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In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

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Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#51

Post by blueslurpee »

Oddskar wrote: post #23
pjmlp wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had APIs since Sun RPC, they just keep being rebooted. The 2021 version is REST/gRPC for SaaS products.

REST? Didn't you get the memo? We've all moved on to GraphQL because Facebook use it and that means we all should use it. It also enables our UI components to easily fetch data themselves . Because that's a great architectural pattern that we've discovered.

I haven't read enough about GraphQL (or even used it) to debate its relative merits, but I find it very interesting from "business architecture" point of view.

For instance, assume the future of IT looks like it does today, only ramped up x10. Imagine the majority of business value is driven disparate API's/Services managed by companies or organisations, with numerous and diverse clients that can "plug in" for their respective needs.

GraphQL essentially allows you to simplify the work that any client (internal or external) needs to do to tap into your interface, provided that you invest the appropriate resources on the backend. (which you would, if that were your core business proposition and a piece of your competetive advantage)

If companies continue to digitalize (is there any doubt) then a company's value will be encompassed and driven by the quality of its API, and importantly, it's relative use of connecting with many diverse clients. Therefore backend API's that support and interface to digital products the best will win.

I see GraphQL supporting this in that it trades simplicity and a uniform mono-interface on the front-end for complexity on the backend. I think a lot of firms will look at that trade and call it a great deal.

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#52

Post by photochemsyn »

> "Generally, your best technologists are those who are really good at listening. They’re also insufferably curious, which makes them really good at asking questions after listening. They’re the best at ferreting out the real intention behind your stated intention, if you will."

Unfortunately, this ability is not really what many employers want; if the technologist figures out that the real goal is to commit fraud or something unpleasant like that. Or how about being asked to implement a user complaint system with a deliberately unfriendly user interface? "I see you want me to build something crappy to limit complaint reports, is that it?"

> "You’ve heard the maxim: Don’t hire… we’ll go with "jerks." I’ll expand that to include prima donnas, misanthropes and garden-variety narcissists."

Yes, you want to reserve these types for the executive suite, where being willing to screw over the employees and your customers so that the shareholders can reap big quartery profits is a job requirement (rewarded with large executive bonuses). Narcissitic jerks with no empathy for others are ideal for this role.

I would really like to see more tech businesses where the scientists and engineers, not some crew of shareholders and their pet executives, are the ones making the business decisions.

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#53

Post by hluska »

Jensson wrote: post #10

> A good technologist has grace. He will respectfully probe for intent in a way that doesn’t put the requester on the defensive. He will make it clear that this is a partnership, and that getting the job done is high on his list of priorities — it’s just that he needs some information in order to do a good job for you. Sounds like a very toxic environment. What would put the tech worker that much on their toes, what…

I see your point but I'll caution you that I don't think this cat has any experience building software, so his concept of how things flow is a little off. I'd completely ignore this entire paragraph and just focus on becoming an active listener and learning how to ask questions.

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#54

Post by Jensson »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #48
Jensson wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My argument is that you can meet them halfway rather than dumping all the responsibility on the developer like this guy does. But as a consultant I guess his job is to help toxic managers hire people they can work with, if that is the case he doesn't have a choice to change the manager.

Would you say your discussion style in this thread is "meeting halfway", and typical of your discussion style at work? What would you say characterizes a "toxic" discussion style, or "being so bad at talking to people"?

No, I am much more aggressive online since I want to point holes in things. I doubt many people talk the same way online as they do at their job. It isn't like you expect a sales person to be all happy when he is at home.

> What would you say characterizes a "toxic" discussion style, or "being so bad at talking to people"?

People who can't talk normally due to some of the following reasons, if these are issues you have to deal with at your job instead of they dealing with it themselves then you work with people who lack social skills:

> People are people and many don't understand or are actively afraid of technology. They have jobs to do and if they don't know you, they may be skeptical about what you can do for them. They might even have been burned in past by developers who promise but don't deliver.

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#55

Post by handrous »

nawgz wrote: post #46
Oddskar wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

REST? Didn't you get the memo? We've all moved on to GraphQL because Facebook use it and that means we all should use it. It also enables our UI components to easily fetch data themselves . Because that's a great architectural pattern that we've discovered.

It's unironically true that GraphQL in combination with database introspection & query tools like Hasura is a far superior pattern to REST-based CRUD. Additionally, as a UI developer, I understand you are trying to make it seem like GraphQL promotes anti-patterns, but being able to make a single query which is deeply nested and therefore can maintain state for an entire sub-tree of your app is a really good state man…

Hasura is great. GraphQL on its own, unless you're offloading all of it to something well-maintained and capable like Hasura which will (hopefully) automagically save you from the time cost and risk of GraphQL, is almost always a bad idea.

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#56

Post by wvenable »

yobbo wrote: post #49
wvenable wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are people and many don't understand or are actively afraid of technology. They have jobs to do and if they don't know you, they may be skeptical about what you can do for them. They might even have been burned in past by developers who promise but don't deliver. Knowing how to talk to people to get your project done is a great skill.

> People are people and many don't understand or are actively afraid of technology. One possible alternative is that people are suspicious/defensive (sometimes justifiably) when techies ask questions about "what problems are you having?" and "what do you typically do when ___?" To them, it might seem like they are being interrogated by someone ostensibly below their rank. To be fair, this is sometimes exactly what is…

Also these people are the experts and often you're the novice in their domain. Understanding that part of the relationship is important.

In my experience, people are very happy when I automate some bullshit part of their job. However, you are going to waste their time getting that automation done. So you have to sell them that it's worth making their job worse in the short term to make it better in the long time. If you're a terrible communicator, they're not going to trust that it's worth it.

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#58

Post by Jensson »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #45
Jensson wrote: post #10

> A good technologist has grace. He will respectfully probe for intent in a way that doesn’t put the requester on the defensive. He will make it clear that this is a partnership, and that getting the job done is high on his list of priorities — it’s just that he needs some information in order to do a good job for you. Sounds like a very toxic environment. What would put the tech worker that much on their toes, what…

Equating "He will respectfully probe for intent in a way that doesn’t put the requester on the defensive" with "tip-toeing around issues" seems... not right to me.

You took out a part, why would a developer ever need to say this except to calm a toxic manager?

> He will make it clear that this is a partnership, and that getting the job done is high on his list of priorities

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#59

Post by lowercased »

deviaan wrote: post #41
sillysaurusx wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Found the engineer that needs a project manager. :) I think most devs just haven’t had a good product manager. It can be shockingly effective, but only when they care about you, rather than managing you.

Going to echo this sentiment. The project I'm on now is the first time I've worked with a PM that gets whats going on and actually manages the product instead of just sending PMs after hours asking for some "small" feature to be squeezed into the sprint. It makes a HUGE difference, and I can honestly say I'm much less stressed out now than in previous projects.

interesting. i've cycled through some projects with and without PMs. I've not found 'good' PMs to make a huge difference compared to 'without', but definitely 'bad' PMs impact things negatively. It's hard to define what the 'bad' is, but micromanaging, forcing process where it doesn't need to be, arbitrarily enforcing rules when convenient, etc are all just negative impacts. It would be more beneficial to just not have that person at all. I've had some good PMs, and while I didn't notice much difference in my own performance/delivery/stress/etc, I think it gave some other folks somewhat more confidence/assurance.

Re: In-demand tech skills are the last thing to look for in IT hires

#60

Post by dehrmann »

DeathArrow wrote: post #18

>Hiring a developer? Check out the GitHub “repository,” which is essentially the portfolio site for coders. I have almost nothing in my Github repo and I code for 20 years. Neither do most of my colleagues. Artists might have portofolios, programmers most likely won't have.

I suspect most profiles are either toy projects people desperate to get into the industry wrote or prolific open source developers who are only a fit for a handful of roles at a big company (think Linus or Guido) and will continue doing essentially the same work, but for a patron. A handful of companies develop in the open (Gitlab), and some roles work on public SDKs.

My profile is a grab bag of forks for PRs and library side projects people might (and have!) found useful.

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