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?

#431

Post by lostapathy » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 7:23 PM UTC

debarshri wrote: post #308

We made the interview process very simple and traditional in our current organisation. 30 minute chat, judge whether the person can do the job or is a good fit, if yes then offer a year contract with 1-3 months of evaluation period. Changing a job is risky also from the candidate's perspective so if the person is pretending, the lies will catch up. Most of the scenario it has worked pretty well. Sometimes, people who…

We tried similar in my last job. Interviews were often in the 45 minute range, but similar idea.

We didn't get into deep technical questions. Rather, we asked questions meant to figure out if the person excited about the work or not. I can bring somebody up to speed on our language, but I can't train my way into curiosity or interest.

For example, we asked what source control software they'd use if they were starting a project. Ultimately I don't care what they're into, so much as that they have used something and see enough value to have an opinion to offer - even if they've only ever used one tool.

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

#432

Post by bob33212 » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 7:24 PM UTC

tomkat0789 wrote: post #38

Slashdot had a post about this topic a few years ago that I thought was colorful enough to save for posterity: https://developers.slashdot.org/story/18/03/14/1428242/deman... The top comment seemed to capture the problem best: "What is in extremely high demand is programmers with 20 years of experience in a technology that has been around for 5, no older than 19 and working for 20k a year. And that demand will be hig…

I saw a posting for a full stack engineer last year with a rate of $20/hour. It was temping to apply just find out what they expected. I can only think since this was a startup they were trying to "fill a seat" to look better for investors because having a higher headcount would seem impressive?

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

#433

Post by InvOfSmallC » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

debarshri wrote: post #308

We made the interview process very simple and traditional in our current organisation. 30 minute chat, judge whether the person can do the job or is a good fit, if yes then offer a year contract with 1-3 months of evaluation period. Changing a job is risky also from the candidate's perspective so if the person is pretending, the lies will catch up. Most of the scenario it has worked pretty well. Sometimes, people who…

Are you using this contract with juniors? Maybe this is a cultural difference but I would never accept a one year contract. Especially because In EU a permanent contract has a trial period in it.

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

#434

Post by hogFeast » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 7:25 PM UTC

addicted wrote: post #392

hogFeast wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something that I have never quite understood. In most of the places where software engineering is big, you have very loose labour laws. But companies treat hiring as if employees are signing on for life (compare this to how they treat downsizing). It is very strange, particularly given: the fact that almost no-one thinks current hiring practices are perfect, and the difficulty in producing a process that actu…

The cost of a bad hire is extremely high. It's not their salary or bonus, etc. It's how they can affect a team, the product, and the deliverables.

That makes no sense because, presumably, the alternative is to have no-one. If you don't hire someone because you are worried about the team, you don't need to hire anyone (this risk is, also, not avoidable anyway...if your product is so fragile, the risk isn't making a hiring mistake).

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

#435

Post by JohnBooty » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

msie wrote: post #286

JohnBooty wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead we have to simulate work samples through whiteboard coding, pair programming sessions, take home coding projects, coding knowledge tests, etc. Very small sample size but we've had good results skipping coding exams entirely, and simply talking through some scenarios with candidates. - give them a hypothetical problem ("the page is loading slowly") and role play how they'd troubleshoot it - do they understand…

"tell us about a tricky technical challenge you solved" I have so much trouble remembering previous challenges I've overcome. I don't ruminate on them, I just move on...

Well, if I was your interviewer, I'd say "no worries."

I'd be fine if you had to skip a few questions like this and did well on the rest.

That's a fairly common interview question, though, so it's a good one to rehearse!

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

#436

Post by mdoms » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 7:27 PM UTC

gifnamething wrote: post #399

debarshri wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I mean contract, here in Netherlands it refers to the offer. It is not a hourly contract position. It is position with all the benefits.

How would a mortgage lender feel about it?

It's a permanent full time role.

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

#437

Post by Jensson » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 7:28 PM UTC

jethro_tell wrote: post #310

ghaff wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet every other technical field which has no expectation that this has been a passion since childhood and applicants should have personal projects in the field manages somehow to hire people.

That's what I'm saying. We could train a base of knowledge so that skills transfer and we don't have to find super specialized operators for every role. When you get a union plumber to the shop, you know that they passed their certification. You may not like working with them or they may do sloppy work or something but as a whole, you're going to get a competent operator once the apprenticeship is finished.

That will work once the world has decided upon a single web stack with standardized API design and security and every company uses that web stack. When that happened hiring web stack developers will be a standardized process similar to plumbers today as you say. But be are very far from that level of standardization.

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

#438

Post by JohnBooty » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #296

JohnBooty wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead we have to simulate work samples through whiteboard coding, pair programming sessions, take home coding projects, coding knowledge tests, etc. Very small sample size but we've had good results skipping coding exams entirely, and simply talking through some scenarios with candidates. - give them a hypothetical problem ("the page is loading slowly") and role play how they'd troubleshoot it - do they understand…

I've generally found more people flunk this sort of interview than flunk a whiteboard one. Namely, if you've had only boring, uninteresting jobs so far, you might not have a truly interesting "tricky technical challenge you solved," and similar gaps around the other questions. Like, you can't name many of the ways a big, high-traffic site might slow down, because the internal tools websites you work on don't need cac…

     Like, you can't name many of the ways a big, 
     high-traffic site might slow down, because 
     the internal tools websites you work on don't 
     need caching or proxies or load balancing

I feel like it would be tough to spend any amount of time developing web apps, even if they're just internal tools, without hitting a basic performance issue like an n+1 query situation where you accidentally write a page with 500 queries or something. But maybe that's me... maybe devs are better than me these days. I hope so =)

There are of course innumerable network related reasons an app could slow down and we wouldn't expect a software dev to dive into them... I'd expect them to just be able to do some ultra basic stuff to rule out a network issue and zero in on the application stack.

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

#439

Post by nitrogen » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

xtracto wrote: post #332

_f1dq wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Reading all of these accounts of horrors in HackerNews I feel my idea of creating a "TOEFL for Developers" would be perfect. (I am hesitant to describe my idea, but WTH, I'm currently not in a position to act on it, and they say ideas are dime a dozen so...): For those of you for whom English is not your first language, you surely know what TOEFL is: Test of English as a Foreign Language. The private company provides…

certification authority which is independent, very reputable and unbiased

That is a big ask. There have been many attempts at CS-adjacent certifications, some of them government sponsored, but none of them find widespread use. The ones I've personally encountered were grossly out of date (e.g. a C++ assessment that didn't mention templates at all, in 2012), and weren't even mentioned during interviews by the company that demanded them.

It's not just a matter of trust, either. Our industry is incredibly conceptually diverse, despite the common current of abstract patterns that underlies everything. There is no specific or generic skill test that won't be out of date in a year, and forcing the required degree of standardization on our industry to make that possible would effectively destroy it.

In the mean time, the only organizations incentivized to keep their assessments up to date are the vendors themselves, who as you note, have conflicting interests. And at root, if you want to be even slightly more generic than a vendor certification, you are basically trying to test for intelligence and adaptability.

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

#440

Post by phendrenad2 » Mon, Aug 30, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

There are two problems here: Getting your first software job, and getting all of your other software jobs.

Getting your first job is harder, but for different reasons. You're an unknown quantity, and the only way to know if you're any good is to grill you on things you learned in data structures & algorithms class.

Getting all of your subsequent jobs is also hard, because there's no way to know if you've been a stump who just sat there and collect a paycheck at previous roles.

Perhaps the solutions are different too.