If you're hiring, be forthcoming about the dev experience • Hacker News Board

Re: If you're hiring, be forthcoming about the dev experience

#61

Post by hrktb » Fri, May 01, 2020, 8:35 AM UTC

DrScump wrote: post #51

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never even occured to me to lie on my resume. Surely I can't be the only one.

Same here. One problem with building upon a framework of falsehoods is that to be a consistently effective liar, you have to have a fantastic memory to keep your falsehoods referentially consistent. When I was on the proverbial other side of the table helping to evaluate candidates, I became flabbergasted with the frequent false skills claims of candidates, especially those sent by job shops. To me, it would be exhau…

People can be very good at constructing “facts” that are not correct but desirable to them, and not completely devoid of anchoring.

Like that time they were at a book signing event, asked the author for a two-shot, got a smile for a last joke thrown before leaving for the next in line, and now proudly declare themselves “good friends” with that author.

Re: If you're hiring, be forthcoming about the dev experience

#62

Post by C1sc0cat » Fri, May 01, 2020, 8:37 AM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #60

C1sc0cat wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realy don't get this fetishization (and I am using this in its medical sense) of macs as laptops/workstations for developers. You PC (Mac or Wintel) is just something to run your editors xwindows what have you like company C

WSL2 is extremely recent, so in context of the question, the fetishization of Macs is because using Linux on windows used to be pretty laborious. Setup a VM, getting networking going on the VM, blah, blah, blah. Mac actually supported Linux commands, windows didn't. That or you had a Linux laptop which had a massive overhead in breaking a lot. Never did it myself, but the complaints tended to be that drivers broke co…

So run an xserver on your pc and work on the development server or your local Linux workstation.

And why would you be running games on your companies Linux systems ?

Re: If you're hiring, be forthcoming about the dev experience

#63

Post by itronitron » Fri, May 01, 2020, 8:41 AM UTC

I used to think tech adopted/co-opted the term production because that is 'where the real stuff happens' but now I think it refers more to it's theatrical aspects.

Re: If you're hiring, be forthcoming about the dev experience

#64

Post by mattmanser » Fri, May 01, 2020, 8:46 AM UTC

C1sc0cat wrote: post #62

mattmanser wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WSL2 is extremely recent, so in context of the question, the fetishization of Macs is because using Linux on windows used to be pretty laborious. Setup a VM, getting networking going on the VM, blah, blah, blah. Mac actually supported Linux commands, windows didn't. That or you had a Linux laptop which had a massive overhead in breaking a lot. Never did it myself, but the complaints tended to be that drivers broke co…

So run an xserver on your pc and work on the development server or your local Linux workstation. And why would you be running games on your companies Linux systems ?

Hehe, this feels like the typical oblivious hacker answer that begins "So do X complicated thing instead".

People paid for simplicity. Engage your empathetic brain to understand why people don't want to make their lives complicated, instead of trying to invent another jury-rigged workaround.

You can go dig through the HN archives around 2005 when everyone started switching to Macs. You will see the people delighted with their purchase in the comments, how much easier it made developers lives to have a working, powerful laptop that actually supported Linux commands.

Re: If you're hiring, be forthcoming about the dev experience

#65

Post by jaggederest » Fri, May 01, 2020, 8:47 AM UTC

rsify wrote: post #57

battery_cowboy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's someone who would accept working at each of those places just fine. Even the worst ones. Her point is probably more that if a company admitted their experience up front, people who thought that way was fine would accept jobs and those that hated the idea of that experience wouldn't. Sure, companies could lie, but then people would just quit as soon as possible if they really hated the experience. I'd…

> I think there's someone who would accept working at each of those places just fine. Even the worst ones. Yes, people desparate enough to subject themselves to poorer working conditions. What's the single benefit for companies to cut themselves off from potentially good employees?

Honesty? People are going to know what is up within the first month, at minimum, so don't waste their time?

This goes along with a broad category of attempted deception that fails because the person you're attempting to deceive has, typically as a part of their job, understanding the actual state of thing you're trying to lie about. Especially egregious when it creates a safety risk, for example, but bad enough when it simply wastes time. Good example: Lying to accountants about the contents of financial statements.

Re: If you're hiring, be forthcoming about the dev experience

#66

Post by Nursie » Fri, May 01, 2020, 8:48 AM UTC

downerending wrote: post #24

Accepting a tech offer is surprisingly similar to bomb disposal, except that bomb guys have a better idea of what they're actually walking into. When I was young, I considered this to be exciting. These days, it makes me never want to switch jobs again.

I take the opposite approach and switch every few months, so I know that each and every nightmarish organisation (which is most of them) is only a temporary client.

Re: If you're hiring, be forthcoming about the dev experience

#67

Post by evilsetg » Fri, May 01, 2020, 8:49 AM UTC

rsify wrote: post #56

saagarjha wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because presumably Rachel would like companies to look at their policies and change them if the match the poor qualities mentioned here.

If you don't present valid arguments to benefit the company don't title it like advice. I clicked the article expecting some more hopeful arguments than "hurr durr I got baited into doing things I don't like", but I see none.

Consider that maximizing profit might not be the only possible goal for a company but minimizing human suffering and being truthful can be others.

Re: If you're hiring, be forthcoming about the dev experience

#68

Post by sdflhasjd » Fri, May 01, 2020, 8:50 AM UTC

I've seen what happened to a company (X) after it was acquired by another (Y) that dealt primarily with banks.

Company X did well to preserve their own culture after the acquision, but despite that they didn't deal with sensitive information in the same capacity as Company Y, Company Y's IT security policies took over and made life miserable for devs.

When every task you do is wading through a slog of VPN and RDP mollasses, it's no surprise that so many devs quit.

The only reason the project I worked on got anywhere was due to some insidious tricks to punch through firewalls and basically hack into our own dev environment.

Re: If you're hiring, be forthcoming about the dev experience

#69

Post by alex_young » Fri, May 01, 2020, 8:56 AM UTC

My personal favorite was:

Company supplies horrible laptop locked down in ways that prevent any real work from being accomplished, but allows unfettered VM use because they don't understand or care about security outside of the environment they designed. Some developers use an underground system of sneaker net and whisper doc hodgepodge to get real work done, but that largely isn't a problem since productivity is measured on a political basis rather than getting anything accomplished.

Thinking you'll improve the situation for you and your group, you obtain permission from management to procure and install a workstation on your desk and replace its OS with Linux. IT drops the machine, you install the OS and enjoy much better productivity for a few months until a security flag is raised in a distant location and you're hauled in for an interview with HR and your boss, who now claims never to have given such approval.

Back to the VM no one cares about. You get a writeup and final warning, and because the economy is going to hell anyway, you stick it out, and things unexpectedly change for the better. Your boss quits, and everyone forgets about the writeup.

Years later, someone decides it's time for a Linux server push. You get tapped for that effort and can now set some policies. Its too late to help much though, since this is 2008 and this company is named Lehman Brothers.

It was fun while it it lasted.

Re: If you're hiring, be forthcoming about the dev experience

#70

Post by rocqua » Fri, May 01, 2020, 8:56 AM UTC

rsify wrote: post #11

Do you think that companies like G are going to be able to hire literally anyone if they start advertising all the mess that they are working around? Why would you write this article from an engineer's standpoint with arguments that will only benefit other engineer's but for some reason is directed at companies? Why not just call it "I'm upset with the dev experience" and be honest about your intentions?

If companies with decent process start doing this, and a company refuses to share their process, then everyone who listened to this is better off. Now of course, the companies with shitty process did not (and maybe should not) take this advice. However, the situation improved for everyone for whom it should.