Software engineers hard to find • Hacker News Board

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#101

Post by nostrademons » Wed, Jan 12, 2011, 10:32 PM UTC

thomas11 wrote: post #97

nostrademons wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if you think programmers have a tough time with work/life balance, you don't know many people in the financial field. I-bankers are expected to work 14 hour days, 7 days a week, and basically have no life outside of work. This is where the "hookers and blow" reputation comes from: they have plenty of money, but no time for fulfilling relationships or hobbies. Things are better for hedge fund managers (many of t…

Fine, but investment bankers are still a small minority in finance. I lack the proper English terms for the different banking job descriptions, but bankers dealing with customers personally (loan approval etc., which for commercial clients can be pretty big), internal auditing, etc. have standard hours and, if they are doing a good job, a good career.

Those people that you're thinking of are local bank branch managers. They can have a decent middle-class career, but they are hardly the people you think of when you think "high-paying banker". PayScale.com lists their salary as being in the $42K-64K range:

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Branch_Manager,_Bank...

A skilled engineer in Silicon Valley can easily make triple that. Hell, new CS grads can often make more than that straight out of school.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#102

Post by Natsu » Thu, Jan 13, 2011, 4:27 AM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #61

Natsu wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Indeed. I don't think we have any actively maintained code written in Perl. I know a lot of plumbing written in it, but it's not in need of new features.

Sounds like it was written by a good Perl hacker if it still just works and nobody has needed to maintain it after all this time.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#103

Post by loewenskind » Thu, Jan 13, 2011, 9:39 AM UTC

mahmud wrote: post #65

loewenskind wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and my non-competes have just expired. And you even honor parts of your contracts that aren't enforcable. They passed up a great deal. :) Seriously though, before you cost yourself job opportunities because of something you've signed, run it by a lawyer. You're going to be shocked at first.

I have had my own software development company since I was basically 22. Every few years I get a full time job and let the guys know I might go feral again. So I usually get the "2 years" clause on anything I touch. A very small price to pay for being my own job reference, really.

What I'm saying is, unless you're coming in as an executive, I doubt the 2 year clause is enforceable and I doubt the companies would even try.

But if you adhere to them by coincidence (i.e. never turning down something you want to do because of them) then I suppose they are as irrelevant to you as they are to me.

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#104

Post by majanght » Thu, Jan 13, 2011, 4:13 PM UTC

Natsu wrote: post #58

rbanffy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

perl -e 'print pack("c*", 119, 101, 39, 114, 101, 32, 104, 105, 114, 105, 110, 103)'

Re: Software engineers hard to find

#105

Post by Dirk_R » Mon, Jan 17, 2011, 6:31 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…

Good post!

Unfortunately, it also works the other way: somebody works in a company until they recognize how useless that person is, and before he or she gets fired they jump ship to a new company where they are greeted with open arms as the new guy/gal that will fix everything. Lather, rinse, repeat. If they are smart they use the same argument you made to actually rise in the corporate hierarchy with each step. This allows them to beat the Peter principle and rise above their level of incompetence, leading us to totally incompetent people at the top of the hierarchy.

So if you see somebody who changed jobs every couple years, be careful.