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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?

#101

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

foxfluff wrote: post #8
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.

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.

> "I get the feeling that mediocre business should be able to run just fine on mediocre people."

The mediocre app/system quality and performance and mediocre security for customer and business data that results creates a (sub-)mediocre customer experience.

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

#102

Post by jethro_tell »

ren_engineer wrote: post #41
DeBraid wrote: post #14

Very few firms want to hire juniors, while nearly all firms desire senior-level talent. This manifests inflated job vacancies because so many firms have an evergreen job posting for "Senior Full Stack". Because talent is scarce these roles rarely get filled (hiring managers expect million-dollar candidates to accept $100-200k compensation). Also, because lots of software requires specific expertise, there are vacanci…

seems like a chicken and egg problem how are senior engineers supposed to be created if very few companies are willing to train junior engineers? Why aren't these companies offering paid apprenticeships if they are so desperate for workers?

In part because you have to jave enough sr people able to mentor. There's not a great industry framework.

As a plumber, you pay your apprentice usually 60% sr/journyman salary with a 5% increase every 6 months to match the value of the skill up.

There are also industry standard, industry funded classroom settings, that teach things like building codes and industry standards and some adjacent trade craft.

Instead you just throw a Jr to an overworked mid/Sr and they can help with some design and questions and code review but that takes 10-20 hours per week so you have to pretty much have one or more per Jr. Position. Then, after 18 months when the Jr hasn't received a 15% pay raise to reflect the enormous amount of time an knowledge you've sucked out of a Sr position, they go elsewhere for a 20% raise and it looks like you've waisted your time.

In truth, it wastes the talent you've built to not be aggressively increasing their comp to match the skill increase you're providing.

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

#103

Post by ghaff »

selfhoster11 wrote: post #39
firebird84 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is part of why getting hired through connections is even more important in this field, and why it's also interesting that so many members of the field look down on that very process. I agree it's not very meritocratic, but it DOES get people in front of people more qualified to pattern match their qualifications more quickly. The problem with getting more people in front of the actual hiring team is the…

> getting hired through connections (...) it's also interesting that so many members of the field look down on that very process. I think the explanation is quite obvious. People who gravitate to this industry are not as social as those who gravitate to other industries, hence the disdain for (or rejection of) the process that leans heavily on something that doesn't easily come to them, that feels like something they…

I'm not sure it's so much a case of social vs. not-social though some of it probably boils down to that. I think it's more of a rationalist viewpoint that the "best" person should be hired rather than a merely "good" person who knows someone who may put their thumb on the scale.

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

#104

Post by 0xffff2 »

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)

I work in the same industry as SpaceX. They are in fact well known for pay that would be average-at-best in a sane work environment coupled with an absolutely insane work environment. When I was in college, my only goal was to get a job at SpaceX. After getting a few internships and talking to some people in the industry, my only goal now is to never be so desperate for work that I accept a job at SpaceX.

Their intern pay was also in line with this. I got paid a little bit less as an intern at NASA, but much more as an intern at a non-aerospace (also non-FAANG) tech company.

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

#105

Post by _f1dq »

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…

I had a similar interview with a different company last year. Three guys and me on a Zoom call with me sharing my screen trying to solve a coding problem that in no way resembled anything I have ever encountered in my 25 year career. When I got stuck they just stared at me. They would not give me any hints whatsoever. They just stared at me.

When the interview was over I thought, "Is this how working with these guys is going to be?" If I ran into a problem and went to them for help, would they just stare at me, waiting for me to figure it out on my own?

They didn't extend an offer to me and, based on my performance in that interview, I can't say I blame them. I'm not sure I would have accepted if they had, however. That experience really left me with a bad taste in my mouth and a low impression of that company.

We as an industry really REALLY need to figure out a better way of conducting interviews.

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

#106

Post by SilurianWenlock »

adventured wrote: post #89
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…

Computer science has the highest levels of graduate unemployment in the UK

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

#107

Post by slumdev »

pdimitar wrote: post #87
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.

Well, where are you coming from?

Getting the first few years of experience is going to be the hardest--hardest relative to the rest of your career; it's not that hard by any absolute measure. Apply broadly, and take whatever comes. If a company is looking for a junior or mid-level SE and wants "1-3 years" of experience (which is common), your degree is that experience. If you have a CS degree and are in a low- or medium-cost of living area, you should expect $60-80k to start. If have a CS degree and are in a high-cost area, you should expect $100k.

If you don't have a degree or experience, it's going to be harder. But why should a shortcut be easy? Is there a secret backdoor career path for people who want to become physicians without going to medical school? No. Do the work, and earn the reward. There are plenty of online and nighttime options for earning a CS degree.

If you apply somewhere and don't get a call back, don't sweat it, and don't take it personally. It just doesn't matter. Hiring is a noisy process, and the cost of a bad hire is tremendous. Most companies will try harder to reduce the number of false positives than to reduce the number of false negatives. Again, apply broadly and treat it like a numbers game. There are limits, though. If you've applied for 10 jobs and not gotten a single interview, pay a professional to rewrite your resume for you.

If you're getting interviews and bombing the technical questions, then study. If you're bombing the cultural/behavioral questions, read some self-help books and join Toastmasters. If you think you're acing the interviews and not getting any jobs, then you're probably bombing something but are too clueless to realize it. Hire an interview coach.

If you're at the point where you have a degree or 5ish years of experience (or ideally both), you are ready to be a $100k code janitor. Learn a common stack well enough to do smart things with it. For instance, if you learn .NET, you should be able to manipulate collections in interesting ways with a single expressive LINQ statement. Pick one from each category (but don't combine Java with SQL Server - I don't think you'll see it as much in the wild):

1. Java or .NET

2. Angular or React

3. SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, or PostgreSQL

I'm going to offend a ton of niche fanboys now: Don't pick Vue, Go, Erlang, Haskell, or Rust. I'm sure each of them is amazing in its own way, but getting a job is your goal, so you don't pick a technology used by only 1% of employers.

Now I'll offend the embedded and systems programmers: Don't pick C or C++. They're just not widely used in business applications. I know both (at only an intermediate level), but I've never seen either used in a business application. You should know both on some level, but you're not going to get a Fortune 1000 code janitor job with either of them.

Congrats, you are now qualified for the majority of SE job postings at non-tech companies.

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

#108

Post by ghaff »

nkingsy wrote: post #86
ghaff wrote: post #68

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. 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.

The view of some that software has to be this all-consuming thing from a young age if you want to be any good at it has a great deal in common with the arts.

And very little in common with how most people treat other technical professions.

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

#109

Post by devit »

miohtama wrote: post #88

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, work…

Interestingly, the exercise is so boring (add authentication to a website with tests and documentation, for an outdated framework like Angular) that it probably selects out people who want to have a somewhat interesting job in addition to those who are incompetent.

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

#110

Post by dragonwriter »

ghaff wrote: post #108
nkingsy wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The view of some that software has to be this all-consuming thing from a young age if you want to be any good at it has a great deal in common with the arts. And very little in common with how most people treat other technical professions.

It has a lot in common with other fields (most of which sure, are not “technical professions”, but that's because this is not about broad content) in which there is an oversupply of talent at the low levels, regardless of the conditions at the top of the industry.

The reason is because — between the people with the genuine love of the field plus those drawn in by the lure of the high-end pay — there is such an oversupply.

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