Unraveling of the tech hiring market • Hacker News Board

Re: Unraveling of the tech hiring market

#61

Post by amazon_thr0way » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 3:53 AM UTC

Arcten wrote: post #12

aptimpropriety wrote: post #3

"But this year it seems like the seal is broken, and we've seen major companies delivering internship and full-time offers with 2 week (and less) hard deadlines. Other companies now routinely deliver expiring bonus offers for signing early. Many of these offers circumvent or outright break the guidelines set down by schools, and if past matching markets are a model for this one, next year will come with even earlier…

From personal experience, I can say that Google was only willing to extend an internship offer a week past their initial two week deadline. This is despite the fact that I was still interviewing with other companies at the time. From speaking with my university's career center I am not the only person this happened to.

Same with Amazon for the most part. Returning internships are only allowed 2 weeks. Full time offers after internships are given 2 weeks, but you can ask for an extension which does last a couple months. However, you're given a questionnaire on the type of team you want to be on and the longer you wait to accept your offer, the lower on the queue you will be for getting the team you want.

Re: Unraveling of the tech hiring market

#62

Post by abecedarius » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 4:43 AM UTC

p4wnc6 wrote: post #36

I've been facing the opposite problem. I've been in a lengthy job search and despite being in a situation where I really need a job, I've been forced to reject all the offers that have been made -- because the working conditions are just too unhealthy. The article mentions that a side effect of exploding offers is that you don't get to see the full landscape of opportunities and trade-offs you're facing before you ma…

I'm also starting a job search soon and also concerned about finding an actual office these days, or even a cubicle. Maybe I'll end up working remotely, but there ought to be a better answer.

Re: Unraveling of the tech hiring market

#63

Post by curun1r » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 7:21 AM UTC

p4wnc6 wrote: post #44

littletimmy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do noise-cancelling headphones not work for you?

Not even close. For one, listening to actual sound like music or a podcast is even worse for me than the dull ambient backdrop noise. On rare occasion I can listen to music for a brief period of time, maybe 1 hour. But any sustained sounds longer than an hour and I start to feel the type of tiredness you feel when you pull an all-nighter. That's just how sound affects me. I can't "tune it out" like most people can ..…

I had a colleague who used the kind of ear protection that airport employees wear out on the tarmac. In order to get his attention, you'd literally have to tap him on the shoulder. I tried it myself and it was eerily quiet...you couldn't even sense when someone was standing behind you.

Have you tried these? Combined with a desk that faces a wall, I'd bet you'd find yourself in your own little world, oblivious to all that was going on behind you.

Re: Unraveling of the tech hiring market

#64

Post by chipsy » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 9:21 AM UTC

stegosaurus wrote: post #53

The idea of an 'exploding offer' seems a bit odd to me. What makes it one-sided exploding? Are people being asked to actually start work in three days time, or just accept the offer? What happens if you say 'yes' and continue interviewing? Does a big guy with a sword turn up at your front door and chop your head off? Are people just trying to be polite and not burn bridges? Why would you want to be polite towards suc…

This may be the best advice in the whole thread. Once in the Real World, you are free to be an asshole about how you negotiate and just...not stick to your statements of obligation. You suffer consequences only if you have to deal with the exact same person again. But if the org is big they won't really notice.

We're just all so used to schools setting up all the obligations for us and monitoring everything, that taking a more freeform approach is unsettling at first.

Re: Unraveling of the tech hiring market

#65

Post by p4wnc6 » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 4:13 PM UTC

curun1r wrote: post #63

p4wnc6 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even close. For one, listening to actual sound like music or a podcast is even worse for me than the dull ambient backdrop noise. On rare occasion I can listen to music for a brief period of time, maybe 1 hour. But any sustained sounds longer than an hour and I start to feel the type of tiredness you feel when you pull an all-nighter. That's just how sound affects me. I can't "tune it out" like most people can ..…

I had a colleague who used the kind of ear protection that airport employees wear out on the tarmac. In order to get his attention, you'd literally have to tap him on the shoulder. I tried it myself and it was eerily quiet...you couldn't even sense when someone was standing behind you. Have you tried these? Combined with a desk that faces a wall, I'd bet you'd find yourself in your own little world, oblivious to all…

How many tarmac earmuff people do you see getting promoted to a senior position?

This sort of thing, even if it's unfair, absolutely lowers your status in the company.

In one previous job with a noisy open-plan office, I actually tried wearing some factory-grade ear plugs, small little yellow ear plugs that you couldn't see unless you came up close.

They weren't perfect, but the ambient noise was so distracting that I gave them a try.

Within a week, my boss had a 1-1 meeting with me to tell me that some people thought it was very rude that I was wearing earplugs, and that it made it seem like I was unwilling to participate.

I was actually training an intern and helping a team of three others with a software tool I wrote for them, so I was far from not participating, and all of my peers were vocally supportive of me wearing the ear plugs if they helped.

I learned later that one of the C-level executives had made a walk through of the research work space and he just simply "didn't like" seeing someone with ear plugs.

Headphones == acceptable, possibly even sexy cool start-up geek.

Ear plugs == tacky, borderline Aspbergery nerd who isn't being good enough office eye candy

Re: Unraveling of the tech hiring market

#66

Post by rhizome » Sat, Mar 19, 2016, 6:43 PM UTC

caseydurfee wrote: post #46

rhizome wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word "consider" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Considering how much the school you attended is a proxy for your race, gender, veteran status, socioeconomic status, etc., it would be incredibly dumb for them to say anything different.

Yes, but "consider" also implies a lot of things not so sinister. In that way, the discriminatory aspects you bring up are being euphemized and hidden within an otherwise positive or innocuous term.

Re: Unraveling of the tech hiring market

#67

Post by dllthomas » Sun, Mar 20, 2016, 4:03 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #25

tikhonj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not really a high-frequency firm by most definitions. They use some high-level strategies that high-frequency firms also use (ie market making) and have some automation, but don't optimize for latency. Nothing about that is high-frequency trading per se —in many securities, you can make markets manually or semi-manually. Market making as a strategy is more like providing a service on the markets than it is li…

Depends, you can make more money as a market maker by expanding the spread than collapsing it. Though this is obviously a risky move.

This doesn't make sense to me. Say I'm a market maker. How do I make the spread bigger than it would have been if I was absent? I suppose I can hit any orders anyone else places inside my larger spread, but that just gives anyone the opportunity to pump money out of my accounts...

Re: Unraveling of the tech hiring market

#68

Post by rashkov » Sun, Mar 20, 2016, 11:43 PM UTC

p4wnc6 wrote: post #47

gedy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not defending the companies per se, but perhaps they are worried you will be particular and awkward to work with beyond the points you discussed with them. Simply because truly difficult people rarely advertise this up front, they may feel they'd rather avoid the risk.

I am certain that at least some of them feel this way, especially given how many tech candidates are willing to work in an open-plan setting without even batting an eyelash about it. But I don't know of any other way to ensure that I can have the adequate privacy and quiet that truly is physically necessary for me. I've just come to accept the fact that this means extremely lengthy job searches for me, and a need to…

Do you bring this up before you get the offer? You need to wait to get the offer and then negotiate an office for yourself. It is as much a benefit as salary is, though it is sad to have to call it a benefit. Once they go through the red tape and legwork to get you an offer, only then is the leverage in your favor.

Edit: sorry, it sounds like that's what you're doing already. Just re-read your post more carefully. Anyway, I wish you good luck in your search and I hope you're able to find a suitable job situation. Maybe it would help to classify this as a disability somehow? I think they have to provide "reasonable accommodation" under the ADA act but that could mean a pair of noise cancelling headphones.

Re: Unraveling of the tech hiring market

#69

Post by howItsDone123 » Mon, Mar 21, 2016, 6:13 PM UTC

p4wnc6 wrote: post #65

curun1r wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a colleague who used the kind of ear protection that airport employees wear out on the tarmac. In order to get his attention, you'd literally have to tap him on the shoulder. I tried it myself and it was eerily quiet...you couldn't even sense when someone was standing behind you. Have you tried these? Combined with a desk that faces a wall, I'd bet you'd find yourself in your own little world, oblivious to all…

How many tarmac earmuff people do you see getting promoted to a senior position? This sort of thing, even if it's unfair, absolutely lowers your status in the company. In one previous job with a noisy open-plan office, I actually tried wearing some factory-grade ear plugs, small little yellow ear plugs that you couldn't see unless you came up close. They weren't perfect, but the ambient noise was so distracting that…

I'm a big supporter of wearing the ear plugs. They're better at blocking noise, and turning the volume up on headphones to drown out background noise will leave you deaf.

But, you do look like both a tool and a jerk if you're wearing earplugs in an office.

I started putting headphones on over earplugs. All the benefits of earplugs, none of the drawbacks.

Re: Unraveling of the tech hiring market

#70

Post by nikhizzle » Tue, Mar 22, 2016, 5:30 PM UTC

p4wnc6 wrote: post #58

nikhizzle wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should apply to Facebook, when I was there special accommodations were made for people who required an office.

That is a mind-boggling comment. I've mostly avoided applying there because they are so over the top with advertising their extreme investment into huge open-plan spaces. It was such a huge cultural turn off that I figured there was no way they would even consider someone like me. Do you have any links to anything they've written about this?

Sorry, I do not. But the option was twofold when I was there:

1. Engineers have a choice of open plan or a shared (2 person) office depending on preference. 2. Engineers who have special circumstances can request their own office.