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School of How posted:If you're rejecting so many people, then you really don't need a new developer. If you truly needed a new developer, you'd actually hire one instead of wasting everyone's time.
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Aug 15, 2019 00:34
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wins32767 posted:it's that most people trying to get engineering jobs are just not qualified. This is a ludicrous statement. Whether it's true or not you have to admit it's completely ludicrous. This is something I've heard many people say, but I've never seen anyone prove it. I've never heard a hospital manager say that the majority of doctors they interview can't use a stethoscope. Or a manager of a mechanic shop say that the majority of mechanics they interview don't know how to hold a screwdriver. Or a newspaper editor say that the majority of writers they interview can't write above a 1st grade level... I want someone to video record an interview with one of these programmers that don't have basic abilities. At the very least there has to be more to the story than what is lead on. I'm reminded of the phone interview I did with Amazon a few years ago. The interviewer asked me to write code to implement a "workflow". I asked him what he meant by "workflow". His response was "A workflow is the thing I want you to write code to implement". I replied "Yes, but you have to explain to me what a workflow is". He then said "Your manager asked you to implement a workflow, so show me how you would code this up". No matter how many times I asked him to clarify what he wanted me to write, he wouldn't clarify. In that instance I may have been counted in that "90% of developers can't code" statistic, but any developer in that situation wouldn't be able to code up a workflow either.
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Aug 15, 2019 01:00
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Can everyone ignore and move on? He's clearly feeding off the attention.
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Aug 15, 2019 01:19
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I've witnessed people on video interviews lip syncing answers spoken by someone else off camera. People incapable of FizzBuzz. People with jobs right now that barely understand variables. Titles are fake, experience on paper is unreliable.
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Aug 15, 2019 01:20
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Gildiss posted:I've witnessed people on video interviews lip syncing answers spoken by someone else off camera. Do you have a link to one of these videos?
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Aug 15, 2019 01:22
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School of How posted:This is a ludicrous statement. Whether it's true or not you have to admit it's completely ludicrous. This is something I've heard many people say, but I've never seen anyone prove it. I've never heard a hospital manager say that the majority of doctors they interview can't use a stethoscope. Or a manager of a mechanic shop say that the majority of mechanics they interview don't know how to hold a screwdriver. Or a newspaper editor say that the majority of writers they interview can't write above a 1st grade level... I want someone to video record an interview with one of these programmers that don't have basic abilities. At the very least there has to be more to the story than what is lead on. Software jobs are now very high paying (unlike journalists) and there is no certification (unlike doctors or mechanics). This attracts unqualified candidates in droves. As an example, I don't think I've ever hired anyone from an inbound application. At one of the companies I worked for (which had a hiring brand of paying top dollar) we ran the numbers and there were 0 successful candidates out of ~600 inbound applications in around a 18 months. Most of them get filtered out at the resume or recruiter screen stage but some of them are at least somewhat proficient; a couple of them even made it to on-sites before we said no. Another large proportion of candidates that get filtered out are engineers who can write code, but can't write good, maintainable code or can't do it beyond the level of a method. I've failed out multiple candidates with >10 years of experience who couldn't come up with reasonable ways to divide responsibilities between classes on pretty basic problems or couldn't talk intelligently about a system of reasonable complexity that they'd built. If you've worked for 10 years and haven't learned how to design classes the odds are high I won't be able to train you into it. Those two make up most of the technical skill failures, but communication problems, unwillingness to listen to other people's opinions and accept feedback, and generally being an rear end in a top hat also disqualifies another substantial fraction of candidates.
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Aug 15, 2019 01:39
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wins32767 posted:Another large proportion of candidates that get filtered out are engineers who can write code, but can't write good, maintainable code or can't do it beyond the level of a method. I've failed out multiple candidates with >10 years of experience who couldn't come up with reasonable ways to divide responsibilities between classes on pretty basic problems or couldn't talk intelligently about a system of reasonable complexity that they'd built. If you've worked for 10 years and haven't learned how to design classes the odds are high I won't be able to train you into it. The problem is that "good maintainable code" is completely subjective. One man's "good maintainable code" is another man's spaghetti code. A lot of times the term "good maintainable code" really just means "writes code exactly how I write code" (Note: the "I" here refers the person who is defining whether the code is good and maintainable). I think this comes from the fact that it's very common for developers to have an impossible time reading other people's code. Obviously using that definition, literally zero out of 600 will write "good maintainable code". This doesn't mean the market is flooded with incompetent developers, it just means you are overly picky. If i was hiring a developer I wouldn't give a poo poo if they write code exactly how I write code, because I have the apparently rare ability to read other people's code. It's a skill that I've learned over the years from having to read a lot of other people's code. All I would care about is that they can maintain their own code. I'd find this out by looking at their github account, and then asking them questions about it. School of How fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Aug 15, 2019 |
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Aug 15, 2019 02:37
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Good thing you'll never be in a position to hire a developer, thanks to how terrible a person you are!
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Aug 15, 2019 02:45
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It's a good job "people" can just be treated as replaceable units and all job-related tasks are basically identical else you'd have a hard time getting a job I guess.
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Aug 15, 2019 02:48
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School of How posted:The problem is that "good maintainable code" is completely subjective. Google "Law of Demeter"
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Aug 15, 2019 04:22
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School of How posted:The problem is that "good maintainable code" is completely subjective. One man's "good maintainable code" is another man's spaghetti code. The fact that you think this explains why you’re not able to get a job, and it has nothing to do with the state of the market.
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Aug 15, 2019 04:56
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School of How posted:The problem is that "good maintainable code" is completely subjective. I've got Martin Fowler holding on line 2, he sounds angry
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Aug 15, 2019 05:35
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School of How posted:You can put me, or any other senior developer on any team and we'll be productive. You are not a senior developer and I you would be best off becoming a certified plumber.
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Aug 15, 2019 06:26
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I can believe that how would believe he was productive.
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Aug 15, 2019 06:28
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prisoner of waffles posted:I would hope we return to our regularly-scheduled Oldie thread I tried with my AWS interview stuff, god drat I tried. I even started a slight derail from the shite that is continuing to unfold. Has anyone done the Amazon/AWS on site "loops" anyhow? That's where i'm at, 6 hours of interviews...
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Aug 15, 2019 07:53
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Do you guys think that the junior-mid-senior scale is going to be changing (in an actually noticable way) at some point in the future? The idea that somebody with 5 years of experience is a "senior developer" in a whole lot of companies is totally nuts.
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Aug 15, 2019 07:57
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FMguru posted:Yeah, you can be friendly with management, but you can't ever really be friends. Again, this not an absolute certainty, I have remained good friends with every boss I've had. Edit: maybe it's a cultural thing, I'm from Australia
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Aug 15, 2019 07:57
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sunaurus posted:Do you guys think that the junior-mid-senior scale is going to be changing (in an actually noticable way) at some point in the future? The idea that somebody with 5 years of experience is a "senior developer" in a whole lot of companies is totally nuts. How many years should it be? Or are you suggesting more that there should some other measure instead of just time? I'm with you there
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Aug 15, 2019 08:00
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a hot gujju bhabhi posted:How many years should it be? Or are you suggesting more that there should some other measure instead of just time? I'm with you there I don't know what the measure should be, I don't even really care about what actual titles people use, I'm just a bit confused at how the scale can be so short (at least at every place I've ever worked and most places I've ever interviewed at) that you reach the "highest level" after just 5 years as a professional.
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Aug 15, 2019 08:08
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isn't principal above senior? and i see staff or distinguished at some places
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Aug 15, 2019 08:18
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My current company is "flat" until you get to team lead/management level. Junior, mid, senior is all the same title. It can be confusing but also developers love them titles! Also I've always had a great relationship with my boss accross the 5 places i've worked, but i'm in the UK so maybe it is a uniquely USA thing to want to strangle them...
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Aug 15, 2019 08:31
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Cancelbot posted:I tried with my AWS interview stuff, god drat I tried. I even started a slight derail from the shite that is continuing to unfold. Congrats on getting to the on-site! I’ve been on a lot of on-site loops lately, but only for SDEs. It’s worth practicing your whiteboarding though. Other than that my advice is the same as before.
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Aug 15, 2019 08:35
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sunaurus posted:Do you guys think that the junior-mid-senior scale is going to be changing (in an actually noticable way) at some point in the future? The idea that somebody with 5 years of experience is a "senior developer" in a whole lot of companies is totally nuts. At my current place its a symptom of our parent company being too controlling over salaries and refusing to expand salary ranges. So it gets to a point where our mid levels cannot receive any higher salaries so instead get given promotions to senior.
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Aug 15, 2019 08:58
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School of How posted:Do you have a link to one of these videos? It's a video interview. Like, on Skype. It's not going to be on Youtube.
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Aug 15, 2019 09:18
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnTCGR0Mq2w but I am aware searching the internet is HARD.
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Aug 15, 2019 09:28
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Senior seems to generally just be used as a term for 'has been around a while' - but that's the nature of no standard industry certification process, I guess. My spicy take on this is a discussion with a newly hired 'senior' who made the argument that we should avoid using anything in the project that hadn't been taught to the various team members in school. Like....LINQ. A cornerstone feature of our use language for over a decade.
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Aug 15, 2019 10:34
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Welcome to professional programming. Where the titles are made up and the points don't matter.
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Aug 15, 2019 10:46
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Cancelbot posted:Also I've always had a great relationship with my boss accross the 5 places i've worked, but i'm in the UK so maybe it is a uniquely USA thing to want to strangle them... I dunno if it's US-specific (I'm UK based). I've had great relationships with all but one of my bosses (and he's the reason I'm not still there, I definitely wanted to strangle him), and have stayed friends. I just think, y'know, be careful of your actions if they impact people who hold power over you/have slightly different incentives in a work context (rather than a friendship context). That power dynamic is completely situation dependent, so different situations might mean there's no reason to be guarded, but a lot of the time it's just sensible
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Aug 15, 2019 11:01
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FFS, post is not edit
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Aug 15, 2019 11:01
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Cuntpunch posted:My spicy take on this is a discussion with a newly hired 'senior' who made the argument that we should avoid using anything in the project that hadn't been taught to the various team members in school. Like....LINQ. A cornerstone feature of our use language for over a decade. Uh, that's a pretty strange take! I mean LINQ didn't exist until 9 years after I graduated (and my degree is in history, so it's not like I'd have been taught it anyway; it's not much use in explicating the taifa kingdom period of mediaeval al-Andalus after all).
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Aug 15, 2019 11:39
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Gildiss posted:I've witnessed people on video interviews lip syncing answers spoken by someone else off camera. I honestly find this really impressive? Like how did they coordinate that? Interview asks a question, candidate says, "Hmm let me think for a moment" while their buddy IM's them what words to mouth?
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Aug 15, 2019 12:28
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Cuntpunch posted:My spicy take on this is a discussion with a newly hired 'senior' who made the argument that we should avoid using anything in the project that hadn't been taught to the various team members in school. Like....LINQ. A cornerstone feature of our use language for over a decade. Was that their literal take or were they aiming for the less objectionable "let’s stick largely to the parts of the language understood by the people here who write in it"? Which I don’t totally agree with (people can learn!) but it has a kernel of truth. i like how!!
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Aug 15, 2019 13:52
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My last company had a different person show up for the job on the first day than who they had interviewed. It was also quite clear that the person would take tasks in the day and have someone else do them. It'd be different if we wanted to outsource our work overseas, but we didn't want to do any of that and needed someone in this timezone that actually could contribute in person to discussions. Haven't ever heard of this kind of outright fraud happen in lower paying industries but tech is in a bad position of needing lots of people, there's a massive amount of money available, and things are pretty broken as an industry. Sab669 posted:Interview asks a question, candidate says, "Hmm let me think for a moment" while their buddy IM's them what words to mouth? The lengths people go to cheat and defraud others is pretty fascinating to me because it's ingenious in its own way and oftentimes I'd think it's easier to just do honest work with those skills than to try to con people. It's not like it takes no time or money to lie and cheat.
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Aug 15, 2019 14:09
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How has made the fatal mistake of thinking that whoever writes code will be the only person who ever maintains it.
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Aug 15, 2019 14:10
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Someone already posted this earlier about individual contributor and going up the chain there vs. management. In an ideal environment senior, lead, principle are all terms that signify impact: at the team, group and company level respectively. It has nothing to do with years in the role. Does the work you’re doing impact your whole team? Do you set direction, take on the critical code paths, mentor other members, write the majority of design documents? Keep expanding that to your product group and your company. There are some developers who will never make senior, regardless of their years on the job. Not for a lack of technical skills, they prefer to write lots of code and not take on the rest of the responsibilities. For those that contribute breakthroughs, major patents or other engineering only achievements there’s usually some distinguished engineer or title that gives you the financial awards but keeps the people aspect away.
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Aug 15, 2019 14:13
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sunaurus posted:I don't know what the measure should be, I don't even really care about what actual titles people use, I'm just a bit confused at how the scale can be so short (at least at every place I've ever worked and most places I've ever interviewed at) that you reach the "highest level" after just 5 years as a professional. Senior developer is definitely not the highest level, but I get what you're saying now, thanks for clarifying. I think it really depends where you work, as others have said. Senior developer often just means "knows the code base well and can be somewhat of a go-to guy for the team". Lead/Principle Developer I think is usually more distinctly different role-wise and I think would usually require longer than 5 years. You make more decisions on behalf of the team and you guide the technical aspects more.
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Aug 15, 2019 14:23
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rsjr posted:There are some developers who will never make senior, regardless of their years on the job. Hell, one guy I had on my previous team will never even graduate from junior level, imo.
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Aug 15, 2019 14:24
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I tend to see two types of programmer. In the first group are those with some level of ambition: they teach themselves new things, try to understand problems, try to do the same things in better ways than they've done them before. The second group contains stagnant programmers, those who learned enough to do a particular job and then stopped trying to get better. I feel like probably 3/4 programmers are in the stagnant category, but we don't hear from them as often because you have to have some level of ambition to do things like discuss your software career on a forum. I sure have seen them at work, though, and I can't escape them. spiritual bypass fucked around with this message at 14:53 on Aug 15, 2019 |
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Aug 15, 2019 14:31
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rt4 posted:I tend to see two types of programmer. In the first group are those with some level ambition: they teach themselves new things, try to understand problems, try to do the same things in better ways than they've done them before. The second group contains stagnant programmers, those who learned enough to do a particular job and then stopped trying to get better. I definitely feel myself creeping towards the latter. Its hard to stay enthusiastic about programming when you do it 8 hours a day 5 days a week. I'm not starting to dislike my job or anything, but when I get home I find myself wanting to do anything as long as its not programmer related.
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Aug 15, 2019 14:49
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Mega Comrade posted:I definitely feel myself creeping towards the latter. Its hard to stay enthusiastic about programming when you do it 8 hours a day 5 days a week. I'm not starting to dislike my job or anything, but when I get home I find myself wanting to do anything as long as its not programmer related. I don't think he was talking about people like you, that's pretty normal behaviour. He was talking about people who refuse to try anything new at work or refuse to do something outside their comfort zone for fear that they might actually learn something new.
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Aug 15, 2019 14:51
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