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I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

cushychicken.github.io

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Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#701

Post by marcosdumay »

bdavis__ wrote: post #605
throwaway1293 wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that I'm not saying we shouldn't do as best as we can with documentation, clean code, etc, BUT: In the open source world, I've developed a large low quality codebase that is very complex from when I was less experienced. This project has gotten plenty of contributions over the years, some from less experienced and some from more experienced. The experienced developers know how to get around the codebase, but the…

it is probably because the new devs know so much more and are able to identify and communicate problems in code that others have written. write code for the center of the bell curve (at your organization). the bottom will never understand anything, the top understands it all. You need to make the majority in the middle be comfortable. that means slowly bringing in new language features, as they become widely known an…

That's an interesting point of view to explore. Is it worth more to attract a few highly capable developers or a lot of middle capable ones?

Your code practices will probably resonate differently on each of those groups, so you will probably have to choose. And I don't think there's a generic correct choice like you imply.

Also, by how much are people even capable of choosing the (required) expertise level of the code they create? I'm not sure we can deviate a lot from our natural level.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#702

Post by qchris »

AuthorizedCust wrote: post #679
elihu wrote: post #559

I think there's something else that's necessary that doesn't align well with the things in the article, and which is currently lacking in my current work environment, but which is kind of hard to describe succinctly. Basically, my job requires using a lot of tools and technology and processes created by other people, but none of those tools are easy to use or well documented. In order to get stuff done you have to ha…

Corollary: the documentation must be written to speak to the stupidest person in your team/company who you expect to use the product it describes. Otherwise, you may end up with a documented system that you can’t use or fix. Fortunately, that’s often me (a supervisor), so I get to be self-deprecating when conveying this requirement.

I also find that hypothetical "interns" are great for this. Something about "this person without a degree, who probably hasn't been working for very long, who doesn't know your organization or who to ask, and is probably very scared of looking or sounding stupid."

It doesn't necessarily imply or require stupidity, but in my experience on both sides of it (writing docs now, and having been that intern), they actually make pretty great litmus tests for documentation and how accessible organizational knowledge is.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#703

Post by pm90 »

BoorishBears wrote: post #460
pm90 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually a common offer. Some companies that wanna continue to offer high compensation without this upfront sticker cost are now resorting to one year rather than 4 year grants (stripe, Lyft).

Stripe and Lyft are definitely not aiming to avoid upfront sticker cost with their 1 year grant scheme. An exceedingly charitable view is that they're limiting downside, but realistically they're limiting upside so that you don't end up with people reaching targeted compensation for the next 4 years in a year or two and then leaving regardless of unvested shares - But I also mentioned in a comment above, I think my v…

Why? Unless you’re sure that the stock price will tumble, it makes no sense to increase your base pay aggressively. Most higher engineering levels will top out their base in the 200-300 range and all the rest of compensation will be via RSU.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#704

Post by commandlinefan »

tablespoon wrote: post #685
elihu wrote: post #559

I think there's something else that's necessary that doesn't align well with the things in the article, and which is currently lacking in my current work environment, but which is kind of hard to describe succinctly. Basically, my job requires using a lot of tools and technology and processes created by other people, but none of those tools are easy to use or well documented. In order to get stuff done you have to ha…

> These things might be reasonable in a startup with a dozen people, but we have over a hundred thousand. My opinion is that once an organization is a certain size, everything really needs to be written down and easily accessible. I shouldn't have to regularly ask people how to do basic things, it should be on a wiki. If it's complicated, it should be in a training video, or a user manual. Here's the root cause of yo…

> Here's the root cause of your bug

Hang on, don't blame the agile manifesto here. Blame the management that adopted the agile manifesto as "do all the exact same things we used to do that didn't work, but call it 'agile'".

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#705

Post by llamajams »

tablespoon wrote: post #685
elihu wrote: post #559

I think there's something else that's necessary that doesn't align well with the things in the article, and which is currently lacking in my current work environment, but which is kind of hard to describe succinctly. Basically, my job requires using a lot of tools and technology and processes created by other people, but none of those tools are easy to use or well documented. In order to get stuff done you have to ha…

> These things might be reasonable in a startup with a dozen people, but we have over a hundred thousand. My opinion is that once an organization is a certain size, everything really needs to be written down and easily accessible. I shouldn't have to regularly ask people how to do basic things, it should be on a wiki. If it's complicated, it should be in a training video, or a user manual. Here's the root cause of yo…

Im going to have to disagree based on personal experience at my huge ass fortune 50 megacoprp. They JUST started adopting agile...JUST, I kid you not many teams are still officialy waterfall, even officially agile teams are effectively waterfall. It's going to take another 5 years for anything to stop looking like waterfall. And let me tell you, as much as people hate agile, the old way is not working, it may even take the company down. Anyway having had no agile...OPs Post rings very very true in my ears. There is an obscene amount of tribal knowledge that needs to get aquired. Sometimes if you're lucky and in the right chat, there's a one-note that gets passed around. We just started getting wikis.. and now they're transitioning to a different vendor. So some high profile teams working on safety critical teams have docs on both...but they aren't the same and both are woefully out of date, also you need manger approval to get access to either of them.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#706

Post by csunbird »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #672
ihateolives wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ah, and in some countries having too many companies on the CV isn't well seen, it appears the candidate isn't able to fit-in anywhere. It is changing though in the tech field. Yes, it used to be that 10 years in the same company showed that you're loyal and dependable, but now it's more like "so you haven't learned anything new or been in a different environment in 10 years?". There's a difference between changing…

As a software developer, if anyone asked me something like "Should we hire this person, who has had 5 jobs in 10 years?" I would suggest caution. Not immediate rejection, but at least caution. Especially, if all they talk about in the interview is, how they introduced new tech xyz at previous employer. Even more so, if it is about some frontend framework of the month. For me 5 jobs in 10 years would still be some kin…

This post really strikes me as ignorant. Most of the developers stay around 2 years in a company, because the companies usually do not make market price adjustments to the salaries and you start to lag behind if you stay too long.

For example, after 2.5 years, I am looking for a new job, as the company is simply refusing to make adjustments based on the market prices, even after a promotion, I am making 20 percent less than I should be making right now, and this is not an isolated incident.

Staying at a company for 10 years either means that the company is the perfect place (then, why are you trying to leave?), or you just acquired tons of skills in your job that are not transferable to your next job, which both do not look good. Especially, when the job market is so hot right now, it's either that you can not find a new job after withering your skills, or something unpleasant happened in your perfect company and you are looking your way out.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#707

Post by tootahe45 »

swader999 wrote: post #203
symlinkk wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you seriously think people making $1M/yr browse this website

There was a guy yesterday that said he's doing four remote swe jobs right now at the same time. Takes roles that he's comfortable with and capable at, gets stuff done and nobody complains. Sounds like he's +1 million. Sort of like a 4x Tim Ferris program.

Something I've learned from Reddit is that people do actually LARP about things like income, even when they're posting anonymously on these kind of forums. This is likely one of those instances. And i don't believe anybody earning 1m+ would take Tim Ferris seriously.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#708

Post by mwcampbell »

> lunchroom chatter was one of the simple pleasures that made a daily commute bearable for me.

When I was at Microsoft, pre-COVID, my daily commute was no big deal. But having lunch every day with other nerds was definitely one thing I enjoyed about the office environment. So when the pandemic started, we immediately lost that, and that's definitely one reason why I left several months later.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#709

Post by blululu »

colonwqbang wrote: post #562
reikonomusha wrote: post #29

Purely anecdotal: In my experience as a hiring manager seeing trends change over the past 10 years, and selecting from the top 10% of candidates by some vague metric, it's primarily about "does it pay a lot" and secondarily "does it offer full-remote"? A lot of my friends, former colleagues, and candidates I've failed to hire end up going to either a FAANG or a very successful brand-name company (typically a SV compa…

I'm not a US person. Is it common to see a 50-100% pay raise on switching jobs? Sure if you pay me twice my current salary, I will probably do whatever you ask me to without complaint. But around here such a big pay increase would be a fantasy.

It depends but it is not uncommon in certain fields (only computer adjacent fields are growing like this in the US). At lower levels for high performing individuals in FAANG adjacent areas it is very doable. Having spent a good portion of my twenties massively underpaid it was pretty easy to double pay a few times over but it helps to start 50% below the median. Moreover a company will not give you pay increases while you work there that are commensurate with the market rate. A job swap is the primary way to realize the benefits of personal growth and a rapidly ballooning market.

Re: I think I know why you can't hire engineers right now

#710

Post by rwaksmunski »

jakswa wrote: post #681
rwaksmunski wrote: post #548

Pay me 150k to remotely work with Rust and I'll drop everything and start on Monday. Getting senior resources is not hard, just need the right mix of comp and stack.

Haha me and you both. I'll be honest I saw the "amazon pays $300k for rust" comment in this thread and I checked back in to make sure they don't have any remote positions... And I avoid amazon recruiters like the rest.

Head of CloudFront reached out directly with a Rust position, but it was onsite in Ireland in the middle of a pandemic. Come on.
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