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When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

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Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if Google or Facebook offer you $300k no risk, with a relatively standard work life balance. Then you have to really carefully weigh the startup equity package and how much you enjoy the respective work environments.

"Standard" work life balance is relative though. I know lots of people who don't want to work full time. This is especially true for people with family/kids (who incidentally are usually older/more experienced).

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Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#362
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reply applies to several here. I know a few architects (as in for buildings and civil structures) who wouldn't be able to pour a foundation, frame a wall, or run plumbing properly. They're working at a different level of abstraction and are concerned with different problems. Or to put it another way, if you can code does that mean you should be able to design a CPU, even a very basic one? After all, how can you…

I think this is a linguistic strawman. Civil Architect is to Builder as Software Engineer is to Datacenter Technician. Software architect is to software engineer as partner at an architecture firm is to architect, or something. You don't expect a plumber[0] or a building constructor[1] or a civil engineer[2] to become an architect[3], they're different degrees or certifications. A software architect is normally consi…

Civil Architect is to Builder as Software Engineer is to Compiler.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#363
post #3

A lot of this post seems pretty reasonable. But: In my experience, it’s fairly easy to judge technical skill. A friendly conversation about technical interests and recent projects can often be enough. Bullshit. Sounding credible in technical interviews is a skill, not the same skill as actually being a good programmer, and might even (statistically, in the large) be close to orthogonal to it. We found this out the ha…

Just to add some thoughts here: I’ve interviewed people who were google L7+ (IC) a couple of times who weren’t very good engineers, at least on the work sample stuff. I’ve found that the highest correlation to performance in senior engineers is raw algorithmic skill and willingness to say “I don’t know” when you don’t know. This is not true of hiring devops or sre’s. For those positions, you want the gopher archetype…

If you're asking questions related to "raw algorithmic skill" you're filtering for people who either: 1) Have had a computer science education and happen to remember the algorithm at hand. This is also a function of recency so senior engineers are less likely to remember any given algorithm. 2) Study algorithms so they can do well at job interviews.

Neither one is something you want to be selecting for. Some of the best engineers I've worked with haven't had a proper CS education. I've known extremely strong engineers with Neuroscience, Mathematics, Physics and Public Policy degrees. I've got a business degree.

Unless you're working in certain extremely hard (and extremely rare) areas you do _not_ need to filter for algorithmic skill. Most ML doesn't count. Neither does Data Science. In 99% of engineering jobs it's more important to be diligent, rigorous, and organized. (Of course, filtering for those is another issue altogether)

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if Google or Facebook offer you $300k no risk, with a relatively standard work life balance. Then you have to really carefully weigh the startup equity package and how much you enjoy the respective work environments.

> What if Google or Facebook offer you $300k no risk, with a relatively standard work life balance. If. People here sometimes make it seem like a senior engineer can just walk into a FAANG, chat with the receptionist, and walk out with a $300k offer. While it is certainly not the hardest thing in the world, these companies are still pretty selective and only employ about 10% of the total seniors in the market. More l…

Who cares if you're downleveled? The compensation bands are wide enough that they overlap. This usually means that even though you expected level N, you can get your target comp at level N-1 if you negotiate.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#365
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way to copyright someone else's work. Whoever produced the solution owns the copyright.

That is probably incorrect in the United States if it is "Work made for hire". https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf

To be a work for hire, the work must be produced by an employee within the scope of their employment. Consequently, you cannot do work for hire if you have not been hired.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this "salary first" a little bullshit too. For the most part it's true, but it's not strictly true. If Amazon offers me $180k but I need to work like a slave, but a startup offers $150k but is very chill, I'm gonna choose the startup.

What if Google or Facebook offer you $300k no risk, with a relatively standard work life balance. Then you have to really carefully weigh the startup equity package and how much you enjoy the respective work environments.

I have, and instead took the job for almost half that at a startup. It's not that tough of a decision if you properly weigh the quality of your time.

Keep in mind that you spend roughly half of your waking hours at work. It's important to do what you love during that time. I'm personally not a fan of spending my life to make tiny increases in some ad placement algorithm.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people hate maintenance and isolation as much as you like it.

Sure. I guess I should have been more explicit in my reply: I felt the above comment was lacking in content; why would they not want 10 acres.

Why would you _want_ 10 acres? What are you going to do with all of that space?

I like walking to the grocery store (or bar, or restaurants, etc). I like biking to work. I live within walking distance of literally 6 parks, so it's not like I'm starved for green or open space.

I don't understand your point of view to the exact same degree that you don't understand mine.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. I guess I should have been more explicit in my reply: I felt the above comment was lacking in content; why would they not want 10 acres.

Here’s my answer: I have no interest in living so far away from a major urban center that I could have 10 acres. I have no interest in doing anything with land, farming, maintenance, whatever. My life is very simple and I’ve never lived in an apartment bigger than 600 square feet. The idea of 10 acres is insane to me.

What the shit. My carport is close to 680 sq.ft. I’ve lived in places smaller than that when I was young but that was necessity not choice.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are things in place to make the job easier? Seniors don’t need easier and this is a huge turnoff. What? It requires a special craft to design simpler components. Most of the people don't even see it. This is where your senior skills will shine when you'll make it work like a charm as compared to the previous state. If you don't see the friction or can't reduce it then please take the first exit out.

I think you are conflating simple and easy. They aren't the same. Simple suggests less code, fewer pieces, and a shorter path between code and solution. Easier suggests least effort and less to look at. Simple isn't easy. The primary difference between simple and easy are decisions. A good senior will spend more energy on considerations for appropriate decisions than the actual work.

One of the best engineering talks is about this notion that simple!=easy : https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy

This is surprisingly often not understood, even by people I showed the video. And I am not sure why. But I do think it's necessary in out field to start understanding this much more deeply, especially for senior engineers.

Re: When hiring senior engineers, you’re not buying, you’re selling

#370
"I'm a Senior Software Engineer from Vienna. I have more than 7 years of experience in Software Development,"

No, you are not an engineer unless you really do have a dipl. ing. (BSc. in engineering) degree; you're a programmer. Don't pretend.

No, you are not senior anything; with seven years of experience you are maybe 70% through your apprenticeship, provided you've really applied yourself; at 20 - 35 years of experience you will be senior provided you've really paid attention.

Honestly, the self-bloating flattery is nonsense. Be modest, because otherwise you're deluding yourself. You have such a long way to go.

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