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If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?

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Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?

#71

Post by OJFord »

exdsq wrote: post #48
colordrops wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most software positions at SpaceX, even those working on critical flight code, do not require aerospace knowledge. And SpaceX is not a great example as they hire a lot of interns and junior people willing to grind.

I find this insane and terrifying.

What do you work on, and how much prior domain experience did you have? (And if you did have some, was it necessary?)

I currently work for an agtech company, the domain-specific stuff is just context for the generic numbers and equations, or a reason to choose one over the other, to the extent that I need it it suffices to have a colleague who's a domain (but not software) expert.

You might say that's the other extreme, aerospace is different, but I don't really see that it is. I don't think anybody's claiming SpaceX doesn't have or need aerospace engineers, but once they've, idk, specified a formula for a parabola representing a flight path say (yes, I don't know what I'm talking about!) then the domain doesn't (needn't) matter to the software engineer implementing it.

Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?

#72

Post by duxup »

Nbox9 wrote: post #13

I think a lot of this is because our profession does not have an accepted universal bar everyone can jump over to be considered ‘qualified’. Every technical interview feels like rolling the dice in proving I am a competent developer. Giving me 50 minutes in a high pressure situation in an environment i am unfamiliar with and people I just meet will never product my best results, and then add to the fact that I could…

Yeah the amount of trivia folks like to throw out, and the assumptions made based on them is absolutely absurd.

I've ran into "OMG he didn't know that!" responses when one dev disapproves of a candidate. Inevitably I ask "Really how often do you need to know that? and if you needed to wouldn't you just google it and be done?" but we assume it means so much more and there you go.

Then someone else gets hired and they knew the trivia, but can't apply it or worse only really knew the answer and not the ramifications... or they just can't wrap their mind around / don't care to think of second order effects or whatever.

Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?

#73

Post by yashap »

There’s a tonne of variance between software engineers. Even at the same level (junior, intermediate, senior, etc.), it’s not uncommon for a strong hire to be ~5x better than a weak hire. By this I mean more productive, better at helping others, writes fewer bugs, creates more maintainable abstractions, makes better architecture decisions, can tackle more difficult problems, etc. And at the same level, the strong and weak hires get paid roughly the same, so companies REALLY want the strong hires. This is not a McDonalds type situation, where anyone lightly competent will do, you’re trying to hire someone outstanding at their job every single time.

Firing sucks, but it’s hard to truly tease out quality during interviews. So most companies go for false negatives over false positives. Generally this means that of the 3-to-6 interviewers, all have to have strong positive opinions of the candidate for the hire to happen.

Because of this, as a candidate, it’s a bit of a number’s game. You can be a great candidate, but still not get hired on any individual interview, because companies heavily bias towards allowing lots of false negatives to avoid the odd false positive.

Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?

#74

Post by faizshah »

gonehome wrote: post #36
faizshah wrote: post #24

When I was trying to get my first internship it took me 160 applications to get 1 interview, before that I applied every year for ~20 internships at the big names and never got 1 interview. Similarly for my senior year I applied to full time and internship positions it took me ~145 applications to get 2 interviews for internships (I would be interning after I graduate). I did the resume prep, went to the career fairs…

The lottery of front door applications is largely a waste of time. The best way to get an interview if you didn’t go to Stanford or MIT (I didn’t) and haven’t yet worked at a famous company is to get a referral. Which requires somehow making a friend or connection with someone at the place you want to be.

IMO the only advice I can give college students trying to break into tech is to always have a tech related internship every summer no matter what. Even if you have to apply to nonprofits looking for an IT admin intern, just have a track record of work experience + having coworkers who could move on to other tech companies and give you a good referral is key. Also make sure to have a linkedin and proactively connect with your coworkers so you can later ask for referrals if you need one, don’t lose contact.

Also since I’m writing advice, don’t ever stop applying to places. You might feel demoralized after everyone gets offers and you don’t have a single one in May, or in my case getting 149 oddly similar rejection emails from different companies, but I applied to a place in June and got an interview and offer a week later its never too late and in fact you might find a company/team who also thought it was too late to get an intern for the summer.

Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?

#75

Post by slumdev »

Nbox9 wrote: post #13

I think a lot of this is because our profession does not have an accepted universal bar everyone can jump over to be considered ‘qualified’. Every technical interview feels like rolling the dice in proving I am a competent developer. Giving me 50 minutes in a high pressure situation in an environment i am unfamiliar with and people I just meet will never product my best results, and then add to the fact that I could…

> I think a lot of this is because our profession does not have an accepted universal bar everyone can jump over to be considered ‘qualified’.

Credentialing organizations already exist[1], but none have lobbied the US government to prevent the uncredentialed from practicing.

Perhaps it's time. If none of the existing orgs are good enough, start a new one.

1. https://www.computer.org/product/education/professional-soft...

Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?

#76

Post by joelbluminator »

WJW wrote: post #22
throwaway1492 wrote: post #5

A recent comment from reddit: This year I became a co-owner of the company that worked at for the past three years. It's a small development and consulting company and we're currently struggling to find new developers. At the same time, my girlfriend is trying to get her foot into this field. Since she's interested in a completely different tech stack than what we use, hiring her through good ol' nepotism is not goin…

There's (at least) a third category: Small, not tech heavy companies like simple webshops, small crowdfunding platforms, etc will need someone, ANYONE, to keep working on their giant stack of legacy PHP/Rails/whatever code. The business does not support hiring very senior people and the founders are not technical at all so they don't recognize the troubles inherent in hiring a full team of juniors.After a few years t…

You are underestimating the effort it takes to inherit a big codebase and maintain it, this is not a task for a junior.

Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?

#77

Post by OJFord »

tluyben2 wrote: post #43
foxfluff wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the feeling that mediocre business should be able to run just fine on mediocre people. So it can't be that bad. Of course, every business likes to pretend they're the top and can only hire top talent.

Top talent means different things to different businesses and many people forget or don't see that. Most companies don't need and are probably actively hurt by people that would be considered top talent at Facebook or something; they need people who can churn away on boring stuff (maintenance, crud, ...), reliably and in a predictable way from 9-5, 4-5 days / week. And like that kind of job and want to do it for deca…

> And like that kind of job and want to do it for decades and decades on end for you; people who don't reload LinkedIn looking for 'new challenges with the latest framework' 20x a day.

Interesting, I associate 'latest framework' more with trying to keep the monotonous job interesting (or perhaps misguided attempt at keeping sharp) than with 'new challenges'...

Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?

#78

Post by stripline »

throwaway1492 wrote: post #5

A recent comment from reddit: This year I became a co-owner of the company that worked at for the past three years. It's a small development and consulting company and we're currently struggling to find new developers. At the same time, my girlfriend is trying to get her foot into this field. Since she's interested in a completely different tech stack than what we use, hiring her through good ol' nepotism is not goin…

> But once they've gained know-how and experience, they will look for a different company hoping to use their newly acquired commercial experience as leverage to get better compensation. And that's exactly what they should do!

I disagree here, and I think this is the main reason we're having this conversation. If someone has been trained up or learned on the job such that their skills are more valuable, then their employer should treat them as such and give them a raise. I've seen time and time again that good employees leave just to get compensated fairly. Alternatively people get disgruntled and leave when an experienced outside hire is brought in at a higher pay band to struggle to do the same work that they've spent years learning to do.

Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?

#79

Post by zamalek »

commandlinefan wrote: post #37
Nbox9 wrote: post #13

I think a lot of this is because our profession does not have an accepted universal bar everyone can jump over to be considered ‘qualified’. Every technical interview feels like rolling the dice in proving I am a competent developer. Giving me 50 minutes in a high pressure situation in an environment i am unfamiliar with and people I just meet will never product my best results, and then add to the fact that I could…

That all makes sense, and it bothers me, too, but they do hire somebody eventually, which implies that somebody can produce quality results in 50 minutes in a high pressure situation in an environment they're unfamiliar with and people they just met.

Or they have have a really high hackerrank score and know the answer already.

Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?

#80

Post by dfxm12 »

dnautics wrote: post #58
dfxm12 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they hire a lot of interns and junior people willing to grind Is this a euphemism for an employer overworking and underpaying their talent?

Overworking, but probably not underpaying. I remember hearing about how much a SpaceX intern was payed and being shocked (it was several X my scientist pay)... Then she told me how many hours she was working, and it made some more sense (but it still seemed high -- scientists often also work 80+ hours)

Getting paid what seems like a lot is not the same as getting paid what the work you're doing is worth.

i.e., did it seem like a lot "for an intern"? Did it seem like a lot when you take into account what was expected of them? I mean, if interns get hired to jobs that seniors (for the sake of argument) should be doing, and the interns are getting sub-senior pay, then they are underpaid.

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