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How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

blog.kuperate.com

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Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#11

Post by ameminator »

nicholasjarnold wrote: post #2

I've been involved in hiring decisions on teams I've been part of for a long time now. Blatant plagiarism, obvious embellishments and more subtle BS is literally part of the game unfortunately. This is particularly prevalent when dealing with (almost) any consultancy, large and small. I will not specifically call out names, but the some of the largest and most well known consultancies do this as a matter of practice…

>It's sad, but honestly the prevalence of these practices (and perhaps growth of them?) only makes the genuine among us more valuable.

I wish this were the case, but I don't think it's true. On the one hand, real, proven experts do get called in to fix these phonies' messes. On the other, often these people succeed often enough that it devalues our labor as a whole. Finally, if employers cannot determine real experts from fake, then it means they won't pay real experts their full worth (eg 'full worth' of 100k, 5% chance it's a fake = pay of 95k).

These costs of lower trust show up elsewhere, but they are hard to quantify and make everyone's life worse.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#12

Post by jsiaajdsdaa »

barrenko wrote: post #6

Maybe they've read "Designing Data-Intensive applications". (Semi-joke)

To be fair, if you can actually implement the strategies within using real technology (AWS, your own kafka cluster etc), then you deserve to be senior.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#13

Post by paxys »

I know a few people who have gone this route and now have very successful careers. Getting a job as a new grad is hard as it is, and if you are on a visa you barely have a month or two before you must obtain sponsorship or pack up and leave the country. "Consultancies" like this one give you a buffer, beef up your resume with fake experience and give you interview training, with the end goal of getting you a permanent tech job and getting a cut of your salary for the first N months.

Honestly, I don't even fault them for it. The author seemed a bit naive about the situation he was getting into, and he left, which is fair. Ultimately this whole thing is just a symptom of a broken immigration and hiring system. If an embellished resume can fool an entire big tech interview panel and the candidate actually does good work for them moving forward, who should take the blame for it?

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#15

Post by flatiron »

a4isms wrote: post #7

There is no standard whatsoever for the adjective "Senior" when applied to engineers: Sometimes it means, "Able to work without someone looking over their shoulder at all times." Sometimes it means, "Able to lead and mentor others." And sometimes it means, "Has organizational skills above and beyond engineering skills, able to lead cross-team initiatives and deal with all the human/organization issues around the engi…

Sometimes it means “someone who can bill $300 an hour” with no relation to actual ability. I was a “senior” three years out of college and I had no clue what in the world I was doing.

Come to think of it after 20 years I kinda still feel that way.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#16

Post by a4isms »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #9
a4isms wrote: post #7

There is no standard whatsoever for the adjective "Senior" when applied to engineers: Sometimes it means, "Able to work without someone looking over their shoulder at all times." Sometimes it means, "Able to lead and mentor others." And sometimes it means, "Has organizational skills above and beyond engineering skills, able to lead cross-team initiatives and deal with all the human/organization issues around the engi…

If you look around Indeed, Senior Engineer is basically equal to 5 years experience.

Pardon me while I blow the dust off the standard quip about "years of experience:"

"Is that one year of experience, repeated five times?"

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#17

Post by user_7832 »

Side note: there are (legitimate) training services that teach coding and interviewimg skills that have a setup where they try to get you a job (without fudging your CV). If you don't get a job you pay very little, but if you get a (good) job you pay similar to 10% or your salary for a few years. A pretty smart and entrepreneurial arrangement in my opinion. (Unfortunate I don't remember the name or further details, I had read this in the newspaper in Mumbai perhaps 4 years ago.)

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#18

Post by alex_anglin »

a4isms wrote: post #7

There is no standard whatsoever for the adjective "Senior" when applied to engineers: Sometimes it means, "Able to work without someone looking over their shoulder at all times." Sometimes it means, "Able to lead and mentor others." And sometimes it means, "Has organizational skills above and beyond engineering skills, able to lead cross-team initiatives and deal with all the human/organization issues around the engi…

In the context of 'IT Consulting Companies,' which the blog post is about, it means that clients are paying a higher billable rate than for more 'junior' staff.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#19

Post by gjsman-1000 »

a4isms wrote: post #16
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look around Indeed, Senior Engineer is basically equal to 5 years experience.

Pardon me while I blow the dust off the standard quip about "years of experience:" "Is that one year of experience, repeated five times?"

In my job, I was able to get a position just as "Software Developer." I didn't like devaluing "Software Engineer" and I didn't want to be seen as a WordPress guy if I used "Web Developer." (My job is web development with Laravel.) And lastly, I didn't want to be called "Junior" (because I have less than 5 years experience).

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#20

Post by a4isms »

flatiron wrote: post #15
a4isms wrote: post #7

There is no standard whatsoever for the adjective "Senior" when applied to engineers: Sometimes it means, "Able to work without someone looking over their shoulder at all times." Sometimes it means, "Able to lead and mentor others." And sometimes it means, "Has organizational skills above and beyond engineering skills, able to lead cross-team initiatives and deal with all the human/organization issues around the engi…

Sometimes it means “someone who can bill $300 an hour” with no relation to actual ability. I was a “senior” three years out of college and I had no clue what in the world I was doing. Come to think of it after 20 years I kinda still feel that way.

I have demonstrated my ability to convince clients to pay amounts of money like this for my skills. And yes, the not-so-secret thing about consulting is that if you're able to convince a client that you're worth $500 an hour, it's just easy to convince them to pay $300 an hour for the work of a colleague of yours they've never seen.
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