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Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

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Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#501

Post by devwastaken »

zer00eyz wrote: post #315

I survived the dot com crash (yes I'm old). I have hired (interviewing team member, or hiring manager) hundreds of engineers. If you are hearing "let me know if I can help" (number 5) you might be doing something wrong. You should be hearing some version of " I will talk to my boss" or "I will call for you" or "XXX person I know is looking". I have a list of about 30 people who if they call me I'm going to go out of…

If this is what's necessary for experienced devs, imagine all the students and upcoming devs that are not allowed a foot in the door. The great social barrier that keeps jobs in very specific parts of the U.S.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#502

Post by pjmorris »

zer00eyz wrote: post #315

I survived the dot com crash (yes I'm old). I have hired (interviewing team member, or hiring manager) hundreds of engineers. If you are hearing "let me know if I can help" (number 5) you might be doing something wrong. You should be hearing some version of " I will talk to my boss" or "I will call for you" or "XXX person I know is looking". I have a list of about 30 people who if they call me I'm going to go out of…

Hear, hear, agree wholeheartedly.

I, too, survived the dot com crash, and, too, benefited from and serve as part of the kind of network described above. When it comes to job hunting, my two favorite career stats are having helped a friend get a job I was interviewing for and working at least a second time for four different former managers. I actually just talked to one yesterday, we hadn't worked together in 20 years.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#503

Post by greedo »

steveBK123 wrote: post #490
w10-1 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We brought along the people we thought were the best, who we got along with, who would get the job done" I really appreciate the sentiment. In my experience such networks have been self-serving and mostly exclusionary, rewarding loyalty more than competence. "You need to make some changes" is not particularly helpful when you're outside the fold. What's typically unstated is something about loyalty, esp. not disclos…

Your first comment re: exclusionary is simply a filter for the flip side of your 2nd point. The damage of a bad hire is 10x as bad as the positive impact of a good hire. A network of competent, easy to get along with people allows one to avoid the truly bad hires that we've all experienced. Sure you may view it as exclusionary, but if you're hiring for seniors, and been in your niche a decade or more.. the likelihood…

I'm not sure about the 10x part. On my team I have roughly 15 coworkers. Two are pretty useless, or at least perform at a level dramatically lower than the other 13. So how do we deal with it? Like the Internet, we route around them. Sure they're a waste of company resources/money, but big companies often waste so much money in IT that it's not really a significant factor.

Now if your team is very small, one or two bad apples can be quite damaging.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#504

Post by greedo »

parineum wrote: post #365
w10-1 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We brought along the people we thought were the best, who we got along with, who would get the job done" I really appreciate the sentiment. In my experience such networks have been self-serving and mostly exclusionary, rewarding loyalty more than competence. "You need to make some changes" is not particularly helpful when you're outside the fold. What's typically unstated is something about loyalty, esp. not disclos…

> In my experience such networks have been self-serving and mostly exclusionary, rewarding loyalty more than competence. I think that's all true except for the "more than competence" part and it's a good thing. Competence is directly related to loyalty. When you recommend someone for a job and they excel, it makes you look good. It makes you loyal to them and giving the opportunity makes them more loyal to you. If so…

Loyalty, like love, can be blind. One of the best SREs I work with, is just a stellar performer. Over delivers, solves complex problems quickly and with well thought out and reliable solutions. We needed another SRE, so we hired his best friend. Terrible employee, both in what they deliver and how they act. Night and day difference from the first SRE.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#505

Post by FpUser »

anon50118810 wrote: post #488
FpUser wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"There's really no way to hide you're currently unemployed" It is absolutely trivial. >"but you'll also get tons of interview questions about skills and projects and challenges from your current job" Your last job unless it is 10 years old should provide all of the answers. Any really identifying details should not be asked / answered as the employee is normally under NDA. Same for references. Reference from "curren…

While interviewing in the U.S. you'll get a lot of casual questions about your current job, such as what you like best about it, what skills you use there or why you want to leave. These will come from the recruiter, the manager and your future peers. These are both technical and social questions. Refusing to answer any of these questions would be very weird socially, and even very restrictive NDAs should allow you t…

>"While interviewing in the U.S. you'll get a lot of casual questions about your current job, such as what you like best about it, what skills you use there or why you want to leave. "

These fall perfectly into experience with last job. Does not have to be current. And all those questions you asked are trivial. Also I've never dealt with the recruiters. I have always searched and found perspective companies myself and no they were not Amazon big type. If I could not speak with the owner I would simply walk away - not my kind of place.

My first programming job in Canada - I just simply walked into the office and asked to speak to the owner (I knew it was small 20 person consultancy).

Since 2000 I am on my own but I still find clients and have interviews. Just a different type of interview of course.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#506

Post by Noumenon72 »

falcolas wrote: post #293
paulpauper wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Verbal and math ability are highly correlated, as suggested by IQ and SAT scores. People who are good at math tend to be above average at writing too.

It took me many years to figure out how to write. Finally, I figured out how to apply that math side of my brain to writing: I treat sentences like math exercises; that is to say I learned how to show my work. Ironically, I feel that this also helps me identify AI writing since it never shows its work; it has a tendency to mix together multiple "answers" in a swirling morass of leadership-speak (a mixture of manageme…

> I treat sentences like math exercises; that is to say I learned how to show my work.

Comports with the advice from _The Sense of Structure_ by George Gopen. You start every sentence with context that links back to the sentence before, and end it with the new information you want it to emphasize. Like a string of steps in a geometry proof.

https://www.americanscientist.org/blog/the-long-view/the-sci...

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#507

Post by avianlyric »

greedo wrote: post #504
parineum wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my experience such networks have been self-serving and mostly exclusionary, rewarding loyalty more than competence. I think that's all true except for the "more than competence" part and it's a good thing. Competence is directly related to loyalty. When you recommend someone for a job and they excel, it makes you look good. It makes you loyal to them and giving the opportunity makes them more loyal to you. If so…

Loyalty, like love, can be blind. One of the best SREs I work with, is just a stellar performer. Over delivers, solves complex problems quickly and with well thought out and reliable solutions. We needed another SRE, so we hired his best friend. Terrible employee, both in what they deliver and how they act. Night and day difference from the first SRE.

> We needed another SRE, so we hired his best friend.

Well there was your mistake. You should have hired the best SRE he knows, not his best friend.

I’m good friends with many software engineers, but the strength of our friendship has no correlation with their engineering capabilities.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#508

Post by steveBK123 »

greedo wrote: post #503
steveBK123 wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first comment re: exclusionary is simply a filter for the flip side of your 2nd point. The damage of a bad hire is 10x as bad as the positive impact of a good hire. A network of competent, easy to get along with people allows one to avoid the truly bad hires that we've all experienced. Sure you may view it as exclusionary, but if you're hiring for seniors, and been in your niche a decade or more.. the likelihood…

I'm not sure about the 10x part. On my team I have roughly 15 coworkers. Two are pretty useless, or at least perform at a level dramatically lower than the other 13. So how do we deal with it? Like the Internet, we route around them. Sure they're a waste of company resources/money, but big companies often waste so much money in IT that it's not really a significant factor. Now if your team is very small, one or two b…

Maybe you've not gotten the truly bad apples, or have enough process in place to mitigate.

I've been in environments with people who are breaking things at a rate that causes a day of their work to cause more than a day of work for others.

Fighting with management for months and then shunting them off to their own 'strategic branch' for 6 months was the only way to protect the team until they were fired.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#509

Post by marcinzm »

_jdzr wrote: post #491
marcinzm wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In my experience such networks have been self-serving and mostly exclusionary, rewarding loyalty more than competence. The point being? That is how human social network and constructs work. The ultimate point is to help yourself and not based on some ephemeral grand concept. No matter how competent someone is why would I want to work with them if they will stab me in the back one day? Incompetent people will indirec…

> No matter how competent someone is why would I want to work with them if they will stab me in the back one day? Let me say this bluntly: everyone has the ability to stab some anyone in the back. Maybe some have had the unique pleasure of not needing to be in a position to do this, which is great for them, but highly unrealistic for an overwhelming majority of people. Bad situations bring the worst out in people. Ba…

Nothing in life is absolute but that doesn't mean everything in life is equal. Some people will stab you in the back more likely than others. Other will be more likely to provide support for you in a difficult situation. Likewise competence isn't an absolute value but changes with times and there is both current and future competence. Consequence for actions and judgement of others does not mean absolutes.

If you want to actively aim to have coworkers that in your own judgement are more likely to stab you in the back and more likely to be incompetent for the job at hand then you do you. I'll go with having mutually supportive coworkers who are capable of doing the job at hand.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#510

Post by marcinzm »

naasking wrote: post #456
marcinzm wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In my experience such networks have been self-serving and mostly exclusionary, rewarding loyalty more than competence. The point being? That is how human social network and constructs work. The ultimate point is to help yourself and not based on some ephemeral grand concept. No matter how competent someone is why would I want to work with them if they will stab me in the back one day? Incompetent people will indirec…

Loyalty is not a quality that should be selected for. Someone could be "stabbing you in the back" because you're doing something wrong, either morally or because your choices are not good for the business, which is ostensibly what you both should be working towards. Demanding or expecting loyalty blinds you to important signals. Loyalty is a huge failure of human reasoning, and it's frankly bizarre that people see it…

You're confusing giving feedback or pushing back with stabbing in the back. Someone loyal will tell you the truth to your face or confront you directly understanding that you mutually trust each other. In fact the people I consider most loyal are the ones most likely to call me out in situations and give me a different perspective.
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