Software engineers hard to find • Hacker News Board

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#81

Post by khafra » Wed, Jan 12, 2011, 2:18 PM UTC

ig1 wrote: post #60

thomas11 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When I think "passionate intensity about the work," several professions come to mind. "Banker" is not among them.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#82

Post by geebee » Wed, Jan 12, 2011, 2:21 PM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #5

I find it dubious someone can just decide to be a "software engineer". You'd have to already have a personal interest in programming and be doing it on your own as a hobby. Are there people who seriously just go to college for 4 years and learn coding like accounting and then just do a 9-5 job? There are thousands of decent hackers out there, maybe just uptrain.

I understand the spirit of your question, and I do agree: good developers are almost always drawn to programming beyond the minimum requirements of their university program or work.

That said, I think people knock 9-5 a little too much. Plenty of good developers like to do something else with their day as well, and find that they write better code and retain their passion if they maintain this balance. If you have a good work environment and can focus (admittedly a challenge between 9 and 5), you can get a tremendous amount done in eight hours.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#83

Post by geebee » Wed, Jan 12, 2011, 2:26 PM UTC

I'm a little suspicious when I read a line like this:

""I feel we're at 100 percent employment" for highly qualified software engineers in Chicago, said Zach Kaplan, chief executive at Chicago-based Inventables, an online marketplace for materials and technology. The company gets flooded with applications when it posts nontechnical jobs, but it struggles to find software engineers."

Mr. Kaplan hasn't quite defined a highly qualified software engineer as one who has a job, but he's awfully close to saying that "100% of the software engineers who have jobs, have jobs."

If "highly qualified" software engineers have no trouble finding jobs, I suspect I could make an equally ambiguous argument that "highly desirable" software companies have no trouble finding software engineers. This "shortage" goes both ways.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#84

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 12, 2011, 2:36 PM UTC

mahmud wrote: post #56

maxawaytoolong wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#85

Post by peteypao » Wed, Jan 12, 2011, 3:22 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #37

patio11 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am gradually coming to the opinion that many 10X developers really do end up being compensated fairly, but it rarely happens while they are still in the "developer" box. It doesn't necessarily just happen from taking on extra risk, either, though starting your own company is one way to do it. Personal anecdote (I'm not a 10X developer but I know a few things about a few things): I previously built CRUD apps and mad…

That was one of the things that really surprised me about the real world: that big advancement only comes from big lateral jumps. Different companies, different projects, different markets, or different customers. There's this model of the world we're taught as schoolkids - at least where I grew up - where you work hard at something, do as your told, and slowly but surely you rise up. And maybe at one level it's true…

THIS! Seriously, good advice. I just sent this to my whole family.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#86

Post by mahmud » Wed, Jan 12, 2011, 3:23 PM UTC

ig1 wrote: post #59

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.

I was never privy to such information, to begin with. My main interest was carrying out my own aborted projects, and unheeded advice.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#87

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Wed, Jan 12, 2011, 3:57 PM UTC

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…

Not knowing anything else about the situation, I tend to side with him. It's probably not that the people he talked to are morons; it's more likely that they just don't care about anything not immediately in front of them. In a large corporation this wouldn't surprise me, but in a startup it does.

I'm sitting here in a large (US$4bn sales) corp doing a job I didn't initially interview for. I told my interviewer that the job they wanted me for didn't sound like what I wanted to do and my interests were elsewhere. Instead of just blowing me off like those guys did, he sent me to interview with a different team that was a much better fit. That's giving a shit!

Apathy kills.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#88

Post by pedanticfreak » Wed, Jan 12, 2011, 4:20 PM UTC

bugsy wrote: post #40

pedanticfreak wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with the 4-hour test anecdote. But I think most people here would agree a warm body has more potential for harm than a cold seat when it comes to software developers. However you want to ensure you don't get a problem employee, whether it's with 4-hour tests or whatever, it is definitely a good practice regardless of how badly you need to hire someone. Also, I completely…

The point he was making with a 4 hr programming test is that it is a complete waste of time. It doesn't take a 4 hr test to separate the wheat from the chaff unless the interviewer knows nothing at all.

A multiple choice test isn't the best way. But asking someone to write a real piece of software over a 4 hour period (a 'test' if you will) would be an extremely good interviewing method. Especially if you did it in something like EtherPad and can review the person's thought process afterward.

Regardless, I completely disagree that you can completely vet someone over a cup of coffee. Especially for highly competitive positions. That might be a good screening interview, but that is not enough to make a final hiring decision unless the person is already recommended.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#89

Post by gaius » Wed, Jan 12, 2011, 4:27 PM UTC

khafra wrote: post #81

ig1 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors. Lawyers. Bankers. Military forces. Plenty of occupations require you to put your occupation ahead of your personal life.

When I think "passionate intensity about the work," several professions come to mind. "Banker" is not among them.

Then you don't know many investment bankers.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#90

Post by tomh- » Wed, Jan 12, 2011, 4:32 PM UTC

andrest wrote: post #75

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…

This is the point the article seems to make. The difference between a good candidate and an excellent one is huge. Like it was mentioned before, a good programmer can do in a day what a team of mediocre programmers can do in a week. You say that companies should train mediocre programmers to be excellent programmers. This is not as straight-forward as it sounds, (a) the mediocre programmers might have already reached…

I think he meant technology knowledge rather than skill. For example rejecting a candidate with 10 years of java experience because they need a programmer who needs 10 years of python experience.