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

stevenbuccini.com

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

#511

Post by dragonwriter »

some_furry wrote: post #379
hgsgm wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has Bostock been overturned? https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/protections-against-emplo...

A ruling by a court isn't the same thing as federal law. There is no federal law establishing my rights, so if a company tries to ask about my personal life (wife, kids, etc.) I politely decline to answer, or I answer vague enough that doesn't give them any useful information.

> A ruling by a court isn’t the same thing as federal law.

A ruling by the Supreme Court applying a federal statute is binding federal law nationally, it can be overturned either by the Supreme Court itself, or by changing the law that the Court applied, but that’s actually stronger than federal statute law that superficially seems to more directly protect a right but which does not have such a confirming opinion.

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

#512

Post by dragonwriter »

jacquesm wrote: post #480
yongjik wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm also curious. When I was at Google there were a list of things you were never supposed to ask a candidate because that's Super Illegal(TM) and could expose the company to lawsuits. That included sexual orientation and marriage status. That was more than ten years ago, I'd expect most IT companies would do the same by now, at least in the US.

There are ways to ask those without being illegal and these are employed quite frequently. Essentially any kind of probing into someone's private life should be off-limits.

> There are ways to ask those without being illegal

Strictly speaking, its not illegal to ask the question. However, because it is illegal to base hiring decisions on it, asking the question is legally dangerous in two ways:

(1) Asking the question in an employment interview is evidence which can tend to support that you intended to use it in a hiring decision, and

(2) The interviewee answering the question is evidence that you had the information, and thus the opportunity to use it in a hiring decision.

As a result, the usual legal advice is to strictly avoid asking the question: you can’t legally use the response, and by asking it you make yourself unnecessarily vulnerable. The idea that it is illegal to ask the question is probably a consequence of this.

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

#513

Post by jonwest »

EamonnMR wrote: post #473
jayceedenton wrote: post #28

> Hard Truth #6: Honesty can only hurt you I think the author has come away with the wrong lesson here. Many engineers, particularly those that don't pay too much heed to social mores, think they have some God-given right to share details of all their private interactions publicly. Every tech test they do is pushed to GitHub with an accompanying blog post. Every interview has a transcript (somewhat one-sided) publish…

I was shocked by that too. Maintaining such a sheet is a good idea, but never _ever_ share it. It's bad operational security. It's also revealing more about you (what other companies think of you) than it is about the companies in question.

Also in making it public—even with operational security flags aside—if I’m seeing that a candidate has been through 30 interviews (arbitrary number), at a certain point it’s a flag for me about why they haven’t reached an accepted offer by that point, regardless if they’re a strong candidate. Would you approach dating the same way? “By the way, here’s all of the dates I’ve been on in the past year and I’m currently still single”—maybe there’s a perfectly valid reason for it, but it’s still going to be off-putting to someone who you’re trying to make a good first impression on. It’s got a non-zero chance to put them in a suspicious place instead of an inquisitive or curious one, which, if you’re still looking for dates (or work), probably isn’t what you want.

Edit: I think it's the difference between "honesty" and "oversharing". It's being honest to say "I've interviewed with multiple companies and we haven't been able to come to a mutually beneficial agreement." It's oversharing to give a pile of details about each of those interviews.

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

#515

Post by fatnoah »

subrat_rout wrote: post #468
fatnoah wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking at the internet, it looks like Sweden supports 300 days of unemployment benefits that max out at 1200 SEK/day (about $115 US). In the US, one can receive up to 210 days of unemployment with a max benefit of $145/week. So yes, there is unemployment insurance in the US, and it pays almost 30% more than in Sweden. There is a HUGE gotcha, though, and that's the cost of health insurance. Unless the former employer…

If Sweden pays $115/day then it comes about $575/week. And if US pays $145/week how it is 30% more than Sweden?

Sorry, it's $145/day

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

#516

Post by fatnoah »

fatnoah wrote: post #352
anticristi wrote: post #336

I would love to read a European, perhaps Swedish version of this article. 12+ months of unemployment insurance is standard here. I guess it doesn't take the loneliness away, but might make unemployment less traumatic.

Looking at the internet, it looks like Sweden supports 300 days of unemployment benefits that max out at 1200 SEK/day (about $115 US). In the US, one can receive up to 210 days of unemployment with a max benefit of $145/week. So yes, there is unemployment insurance in the US, and it pays almost 30% more than in Sweden. There is a HUGE gotcha, though, and that's the cost of health insurance. Unless the former employer…

It's too late to edit, but the US rate is $145/day, not $145/week. Mea culpa

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

#517

Post by senbrow »

ferrumfist wrote: post #445
mtc010170 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. Never give anyone a reason to dislike you I'm someone who tends to get along and work well with others. That part definitely has its advantages for employability (and life in general), and is recommended. However, taking it to this extreme is just dangerous advice. Constantly being a people pleaser can carry enormous risks, especially (but not limited to) to yourself. It's important to learn to be ok with people…

People pleasers can cause people to dislike them in a workplace, ironically. Being a people pleaser in software dev very often means you will over-burden yourself because you'd rather say "yes, I can do that for you" than "no, I don't have the bandwidth for that". I'd rather a teammate who is honest about their current limitations than someone who tells me what I want to hear. If someone admits they are stretched thi…

10000%.

The most hated guy at my old job would start every request with an elaborate hand-wrung introduction to make sure no one could possibly be offended by what he was asking for.

Because of this, everyone had to read one or two paragraphs of niceties before they had any idea what he actually needed.

It was incredibly annoying and actually quite selfish in practice since it wasted so much time.

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

#518

Post by dllthomas »

dragonwriter wrote: post #512
jacquesm wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ways to ask those without being illegal and these are employed quite frequently. Essentially any kind of probing into someone's private life should be off-limits.

> There are ways to ask those without being illegal Strictly speaking , its not illegal to ask the question. However, because it is illegal to base hiring decisions on it, asking the question is legally dangerous in two ways: (1) Asking the question in an employment interview is evidence which can tend to support that you intended to use it in a hiring decision, and (2) The interviewee answering the question is evide…

I guess it might not be fraud for the employee to lie about it, too, since it can't be material, riiight?

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

#519

Post by criddell »

scatters wrote: post #446
criddell wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sometimes involved in the interviewing process for my employer and we don't do any kind of coding tests. We do ask for them to submit a sample of their work and use it in the interview. I ask questions about the problem and about how they solved it. The code itself isn't usually that interesting, but the tangents we wander down usually are. If the person can't communicate well about a technical topic that they es…

Submit a sample of their work? What employer lets their ex employees do that?

So far it hasn’t been a problem. Junior candidates have shown code from a school project and others have submitted code from a personal project or from something they contributed to an open source project. I think the personal projects are the most interesting to talk about.

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

#520

Post by _jdzr »

marcinzm wrote: post #509
_jdzr wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wan…

> 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.

No need to be dismissive only pointing out that your valuation of people will likely cause you more grief than benefit (imo). Also, incompetent people would probably be far less likely to actually be a threat because, well, they're incompetent... It's the smart people that you write off as incompetent that stab you in the back (in my experience). Having some coined judgemental framework will definitely cause oversights eventually.

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