Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

philosophicalhacker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 272 posts

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#151

Post by shawabawa3 »

ido wrote: post #121
ivalm wrote: post #99

I am curious what counts for “mid career”, he started coding ~6 years ago. Presumably he is in his 20s. Here him talking about leaving philosophy: https://www.philosophicalhacker.com/2014/04/22/why-im-glad-m... Edit: LinkedIn ~agrees with this estimate

I was also curious, as they didn't mention their age. As the age of retirement is currently ~67 (depends on the country but unlikely to go down in the future) and we assume you start your career after college in your early 20s - let's say 22 - you get ~45 years of work. Let's say the above is closer to a maximum than an average & "generously" go with a round 40 years of work; Then mid-career would be in your 40s.

mid-career isn't necessarily a single point

It could go: early career is first 5 years. Mid-career is the next 30 years. Late-career is anything after 35 years

There's no real definition of these terms so who knows

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#152

Post by goatinaboat »

alextheparrot wrote: post #95
mister_hn wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you know? Do you ask a plumber to show you how to connect tubes, before hiring him? Whiteboard interviews aren't even real life situations.

This seems a bit unfair, as I don’t ask the plumber likely because of trade skills being centrally licensed and regulated. Presumably if they are licensed to do the job someone else has already done the vetting - which makes sense especially for consumer-focused skills where the consumer might not be able to perform an adequate vetting. I understand the core idea of your comment, regarding the utility of whiteboard i…

Presumably if they are licensed to do the job someone else has already done the vetting

That’s true but it’s also true that a candidate may have had previous jobs at a string of reputable companies, and yet that “vetting” is completely ignored and it’s back to square one.

Not to mention that a degree from a reputable university also doesn’t count. Maybe it gets them past the HR screen but no interviewers seem to believe that a degree let’s you skip the whiteboard.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#153

Post by gitgud »

t_1589165433 wrote: post #19

How on earth do people have these experiences? I have to submit multiple hundreds of applications to get one interview. Throwaway because it could turn into multiple thousands if that fact is linked to my identity.

If you're submitting hundreds of applications, it's unlikely your'e spending hours on each application (which you probably should be)

Each resume and cover letter needs to be customized for each company. It needs to fulfil each of the roles and demonstrate compelling evidence (projects) of how you meet the requirements.

It's amazingly clear if the resume is not written for a specific job and will most likely be immediately discarded from consideration. So why bother sending all of them then?

More time on less applications leads to more interviews

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#154

Post by sharpy »

nikanj wrote: post #120
georgeburdell wrote: post #29

I look at that resume and I wonder if it didn't hurt more than it helped; it's form over function, and a bit corny. The fact that he got multiple offers in two months shows how strong the software job market is. I'm several years younger, but a staff-level hardware engineer at a second tier company (top tier being FAANG). I've had an incredibly difficult time jumping companies --- 2 years and counting. Despite being…

The market is very strong, but at the same time every single company insists on the hazing and crazy algorithm grilling. We should start accepting that not every company is FAANG, not every company is solving FAANG hard problems, and not every programmer belongs to the 0.001% best

Except even at those companies, the actual day to day work is pretty straight forward. What we really need are engineers who can produce well thought out designs, and write quality code that is easy to maintain. Unfortunately, the emphasis on tech interviews is on algorithmic questions, possibly due to desire to reduce candidate pool size, and the fact that design output are somewhat harder to quantify.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#155

Post by C1sc0cat »

northern-lights wrote: post #126
georgeburdell wrote: post #29

I look at that resume and I wonder if it didn't hurt more than it helped; it's form over function, and a bit corny. The fact that he got multiple offers in two months shows how strong the software job market is. I'm several years younger, but a staff-level hardware engineer at a second tier company (top tier being FAANG). I've had an incredibly difficult time jumping companies --- 2 years and counting. Despite being…

When I was looking for opportunities in Europe (specifically tech hubs - Berlin, Munich, Dublin, Amsterdam but not London) few months back, I had cold-applied on the respective Company portals to about 100-120 different Software Dev roles. My resume was definitely good enough to be pass the HR screening at Google/Amazon/Microsoft (as they did get selected locally), and yet the ones that I heard back from and agreed t…

Is Europe different than the US /UK I would not normally consider applying direct to a tech company in the UK as almost 100 % of roles are via a recruiter.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#156

Post by crispyambulance »

eru wrote: post #124
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does one even jump from tech to humanities anyways??? when you're the type of person who likes to question everything and who wants to build things to make the world a "better place", then switching to humanities with a tech foundation is a good option. It can be very dangerous though. One is at risk of undoing all the previous conditioning (which costed a lot of time and money) and bring oneself to realize tha…

Making lots of money is how society tells you what contributions it realy values. A big part of the rest is empty talk. It's easy to say that we value eg teachers or nurses or janitors. Doesn't make us pay them more.

> Making lots of money is how society tells you what contributions it realy values.

No, not in the case of humanities (or almost any other field) in academia.

The problem with his first career choice, philosophy, is that jobs are incredibly scarce. It's not that they pay too low and no one wants to work as an academic. There are simply far too many candidates for not enough slots.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#157

Post by virgilp »

bradleyjg wrote: post #137
ido wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was also curious, as they didn't mention their age. As the age of retirement is currently ~67 (depends on the country but unlikely to go down in the future) and we assume you start your career after college in your early 20s - let's say 22 - you get ~45 years of work. Let's say the above is closer to a maximum than an average & "generously" go with a round 40 years of work; Then mid-career would be in your 40s.

A baseball player might well do something after the majors—coaching, announcing, hawking life insurance—but it’s still reasonable to talk about a “mid-career shortstop” six years in.

In baseball the average retirement age is 32, maybe slightly more recently - so yeah, 26-27 is "mid-career". For your analogy to work, there would have to be no programmers that are 60years old, and very few that are above 40.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#158

Post by virgilp »

r0b05 wrote: post #133
nikanj wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ageism in tech is well-established and widely reported. If you're too old for the game by the time you reach 40, your mid-career does indeed fall somewhere in your late 20s/early 30s.

Indeed. One needs to have an exit strategy for after 40s. In this case, early 30s would be mid career.

Am a programmer. Mid 40s, switched jobs to a better one not long ago(was headhunted/didn't actively look for it). Still coding, don't really plan to stop soon.

I guess it depends for everyone, and yes lots of people prefer to go into management, but it's not compulsory by any means.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#159

Post by austincheney »

The mid-career sentiment that I commonly see on HN is that many developers have almost entirely stopped developing despite remaining in a developer role. That’s really damn depressing. These people, myself included, want out but must sacrifice greater than half their income to move into something of greater interest or less depressing and that is a very tough choice to make.

The most common reason why these mid career people have stopped developing at work appears to be that they are well experienced while their peers are not. I suspect that instead of a nurturing environment where talent is developed the mid career people just sit there, because it only take one junior to be offended at not being prized with attention/praise to ruin any sort of mentoring experience.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#160

Post by C1sc0cat »

lihaciudaniel wrote: post #135
watwut wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does one even jump from tech to humanities anyways??? Why would that be impossible or shocking? Most people are able to learn multiple different things and have interest in multiple different things. Universities typically allow you to take courses from different topics too.

>Universities typically allow you to take courses from different topics too. But in America I don't think you can do that, some families don't have the privilege to spend so much money on somebody to get a bachelor in philosophy and then have no jobs afterwards.

My understanding is To get a US degree you have to take courses outside your main topic unlike the UK
Post reply on HN