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

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

#81

Post by frant-hartm » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 2:37 PM UTC

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…

>I spent up to 16 hours per week on one-on-one training in the first 6 months

This is crazy. If the junior needs more than 1 hour a day to be net positive (= do more work in the remaining 7 hours that you would do in that lost hour) then I would say they are a lost cause.

This is also so easy to filter at the interview level - give them homework to learn some new skill, junior candidates are generally willing to spend significant time on that and it gives you much better picture of their abilities than whiteboard puzzle.

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

#82

Post by Clubber » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 2:38 PM UTC

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…

>our profession does not have an accepted universal bar everyone can jump over to be considered ‘qualified’.

They even do this crap to people with CS degrees. If a 4 year CS degree isn't enough, then people who do this have no idea what they are doing.

I started in this field in 1997. The interviews were more old fashioned, a few tech questions, see if you were an oddball, then they'd get back to you. If you didn't work out, they would just fire you. Pretty simple.

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

#83

Post by afpx » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 2:38 PM UTC

readams wrote: post #3

It's hard to get a job because there are a lot of charlatans out there and it's often very hard to get rid of them once hired. Even worse is hiring someone merely mediocre and not actively harmful. That said of course the modern coding interview is I think only very loosely correlated with quality.

What's the "modern coding interview" trying to achieve? The other day, a guy showed me a 30-line convoluted, deeply-nested, redundant, and contradictory conditional statement and then rolled his eyes at me when I took longer than 5 minutes to parse it. Maybe I'm slower, but my quality is just fine.

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

#84

Post by greenhatman » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

jelling wrote: post #67

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 did an interview with Reddit - whom I hope sees this comment - and they not only provided zero information about the context of the tech interview in advance, or whether it would be one, but also the interview itself was like playing a random version of tech Jeopardy, but without the category columns, and very few of the questions had anything to do with the job I would be doing. I have over 20 years of programming…

Maybe they don't really want to fill it.

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

#85

Post by Nbox9 » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 2:40 PM UTC

slumdev wrote: post #75

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-sof…

I’d be happy if some organizations started accepting a credential in lue of a coding interview, and just did a design/architecture and cultural interview.

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

#86

Post by nkingsy » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 2:41 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #68

nkingsy wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree with the practice, and generally don’t think you should be employed to learn the basic tools of the trade. First there’s a code fluency wall you have to get over. Then there’s a tech debt/spaghetti lesson that needs to be learned (IMO this can only be learned the hard way) I did this with 6 months working on my own stuff 12 hours/day, then 6 months working for nothing but equity in a never gonna happ…

>I actually agree with the practice, and generally don’t think you should be employed to learn the basic tools of the trade. In what other technical field are you expected, post-school (which probably hasn't taught you a ton of practical skills), to spend a year on your own making yourself employable?

In medicine you spend a decade making yourself employable. The on your own part is a luxury and a curse, in that we don’t need patients to practice on.

The closest comparison I have is professional musician.

you’re supposed to love the language of music. If you don’t, good luck.

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

#87

Post by pdimitar » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

slumdev wrote: post #4

I've never seen this question posted by anyone who had either a CS degree or any nontrivial amount of experience. It might be hard to get a FAANG job, but it's not hard to find a $100k legacy code janitor job at any old Fortune 1000 in a flyover state.

It's not hard, you say? Give us some pointers then? I'd appreciate a legacy code janitor job for a few years while still collecting $10k a month. I need the break from stress.

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

#88

Post by miohtama » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 2:42 PM UTC

I reviewed around 5000 candidates last year for TypeScript frontend and backend positions. Global, remote only. I received ~600 applications for an Angular position in one week.

The hiring percent was below 0.5%. There are a lot of candidates, but most of them could not fulfill our core requirements a new team member must be able to accomplish. In our case it was TypeScript itself, unit tests, integration tests, working in a Linux environment. Salary requirements for the same position varied $1000 - $20000/mo. Because there is a lot of supply side (read: developers available), one can be picky.

More details and statistic here:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hiring-remote-angular-nestjs-...

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

#89

Post by adventured » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

agd wrote: post #44

I want to challenge the premise of this article. Is there evidence that's it's hard for devs to get a job in general? E.g. The average hiring times for software devs (on popular platforms) in London was on the order of a couple of weeks. I know from personal experience that junior devs from bootcamps were getting snapped up quickly - source, I worked for 3 years in the recruitment industry and also hired many devs in…

And certainly one must ask: in comparison to what?

Is it far more difficult for a median skill software developer to find a job than the equivalent person seeking employment as an accountant, electrician, or plumber? I doubt it.

The persistently very low unemployment rate for software developers rather speaks volumes about how not difficult it is to find a job. The interview processes are obnoxious in the field? Sure, that's a reasonable claim and seems to widely be the case.

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

#90

Post by duxup » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 2:43 PM UTC

I agree 100% with the general ideas that "we ask stupid trivia questions when hiring people" and "nobody wants to hire Jrs". I'll toss out one other thing.

The people hiring people SUCK at finding people and waste everyone's time in the process.

The amount of Java / JavaScript confusion that persists among the people who are involved in just finding people reeks of incompetence / and maybe worse.

Head hunting corps, even random company recruiters / HR seem more interested in bringing in mass volumes of names / resumes / warm bodies regardless of how qualified they are. Then they filter and I guess justify their work?

I think of it as the Hiring People Industrial Complex where it feels like the end goal is not actually having even the slightest chance of getting a job, rather the goal is to have a process, go through it, and that's it.

I get so much spam for jobs that aren't right for me, not even in the slightest. I'll even do calls with them and explain that it doesn't really fit, and they still want to move forward to some other inane level of the process, but I know I've got zero chance.

It just eats so much time.