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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

#101

Post by selestify »

iancmceachern wrote: post #89
selestify wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you graduate from any top 10 school in the US — which plenty of people do — it is indeed a pretty typical offer Love how I’m downvoted for pointing out a fact. I mean, for fuck’s sake, look at levels.fyi. And look at how many people FAANG and FAANG-adjacent startups hire every year. It’s really not that rare. But hey, stay in denial.

Yeah but this is less than 1/10 of 1% of the number of people that graduate every year. By the same logic you could say that everyone has trust funds, because most of the people in this small slice have them. Just because something applies to the top 0.1% of the US doesn't mean it applies to the rest of the 99.9%. This is the problem with wealth and opportunity disparity in this country. The haves think that the have…

It’s not a choice to apply yourself and get into a good school? I mean seriously, given how hot the US software market is, there’s no excuse.

And FWIW, I come from a poor immigrant background. My family was on welfare. I got free lunch at school. The American dream come true. Sorry that not everyone can hack it in life.

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

#102

Post by dumbfounder »

softwaredoug wrote: post #63

Staff is the new senior Senior is the new “mid level” dev Dev is the new “junior” dev Especially in times when managers want to retain their best, they often can’t get HR to budge on salaries. So they promote them to get them into a competitive salary range.

s/Staff/Lead/

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

#103

Post by gambiting »

selestify wrote: post #94
gambiting wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Milion people graduate from those top 10 universities every year? How big are those universities????

Quoted post unavailable.

But we are specifically talking about graduates being paid quarter of a million dollars, so why are you bringing absolute numbers into the mix? Should I compare it against the absolute number of people working everywhere in the world? Because then that million won't be so large suddenly.

If you want to do this properly tell me how many graduates out of all graduates per year get paid quarter of a million dollars when they start. Because it will be such an insignificant number that again - using the word "typical" to describe it will be just delusional.

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

#104

Post by megapolitics »

druadh wrote: post #41

Not senior, but junior... I recently started Web Development (well, it's been almost a year now). I am technically in a 'Junior' position, but I've read articles stating that it's only detrimental to list yourself as a Junior. What are your thoughts? Am I still a Junior after a year? Should I keep the "Junior" label on my resume/linkedin if I'm still a Junior?

A previous employer of mine gave all devs the title of "Technical Specialist" as opposed to some variation of "Software Developer." They also had a progression system where "Junior" was not actually the lowest rung, but the second-lowest after "Graduate". Needless to say I just put "Software Developer" on my CV without a second thought.

The only time I would recommend putting the "Junior" title on your CV/Linkedin is if you get a promotion which could be perceived as faster-than-average upward progression.

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

#105

Post by pavlov »

selestify wrote: post #64
gambiting wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how HN sometimes behaves as if the entire world is one or two small corners of the US.

If you graduate from any top 10 school in the US — which plenty of people do — it is indeed a pretty typical offer Love how I’m downvoted for pointing out a fact. I mean, for fuck’s sake, look at levels.fyi. And look at how many people FAANG and FAANG-adjacent startups hire every year. It’s really not that rare. But hey, stay in denial.

When a large part of the compensation is stock, it's worth remembering that share prices can go down too.

Meta/FB is down 35% since September. Many public mid-cap software unicorns are down 50%. Smaller companies that IPO'd last year are often down even more than that.

If you joined one of these companies last fall and got a $150k base salary + $400k stock grant that vests over four years, your total compensation was $250k when hired, but is now down to $200k after the stock has lost 50%. Of course the stock price may go up again. (But it also may not, as anyone who lived through 1999-2001 remembers.)

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

#107

Post by selestify »

marcellus23 wrote: post #86
selestify wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you graduate from any top 10 school in the US — which plenty of people do — it is indeed a pretty typical offer Love how I’m downvoted for pointing out a fact. I mean, for fuck’s sake, look at levels.fyi. And look at how many people FAANG and FAANG-adjacent startups hire every year. It’s really not that rare. But hey, stay in denial.

> If you graduate from any top 10 school in the US — which plenty of people do Since when does "typical" mean "graduated from a top 10 school"? That's why you're being downvoted.

Because those schools collectively admit tens of thousands of students every year. It’s not that rare.

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

#108

Post by digisign »

uncomputation wrote: post #42

This is another reason that, while I understand people’s complaints, I still believe CS interviews should include algorithmic and whiteboard tests. I know they may seem “outdated” or “irrelevant” to some, and yes, it is very unlikely that you will need to implement Dijkstra’s algorithm by hand without any reference, but it is more that it shows a general competence in computing which will transfer to other, more rele…

> shows a general competence in computing

It shows you've solved a similar problem recently and have gonads of steel, with a bit of overlap of how good an employee you'll be.

A short test contract after a bit of legwork is far more revealing imho.

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

#109

Post by ska »

robbyking wrote: post #40
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…

On a related note, I dated a woman who was promoted to vice president of a small start up when she was in her 20's. She had to hide her title on her resume when she left because no established firm wanted to hire someone whom they assumed they'd need to pay a quarter million dollars to be competitive. Sometimes grandiose titles can work against you.

> Sometimes grandiose titles can work against you.

Early stage startups can be especially hilarious that way, especially when young founders/early stage employees mistakenly feel they need a "big" title to be taken seriously...

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

#110

Post by patcon »

kodah wrote: post #57

> While I certainly don't approve of these practices, I'm also not saying that these companies are only evil. I view that they serve a very strong need in some corners of the system, like a coding bootcamp for the less fortunate. Absolutely not. I was in college for CS/CE, dropped out during an economic crisis, joined the military, and had to work my way through technician, network engineer, systems engineer, DevOps,…

Saying all this with thoughtful consideration:

First, I hear ya. But I don't feel he's described his colleagues well enough for me to have your convictions. I can tell that even in reading it, I'm dropping into the roles the sorta people I grew up with. And that gives me my own sense of the slippery slope.

For some people there's no path. Military service (USA or Euro or whatever) is a great catch-all that many people use to braid their own bootstraps, and I'm happy you had it, but many people don't have that luxury. I'm not saying it wasn't brutal work and commitment, but access to the ability to DO hard work (with rewards instead of extraction) is often luxury.

Some people need to hustle more, and that usually means being scrappy. I feel for your perspective because I've been on your side, criticizing the tactics of extended family from other cultures. It didn't go well, and I've since learned that what some families need to do to survive and succeed looks very different from what I might assume is right. I don't like it; I don't do it; I don't want it to be that way; but I can't dismiss it.

Anyhow, much love

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