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Software engineers hard to find

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Re: Software engineers hard to find

#51

Post by lelele »

elliottkember wrote: post #34
ShardPhoenix wrote: post #24

"JumpForward interviews three to five engineers a week as it tries to fill four to six technology jobs, but most candidates don't have current skills or they lack the passion to stay on the cutting edge" In other words, there's no shortage of software engineers, there's a shortage of perfect candidates. If these companies were actually willing to train people, they'd have a lot fewer problems. The trend seems to be t…

Unfortunately, it's also very easy for an engineer to jump ship after their training - meaning a very expensive loss of time and effort. Personally, I think the "shortage" has something to do with increases in job-hopping. If there were some guarantee that an engineer were going to stick around for a few years after training, perhaps training new recruits wouldn't seem so unreasonable.

> Unfortunately, it's also very easy for an engineer to jump ship after their training - meaning a very expensive loss of time and effort.

Keeping your employees is your job, not theirs. No relationship lasts when one partner starts neglecting the other and another interested partner comes in.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#52

Post by j_baker »

elliottkember wrote: post #34
ShardPhoenix wrote: post #24

"JumpForward interviews three to five engineers a week as it tries to fill four to six technology jobs, but most candidates don't have current skills or they lack the passion to stay on the cutting edge" In other words, there's no shortage of software engineers, there's a shortage of perfect candidates. If these companies were actually willing to train people, they'd have a lot fewer problems. The trend seems to be t…

Unfortunately, it's also very easy for an engineer to jump ship after their training - meaning a very expensive loss of time and effort. Personally, I think the "shortage" has something to do with increases in job-hopping. If there were some guarantee that an engineer were going to stick around for a few years after training, perhaps training new recruits wouldn't seem so unreasonable.

Someone has to train them. I mean, I understand where you're coming from, but the whole idea of employers wanting trained employees but only if someone else pays for the training ultimately benefits no one.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#53

Post by j_baker »

mahmud wrote: post #19

And will continue to be harder and harder as long as utter morons do the screening and hiring. I made a local-startup an offer that no sane company could afford to refuse. I was a core developer for their main behemoth of a competitor and my non-competes have just expired. They could easily save millions of dollars in marketing, research and development by JUST running decisions by me and having me nod in approval if…

I say this as someone who's been accused of having a poor attitude on many an occasion, but when you say the following...

> And will continue to be harder and harder as long as utter morons do the screening and hiring.

> They could easily save millions of dollars in marketing, research and development by JUST running decisions by me and having me nod in approval if it sounds good.

> You incompetent idiots.

I have to ask... Are you 100% sure it was because of django and agile skills?

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#54

Post by rbanffy »

gaius wrote: post #23
mahmud wrote: post #19

And will continue to be harder and harder as long as utter morons do the screening and hiring. I made a local-startup an offer that no sane company could afford to refuse. I was a core developer for their main behemoth of a competitor and my non-competes have just expired. They could easily save millions of dollars in marketing, research and development by JUST running decisions by me and having me nod in approval if…

The problem there will be that the competent engineers - if they have any - will have been burned by too many dud candidates wasting their time, and have gotten HR to pre-screen the CVs...

I think we, engineers, can help HR folks ask important questions that would prevent bad candidates from wasting our time as well as thinking up crazy ideas that could help lure good candidates.

Yesterday, I suggested going EA-style and hand out laptop stickers on an upcoming hacker-ish convention with things like

  ''.join([chr(c) for c in [119, 101, 39, 114, 101, 32, 104, 105, 114, 105, 110, 103]])
and

  (dolist (x (mapcar #'code-char '(119 101 39 114 101 32 104 105 114 105 110 103))) (princ x))
I am somewhat unsure about the Lisp thing, so I asked it to be passed through a real lisper before hitting the printer.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#55

Post by Stormbringer »

ck2 wrote: post #13
Tangurena wrote: post #10

I'm an older developer. I was eating lunch at a restaurant near my new workplace. Sitting at the table next to mine, a college senior (at Colorado School of Mines - which is a pretty decent engineering school) was talking with her father about her boyfriend interviewing for a job as a software developer. The BF had a 4 hour long programming test as part of the interview. Something is very wrong with our industry. Mos…

I think the secret is that part of good programming is an art, and not only something that can be taught, like accounting, with just logical rules and regulations (apologies to skilled accountants who feel there is an art to their work). That is probably why big business can't fulfill their desire for a large pool of cheap but good developers. You can't just pour people into the college machinery and churn out develo…

You can teach art. They have schools for it. Hitler went to one...

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#56

Post by mahmud »

maxawaytoolong wrote: post #45
mahmud wrote: post #19

And will continue to be harder and harder as long as utter morons do the screening and hiring. I made a local-startup an offer that no sane company could afford to refuse. I was a core developer for their main behemoth of a competitor and my non-competes have just expired. They could easily save millions of dollars in marketing, research and development by JUST running decisions by me and having me nod in approval if…

Just to play devil's advocate... I am not a moron, and I used to help hire at various startups. We'd always get one or two offers "we couldn't refuse" from engineers of our competitors. Whenever we gave them a second of interest, they'd waste hours and even days of our time. What they were really interested in was not engineering, but escaping their current workplace hell and wedging themselves into our startup as so…

Very interesting take. I think I might have been creepy, not in the sense that I was clingy or nagging (I have no interest in joining another marketing shit-hole anyway) but because I might have come off as a know it all.

The whole time I was looking at their sites I was making mental notes of what is broken, and tallying up all the ways they're doing something wrong. I think some of that contempt must have come out in my correspondence, however brief (just 2 emails from me.)

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#57

Post by mahmud »

j_baker wrote: post #53
mahmud wrote: post #19

And will continue to be harder and harder as long as utter morons do the screening and hiring. I made a local-startup an offer that no sane company could afford to refuse. I was a core developer for their main behemoth of a competitor and my non-competes have just expired. They could easily save millions of dollars in marketing, research and development by JUST running decisions by me and having me nod in approval if…

I say this as someone who's been accused of having a poor attitude on many an occasion, but when you say the following... > And will continue to be harder and harder as long as utter morons do the screening and hiring. > They could easily save millions of dollars in marketing, research and development by JUST running decisions by me and having me nod in approval if it sounds good. > You incompetent idiots. I have to…

If someone told me they worked for my major, and very successful competitor, I would pause to ask them "doing what".

The guys didn't even bother.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#58

Post by Natsu »

rbanffy wrote: post #54
gaius wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem there will be that the competent engineers - if they have any - will have been burned by too many dud candidates wasting their time, and have gotten HR to pre-screen the CVs...

I think we, engineers, can help HR folks ask important questions that would prevent bad candidates from wasting our time as well as thinking up crazy ideas that could help lure good candidates. Yesterday, I suggested going EA-style and hand out laptop stickers on an upcoming hacker-ish convention with things like ''.join([chr(c) for c in [119, 101, 39, 114, 101, 32, 104, 105, 114, 105, 110, 103]]) and (dolist (x (map…

Seems like we're seeing less of

perl -e "@w = (119, 101, 39, 114, 101, 32, 104, 105, 114, 105, 110, 103); foreach $c (@w) {print chr $c;}"

these days.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#59

Post by ig1 »

mahmud wrote: post #19

And will continue to be harder and harder as long as utter morons do the screening and hiring. I made a local-startup an offer that no sane company could afford to refuse. I was a core developer for their main behemoth of a competitor and my non-competes have just expired. They could easily save millions of dollars in marketing, research and development by JUST running decisions by me and having me nod in approval if…

Just because your non-compete has expired it doesn't mean that you're free to reveal trade secrets. Your state almost certainly has trade secret laws that prevent you from ever revealing key adwords, CPA rates, etc. to a competitor.

If a company had hired you on such a basis they could also have been prosecuted for corporate espionage.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#60

Post by ig1 »

thomas11 wrote: post #44
nostrademons wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You generally can't train attitude. Many of those candidates who don't have the skills or passion lack it because there are other things in their life that they value more, like family.

In almost no other field of work is it expected that you have a passion for your work greater than that for your family. Hackers repeating this passion mantra make life harder for all of us, because it raises employers expectations, instead of making them provide training or simply time to study. Good for you if you have that passion - I do - but why not enjoy it in private?

Doctors. Lawyers. Bankers. Military forces.

Plenty of occupations require you to put your occupation ahead of your personal life.

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