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Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

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Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#151

Post by apazzolini »

ronilan wrote: post #146
austenallred wrote: post #76

Yes. I am the co-founder of Lambda School - (YC S17 - a CS education where the school doesn’t get paid unless you get a good job). Right now we see about 3 students/day get hired. You’ll likely hear a lot of people talking about how the market for juniors is flooded. That is partially true, but it’s flooded with people who cannot code . If you can actually be a productive employee I literally know 100 companies that…

That is partially true, but it’s flooded with people who cannot code. I no longer believe this. I think “people who cannot code” is a myth perpetuated by those who gain something out of it. People who’s business or job is to filter candidates, people who’s business is to sell their own “improved” version of training, people in need of an ego boost and actually, mainly by people who just repeat it cause they heard it…

> I no longer believe this.

You should try interviewing "software engineers" that claim to have 10 years of experience architecting and coding in various languages and cannot write a function that doubles the value of each number in an array.

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#152

Post by catwind7 »

ronilan wrote: post #146
austenallred wrote: post #76

Yes. I am the co-founder of Lambda School - (YC S17 - a CS education where the school doesn’t get paid unless you get a good job). Right now we see about 3 students/day get hired. You’ll likely hear a lot of people talking about how the market for juniors is flooded. That is partially true, but it’s flooded with people who cannot code . If you can actually be a productive employee I literally know 100 companies that…

That is partially true, but it’s flooded with people who cannot code. I no longer believe this. I think “people who cannot code” is a myth perpetuated by those who gain something out of it. People who’s business or job is to filter candidates, people who’s business is to sell their own “improved” version of training, people in need of an ego boost and actually, mainly by people who just repeat it cause they heard it…

I just want to thank you for your perspective.

I'd also add that "junior" can mean very different things for different companies. A junior engineer at Google could very well be "mid level" or even "senior" at a different company. Maybe even a CTO at a startup.

The industry is still relatively new and I think we're still in the early stages of grappling with how to best match programming expertise with company needs.

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#153

Post by catwind7 »

jspiral wrote: post #150
ronilan wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is partially true, but it’s flooded with people who cannot code. I no longer believe this. I think “people who cannot code” is a myth perpetuated by those who gain something out of it. People who’s business or job is to filter candidates, people who’s business is to sell their own “improved” version of training, people in need of an ego boost and actually, mainly by people who just repeat it cause they heard it…

As a hiring manager, my experience has been that the average unsolicited resume belongs to someone who can't implement fizzbuzz. (this has a lot to do with the population that spams resumes though i believe) My experience has also been that most raw junior candidates need significant handholding to implement anything into a typical production system at first, and that the learning curve from there varies greatly. Wha…

My guess is that he's taking issue with this argument that I'm not quite sure was made:

"The market is flooded with people who cannot code, therefore it's easy to find a job as a junior engineer"

The market could in fact be flooded with people who cannot code (I don't know for sure). Assuming that's true, that doesn't necessarily mean it's easy to get a job as a junior dev (speaking from someone on the interviewing side).

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#154

Post by citizens »

ng12 wrote: post #125
C1sc0cat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bit elitist - the trouble with 1 is they can produce pretty one page sites which then suck when crawled by search engines and 90% of websites out there depend on search.

If you're hiring #1s to build static web pages you're lightning money on fire.

If you're hiring #1s to build SPAs, when all you need is some static pages, you'd also be lighting money on fire.

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#155

Post by konart »

cantthinkofone wrote: post #138
hessproject wrote: post #122

The thing about web development is that the definition of "web developer" can vary wildly. Web development is a big field and can include a wide range of skills. Making a static html info page is web development. Building a SPA with a database and auth and user uploads and deploying it on aws/azure and scaling for a million users, also web development. If you are thinking along the lines of the first example, eg. the…

Right, web apps aren't websites. The distinction is pretty sharp when you move from a simple static old fashioned display to Amazon tier complexity where money is being transacted, log in information stored, orders updated, and a million more things besides. The big question is if the internet and its primary portals, the desktop browser and the smartphone, will reach the end of their tether. The only thing I could s…

>Right, web apps aren't websites

>Amazon tier complexity

I'd go even further and say that Amazon-level things aren't web apps to, that's a different level of web resources. It is one thing to write fairy complex web app with auth, log in info, security etc, building enterprise level system is a different thing.

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#156

Post by lunulata »

Web development is a good career path. We live in the golden age of programming. It's never been better to be a software engineer than now. Every major startup and web company I know are constantly looking for new good hires. I recommend focusing on either frontend or backend starting off. Full stack can get hired more at mid+senior level than entry.

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#157

Post by ticmasta »

apazzolini wrote: post #151
ronilan wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is partially true, but it’s flooded with people who cannot code. I no longer believe this. I think “people who cannot code” is a myth perpetuated by those who gain something out of it. People who’s business or job is to filter candidates, people who’s business is to sell their own “improved” version of training, people in need of an ego boost and actually, mainly by people who just repeat it cause they heard it…

> I no longer believe this. You should try interviewing "software engineers" that claim to have 10 years of experience architecting and coding in various languages and cannot write a function that doubles the value of each number in an array.

Well, it's pretty common to have 10 x 1 year of experience. Lots of jobs require the repetition of a relatively shallow set of skills.

When I started my current job I remember the announcement said something like 15 years experience and I thought "I've been doing lots of things for a long time, but I don't feel like I have 15 years experience in any of them" at least no the same way someone in a more stable domain might...

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#158

Post by geebee »

apazzolini wrote: post #151
ronilan wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is partially true, but it’s flooded with people who cannot code. I no longer believe this. I think “people who cannot code” is a myth perpetuated by those who gain something out of it. People who’s business or job is to filter candidates, people who’s business is to sell their own “improved” version of training, people in need of an ego boost and actually, mainly by people who just repeat it cause they heard it…

> I no longer believe this. You should try interviewing "software engineers" that claim to have 10 years of experience architecting and coding in various languages and cannot write a function that doubles the value of each number in an array.

You should try interviewing as a software engineer with 10 years experience. They never ask you to double the value of each integer in an array. They ask you to find all matching subtrees in a binary tree, or to find all sub-matrices in an NxM matrix with a positive determinant in a matrix of arbitrary size, or find all words in a dictionary that can be constructed by concatenating other words in the dictionary.

The easiest questions I've been asked are unimaginative but straightforward things (build a binary tree, print inorder, find all permutations of a string, code a hash map).

There's also a particularly pernicious trend toward asking for on-line assessments or homework assignments, things that save the hiring company time but put an even greater time burden on the applicant.

I'd say "cracking the coding interview" is a good reflection of the kinds of questions you need to be prepared to answer in an interview, and they are miles away from doubling the value of each integer in an array.

I think this is why there's such a disconnect between us. You do see self-described software engineers with 10 years of experience who can't do fizzbuzz, I really do believe you. But we (the applicants) never see this, instead we see a vastly higher standard applied. Which would be fine if the companies acknowledged that they are having trouble hiring because they're extremely picky. But instead, we hear people claiming that there's a "shortage" and that they can't hire because all these supposedly senior people can't code fizz buzz.

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#160

Post by gkfasdfasdf »

cantthinkofone wrote: post #144
cantthinkofone wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, web apps aren't websites. The distinction is pretty sharp when you move from a simple static old fashioned display to Amazon tier complexity where money is being transacted, log in information stored, orders updated, and a million more things besides. The big question is if the internet and its primary portals, the desktop browser and the smartphone, will reach the end of their tether. The only thing I could s…

Another risk I think is the automation of coding. It already happens all the time, and in principle coding should be the most automatable of anything. The only thing saving it is that it's very hard to automate the creation of good ideas or purposeful human intentions, which naturally inform most successful coding projects. There's also a bit of a conflict of interest, why would coders building automation systems wan…

I tend not to worry about programming automation, because I believe it has actually been going on for a long time with higher level languages. E.g. when programming was done at assembly level, the advent of C did not reduce the number of jobs, rather it made programming more powerful and created more jobs. Same with Java and 'automated' memory management. Same with Ruby on Rails, php, etc. By simplifying developers jobs, developers can create bigger and better products, which increases adoption of technology, which creates demand for even better products, which leads to more jobs and more automation. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't see any end to this cycle anytime soon.
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