react / node experience? We're very agile. Aside from that there's FANG and a bunch of big banks. There needs to be a grindr for software developers and jobs.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:44
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Is this the hilarious How poster of yesteryear? I forget his exact name, just that he was wrong about every single thing he said.
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Aug 6, 2019 16:47
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School of How posted:I have a github account with over 70 repositories that I've been working on since 2007. Yet I still get asked to do takehomes or a whiteboard session literally 100% of the time. Not once have I come across a company that lets my github stand in place of a take home or whiteboard. Every single company I've interviewed with want me to do the take home or else I'm not considered. The reason for this is that the takehome/whiteboard is purely for elimination. This bullshit about "they want to see if your code is good enough" is not why they do it. They receive 1000 resumes but obviously can't hire 1000 people, so they have to eliminate 999 of them. So they give them all a lengthy take home, hoping that most can't finish it, and then go from there. I'm telling you, if you want to get a job the first thing that's gonna have to change is your attitude. Even assuming all these systemic issues exist, you are still gonna have to eat it a few times then go back and figure out how you can help solve the 'crisis'. And if you're so sure that the bottom is going to fall out of the industry, have you decided upon your next career? What are you doing to make that happen?
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Aug 6, 2019 16:51
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