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

cushychicken.github.io

771–780 of 927 posts

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

#771
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…

Few people read the documentation (spent a lot of effort early in my career on writing docs and copy pasting the docs in replies to questions).

Writing good documentation is a skill that takes a non-trivial amount of time to develop. It also takes time to write.

Keeping documentation up to date is hard and takes time/effort.

Poorly written or out of date documentation is worse than no documentation.

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

#772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really not that hard to prep for interviews.... Why take the paycut?

The prep itself may not be that hard. Depending on your non-work life, finding the time to do said prep may be difficult. I would like to double my comp. I also have young kids who occupy most of my wake-work and then work-sleep time. There are maybe three hours at the end of the day that aren't spoken for, but then there's housework, spouse time, and just being tired. It's difficult to fit "grind leetcode" in there.…

If it’s helpful i got into the leetcode grind in a similar situation by getting up 60-90 minutes early and doing 1-2 questions a few times a week. Thoroughly understanding top 50-100 questions will take you very far. So long as you do similar questions in groups (ex: all binary tree questions) it makes it easier to understand and retain. Then even if you take long breaks between study (months), you’ll mostly retain the underlying techniques and can just refresh when it’s time to interview (ex: a week off work for a final review). it’s very annoying. But don’t sell youself short, you can mix the grind with breaks to retain some sanity. Just make sure to have a plan (ex: do top 100 questions )

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

#773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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'".

It's perfectly OK to blame the agile manifesto. Part of the issue with the agile manifesto is it was written by developers, which makes it sound credible. In addition, you have a lot of cult adoption by developers, which made it difficult to refute. Once law is written in stone and some boundaries are established, that's when business processes come in and do what they do best: see how to manipulate their actions around that language to get what they desire from what is accepted/legal. They tend to always find paths around the bounds that lead to new undesired behaviors.

I used to run public community driven online video game servers in a different era and they were quite popular, sometimes the most active/hearts in their communities. One thing I always struggled with was writing down rules for player behavior on the servers. Once I write a rule it does two things: establishes what NOT to do explicitly, but opens a huge gray area of what isn't explicitly defined that can be done or opens up a subjective gray area that shouldn't be done but is not clearly defined. I now have to enumerate everything I don't want people to do which may be a massive list if you want clarity and no ambiguity. People get creative, always, and find new undesirable behaviors within your rule framework.

In the end, when you write some base rules, the only real solution is to continually ammend the bounds of your rule system over time to adapt and adapt, leaving less surface area to attack. This is why the US legal system is so darn complex. Basic constitional laws are established, some explicit don'ts, some explicit dos, and everything missing becomes questionable. I didn't want to do this on a video game server because... it's a video game server, nor did I have the time. I instead took the "it's private property and I am the tyrrant approach" and wrote a very simple rule to play with etiquette, then ruled over the server benevolently (at least I think so, joining anonymously for occasional sampling to adjust some server settings I found being abused and never banning people just because they were unenjoyable to play with) and it worked well. The servers remained the most popular servers.

The agile manifesto never adapted and business leadership is who calls the shots. A culture said let's adopt this and businesses said ok, sure, then this is how we're going to interpret these poorly defined bounds. You said this is what you wanted and everyone agrees so here you go. For the US constitution, vagueness and broadness works well because it was designed to be a living, extendable, changeable document. The agile manifesto is not. Given how well businesses skirt around the meaning of law to do legally, ethically, and morally questionable practices, what hope does some silly manifesto with no teeth someone writes have? Business rule as small little hierarchical dictatorships with tyrants ontop within a democracy and I've found the characteristics that compose leadership is often the opposite of benevolence. Be careful what you ask for in such environments, your requests will be twisted against you.

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

#774
post #270

To me, working from home during the pandemic has made my employer fungible. Having to commute to work used to mean that where my job was located mattered. Being physically located at the office meant more socializing with coworkers, so companies could offer perks, like free food, or social events. They could differentiate from other companies by offering these things or selling their "culture". None of that matters a…

This reply resonates the most with me. I absolutely agree.

The difference in how the day-to-day activities 'feel' between company A and company B just isn't as big anymore now with full remote.

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

#775
post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends where in Europe. In Germany, if you lose your job you still have to pay for health insurance, at least the first three months until your unemployment kicks in (assuming you're eligible for it, like in most cases) and I don't know if unemployment covers your health insurance. If you are married and you and your spouse were on the same statutory health insurance, then you're covered by your spouse. Which can be…

it's impossible (i.e. illegal) in Germany to be uninsured. you may have to pay yourself depending on the situation (I had to do it once between jobs), but the amount you have to pay is not crazy, and there are no people who have no health insurance because they can't afford it. For example, if you are eligible for ALG II (aka Hartz IV, i.e. long-term unemployment benefits), your health insurance is automatically paid…

If you're not eligible for ALG II (so I guess your first year of unemployment), do you have to pay for insurance from your unemployment benefits?

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

#776

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 le…

That's a pretty harsh categorization. I am a hiring manager at my company and I echo GP's thoughts almost exactly. An extended history of 2-year engagements is not necessarily a dealbreaker, but it requires explanation. The hiring and onboarding process is arduous enough without having to repeat it every two years for every position.

I get what you're saying about the salaries -- our company just recently started a program to normalize salaries with the market and it was certainly sorely needed as we had become notably out of sync. But from the perspective of the business, we don't start getting a strong positive ROI out of a new hire until about a year in. To turn over staff after less than two years is a real cost to us and potential employees that are prone to that are often not the best choices when that risk is factored in.

I also reject your false dichotomy. There are not just two reasons to stay at a company for 10 years. You could, as just one example, strongly care about the mission of the organization and/or the work that you are doing. People do work at nonprofits despite their generally lower salaries.

I'm sure you have pursued all avenues with the company you are currently at, but on the off chance you haven't tried it, I suggest talking frankly with your manager about your market value (backed up with hard numbers from reputable sources) and pointing out that their cost to replace you _and train your replacement_ would greatly exceed the cost of bringing you up to a competitive salary. If the manager has latitude and a brain, this might work for you.

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

#777

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was quite satisfied with the position I was in at the last two companies I left. All the things you mention matter to me, but I added 50% to my salary on my first jump, then another 110% on my second. All in just over a year. Money is still my primary driver. It will be until I am fully financially independent. Not just able to live on a FIRE budget of $30k a year, but able to chase my own fairly expensive interest…

How many years of experience do you have?

About four.

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

#778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ta…

Yeah, Agile is not the OP's problem. Some director made some comments about a direction, and zoom! Off all the middle managers went, trying to kiss up to him, and implement what he said in the most dramatic way, in order to get that next promotion, or at least more headcount. And now it's, "Just the way we do things around here. Like it or leave."

His problem, as with all these types of things, is management. Of all people, we here on this forum ought to be able to call a spade a spade. But even we fall victim to blaming the process or the tool. Over and over again, the problem is management, and we should call it out.

The biggest problem with large corporations is managers who sacrifice long-term company success for short-term personal success. Smaller corporations can often get rid of such managers, but past a certain size -- and that's not really very large -- bad managers can become entrenched as they hire and/or promote sycophants to prop up their power plays. I have 27 years in the blue-chip Fortune 250 world, and I've seen it over and over and over again.

We're going to have to change large parts of the tax code in order to fix this problem, so that companies do NOT get a tax break by giving stock options as compensation. Until that is no longer the case, you will have people -- and rightfully so -- deliberately and predictably responding to huge financial incentives to do LONG TERM damage to the company with SHORT TERM thinking. The C-levels should stop this nonsense, despite the tax incentives, but, of course, the problem is only worse at that level.

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

#779
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…

> 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. When I first moved into management roles I didn’t fully understand how much of my job would be simply saying “no” to a constant stream of engineers wanting to write or rewrite custom tools, libraries, frameworks and platforms when otherwise sufficiently go…

> You couldn’t use GitHub, Slack, or even our cloud platform without first learning how to navigate all of the custom tools and bots that had been put together to gate access to everything and make it work.

First time in a really big org and I can see this as well. The worst part is trying to tie someone down to explain how to use their custom tool or bot or even entire systems. How do I use that custom BI tool that you setup ... oh no-one wants to even send me an email reply when I ask a simple question about these things.

The way most stuff gets done in these orgs is various maverick people who find some way to work around all this crap. The problem is you have to have political clout to do that most employees don't have that.

I think these "meta-tool" are initially well intentioned but as you say they become empire building tools.

Worst still is that the teams that build them often leave or are disbanded. Then no one is responsible and no one wants to touch them and they sit in this weird limbo state.

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

#780
post #40
post #8

There comes a point where the money just isn't a motivating factor anymore, and companies are struggling to figure out how to work in that environment. This bit from the author hits the nail on the head: >Is an extra $10k per year worth learning a new org, a new skillset, a new set of expectations, a new set of coworkers, and a new boss? For many engineers, the answer is: “No.” Yes I could quit and get a ~20k raise b…

I do not disagree with your take, but I think you may only be speaking for a subset of engineers that are already fairly well compensated. The article likewise seems to discard the importance of money in favor of three other more immaterial factors, but I do not think this is representative of the situation of the global job market right now. I also think such a perspective can not fully explain the difficulties that…

> If you look outside of coastal cities, there are plenty of job offers for engineering jobs that pay less than 6 figures. Over in Europe and East Asia, $50 to $60k salaries are the norm.

Indeed, the population of people who post on this board are very binomial, and it often causes blanket statements to be confusing to one side or the other.

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