121–130 of 495 posts
My employer does... many of our best candidates come in as interns and outperform experienced consultants, but snotty tech companies won’t touch them because they are not from the right schools.
Schools are overrated in tech industry, at this point in time, you would do much better if you just spend your time learning and trying things on your pace and time rather than wasting on spending in a school.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As everyone else has said, it's essentially just a fizzbuzz test without using FizzBuzz. I don't need someone to write an algorithm to compute max, but I DO need someone who can take simple verbal requirements and write a program to do it. Everyone understands max/min/mean/median (or can quickly understand if they are unfamiliar). If they can't take that concept and apply it to code, then I don't trust them with inev…
>One problem we just encountered in production that I'm trying to work into a prompt was our impression generation created a large amount of duplicates. Identifying the duplicates and eliminating them takes some simple verbal requirements but has a lot of depth. If they cant't do max/min/mean/median, they surely can't do answer that (which our least senior developer was able to do, with guidance (mostly on optimizati…
I think your point would be fair for more complex problems, but getting the max of a list is something anybody of a logical mind could easily do even without knowing any formal programming language. And for those that do know a formal programming language it comes down to the most incredibly trivial basics of a language - comparison/variable/iteration.
In other words a self declared software developer who can't tell you how to get the max of a list is not going to be a good software developer.
I think the reason is simple: once the junior dev is trained, they will leave. To be clear, I am not saying that they are obliged to stay in the company that trained them or being ungrateful in any sense, I am simply implying this is a common outcome from such training. In software industry, the first job switch in 2 years seems pretty common and reasonable, and the dev by that time would be able to strike a better j…
I know we aren't the most favorable company these days. The recent press fury gets a lot of stuff wrong which does not help. But it is a really great place to work at as an engineer. I'm proud that Facebook is willing to try unconventional methods like this.
Disclaimer: I work for Facebook. These are my own opinions and not those of my employer.
EDIT: to people emailing me (thanks!), I am currently on PTO overseas so I will respond, but maybe not super timely. Also, we're looking for our first QA and our first DevOps role if non-SEs are reading... If you're willing to work in Texas, send me an email (check my profile). We absolutely do not mind if you have gaps. semi-OT: To all people in this thread who say there is no shortage of developers: if you know any…
is it a major city in Texas, or middle-of-the-desert Texas? have you considered hiring remote? I'm not on the job market, I'm just wondering.
Hiring remote would be an exception to the rule, for us. Not impossible, but you'd have to be worth it.
The problem with hiring junior developers is risk. They could be junior because of incompetence or wrong attitude opposed to just lacking necessary experience. When hiring a junior you are hedging either competence or experience against expenses and hoping for potential. Potential is the magical ingredient and its hard to recognize before hiring somebody, which is why this is risky. Conversely hiring really good seni…
Yep, 100% this. I'm involved in a lot of hiring decisions. In the past few years we decided to take a chance on a couple of junior people who didn't pan out. Huge waste of resources. We're very hesitant to do so again.
On the job training is very much a thing, but I think the vast majority of companies out there prefer to start doing that while a potential hire is still in college. It's less risky and usually the potentials are more moldable. Internships that move to a full time hire is how we brought in a large percentage of the workforce over at Microsoft, and the same is true where I am now (Atlassian). For those in that positio…
This is very true. Having a few years at well known company on your resume will get you in the door.
Also worth considering is highlighting the clients who used the systems you worked on rather than just the little known company.
I think the reason is simple: once the junior dev is trained, they will leave. To be clear, I am not saying that they are obliged to stay in the company that trained them or being ungrateful in any sense, I am simply implying this is a common outcome from such training. In software industry, the first job switch in 2 years seems pretty common and reasonable, and the dev by that time would be able to strike a better j…
A friend of mine runs a web dev shop and I have seen him train at least six people from zero-to-pro (very smart, fast learners with a math background) and what you described is exactly what happens. Once they become medium/advanced-level proficient they often quit and move on to other, bigger companies. If there was some formal, or informal understanding that candidates "trained on the job" would stay for a few years…
We already know jumping gives on average a 15% salary increase every two years, so you just have to beat or match that.
Now people might still leave for more interesting projects, but you get one of the larger motivational factors out of the way.
People often leave because negotiating a salary upgrade is way harder than navigating an interview.
So, unless your hidden motive is to have cheap labor just write down in the contract that every two year the salary will increase 15% minimum, unrelated to objective bonus and all that bullshit.
The you have it. The secret for training and retaining talent in a competitive market.
I think the reason is simple: once the junior dev is trained, they will leave. To be clear, I am not saying that they are obliged to stay in the company that trained them or being ungrateful in any sense, I am simply implying this is a common outcome from such training. In software industry, the first job switch in 2 years seems pretty common and reasonable, and the dev by that time would be able to strike a better j…
I think the reason is simple: once the junior dev is trained, they will leave. To be clear, I am not saying that they are obliged to stay in the company that trained them or being ungrateful in any sense, I am simply implying this is a common outcome from such training. In software industry, the first job switch in 2 years seems pretty common and reasonable, and the dev by that time would be able to strike a better j…
A friend of mine runs a web dev shop and I have seen him train at least six people from zero-to-pro (very smart, fast learners with a math background) and what you described is exactly what happens. Once they become medium/advanced-level proficient they often quit and move on to other, bigger companies. If there was some formal, or informal understanding that candidates "trained on the job" would stay for a few years…