Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#371

Post by lowercased » Thu, May 06, 2021, 10:52 PM UTC

Dyac wrote: post #367

Symbiote wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal minimum in the EU (and many countries) is 20 days. I've seen this enforced once, and everyone was amazed that our colleague hadn't used the minimum 20 days. (We had 30 days according to our contract, but the requirement was for him to take 20. The other 10 were up to him.)

Yeah, I think the average European probably takes more time off than even Americans that think they take a lot of time off. We get 32 days + public holidays, so you could take something like 7 weeks off with careful planning. Most people do. Because most people do, it isn't looked down upon at all. A friend at a US firm said they told him if someone could take 3 weeks off then clearly the company didn't need them and…

i remember years ago my wife's friend (we're in US, she was in the UK) commented about how crappy US 'vacation' policies were. She'd been at a place for ... several years, and now had seniority for... at the time it was 11 paid weeks off. It seemed a bit excessive, because it didn't include some national holidays as well, so... basically she had > 3 months 'off' every year. The biggest problem she/they had was trying to figure out stuff to 'do' during that time (visited us in the US for a bit). I think another issue was trying to coordinate her 'time off' with her husband (IIRC he 'only' got 8 weeks paid vacation).

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#372

Post by jxidjhdhdhdhfhf » Thu, May 06, 2021, 11:25 PM UTC

xeromal wrote: post #364

snow_mac wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"unlimited vacation time" is just really an accounting hack. It allows the employer not to have to track that stuff and on your way out, owe you nothing for vacation time. It also allows them to say, well, it's unlimited, take it when you want; then the only option to take time off is around federal holidays. It's basically a scheme to rip you off....

I've had unlimited PTO at 4 companies and 3/4 were truly unlimited. I've taken an international trip for 14 days every year + 5-6 days off for 3 days weekends + any fat hoidays like taking off Christmas eve. I'm sure there are shit companies but it seems like most companies respect it. I feel like the onus is on the employee to ask off. Most people are just too afraid or too much of a workaholic to take off.

Uhhhhh... so you took under a month off? That's not a strong argument. If unlimited is actually unlimited then I would be taking 2 months a year at least.

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#373

Post by jameshart » Thu, May 06, 2021, 11:28 PM UTC

g051051 wrote: post #118

jameshart wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re shooting yourself in the foot by ignoring companies that take pride in offering an agile development environment. There are, sure, places that have control-through-forced-scrum as their management philosophy who will call themselves ‘agile’; but there are also places that practice exactly what you’re looking for: getting out of the way of tech practitioners, giving them direct access to stakeholders to decide…

> You’re shooting yourself in the foot by ignoring companies that take pride in offering an agile development environment. Fine by me. Everything I've seen and heard of Agile (both in the last company I worked at and from others) is that's it's a dumpster fire. It wasn't created by developers to improve development, it was created by consultants to sell consulting. DevOps is dumb, too. > Consider the alternative: a c…

I'm so confused by this thread.

It's like I've wandered into a conversation where people are saying,

"You know, my boss tried to give me cake the other day." "Cake? Everywhere seems to be doing it nowadays. What I would give to find a place to work where the boss doesn't make you eat cake all day." "Yeah, cake cake cake, all the time."

And I'm like,

"Er... cake? The yummy thing that's really nice? Your boss gave you cake? And you didn't like it?"

And everybody replies:

"No, you idiot, cake! Smelly, hard, poisonous cake, with glass shards in it as usual."

I'm standing here, with my slice of yummy cake, thinking... are you the crazy ones, or am I?

"You know, cake's meant to be like this: soft, sweet, really tasty?"

"Yeah, that's what consultants want you to think, but cake is actually made of burnt tires and crushed up bottles."

"Your boss gives you burnt tires and crushed bottles and tells you that's cake?"

"Yes, that's what cake IS."

And I can point to all the recipe books for cakes, and show you the cake I'm eating right now, and you'll all still tell me:

"Well every cake I've ever been given smelled of burning rubber and made my mouth bleed, so I don't want to work anywhere that advertises that they give employees cake any more." "You sound just like the last guy who gave me cake."

I mean, I get why that kind of experience might make you cynical, but I don't understand this desire to wallow in the belief that anyone who tells you it doesn't have to be like that must be lying or selling something.

"And chocolate's awful too."

Really? The same asshole who has gaslit you about what cake is has lied to you about chocolate too?

I'm so sorry for you. Please. Let someone help.

Have some cake.

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#374

Post by smsm42 » Thu, May 06, 2021, 11:31 PM UTC

mooreds wrote: post #224

LanceH wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big one I have to add is time off. I've rejected a lot of companies that tell me, "All new employees start with two weeks off per year." Yea, I'm sure the new CFO starts with 2 weeks vacation, too. I've been doing this for 25 years, and if you offer me two weeks, we're done.

> Yea, I'm sure the new CFO starts with 2 weeks vacation, too. LOL I would add that if the company has "unlimited vacation time" it's really important to press and find out how much time people actually take. I like to ask for averages or how much time has taken off in the last few years. That'll tell you what the limits really are.

In California at least, if you have X days of vacation time and you don't use it in the year when you leave, they have to pay you for these days. If it's "unlimited" time, you get bupkis.

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#375

Post by smsm42 » Thu, May 06, 2021, 11:52 PM UTC

I'm a senior engineer (~30 yrs experience in software dev right now) and I don't really want to work for consulting/contract market. Well, I mean if somebody offered me money beyond my wildest dreams ("never have to work again" kind of money) - maybe, but otherwise it's too much annoying stuff that I'd have to deal with. Some side gigs are ok, but having a steady job makes my life much easier.

What I'd be looking in an employer is:

1. Interesting job. Should be doing something new or interesting that would excite me. Also some position where I can make my own decisions, not just mindlessly marching to the beat.

2. Sane management. Which can communicate, set strategy, facilitate communication between teams, deliver proper strategic prioritization and planning and make my technical jobs shuffling the bits around as easy and efficient as possible. Also some measure of trust that I know what I am doing, and if I don't I'll tell you.

3. A good team is very important. Excellent if I can learn from these people, good if I can rely on them to do their part, otherwise it becomes unworkable.

4. No death marches. I mean, I work odd hours and may jump in on weekends too, if I feel like, but that shouldn't be expected of me. Not a single 22 yo without a family or life anymore.

5. No political bullshit. I don't mean politics like Trump vs. Biden or whatever, though seeing that at the workplace would probably make me run fast and far, I mean things that don't have much to do with business but a lot to do with manager's egos and their perception of how their career should go. If I am caught in anything like that, it makes me very sad and looking for the exits.

6. Decent pay, of course, and customary benefits (including vacation time), but if it's not on the level Google pays I'd understand, provided all the rest is good.

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#376

Post by xeromal » Fri, May 07, 2021, 12:14 AM UTC

jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote: post #372

xeromal wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had unlimited PTO at 4 companies and 3/4 were truly unlimited. I've taken an international trip for 14 days every year + 5-6 days off for 3 days weekends + any fat hoidays like taking off Christmas eve. I'm sure there are shit companies but it seems like most companies respect it. I feel like the onus is on the employee to ask off. Most people are just too afraid or too much of a workaholic to take off.

Uhhhhh... so you took under a month off? That's not a strong argument. If unlimited is actually unlimited then I would be taking 2 months a year at least.

I have no need for more than that though. I could take off more if I wanted but I'd just be bored. lol

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#377

Post by 3np » Fri, May 07, 2021, 12:40 AM UTC

StevenWaterman wrote: post #145

3np wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> asymptotic with respect to the time horizon. I don't get what you're trying to say here.

If I understood correctly, if I estimate something will take 5 minutes, and I'm doing it now, it'll probably take 5 minutes. If my estimate is 18 months and we don't start for another year, my estimate is worthless.

Ah, makes perfect sense. My brain was glitching a bit trying to make sense of it as "Anything that [...] is asymptotic with respect to the time horizon"

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#378

Post by g051051 » Fri, May 07, 2021, 1:00 AM UTC

jameshart wrote: post #373

g051051 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You’re shooting yourself in the foot by ignoring companies that take pride in offering an agile development environment. Fine by me. Everything I've seen and heard of Agile (both in the last company I worked at and from others) is that's it's a dumpster fire. It wasn't created by developers to improve development, it was created by consultants to sell consulting. DevOps is dumb, too. > Consider the alternative: a c…

I'm so confused by this thread. It's like I've wandered into a conversation where people are saying, "You know, my boss tried to give me cake the other day." "Cake? Everywhere seems to be doing it nowadays. What I would give to find a place to work where the boss doesn't make you eat cake all day." "Yeah, cake cake cake, all the time." And I'm like, "Er... cake? The yummy thing that's really nice? Your boss gave you…

> I don't understand this desire to wallow in the belief that anyone who tells you it doesn't have to be like that must be lying or selling something.

Because literally every time we've encountered cake it's a painful and disgusting experience.

It's more like you've been given something that's been called cake, but is actually not cake. Whoever baked it realized that the recipe for cake could never work, so they changed it into something that would, and told you that was "real" cake.

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#379

Post by g051051 » Fri, May 07, 2021, 1:03 AM UTC

dblohm7 wrote: post #327

junon wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Describing agile as a cult is spot-on. Regardless of its intent, I've never seen nor heard of it being implemented in a way that promotes iterative R&D on a development team. Agile is more suited toward software maintenance IMO, not building new software. Rarely are senior engineers looking for the former.

> Agile is more suited toward software maintenance IMO, not building new software. One other learning that I've taken from big-A Agile is that it is only suited for teams where everybody is a "generalist" within the team. By "generalist" I mean that any developer on the team can work on any issue within that team's purview. If your team is responsible for any component where only a subset of the team has the speciali…

In the "agile" environments I've seen, devs are expected to be the ultimate generalist. We have to do planning, documentation, testing, qa, ops, and still write the code.

Re: Ask HN: How to attract perm Snr Engs when the contract market is so lucrative?

#380

Post by jameshart » Fri, May 07, 2021, 1:21 AM UTC

g051051 wrote: post #378

jameshart wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm so confused by this thread. It's like I've wandered into a conversation where people are saying, "You know, my boss tried to give me cake the other day." "Cake? Everywhere seems to be doing it nowadays. What I would give to find a place to work where the boss doesn't make you eat cake all day." "Yeah, cake cake cake, all the time." And I'm like, "Er... cake? The yummy thing that's really nice? Your boss gave you…

> I don't understand this desire to wallow in the belief that anyone who tells you it doesn't have to be like that must be lying or selling something. Because literally every time we've encountered cake it's a painful and disgusting experience. It's more like you've been given something that's been called cake, but is actually not cake. Whoever baked it realized that the recipe for cake could never work, so they chan…

Yes, I believe you have been subjected to that abuse.

But... the point of my metaphor is: cake does exist. It's real. You can make your own! The recipes are available! They do work! The fact that people have convinced you that cake doesn't exist is a reflection on them, not on me.

You are trying to convince me - a person who is eating a cake right now - that cake is a lie. And for some reason you seem really angry with me about it.