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Arachnamus posted:By "this whiteboarding thing" I'm referring to the idea of having the bulk of your hiring decision based on a set of coding problems which can be answered on a whiteboard, and even more worryingly, having them be questions people can or need to study for. I'm not sure what the point is of hiring people on the basis of an exercise which can be passed by reading a PDF and fails people with solid experience. I think you're right in principle, but coming from the hiring side it's tough to justify a first round of 3+ interview hours, a second round of another 3+ interview hours and 6 hours of pairing. That's 12 hours of lost productivity at a minimum, not to mention 12+ hours of billable labor that the company eats. I know that there's a huge cost benefit in making sure that you hire the right candidate, but I've never had management look favorably on that kind of lost productivity. So the difficulty, then, is to find a way to balance the amount of time that goes into interviewing with the perceived loss of time and money. Sadly the answer is whiteboarding or pre-interview testing.
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May 18, 2014 14:48
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Yeah, that's kind of what I'm getting at. The process for interviewing at Silicon Valley companies is so loving onerous that it's untenable for normal companies to follow the same process. Anyway, I think whiteboarding has a pretty important place in the interview process, but I think people miss the point. Whiteboarding should be more about watching how the candidate solves problems than about making sure s/he can write code. I'd never ding a candidate on syntax errors and any company that does sounds like it would be terrible. I've interviewed candidates that have solved problems in pseudocode and because they reasoned through the problem carefully and I saw the code they wrote for the pre-test.
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May 22, 2014 13:37
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Misogynist posted:That's exactly correct, exactly what I'm saying and exactly why it's a problematic thing to tell some interviewers. Most employers with lean practices are looking for employees who are able to participate in a two-way give-and-take instead of declaring rigid boundaries about when they are and aren't available. Like, "hey, as long as you're available to help us with emergencies when the poo poo hits the fan, we don't care if you take off at 3 PM on Tuesday to catch your kid's basketball game." Two-way give-and-take is codeword for "we give you a phone and require you to check your email 24/7 and you take it with a smile" or "we give you a meeting while you're on your vacation you take the call because if you don't you lose your job." Companies that expect that sort of thing are awful. Don't work at them. You're only justifying their practices.
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Dec 14, 2014 16:04
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And then it becomes the new normal. If you're default stance isn't to distrust your corporate structure and be wary of any and all management decisions, then shake my goddamn head at you. Management's job is to make you do more for less. Always.
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Dec 15, 2014 01:39
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wins32767 posted:You need to a new place to work. I tell my folks to go home if they're putting in more than like 41-42 hours a week. Don't get me wrong, from time to time there may be a long day or two if there is a fire, but I do my best to spread the pain around and give comp time to make up for it. Long hours are terrible for productivity, effectiveness and morale. I should clarify that I really enjoy my job and the company that I work for. I just celebrated my 5 year anniversary and look forward to many more. I work just about 40 hours a week. After that, unless I have a massive deadline, I'm going home. I like my boss and his boss and even her boss, the CEO. Right now I'm rushing to get things wrapped up before my two week vacation that starts after this week. I will not check email and I will not accept phone calls from work. I understand, however, that companies make money by paying their employees less than the value that they produce. If you're tethered to a phone or taking conference calls on vacations, then your company is getting more value from you at your expense. Which is the really, really long way about saying that startup life might sound glamorous, but it gives you a mental model of what productive labor should be that's fundamentally at odds with the best interests of employees. That might not be the case for every startup, but the culture promotes it heavily. I should add that this isn't industry specific. Management's job is to maximize productivity while minimizing cost. That's kind of a truism in labor economics.
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Dec 15, 2014 04:58
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We're getting a bit off track. My original point was that you should be suspicious if your company or any you're interviewing at balks at the notion of work/life balance because it's part of a greater push to try to wring more labor out of employees. I love being able to leave at 5:15 every day. You would too if you worked at a company that valued work/life balance.
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Dec 15, 2014 12:18
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bonds0097 posted:Believe it or not, there are companies who do not subscribe to the notion that they exist solely to create profit. And as it happens, those companies tend to make more money than those who see profit as the ends rather than a means to fulfill a mission/vision. There's a fair bit of scholarship in this area. Some good books to check out that may help you break out of this pseudo-capitalist cynicism/paranoia and better distinguish between the companies you would and wouldn't want to work for: Conscious Capitalism by John Mackey and Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinak. lol you can't be serious
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Dec 15, 2014 16:26
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bonds0097 posted:Why not? I actually have peer-reviewed data supporting my argument. You have anecdotal evidence. Seems that at the very least it's worth considering what I'm saying. I feel like I'm arguing against someone who can't fathom the idea that companies actively try to make money. Given a chance, all companies will gladly reduce labor costs because it's easier than trying to find new revenue. If that means dumping more responsibility on people and not paying them for it, or requiring employees to work during their vacations any company would absolutely jump on that train.
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Dec 15, 2014 19:24
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It's not even "gently caress the man." Companies want to pay you the minimum amount possible to keep you there. That's a point of fact. Arguing against it is like arguing that gravity doesn't exist.
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Dec 15, 2014 19:47
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I think we're talking past each other. All I'm saying is that it's a slippery slope when you start talking about work/life balance and any company that starts talking about "work/life integration" instead probably wants you to do more work for the same amount of compensation.
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Dec 15, 2014 20:09
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Good Will Hrunting posted:It will always amaze me that a large number of programmers cannot do FizzBuzz-y type poo poo and I probably won't believe it until I'm a manager. I'm sure the visible pool is tainted by people who know how to do those problems cold but just freeze up but I can confirm, from experience, that there are a lot of candidates that just can't do any of it.
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Jul 3, 2015 22:57
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Pollyanna posted:What is "complex" in this case? I consider something like adding a new feature to be complex to moderately complex, depending on the inherent complexity of the codebase. Making a sweeping architectural change, though, is pretty complex. I've also been told that there is complexity in going with best practices and "things that senior developers just pick up on over time" which was very vaguely described and I have no idea what it refers to anyway. Isn't this your first programming job? Haven't you been there less than a year?
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Sep 16, 2015 12:54
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Still junior as gently caress. And I don't say that to be mean. I say it to underscore that she still has a ton of stuff to learn. Jumping to a mid level position or a senior one brings with it a certain assurance you have to have about your skill set and the way you communicate with other programmers; junior, mid level, or senior. There's no shame in staying in a junior role so you can keep learning. Better to develop the skills than get found out in your first week at a new place.
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Sep 16, 2015 18:28
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And that's fine, and that'll happen. The hardest thing about software development isn't actually making the software, it's getting X number of people to work well enough together to do good work on time and on budget. Sometimes coworkers don't work out. Sometimes you don't mesh well with your manager. It sucks, but that's the reality. Go interview at Twitter. Do something cool. Just make sure that you don't pump yourself up too hard. It's better to listen and learn at such an early stage in your career. You'll have a better foundation of knowledge when you start looking at a more senior role. You'll also (hopefully) have worked with enough bosses by then to know how to be a better manager, mentor, and resource to both to peers and junior developers.
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Sep 16, 2015 19:03
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I've got a hiring process/etiquette question. I signed a job offer last week and, pending background and reference checks, will be starting at a new job on October 26th. I'm taking a week off, so my absolute last day at my current job will be October 16th. I was hoping, given the breadth of my current job, to give 3 weeks of notice and let my boss know I was leaving today. However, I haven't heard back about the background check or reference checks. I spoke to one of my references who told me that the company contacted them and they spoke, but I'm wary of announcing my departure with any uncertainty in the air. I have no doubt that I'll pass the checks (my current employer is a gov't contractor and I've been background checked for them at least 5 times in the 6 years I've been here) but it feels like a bad idea to give my notice while they're still unresolved. Am I thinking about this the right way or should I just go ahead and give my 3 weeks? What's the protocol for me? For the new company?
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Sep 28, 2015 12:53
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Pollyanna posted:If impostor syndrome is supposed to improve as I continue my career, this only cemented it. It's really making me reconsider whether this career is a good fit for me, since I've struck out twice already, regardless of circumstances. Unfortunately, it's all I have. Imposter syndrome doesn't go away, you just learn how to handle it better. I'm 10 years deep and I still sometimes feel like I'm out of my depth. But you squash it down and keep plowing forward. Moral of the story: don't give up.
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Oct 1, 2015 00:52
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Hughlander posted:Yep! We have a four person DevOps team and they sit right among the server and infrastructure engineers. (And we're hiring if you want to work in Seattle PM me) The place I'm starting at in 2 weeks is set up in the same way. It's all about shared responsibility for getting code into production in a way that's consistent, repeatable, and stable. Also we're hiring for another member of the team in Cambridge, MA.
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Oct 9, 2015 23:05
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Basically anywhere where your name goes on a proposal will probably assign a bit more value to an advanced degree.
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Oct 15, 2015 17:54
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I've got stock options at my new company but really have no idea what that means or how I take advantage of them. What sort of stuff should I know? Anything I should be careful about?
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Oct 20, 2015 02:09
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Tao Jones posted:Stock options are pretty much what it says on the tin - they give you the future options to buy shares of stock in the company that you're working for. This is very helpful, thank you. The options aren't a major part of my comp package but my last place was an ESOP company that wasn't publicly traded so I'm trying to get a better idea for the ins and outs of how my comp works at the new place.
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Oct 20, 2015 14:20
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Or you can just be a human being capable of empathy and ask your coworker if everything is ok and how you can get in touch with them on Monday/Tuesday or who you should talk to if you can't reach them. Jesus Christ people, this isn't hard.
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Oct 23, 2015 20:12
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Skandranon posted:Except that genuine empathy is not consistently rewarded and sometimes punished. Caution is natural in such a situation. I can't tell if you agree with what I wrote and are lamenting that empathy can be punished or if you're being a goony motherfucker. In either case, be a human being instead of a beep beep boop boop what are feelings robot.
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Oct 23, 2015 21:04
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You've got to be kidding me. If you go to your manager and it's not something that your coworker has worked out with the manager for whatever reason, you're narcing them out and that's a dick move. Just talk to your co-worker and ask him what's up. Easy as that.
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Oct 25, 2015 13:29
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Or you could be a human being capable of empathy and pop in to the coworkers office and be like "hey what's going on man, how you doing?" Conversation is a real thing and you can be friendly with your colleagues instead of a spergy loving robot. HR exists to resolve disputes and as an extra layer to indemnify the company. If actually talking to the coworker results in a hosed up personal relationship, that's when you should involve HR or management. Throwing your coworker under the bus without any information about how his behavior is affecting you is a lovely thing to do and indicative of the behavior of a fundamentally broken person.
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Oct 25, 2015 15:28
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By the way, every single comment in this thread that suggests going to management about this is perpetuating the weird individualistic behavior that programmers tend to have by throwing your coworker under the bus and possibly getting a good person who might be having a tough time fired. Don't encourage this behavior. We're all in this together and being lovely to your coworkers is bad even if they're inadvertently making your life a little tougher.
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Oct 25, 2015 15:30
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It absolutely is the OP's job to help pick him up. That's just being a good colleague and a decent person. Regardless, if the choice is between working the issue out with the person or narcing on them to management the choice is pretty clear and anyone advocating talking to management is a lovely person.
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Oct 25, 2015 15:45
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All I'm saying is that instead of going to management first, OP should just ask the guy if everything is ok. Talking to management about this is the nuclear option because it forces a decision. The dev manager will either see the OP as a whiny baby that can't work out an issue with another person or will be forced to take action against the coworker in some way so as not to appear too lenient. Neither of these options is good and the whole thing can be short-circuited by just TALKING TO YOUR COWORKERS. God drat.
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Oct 25, 2015 16:11
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Who cares why Guy is out? The reasonable thing to do is find out from Guy why it's happening and try to work it out with him first before involving management. Doing anything else is basically just being a tattletale and if Guy finds out will instantly create a bad relationship there.
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Oct 25, 2015 16:24
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Skandranon posted:You think the OP should care why Guy is out. I certainly don't. I don't think it matters at all. If he was making sure OP wasn't waiting on him to get his work done, he could be snorting coke off hookers for all I care. Fact is, he's letting OP down. A tattletale would be "I saw him using Facebook for 15 minutes more than is allowed in the employee manual". Saying "I've got all my tasks done, but Guy has yet to review it, and he's been missing our regularly scheduled meetings on Tuesdays, and hasn't gotten back to me on X" is not. Guy is loving up, and it will hurt OP and everyone around him. If it HAS been addressed with management already, then there is no harm, manager will say "Oh, right, Guy won't be at work Mondays/Tuesdays, I forgot to mention it. Just commit your code/take more responsibility and try to talk to him on Wednesday about what's going on". "A bloo bloo my poo poo is the only thing that matters gently caress other people" is all I'm reading.
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Oct 25, 2015 16:54
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The US's focus on STEM education is literally destroying soft skills like "working on a team" and "being a decent person".
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Oct 25, 2015 16:54
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Skandranon posted:You sound like the Guy in question now. No wonder you sympathize with him so much. You're a sad human being if you read this situation as competitive or oppositional in any way. Guy isn't instantly a shithead because he's not in the office on Monday and Tuesday. At worst, his offense is that he didn't notify OP that he'll be out two days a week.
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Oct 25, 2015 16:59
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Rexicon1 posted:I DID MY WORK, TEACHER BUT DANNY, DIDNT THAT MEANS IM BETTER THAN HIM AND HE SHOULD BE PUNISHED!!!
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Oct 25, 2015 17:00
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Skandranon posted:No, don't you see? He's the only one among us who is truly free! Soylent green is made of people! IT'S MADE OF PEEEEPOLLLE!!! Do you believe there's a difference between you and a cashier at the grocery store beyond your salary, education, and skill? Hint: there isn't. You sell the value of your labor in the same way and your company does whatever it can to reduce what you sell it for. Labor struggle, especially in America, is a real thing and just because you get paid astronomical sums of money to sit on your rear end and make computers go boop doesn't mean that you're not a part of it.
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Oct 25, 2015 19:34
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That is a pretty common attitude amongst programmers, though. Because they get paid well for a discrete set of skills there's this weird sense that they are the übermensch and as such don't have to care about all of the petty people below them. It's basically why San Francisco is such a hosed up, economically stratified city.
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Oct 25, 2015 19:37
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Mniot posted:Well here's the original post with the parts that seem significant to me: Btw, for those following along at home, this is the correct answer and what I've been saying the entire time. Talk to your coworkers you goddamn spergs.
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Oct 25, 2015 21:22
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Pollyanna posted:Starting my new job today. I'm going to reiterate what folks have been saying to you since you started your career in software: slow down. You have a good 30-40 years left in your career. You'll have time for self-improvement and long term career planning. Just focus on your job now.
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Dec 14, 2015 14:50
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Impostor syndrome is setting in, but I'm trying to remain positive. It's a new place! And it's the holidays soon, so I won't immediately disappoint them.
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Illegal Move posted:Java 8 is pretty great - the only major problem I have with it is that Ivy/Maven/Gradle feel terrible and slow and confusing (compared to npm or cargo, for example). I've been working as a Java dev for a year now and I don't get the feeling that Java is dying at all. That's crazy. Maven is amazing and is basically what every other toolchain for any language should aspire to be.
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Feb 28, 2016 19:54
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Kyth posted:All the debate over Java is missing the forest for the trees. If you're doing it right as a developer, you're going to work in many languages over the decades. "Which language I'm currently working in" is only important if you really really hate that language for some weird reason. This is an absolute truth if you have any desire for career growth. If you pigeonhole yourself as a Java developer or a .NET developer you're going to be paid for that single skill. Developers who go far and advance into architecture and management positions are the ones that know how to think in terms of the overall vision of a project where the decision as to the language it's written in is entirely secondary or even tertiary.
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Feb 29, 2016 14:33
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And further, it's stupid. Who cares if I know a WeakReference or a SoftReference when a quick trip to the java documentation can illuminate the answer easily. I've been around the industry for a while and I've been wondering for a while why our hiring practices are the way they are. As an industry we seem to take perverse pleasure in quizzing our interviewees on minutiae that probably doesn't even matter and then we wonder why our hiring practices are so hosed. The more I deal with new hires and the hiring process the more it enforces my belief that an interview should be a multi-day affair, scheduled at as close to the convenience of the interviewee as possible, that lets them work on a real problem with the team and get paid to do it. It strikes me that we'd see much better outcomes in hiring if we oriented ourselves around who performs best when presented with an actual working scenario rather than a quiz show and the secondary benefit is that during a hiring period it forces the team to have strong onboarding practices and documentation or risk paying for someone to do nothing.
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Mar 1, 2016 13:31
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moctopus posted:A big part of the problem of hiring practices is ego. "What do I know that I think others should know." I'm not certain, but there's a pretty solid, greater-than-zero chance that we're one of the only industries that actually does this kind of interview. No one else I know in other fields has ever had to whiteboard a problem or even answer questions unrelated to the things on their resume.
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Mar 1, 2016 13:47
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