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We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

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Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#211

Post by lokar »

Cymen wrote: post #116

Is contracting on your resume really so bad? I recently made the jump from FTE to contracting because I've always wanted to and it's great. The compensation is higher and I can work the way I want to (put in a ton of effort to get something done, get paid for actual time put in and then move on to the next thing or take a break for a while to play with my two young kids).

In general, yes, it tends to be looked down on, particularly if it's most of your history. Obviously there are exceptions, but as a general rule, people will assume you are contracting because you could not get a full time position. This is more true at big tech firms that don't hire contractors for "core" engineering roles.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#212

Post by sakopov »

> They have a few experienced hires, but not many, and most of their experienced hires have something trendy on their resume, not a boring old company like Microsoft

Is this how Microsoft is perceived on the coasts? Here in the Midwest if you get a chance to work at Google, Microsoft and Amazon you've pretty much "made it" in your career.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#213

Post by traderjane »

klodolph wrote: post #170
traderjane wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hate the anti-suit thing in SV. Suits look great, you feel great wearing a good tailored suit... Tailored suit? Seriously? Does that not smell like luxury? Why is that part of the discussion for workplace uniform? A college student wearing a hoodie given for free by TripleByte doesn't look bad at the world's largest software firm. If you wear a t-shirt I cannot tell if you graduated from Stanford. But if you're a…

> Tailored suit? Seriously? Does that not smell like luxury? Why is that part of the discussion for workplace uniform? You can get a suit off the rack for $200 and have it tailored at the time of purchase for maybe $20. Your mileage may vary, but that doesn’t smell like luxury at all to me. It sounds like a reasonable thing to own for people in office jobs. It is de rigueur in many parts of the world, including certa…

Wearing a suit is armor for race specifically because of its association with money. Race is dangerous as opposed to merely inconvenient for some because of the association with poverty, desperation, and crime. I still remember the term super-predator when it was the hot political term.

Thus any symbol of class will always be a suit of armor for race in the way you describe, including Apple hardware. But the reason why Apple hardware is as much the same armor is because of thoughts around race and its connections to poverty, desperation, and crime.

You can wear Apple watch in and out of the office. But why shouldn't t-shirt be the status quo culture of the office? Because those who are judged by race need extra symbols of wealth to wear so they don't end up wronged? So let us band together and create sufficient distinctions of class so that those who make it out can show how they've made it out? How else do we know the Trayvon Martin from the thug?

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#214

Post by tzs »

plughs wrote: post #45

One frustration I've had recently is the number of companies encouraging or requiring code in the public sphere. They want to see open-source contributions or an active and impressive personal github page. If your employer is protective of their IP ( mine is ) and/or you are not willing to spend evenings and and weekends on pet projects, you are out of the running. Also >But if you think programmers aren't elitist, t…

A lot of public code not related to their job being produced by the employees of a company suggests that the work there is not interesting enough and challenging enough and deep enough to keep them occupied.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#215

Post by RandallBrown »

alfalfasprout wrote: post #52
cjf4 wrote: post #3

>When I started programming, I heard a lot about how programmers are down to earth, not like those elitist folks who have uniforms involving suits and ties. You can even wear t-shirts to work! But if you think programmers aren't elitist, try wearing a suit and tie to an interview sometime. Indeed: http://web.archive.org/web/20140618142018/http://blog.42floo...

I hate the anti-suit thing in SV. Suits look great, you feel great wearing a good tailored suit, and honestly with so many engineers wearing the "unicorn uniform" of Supreme and Common Projects, it's not like they can't afford a suit anyways.

Maybe you feel great wearing a good tailored suit.

I personally find suits uncomfortable, even when they fit well.

But it doesn't matter. Wear what you want. I've worked at a bunch of places where people would wear suits to work sometimes, despite most of the people wearing jeans and a t-shirt. You'll just have to put up with the occasional "Oh, are you interviewing somewhere today?" jokes.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#216

Post by ghaff »

flamtap wrote: post #166
malvosenior wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who uses Github and OSS contribution as a strong hiring signal, I'd like to offer an alternative perspective. People who do a lot of personal projects tend to be very good developers, especially when you can see a demonstrated ability to ship. This is also helpful for people who haven't worked at big name companies or don't have degrees from elite universities. I'd happily hire someone with no experience a…

I really see both sides of this. It’s hard to get around the fact that OSS and GH activity really, truly, is a good hiring signal. It’s certainly one of many, and it’s not (nor should it be) the be-all, end-all hiring signal. There are wizardly devs who stick to a strict 40 hour week. There are equally astounding devs who live, breath, and dream code all day every day. We’d all be lucky to work with both. I don’t see…

On the one hand, it's hard to deny that a requirement (or strong preference) like this will often discriminate against some fairly large groups. And it feels cringe-y for that reason. But it's also hard to deny the value of a portfolio that's directly relevant to the job being hired for.

And, if I'm being honest... I do a lot of writing as part of my job. If I'm hiring someone for a role like mine, you can be sure that I want to see some writing that they've done. If they don't have anything they can share? (Which seems a little off. But maybe it was all internal company communication stuff.) Well, they're going to have to write something because I'm not going to just take them at their word that they write well.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#217

Post by dsfyu404ed »

sakopov wrote: post #212

> They have a few experienced hires, but not many, and most of their experienced hires have something trendy on their resume, not a boring old company like Microsoft Is this how Microsoft is perceived on the coasts? Here in the Midwest if you get a chance to work at Google, Microsoft and Amazon you've pretty much "made it" in your career.

The comment hasn't gotten better with age. There's a lot more respect for MS ever since they started their push to be more compatible with the non-MS ecosystem and developers coming from that ecosystem.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#218

Post by leetrout »

eggsnbacon1 wrote: post #121
malvosenior wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who uses Github and OSS contribution as a strong hiring signal, I'd like to offer an alternative perspective. People who do a lot of personal projects tend to be very good developers, especially when you can see a demonstrated ability to ship. This is also helpful for people who haven't worked at big name companies or don't have degrees from elite universities. I'd happily hire someone with no experience a…

This is a stupid signal. Many/most developers are prohibited from working on open source projects by their employers. In any state besides California and Illinois you will be forced to sign an IP assignment agreement to work for any medium/large companies. Open source projects will not let you contribute under such an agreement, and anything you do on your own is owned by your employer.

I paid an attorney to review my contract and NDA...

“ anything you do on your own is owned by your employer.”

If you use their equipment or their office or their phones. But doing a software project at home on the weekend on your own computer is not going to be owned by the employer in the states I’ve lived and worked in (VA, GA, TN, NC).

Do you have a source for a state where this has happened?

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#219

Post by ghaff »

plughs wrote: post #167
mcguire wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: public code, don't get me wrong, I'm sympathetic, but honestly there are very few ways to separate a good programmer from a good bullshitter. The alternative is interview coding tests; suggest that and see how much love you get. (And some don't even know they're bullshitting. They honestly think that being marginally associated with a project means they did the work.) As for suits? Yeah, those are the same people…

I do get that, and I'll be more sympathetic to hiring managers who want to see open-source code than I have been in other comments. ( Active job hunting tends to make one grumpy. Take home programming assignments are a current sore spot for me. ) It's a recent job posting that said "Requirement: OSS contributions" that seemed over the top. Maybe it's no less troubling than "Requirement: SQL expertise" - after all, we…

I suppose the argument could be that someone with experience making OSS contributions has experience in how open source projects operate, how contributions are made, just basically how things work.

But, TBH, projects vary so much anyway that I'm not sure how much that experience adds that couldn't be picked up fairly quickly with some mentoring.

Re: We Only Hire the Trendiest (2016)

#220

Post by namibj »

jsonne wrote: post #59
plughs wrote: post #45

One frustration I've had recently is the number of companies encouraging or requiring code in the public sphere. They want to see open-source contributions or an active and impressive personal github page. If your employer is protective of their IP ( mine is ) and/or you are not willing to spend evenings and and weekends on pet projects, you are out of the running. Also >But if you think programmers aren't elitist, t…

>One frustration I've had recently is the number of companies encouraging or requiring code in the public sphere. This unfortunately isn't just a trend on programming. I've run into the worrying trend of marketing roles or contracts requiring live walk throughs of running ad accounts of current clients so people can vett you...uh what? As if NDAs don't exist or you just plain don't feel comfortable sharing client dat…

I could see a company trying this with a calibrated amount of effort, and congratulating you on not giving up client secrets, treating it as a positive thing. If you'd have given them client secrets, they'd boot you (potentially right then and there).
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