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What would a recession mean for developers?

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Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#111

Post by pragmatic »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #71
usrbinbash wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a significant backlash at least in the startup space to "whiteboard coding" Good. Whiteboard coding is probably one of the least useful methods I have ever seen to evaluate candidates. It tells me nothing about the persons actual qualification and can be gamed.

While I agree that it won't tell you if a candidate is good, it will often show very quickly that a candidate is absolutely terrible. My warm-up questions are usually something like "reverse a singly-linked-list" or "check if a string is a palindrome", and you would be surprised at how many people have just no clue on how to do it, even with a lot of help (and I work in a FAANG so we should be getting decent candidat…

FAANG recruiters usually prep you for the interview so that’s kind of crazy so many fail.

On the other hand, usage of linked lists in the wild can be rather limited outside c/c++. Only languages I’ve used them a lot and then only when I was teaching algorithms and data structures.

I think I used a linked list for a MRU list in a menu someplace ages ago in c# winforms app.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#112

Post by journey_16162 »

I'm bootstrapping a small software product and working as a contractor to support myself. I have been long thinking about switching to a full time job instead. After reading the recent comments here and in other threads, it seems like getting some 100k seed funding may be easier than getting a new job.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#113

Post by throwaway675309 »

kcartlidge wrote: post #110
iLoveOncall wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that it won't tell you if a candidate is good, it will often show very quickly that a candidate is absolutely terrible. My warm-up questions are usually something like "reverse a singly-linked-list" or "check if a string is a palindrome", and you would be surprised at how many people have just no clue on how to do it, even with a lot of help (and I work in a FAANG so we should be getting decent candidat…

> My warm-up questions are usually something like "reverse a singly-linked-list" or "check if a string is a palindrome" I've written sites, apps, ORMs, enterprise tools, code generators, FAAS platforms from scratch, exporters for DOCX and EPUB, etc etc for decades. I've been junior, mid, senior, lead of two teams. I've transitioned companies to cloud, created data warehouses, built BI universes. All sorts of stuff ov…

Those are pretty basic algorithmic questions, even if somebody's never heard of a linked list or a palindrome, anyone with even a minimal understanding of algorithms should be able to describe in pseudo code how to solve them.

They're not guaranteeing that an applicant is necessarily right for the job, but they do separate the chaff from the wheat proverbially speaking.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#114

Post by Silhouette »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #105
Silhouette wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is at least understandable. It is a finite resource after all. What I really don't get is employers who are still pushing for other conditions that will deter good people from applying - things like annoying processes or insisting on hybrid working instead of allowing fully remote if there is no clear benefit to those policies.

It's true. We are based out of Dallas and we interviewed a great QA candidate this week from the East Coast who, when asked what the reason for looking for another job was, said that their employer had a hybrid policy, but after having experienced fully remote working, they never wanted to go back to that.

I recently saw an open survey by a recruiter who I think works mainly with experienced software contractors. He was asking what everyone's priorities were when choosing their next gig.

Almost without exception the responses were a good rate, being fully remote and being outside IR35 (an infamous government regulation here in the UK that makes some types of gig very unattractive). The next most popular was having a simple application process with anything more than one discussion widely considered excessive for a short contract.

Obviously the rate is a money thing. You can only escape IR35 based on what your working arrangements are so if you're caught then you just have to accept that some people won't work with you. But for almost all software development gigs there is no sensible reason to exclude good people because they often prefer fully remote work and in the world of contracting you're just shooting yourself in the foot if you expect anyone good to go through "only" three or four stages of your application process.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#115

Post by throwaway675309 »

devwastaken wrote: post #23
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #2

The market being harder for juniors seems correct from what I’m seeing. I’ve been looking frequently for the last month to see what’s out there, and virtually no one I’ve noticed is seeking junior developers.

As Ive said for over a year now - CS grads cant get hired. Companies are not knocking on their door. Unis have to go out of their way to get companies to even associate. What you hear of big hiring is select schools in select places. Corps want experienced devs, they do not want to create experienced devs. They get away with this because there's no standards like any other field of engineering. We don't band together…

As a senior in software development, I frequently help out with the recruitment side of whatever companies I'm employed with, and an applicant with a formally accredited degree in computer science definitely stands out as a strong signal to pursue a potential interview with them.

I know at least nominally they'll have some passing familiarity with simulations, discrete mathematics, linear algebra, data structures and algorithms. You can learn all of this information on your own but it's more difficult for me to verify.

While this is not as true if I'm looking to hire a senior engineer, it is significantly more important for entry level positions.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#116

Post by bool3max »

hamdouni wrote: post #99
dougmwne wrote: post #52

What if, and bear with me here for a minute, the software fields are going to fare the best out of everyone? The value of tech investment is no longer in question like it was in 2000. The world's largest companies are tech companies, and it's now accepted wisdom that software is not a cost, but a rocket ship and the rocket ships have just become reusable (due to the magic of software I might add). Maybe it's everyone…

What if IA replace coder or no-code makes coder useless ? Maybe the same heartless MBA would reduce programmer staff ?

The no-code tools have to be maintained by someone.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#117

Post by advael »

bitwize wrote: post #58
advael wrote: post #8

The weird part of this advice to me is all the "CS fundamentals" biz. It's admittedly been quite a while since I've felt the need to go out for "junior" roles, but I have a lot of close friends who are recent boot camp grads, and it seems to me that most success in an interview boils down to interpersonal skills and confidence in problem-solving. There's a significant backlash at least in the startup space to "whiteb…

"Brush up on CS fundamentals" means "grind leetcode" which is already table stakes for getting a job, and about to become more important. In a recession, companies will crack down on candidates with interpersonal skills and confidence but no competence. Interpersonal skills and confidence are deciding factors after you've filtered out the candidates with low technical skill , as determined by leetcode, whiteboard, on…

Honestly to me the most important piece is the willingness and ability to try new things and work under certainty. I have seen first hand time and time again that it is easier for someone who is good at this to learn how to code when the rubber hits the road than it is for someone who knows how to code but isn't comfortable learning on the fly to learn a new python library fast enough to work with the team.

On a super short timescale with no testing feedback loop, 99% of "algorithms" questions are "Have you encountered this thing before" shit tests in practice, rather than meaningful tests of problem-solving skills, and do not effectively test whether someone will be effective. This is to me a classic Goodhart's Law + policy problem: One can easily assess the answer to an algorithm problem, so it's popular as an assessment and becomes pervasive. Goodhart's Law predicts the next part

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#119

Post by kcartlidge »

throwaway675309 wrote: post #113
kcartlidge wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My warm-up questions are usually something like "reverse a singly-linked-list" or "check if a string is a palindrome" I've written sites, apps, ORMs, enterprise tools, code generators, FAAS platforms from scratch, exporters for DOCX and EPUB, etc etc for decades. I've been junior, mid, senior, lead of two teams. I've transitioned companies to cloud, created data warehouses, built BI universes. All sorts of stuff ov…

Those are pretty basic algorithmic questions, even if somebody's never heard of a linked list or a palindrome, anyone with even a minimal understanding of algorithms should be able to describe in pseudo code how to solve them. They're not guaranteeing that an applicant is necessarily right for the job, but they do separate the chaff from the wheat proverbially speaking.

> they do separate the chaff from the wheat

This is where we differ. What they separate isn’t chaff from wheat, but those who can do a specific type of interview from those who can’t. The latter aren’t chaff and the former aren’t wheat.

The only time these kinds of questions/tasks are suitable is if they genuinely represent the work being hired for.

Our opinions on this differ, and that’s fine, so whatever works for you.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#120

Post by KptMarchewa »

steve_adams_86 wrote: post #87
viceroyalbean wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a job posting recently looking for senior developers with 3 years of work experience. I mean, I have 3 years of full time experience + a little more experience working part time and internships, and I would consider myself a junior dev.

I’m in over 10 years now and I find the deeper I go, the less I like this senior title. I mean, what will I be in another 10 years? In 15? These titles are meaningless, really. I agree though, at 3 years I was still fairly junior in the scheme of things. I was doing full stack work and building money-making applications from scratch, but it wasn’t great work. It wasn’t going to scale well, the front end was based on…

Existence of staff (and less prominently, senior staff/principal) titles is now common - IC hierarchy does not end at senior as it did few years ago at 95% companies.
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