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Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

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Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#551

Post by woolvalley »

laichzeit0 wrote: post #255

Don't people get job offers anymore from someone they used to know that moved to another company and then like "hey I know this really great guy who works at XYZ, we should definitely get him here"? That is literally how every job I've moved to happened, except for the very first one right after being a student. That's the only job I ever remember having to "interview" for. The rest were just through established soci…

If the place is large enough, your friends have to go through the standardized interview process too unless they are famous enough already to be some sort of tech celebrity or have a rare and special skill.

Even the tech celebrities have to go through the process half the time too. You will get a referral bonus although if your friends pass the process although.

This is mostly done to prevent cliques who let in bad performers.

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#552

Post by zepolen »

ModernMech wrote: post #488
thegayngler wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most engineers would not hire themselves. That has been apparent to me for awhile now. I’m not sure why they expect people to be to be better than they were when they were hired. I don’t expect engineers to be better than me. I have but one qualification. Can they do the job? Are they strong enough that I can guide them into the position I need them at if it is required. So much focus has been put on 10x this and hig…

> Companies waste lots of engineering talent and company money looking for 10x when 10x is mostly situational in nature. ... In one scene the engineers are not producing. Change the scene and now they are 10x I can relate to this. I have pretty good resume - good schools, advanced degree, impressive sounding projects, a long list of publications. My track-record suggests I am at least a 3x engineer. So when I get int…

6 months? That's terrible.

Most engineers can be productive in a month. The 3x engineers take half that.

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#553

Post by jimbokun »

Balgair wrote: post #330
jandrewrogers wrote: post #137

To take a more nuanced view, I think there is an important distinction, frequently lost, between "can't code" -- which is all too common in practice -- and "can't easily code a stream-of-consciousness solution to a synthetic problem unrelated to anything I've ever built". Or its close cousin "can't easily code a toy solution to your toy problem since I've only worked on massively scalable versions of the same problem…

Hmm, maybe we should 'equalize' the playing field then: Give everyone something from left field that pretty much all people bomb, that'll see how quick they learn. Exp: You must code in an unfamiliar language (Fortran 1988, for example) and do something simple in it. At least then you'll know that people are all starting from scratch. Time it, make sure it doesn't last more than 2 hours, see how laughably slow we all…

"Give everyone something from left field that pretty much all people bomb, that'll see how quick they learn."

The Kobayashi Maru test.

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#554

Post by Zaheer »

I recently also built a tool in the job hunt space for engineers feeling very similar frustrations. One of the most frustrating aspects for me was how blurry the various career ladders translate across companies. Some people may end up with a very different scope of work than they originally thought if they weren't familiar with the leveling system of the company they applied for. To this end I ended up building http://www.levels.fyi with a friend - do let us know if you have any feedback!

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#555

Post by AnimalMuppet »

irundebian wrote: post #452
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That might solve half of the problem. But then we need certifications for employers - something that says, "Yes, I have a real job opening; I'm not just wasting your time." It needs to have real penalties if an employer violates it, too.

I'm not sure this is working, since employers not only search for general software developers but maybe also developers with domain-specific knowledge. It would be very time consuming develop a certification for every domain.

Hey, I said it was needed. I never said it would work, or that it was workable. But if you're going to certify workers, so that they don't waste the employer's time with interviews that are going nowhere, well, we need something to do the same in the other direction...

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#556

Post by snotrockets »

falcolas wrote: post #223

I have a theory of why most of these changes in the job hunt came about: people became afraid of firing. I further theorize that this is an indirect consequence of primarily technical folks filling management roles. How does a fear of firing impact hiring procedures? If you are afraid of firing, you're afraid that you won't be able to get rid of a toxic individual; that a single individual will act as a poison to the…

That one bad person, before he gets fired, would destroy the productivity of 5 others; And his firing would make 3 others doubt the employer.

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#557

Post by ojbyrne »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #458
falcolas wrote: post #223

I have a theory of why most of these changes in the job hunt came about: people became afraid of firing. I further theorize that this is an indirect consequence of primarily technical folks filling management roles. How does a fear of firing impact hiring procedures? If you are afraid of firing, you're afraid that you won't be able to get rid of a toxic individual; that a single individual will act as a poison to the…

I agree that it's related to firing, but I don't think it's fear of interpersonal drama. The simple explanation is that it's really expensive to fire someone without cause. It takes months because the company has to produce a paper trail proving they fired the person for a valid reason to protect themselves from litigation. That's months of paying an individual who may be incompetent or toxic, months of paying people…

The simple explanation is that many employers believe that. In fact I don't think it's that hard.

1. As another commenter pointed out, most jobs are in "at-will" states.

2. Many companies require arbitration instead of litigation to settle any disputes as a requirement of employment.

3. It's just as expensive for the fired employee, probably more so, since if you litigate, you're unlikely to ever work again.

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#558

Post by coredog64 »

falcolas wrote: post #477
hoorayimhelping wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's related to firing, but I don't think it's fear of interpersonal drama. The simple explanation is that it's really expensive to fire someone without cause. It takes months because the company has to produce a paper trail proving they fired the person for a valid reason to protect themselves from litigation. That's months of paying an individual who may be incompetent or toxic, months of paying people…

As much as I hate it as an employee, "at will" employment means that cost simply does not exist for 48 of the 50 US states (including all states where FAANG have employees). The cost is also not that high in non-at-will states, since there's typically a 3-6 month "evaluation" period where no paper trail is required.

Not entirely true. Just because you're in an "at will" state doesn't mean that someone can't allege that they've been fired for belonging to a protected class. That's why companies have HR departments, PIPs, and all that other nonsense -- to protect the company when someone tries to turn a justifiable firing into a payday.

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#559

Post by AnimalMuppet »

tintor wrote: post #550
mywittyname wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you have 10 positions and 10 potential candidates? Hire all 10 folks, and fire the one bad person; your company will be better off for the decision. Much better off than it would be if you instead overwork your existing team because you haven't found your unicorn hires yet. Even if you hire two do-nothings and a negative-performing person (consumes half an FTE's day in questions), you still end up with 6.5 produ…

"For negative performing people, I usually give them something kind of busy-work that doesn't involve the rest of the team." Why waste time? Why not just fire them?

Because you can get sued for firing them. Sued for multiples of their annual salary.

Re: Things I Learned from a Job Hunt for a Senior Engineering Role

#560

Post by royalghost »

I recently did an onsite interview for a company which asked me to do a homework assignment and make some code changes on the fly. The task was the most stupid I never heard of, to call a controller method from another class from a console. They called it "reusable."

After a week, the recruiter called me and told me that I am not selected due to my lack of skills in object oriented.

This is the most ridiculous feedback I ever received.

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