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How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

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

#111

Post by selestify »

gambiting wrote: post #103
selestify wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I was paid nearly $200k on graduation. And I was the least paid out of all my classmates, because I went to Seattle instead of Silicon Valley.

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

#112

Post by hourislate »

yunyu wrote: post #43
robbyking wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A quarter million dollars is what a typical new grad offer looks like nowadays

Post W2 or it's not true.

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

#113

Post by hhlevnjak3 »

tom-thistime wrote: post #84
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…

'Senior Engineer' is just a pay grade. I'm sorry, maybe the world should be a saner place, but that's how it is.

And it often just means: most senior person working on this project or for this company. Even if that's 1 or 2 years of experience.

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

#114

Post by gambiting »

selestify wrote: post #101
iancmceachern wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah yes, after all a lottery winner will advise everyone around them to play lottery - clearly it works, they are the best example.

Once again, you are refusing to acknowledge that the word "typical" is not appropriate here. Even in your example it's not typical for American people to achieve that American dream, as America is absolutely awful on the social mobility scale.

Edit: also it's really classy you are just deleting your replies to my comments instead of actually engaging in a discussion. Your choice I suppose.

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

#115

Post by oriolid »

sailingparrot wrote: post #83
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…

>since the entire field is about solving problems efficiently. The entire theoretical CS field yes. In the practical field of CS engineering, this is only a subset of the useful competences and a small one at that . Communication, working as part of team, reliability, ability to look up and learn things you don't currently know, caring about the state of the code you write, mentoring others, being able/willing to pus…

I used to have a co-worker exactly like you describe. He was great for consulting business: the clients liked him him so much that they hired two additional consultants. One to fix everything that he broke and another to do the job he was supposed to do and took credit for.

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

#116

Post by g051051 »

The apartment mentioned in the article stirred up some memories.

Back in the early 90's, I worked for a company that had a long term contract for software development and support in another city. The team that worked on that project would rotate up and stay in an apartment that the company maintained there. While I never worked on the project and never saw the apartment, I heard many tales about it, which indicated that it was terrible. Too small, non-functioning amenities, just an utter dive. The team that worked there would just grouse about it to other devs, but never said anything to management, because they assumed they were just being cheap.

Well, someone finally mentioned it (probably during an exit interview) and management was shocked. They had been paying top dollar for what they thought was a luxury apartment, and instead were getting ripped off. I think they wound up getting a different, better apartment for the devs.

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

#118

Post by selestify »

gambiting wrote: post #114
selestify wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah yes, after all a lottery winner will advise everyone around them to play lottery - clearly it works, they are the best example. Once again, you are refusing to acknowledge that the word "typical" is not appropriate here. Even in your example it's not typical for American people to achieve that American dream, as America is absolutely awful on the social mobility scale. Edit: also it's really classy you are just de…

No post body was provided.

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

#119

Post by derwiki »

ska wrote: post #109
robbyking wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Sometimes they do! My last company worked with title companies and it’s a little “insulting” to send less than a director to meet with them.

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

#120

Post by danielvaughn »

ska wrote: post #109
robbyking wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Yep, indeed. I'm technically the CTO of the startup I'm helping to found. And even though I'm 37, I haven't been in tech long enough to feel like I've earned that title, so my LinkedIn says Chief Software Architect (I made it up).
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