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?

#161

Post by ctvo » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 4:26 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…

As someone passively looking, thank you for this. I'll remove Reddit from my list. That is unacceptable. I do 5 interviews a week on average for my company, and if we did that to candidates, heads would roll.

As an interviewer your two objectives are:

1. Ensure the candidate has an excellent experience

2. Collect data points

In that order. Sometimes we run into candidates who make the second item difficult. They fail to complete the specific technical problem. They can't speak about their experiences in detail. We need to drag data out of them screaming. It doesn't matter, your priority is to ensure they feel respected, and leave thinking they WANT to work there.

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

#162

Post by pkulak » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 4:27 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…

The last technical interview I did was for Facebook, and say what you will about them, it was a great experience. Before the interview they actually gave me a couple paragraphs about what I was going to be tested on. Needless to say, I nailed it. :D

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

#163

Post by EvilEy3 » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 4:27 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…

> I have over 20 years of programming experience, am a founder, and have worked for multiple venture backed startups.

Do you want a pat on the back or something?

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

#164

Post by serf » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

_f1dq wrote: post #105

jelling wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

i've had similar experiences over the phone.

"How would you pull in data from an arbitrarily long -- maybe never-ending -- source of data in Python?"

me : "What kind of data? What is it used for? How should it be represented afterwards?"

Silence on the other end , followed by "Well that's up to you."

I then fumble out a few ways to do it (verbally), to a recruiter that doesn't seem to understand anything that i'm saying -- he's probably reading a question from a script and pattern-matching what I say to the supposedly correct answer given to him in the same script.

Finally it ends with "Oh, that's interesting. ...We'll get back to you." , and the interviews that go this direction -- they never get back to you; you've already lost.

I'm not spouting gibberish, i've been at this for a long time; i'm just not spouting out whatever tech-jargon that their company supports and is needed to conform to his script, and quite honestly the person on the other end of the phone call seems to be universally under-equipped to judge anything remotely CS related.

It's a really weird/ephemeral/surreal experience. Imagine a surgeon being appointed to a position at a hospital because the secretary quizzed him on some flash cards (flash cards provided by Acme Sharp Scalpels), and the surgeon -- by chance -- prefers Acme Sharp Scalpels, and so mentions that brand. Instant hire according to the flash cards.

That's a lot like what it's like when a technically-accurate developer gets passed over for one that blithely mentions popular software packages (pandas/tensorflow/whatever is popular this week) without any real technical knowledge on how to achieve the goals wanted by the hiring party.

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

#165

Post by hnfong » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

yashap wrote: post #73

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…

> hard to truly tease out quality during interviews

I'm not sure I agree here. I doubt most interviewers have actually given much thought to what they are actually trying to look for in a potential candidate. The widespread practice of over-focusing on algorithmic whiteboard questions is a symptom.

There's got to be better processes in assessing candidates' qualities beyond solving algorithmic puzzles (which perhaps is 5% of a software engineer's job at best).

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

#166

Post by WrtCdEvrydy » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 4:29 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #122

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.

> anyone who had either a CS degree I see many, many more developers lamenting the "requirement" of a CS degree to get a software development job than I see lawyers lamenting the "requirement" of a law degree for a law job or doctors lamenting the "requirement" of a medical degree for a doctor job. If it opens doors, and you want that door open... get the degree!

Because developers want it both ways... they want the benefits of a job that makes money while also not wanting the requirements that those jobs usually require.

CS Degrees from local universities can be had for far less cost than a 250k law degree and less time than a 13 year MD.

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

#167

Post by ctvo » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

EvilEy3 wrote: post #163

jelling wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 have over 20 years of programming experience, am a founder, and have worked for multiple venture backed startups. Do you want a pat on the back or something?

Probably not? They most likely want you to know they've been in other interviews in the past, and this one was particularly egregious?

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

#168

Post by yourapostasy » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

shagie wrote: post #92

supergeek133 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trades have apprenticeship programs... might be an interesting model to try to replicate.

Apprenticeships in a trade tend to be such that with sufficient hard work and determination, anyone can fill the trade requirements. The problem solving skills of software development don't seem to fit that model - there are some people, no matter how much you train them, don't seem to be able to move beyond "follow instructions" to "give tasks" when it comes to developing software. The second part is that the trade…

> Apprenticeships in a trade tend to be such that with sufficient hard work and determination, anyone can fill the trade requirements. The problem solving skills of software development don't seem to fit that model - there are some people, no matter how much you train them, don't seem to be able to move beyond "follow instructions" to "give tasks" when it comes to developing software.

The trades face the same challenge. Over the past decade, I've gotten along well enough with my HVAC guy (one-man shop who brings on a rotating cast of apprentices) to talk with him about this. He reports the same experience ("no matter how much you train them, don't seem to be able to move beyond...").

This isn't a case of "can / cannot solve problems", either. For hobbies they delve in, that cohort appears to problem solve extremely well. I suspect the challenge is finding ways to communicate a mental model of the same problem domain that "clicks" with different personalities.

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

#169

Post by rsweeney21 » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

It's because in software engineering your work product is confidential/proprietary and work samples take a very long time to produce.

If you could review someone's code from their previous jobs, I think it would be quite easy to vet applicants. And it would be much easier to move from job to job.

Instead we have to simulate work samples through whiteboard coding, pair programming sessions, take home coding projects, coding knowledge tests, etc. We know that none of these methods are particularly good, so we err on the side of failing candidates when we are on the fence. They also take a long time to complete, so software engineers are reluctant to change jobs because they know how much of a pain it will be to go through interviews again.

It is much easier for product designers and product managers to pass interviews. You can see their work product.

At my company we're working on a way to create standardized coding projects that can't be faked so you can use them across job applications. If you are interested in this space, shoot me a message: robert at facet dot net.

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

#170

Post by kryptn » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 4:31 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…

I also interviewed with Reddit, although it was a few years back at this point.

I thought I nailed their code challenge and expected to continue through the process, but after that session that was pretty much the last I heard from them. It was pretty disappointing.