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Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

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Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#71

Post by sethammons »

asdfman123 wrote: post #3
hidden_arachnid wrote: post #2

Author of this article here. As long as this initial data-dive came out, there are still a bunch of things we’d like to look at. Does location (say, NYC vs Silicon Valley vs affect these preferences? Does which track (generalist, front-end, mobile) a candidate takes through our process? How does this link with how candidates actually behave when given an offer? Our data set has enough information that we can investig…

As a Houston developer, that chart of motivating factors describes exactly what I'm looking for. I won't work on an ancient Java codebase that has no tests or no deployment pipeline, because doing that is death. Gotta keep moving forward or find yourself sliding backwards. I would say your analysis is spot on and I could have written the same article myself. Companies should realize doing things that seem "fluffy" an…

> I don't need classes

omg, yes. "we offer online courses" or "go to such-n-such conference budget" are _not_ professional growth to me. I want, like you, to play with new technologies and get experience working with them.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#72

Post by yezanotherone »

dpeck wrote: post #50
trilila wrote: post #10

Don’t treat developers like bricklayers. Sack any product manager or manager that does it. This is the root of all evil, radical as it may sound. There needs to be a balance between engineering and product delivery, but too much emphasis on product delivery leads to tech debt, cutting too many corners and poor tech choices. Not to mention stress and little to no job satisfaction. Give devs some time to build somethin…

in my experience many developers want to be bricklayers (not to discount bricklaying, there's an art to it, but they're focused on the individual bricks, not the other aspects of the building). They get annoyed when they're asked to think about the bigger picture and just want to focus on the code, the architecture, and whatever is new and shiny. It is largely due to these sorts of developers that we've developed all…

I am one of these happy bricklayers. It's the only way I can stay sane in a job. When I'm working on my own projects, I'm all in, and I love all aspects of the process. But in a job, on a project that 99% of the time is run badly, and my colleagues are writing terrible code, just give me the bricks and tell me what to build. If I try to care, I get frustrated and depressed.

Plus, I'd be fooling myself if I were not like this. I've seen people put their passion into a job, argue their case, and then they get made redundant. Don't be fooled.

P.s. I'm a very good, reliable bricklayer who makes very solid walls.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#73

Post by elindbe2 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #69
elindbe2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but I'm looking at it more over the course of a lifetime. If I need $X to cover all expenses in my lifetime then I need to work $X/Y hours where Y is my earnings per hour. This is a bit oversimplified if you include savings and investment but in general is how I look at it.

That "$X to cover all expenses in lifetime" figure is impossible to calculate, and is not under your control at all. It will be inflated away without your consent, and requires constant evaluation and re-evaluation. My philosophy is to always be investing in capital, whether it be equity, political (relationships with people), or resources.

My spending is not impossible to estimate and for the most part it is very much under my control. If what you said is true then no one could ever reasonably retire at any age.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#74

Post by Retric »

stakhanov wrote: post #53
elindbe2 wrote: post #8

I wonder how many people in the survey interpret "opportunities for professional growth" as "opportunities to get rich". To me that makes the survey data more understandable. People, myself included, basically want more money for less hours (AKA work/life balance).

That equation is a theoretical one. On the whole, jobs that offer high $/hr will mandate crazy hours. Jobs that will allow you to go 20 hr/wk, or 10 hr/wk will usually not pay you well on a per-hour basis either. -- I predict that in response to what I just wrote, there will be people showing off about how they managed to make a consulting lifestyle business like that actually work because of how awesome they are. --…

Taking time off between jobs is a real option for most programmers. Depending on how long you stay at each company it can even add up to a few years of time off without having obvious gaps on the resume.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#75

Post by triceratops »

hollerith wrote: post #54
triceratops wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Road-laying technology doesn't develop at the pace that computer technology does. We went from room-sized mainframes to powerful pocket computers in 40 years. Working on "new things" is objectively more interesting and pays better - modulo the COBOL devs making $500/hr now.

You are describing advances in semiconductor performance whereas the person you are responding to has in mind things like new programming languages, libraries and frameworks, many of which we cannot even confidently say are advances at all.

New programming languages, libraries, and frameworks often tend to go in lockstep with semi-conductor and hardware advances.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#76

Post by chadash »

nscalf wrote: post #5

I'm a software engineer with ~3 years of experience. I also want professional growth. Partially because I enjoy learning and growing my technical skills, partially because I want to move into more leadership roles, but a huge part of it is because I know that if I'm good, I will be paid a massive premium for it. levels.fyi sort of convinced me that being a good engineer is a life changing event for more than 1 genera…

> "Partially because I enjoy learning and growing my technical skills, partially because I want to move into more leadership roles, but a huge part of it is because I know that if I'm good, I will be paid a massive premium for it."

And it's one of the unfair things in life that jobs that pay more often get other benefits as well. Making $40k/year? Chances are you get 2 weeks vacation, inflexible work hours, inferior equipment. Making $200K/year? I'll be you also have top of the line equipment, no one keeping close tabs on your hours, 4 weeks or more vacation, money to go to conferences, etc.

A mentor of mine once told me that I should seek to make more money, even if that's not my motivation. He said that more money is always nice to have, but also that when someone pays you more, they respect you more, so you get all the benefits that come along with that.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#78

Post by asdfman123 »

triceratops wrote: post #75
hollerith wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are describing advances in semiconductor performance whereas the person you are responding to has in mind things like new programming languages, libraries and frameworks, many of which we cannot even confidently say are advances at all.

New programming languages, libraries, and frameworks often tend to go in lockstep with semi-conductor and hardware advances.

Advancements in semiconductor research have led to wonderfully inefficient front end frameworks.

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#79

Post by [deleted] »

farisjarrah wrote: post #47
elindbe2 wrote: post #8

I wonder how many people in the survey interpret "opportunities for professional growth" as "opportunities to get rich". To me that makes the survey data more understandable. People, myself included, basically want more money for less hours (AKA work/life balance).

There is some cognitive dissonance that I can't seem to get over while reading your comment. While your statement is technically true, I just don't see it being true in the real world. Any time I have gotten a job that has paid better, it also came with more challenges and more difficulty and invariably more of a time investment(even if that means studying outside of work). Maybe I am just taking the wrong jobs...

[deleted]

Re: Want to hire the best programmers? Offer growth

#80

Post by johnsimer »

wolco wrote: post #59
ravenstine wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's exactly the kind of employee that most businesses want: interchangeable bricklayers . I get that getting good developers and facilitating good code requires incentives, but this is usually at odds with the perspective of business owners, which is that employees are both a liability and an asset. Lousy developers are (seemingly) low-liability and good assets because they can make it work for cheap and, if s…

The truth is spaghetti works better for the ever changing requirement. After awhile the product gets rewritten.

IMO this is extremely false

Clean code is most valuable in the fact that you can add new features without old ones breaking

You should be able to write clean code from the start without it ever being classified as spaghetti as long as you stick to principles like Law of Demeter, SOLID, etc

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