I feel like a crazy person but this comes up so often and it seems to me like the answer has never changed? We don't have a lack of software engineers, we have a lack of qualified/competent software engineers. If it's difficult for someone to get a job in that area, there is at least some likelihood that they don't happen to be in the category of folks that are in demand.
If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?
531–540 of 586 posts
Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?
#532Earlier quoted context omitted.
Never understood this way of interviewing. I get shit now and then for helping people too much in coding exercises, but if someone has reached the point where they are obviously not going to progress why not nudge them along and see how they respond? I've found that the ability to receive and act on guidance with a certain degree of humility is a much better signal of someone's potential than how many algorithms they…
Interviewing is hard . It takes a lot of practice to know what level of assistance to provide at what time. A coworker once showed me a technique of keeping a google doc with the problems, as well as a step-by-step of the solution and the times at which they should be at that step. It always seemed to work out well for the candidates, as even a poor candidate would finish the problem at like 55 minutes into a 60 min…
It is one of those common tropes, "interviewing is hard", that seems to justify the inevitability of poor attitude, wasting time of interviewees (remember the interviewers are paid for those hours) and a painful process for basically anyone.
I often interview for my company/group and yes, it is challenging in one hour to find out "life, death, and miracles" of some guy who is being interviewed, but it is especially challenging when the interviewer is in a bad mood, does not want to be there, or sees interviewing as a nuisance, and he is looking for a reason to make someone fail.
I worked at a FAANG and I got offers from FAANGs-adjacent companies, so I am not one of those you-cannot-win-at-this-game-so-you-complain people.
I saw: someone stopping the interview for unexplained reasons after the first 45 minutes, an interviewer at a blue company looking at my private parts for a good part of 45 minutes, multiple people interviewing while doing something else in person or virtually, recruiters (those were the fronts, the hiring managers were responsible) dragging the process forever and then say no with zero explanation.
Is it really "hard" doing better than that?
Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?
#533I think hiring processes fail when they tro to do the impossible: predict future performance of a candidate. And many processes do this. You need to be okay with some risk - so thankfully there are high-growth startups that hire less discriminately in order to scale (though of course this comes with other trade offs).
Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?
#534Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a not dissimilar background and what you describe is exactly what caused me to throw up my hands and leave the tech world. It's just not worth the BS.
What do you do now? I'm looking to stay in tech (for now), but I'd really like to get out of web development at the very least. Though, I'm not entirely sure where to even begin my long journey.
My educational background was CS and business, I spent 23 years in a wide range of technical, managerial, and consulting roles, and now I sell real estate in two states (our market spans a state line). Would be happy to chat anytime about career ideas.
Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?
#535Earlier 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…
Never understood this way of interviewing. I get shit now and then for helping people too much in coding exercises, but if someone has reached the point where they are obviously not going to progress why not nudge them along and see how they respond? I've found that the ability to receive and act on guidance with a certain degree of humility is a much better signal of someone's potential than how many algorithms they…
Right, one can note in the feedback that they got questions X,Y and Z but needed more than average / normal / acceptable level of hints. Better than sitting there staring down the interviewee in silence for 30min like a psycho. Then again.. it says a lot about tech management, doesn't it?
Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?
#536Interviewing is a numbers game. A large percentage of interviewers are incompetent and/or more interested in showing off than hiring. So keep rolling the dice until the stars align in your favour.
Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
Contracts often fall into one of two categories. There's the consultants who make the big bucks. They come in to solve a particularly thorny problem that an org has and then the contract is done and they move on. There's also the staff argumentation contracts. We need six devs, but because of how accounting works, we can only hire two FTEs. However, contractors are part of an operations budget rather than a engineeri…
> argumentation augmentation?
That too... the debates I've had... oh... yea, I spelled it wrong. The perils of autoincorrect.
Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?
#538Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are simply determining that you are okay with false negatives Which is exactly why they do irrelevant interview brainteasers as well This problem is a two way street in the tech sector, in case anyone wanted to fix it. The candidates alone are making the same mistake and bringing it to the company
Is a "false negative" a positive?
Its a quadrant. Positive, Negative, False Positive, False Negative
Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?
#539There’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…
The 5x engineer at my last job created 5x the features and 5x the bugs, and consequently caused 5x the number of job postings because we needed so many people to put out fires all day. I have to thank him because he is the reason I was hired.
Yeah, I don’t mean just 5x the LOC or features. More a combination of all of more productive, helps others more effectively, creates fewer bugs, can tackle a wider range of problems, makes better architectural decisions, writes more materials abstractions, etc. Basically I think it’s pretty common for a strong engineering hire to produce 5x the long term value of a weak hire, taking all of the above into account.
Re: If software engineering is in demand, why is it so hard to get a job?
#540There’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…
I dunno, I’ve conducted about 100 dev interviews over the years. Have tried various combinations of whiteboarding, architecture/design questions, take home problems, talking about past projects/experience, and sitting down together with the interviewee and pair coding on bugs or small features. I don’t know that any approach was clearly more effective than another, and for all of them I think the ability of myself and other interviewers to predict performance at the company was decent, but far from excellent. The clearest signal is probably a super enthusiastic referral (from a highly trustworthy source), but it’s rare to be able to get that.
It’s just really tough to figure out in 2-3 hours how someone is going to perform in a given role over the next few years. Interviewing is an inexact art, not an exact science, and it’s very much my experience that companies compensate for this by favouring false negatives (not hiring possibly strong candidates) over false positives (hiring weak candidates).