And I suppose this is the opposite of Apple's strategy. There was a recent WashingtonPost article, apparently, any employee once they quit Apple (and become ex-employee) - HR changes their title to "Associate" - this affects future job verification & prospects, and someone filed a lawsuit on this.
How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
231–240 of 332 posts
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Ugh, I encountered this a few times early in my career (early 2000s.) The worst case was a team from a large, expensive, high-end consulting company. There was one A player who was fast and sharp and absolutely invaluable, two developers who were slow but diligent, one guy who everybody avoided because he was pissed off that he wasn't as smart as the A player, and one engineer who spent all day in front of an IDE but…
What a sad story!
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#233Earlier 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...
Also, oddly, banks, where everyone seems to be a VP at the very least.
In banks in engineering it was once explained to me, that dev salaries require a title (in comparison with other staff). Hence ordinary developers are often titled AVP, VP or AD.
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Please stop using that word. It sucks the life from you because you think it excuses you from self analyzing why you aren't happy where you are. Life is not fair if you are a human, cat, squirrel or mouse. We are born into a specific set of conditions...look around and move but please stop using the word privilege. Everyone and everything is different.
Just what is it with extra privileged people and being allergic to admitting it.
You seriously, honestly, from the bottom of your heart, think that 90% of the 70k people living in the Complexo do Alemão are just lazy and don't fix their lives due to sloth?
Before you start, I'm happy with my life and my circumstances.
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#235Earlier 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...
Also, oddly, banks, where everyone seems to be a VP at the very least.
I think this is mostly a technical requirement related to signing authority (e.g. for lots of things you need to be an officer).
Of course, the VP being the threshold target role for this is a choice, but it seems to be useful in contexts like banks to have some sort of dividing line.
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#236Where I was at senior was the base title. Then there were numbers after the title and team lead after.
At the time I would not have marketed myself as a senior but that's what they paid me as/my title and I kept the job for almost two and a half years so I guess I'm senior?
I avoid using the word engineer though as I don't have a degree.
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#237Earlier 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.
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…
Exactly, and not everyone knows to go do this stuff. It's like this NPR piece on why there are so many sprinters in Jamaica.
https://www.npr.org/2012/05/04/151956595/a-need-for-speed-in...
Spoiler - it's because it's seen by kids. If a kid in Jamaica wants to be a runner it's obvious to them what to do. Its being told to them every day in their sports entertainment, local events, advertising, etc. It a kid in Jamaica wants to be a CS person, they have no clue what to do. No TV ads, local clubs, events, races, all grooming them day by day to he a better programmer. We have that in the US, in the Bay area, etc. We are grooming young STEM folks from the beginning.
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#238Earlier 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.
This is hilarious because I recently had a junior dev come to me to discuss issues they were having with their (incompetent) software manager. She said "I don't understand why he doesn't understand the technical aspects. It must be me...I must be bad at communicating because [the manager] was a CTO at a startup!" I literally laughed out loud. Her communication skills were fantastic, but she was so new and naive to th…
Depends on the startup to be fair.
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
How long have you been in tech? I'm 41 and have been in tech since I was 17 :) I've been calling myself an Architect but after working with some experienced CTOs.. lets say I now know my value/position. If I ever work for someone else then that's the minimum position I'd take.
I've got about 10 years of experience, I didn't discover my knack for programming until my late 20s, unfortunately.
Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
The funny thing is that I might assume a CEO/CTO at a small startup has less experience than a "Chief Software Architect." My assumption would be that the executives are founders and that there's not a minimum experience requirement for founders.
Interesting, hadn't thought of that. But wouldn't you assume the same of an architect at a small startup?