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Ask HN: Experienced devs (20+ yrs exp), are you getting interview calls?

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Re: Ask HN: Experienced devs (20+ yrs exp), are you getting interview calls?

#21

Post by rpwilcox »

I'm going to do a blog post on my job search in the next month or so, but for me it's been a _grind_ (that finally ended up with something, thankfully).

But sneak preview:

  * 100 applications
  * 54 first round interviews
  * 24 second round interviews
  * 10 third round interviews
Something like 94 total meetings (brief numbers here don't include 4th-6th rounds...), maybe 10 (?) "virtual onsites" of 3-6 hours, maybe only 4(?) takehomes, maybe 6 (?) Hackerrank projects.

I got a lot of at bats, and a lot of "swings and misses".

In general at least one place said that while they are hiring like nonsense (average desired growth at companies was 211% in the "forseeable": because I asked then aggregated them all in my spreadsheet) they apparently have a lot of candidates in the pipeline. So if you're kind of confusing because you're super senior and have done everything ??? maybe they get confused, and just say, "next!".

Out of the 4 external recruiter places I used, 2 were good at finding me excellent potentials that seemed to be enthusiastic about me and have short hiring funnels. By then I was wrapping up later stages with a place I found myself, and got a verbal offer, but I kind of suspect if I had leaned into external recruiters earlier I would have had a better experience / not feeling like I was spamming places with my resume.

Re: Ask HN: Experienced devs (20+ yrs exp), are you getting interview calls?

#22

Post by fistynuts »

jstx1 wrote: post #5
chiefalchemist wrote: post #4

It's not how many years, it a matter of how marketable the skills and experiences are. That said, it's also a matter of marketing (read presentation of you). Imagine someone else - all things being relatively - equal to you. But they are better presented. Who gets the call? Like it or not. For better or worse. Recruiters aren't going to buy something they can't sell. More random-y thoughts: - Two weeks isn't that lon…

Is the market hot or do people with 20 years of experience have to still work on additional signals like a portfolio / github profile / side projects? Those things seem necessary as a way to signal competence when you're lacking other signals like experience or education.

I've got 20 years of experience and have never bothered with side projects, portfolios or the like. You have to have the confidence to pitch your real experience and let it shine on your CV and at interview, both from a technical and people point of view. That's what hiring managers are looking for from someone who has been in the business for a while.

If you get rejected because you don't have a recent GitHub project, that's their loss, and they don't know what they're missing.

Re: Ask HN: Experienced devs (20+ yrs exp), are you getting interview calls?

#24

Post by ezekg »

rpwilcox wrote: post #21

I'm going to do a blog post on my job search in the next month or so, but for me it's been a _grind_ (that finally ended up with something, thankfully). But sneak preview: * 100 applications * 54 first round interviews * 24 second round interviews * 10 third round interviews Something like 94 total meetings (brief numbers here don't include 4th-6th rounds...), maybe 10 (?) "virtual onsites" of 3-6 hours, maybe only 4…

This sounds absolutely exhausting... good to hear you found something at the end of that long, dark tunnel though! Hope it’s a great place.

Re: Ask HN: Experienced devs (20+ yrs exp), are you getting interview calls?

#25

Post by rpwilcox »

ezekg wrote: post #24
rpwilcox wrote: post #21

I'm going to do a blog post on my job search in the next month or so, but for me it's been a _grind_ (that finally ended up with something, thankfully). But sneak preview: * 100 applications * 54 first round interviews * 24 second round interviews * 10 third round interviews Something like 94 total meetings (brief numbers here don't include 4th-6th rounds...), maybe 10 (?) "virtual onsites" of 3-6 hours, maybe only 4…

This sounds absolutely exhausting... good to hear you found something at the end of that long, dark tunnel though! Hope it’s a great place.

What was the worst was the constant rejection, honestly. (I interviewed a _lot_ so it does track that I'd get 1-3 "thank you for your consideration but..." emails a day. But that didn't make it easier...)

Re: Ask HN: Experienced devs (20+ yrs exp), are you getting interview calls?

#26

Post by cableshaft »

Well you're not really on LinkedIn it sounds like. I thought the job market wasn't super hot because I was only getting a trickle of recruiters pinging me on LinkedIn for the longest time, but back in April I flicked the switch to say I was open to new work on LinkedIn and got 19 recruiters contacting me that first day, and another 12 the next day, and ~8 a day for the next week or so after that.

And now that I have a new job the recruiters are contacting me more often than before I flipped that switch even though I flipped it back off again.

But while I wouldn't say I'm active on LinkedIn, really, I do have basically the equivalent of my resume on there. Maybe if you're really wanting something you might want to consider at least putting some bullet points of what you've done for each job then flip that switch and say you're open to new work.

I honestly couldn't keep up with all of the recruiters contacting me and let a few of those slip. I did get to final stages with five companies though and got two offers.

That being said, I didn't get any offers from recruiters I met from LinkedIn (I'm sure I would eventually, three got close). The two I got offers from was a company where someone I knew referred me, and a company that contacted me on Hired.com when I went through the process there. That one was kind of nice because you can post salary expectations before anyone contacts you and I put something about 20% higher than the top of the ranges I was getting told by recruiters reaching out on LinkedIn, and I ended up getting offered that much as well.

I'm a senior engineer who had a .net job at a large but not super well-known corporation for 6 years before my current role, and about 8 years of other experience predating that.

Re: Ask HN: Experienced devs (20+ yrs exp), are you getting interview calls?

#28

Post by lupire »

alsoicode wrote: post #2

I have 25 years as a professional developer, but I’ve been writing code in some form or another for almost 40 years. I’ve been getting multiple emails from recruiters for MONTHS. I absolutely love my current role, and have no intention of leaving, but I’m betting I could make at least $130 an hour in the current market, which would be more than twice what I make salary-wise. It’s certainly tempting, but contracting h…

That contracting offer is not a big win against the tradeoffs

Re: Ask HN: Experienced devs (20+ yrs exp), are you getting interview calls?

#29

Post by lupire »

justinlloyd wrote: post #15

Posted this comment on a previous thread. Recently switched jobs. About to start week 9. 40+ years of experience. Strong LinkedIn profile. Tired Github profile that needs an update. I applied for only one job at the insistence of my wife because it was with a renowned company. I had to actually write out a C.V. to apply, and as of today, nine weeks into my new job, 13+ weeks later, my application is "still under revi…

Do you think it's unreasonable that FANGMAN demanded that you "prove you can code", in exchange for an offer of $80-$100k/yr more than others?

Re: Ask HN: Experienced devs (20+ yrs exp), are you getting interview calls?

#30

Post by readonthegoapp »

Not a dev, but dev bg -- looking for all these dev-adjacent roles -- i'm old as rocks, but there are a lot of us out there, especially in big boring non-tech companies:

  * Solutions Architect
  * Technical Product Owner
  * Sales Engineer
  * etc.
i'm now getting blown up, but i'm keeping up my 250+ applications/day, and mixing in studying (aws, etc.), company/market research, NBA (a little too capitalist and exploitative and dehumanizing, but we all have our vices), etc.

Probably 10 to 20 applications I send get some type of "Social control tech is really appealing to me!"-type love letter -- the rest are spray and pray.

I also started going thru the HN Sep/Oct "Who's Hiring?" posts -- there are literally hundreds of companies looking, and I have a feeling if I was a dev, I'd be hired by now. I do hold out hope that one of them is doing something cool.

As shitty as applying and interviewing is, it's also somewhat exciting to me, especially as I've had some real shit jobs, and I've rarely had a position where I was like, "Oh, so _this_ is what a contented professional life feels like."

In terms of _getting_ jobs, I feel like an expert (keeping them, not so much -- i.e. I've rarely been happy, whether I thought it was going to be great or not), I would generally suggest staying with your core stack/tech -- if you're primarily concerned about _getting_ a job, as opposed to anything else, like wanting to keep it, etc. If you've done 'Tech X' and some company really wants 'Tech X', they're be all over you. OTOH, if you have _not_ done Ballerina programming, but you have a PhD in Computer Science, they/recruiter will likely shit all over you -- it just doesn't matter, so don't waste your time and emotional energy with the 'But but but' stuff -- save it, keep it movin', don't look back in anger.

Outside of that, if you're semi-competent+, I would always lean towards HN-type/tech companies -- because they're _generally_ -- _generally_ -- less incompetent and less petty than other companies/personnel. If you're semi-competent+, you can talk to a semi-competent+ person as some HN/tech company and actually relate, because you will both have a visceral negative reaction to having to work with/for f**ing idiots.

:-D

Good luck!

p.s. hope you follow up with a post later after you've got something and been there for a month. i've started keeping a 'the_job_hunt.txt' running notes file -- i thought of blogging it but too much drama, etc. i've been thru the job hunt, i would argue, more than 99.9% of people on HN, and have some experience on the other side of the tab, so i thought it might be interesting for someone to read about my experience. tho, i don't know where people would post things. i don't have a personal blog, etc.

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