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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

#131

Post by jrochkind1 »

paxys wrote: post #13

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 permanen…

One real moral of this story may be that the immigration system is so broken, and it has cascading consequences. Why not let people on student visas stay longer while job-searching?

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

#133

Post by selestify »

iancmceachern wrote: post #126
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.

Exactly my point, folks with privilege like yourself don't even understand what privilege they have and have taken advantage of their whole life. I did (apply myself). I did work my ass off to get into, and out of, (good) engineering school and pay for it also. It simply wasn't an option for me to go to an expensive private or out of state school with a price tag of a couple hundred thousand dollars. So I went to the…

My family was so poor, I got into college for free. Talk about unprivileged.

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

#134

Post by amelius »

gambiting wrote: post #95
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is highly likely that the former vice president of a startup is actually from one of those two small corners of the US (given that these also seem to be hot startup scenes), so it isn't a weird assumption for senior roles (not new grad ones). It isn't mentioned if she is a SWE or not, however, which would make a huge difference.

I don't know, I think saying that it's "typical" to be paid 250k as a graduate is pretty damn weird.

Perhaps the thinking is: if you keep saying it, it may become true.

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

#135

Post by camhart »

danielvaughn wrote: post #120
ska wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

"It's interesting, these titles," Musk said. "You know that there's actually only three titles that actually mean anything for a corporation? It's president, secretary, and treasurer. And technically they can be the same person. And all these other titles are just basically made up. So CEO is a made-up title, CFO is a made-up title. General counsel, a made-up title. They don't mean anything."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXtjnNWUeAk

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

#136

Post by a4isms »

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.

My sole stint as a VP was in a thirteen-person startup. I had that title for pseudo-legal reasons, we needed a VP.

My later role as Director of a 50-person engineering group in a 200-person startup was way more relevant in terms of my experience managing development.

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

#138

Post by vsareto »

Swizec wrote: post #34
nebulous_two wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So imposter syndrome is justified sometimes is what you're saying?

To quote a meme: “You all can’t have impostor syndrome, some of you gotta just be bad at your jobs”

If we're going that route, then there are definitely a good number of jobs that will make you look bad no matter how good you really are.

Companies can be imposters too; we just like to blame the workers first.

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

#139

Post by thealfreds »

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.

I like how the person above can also say the following.

> Why is it nonsense? The wealthy and connected can already give their progeny undue access to opportunities via their social networks, and can afford the best education that money can buy. That's already way more of an advantage than the average citizen gets. Besides, the whole point is to maximize equality of opportunity.

For computers, not everyone can afford computers in America. I was lucky to find a job walking fields as a child to afford one but that opportunity doesn't exist for everyone.

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

#140

Post by t-writescode »

selestify wrote: post #118
gambiting wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Quoted post unavailable.

Blue collar workers are some of the hardest working people I know. Some of them make as much as 40k per year. Yes, I said "as much".

You really, really need to check yourself. You have no idea how good you have it.

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