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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

#551

Post by throwaway2037 »

eric-hu wrote: post #376
sokoloff wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I don’t fully understand the opening up a terminal prompt part of that comment.

Not the one or replying to, but I’ve encountered this too. Some pair programming takes the form of two people operating one computer. When I’ve done this style and I’m driving, certain people wouldn’t let me finish my thought on what I’m doing. They’ll grab their keyboard or mouse and change programs, or just start typing in stuff while I’m typing too.

I like pair programming with the right person. It is very rewarding. What you describe sounds awful. I would tell them to stop immediately. If it continues, I would stop the pair programming session. What a pain.

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

#552

Post by kortilla »

jacquesm wrote: post #542
anon50118810 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's healthier to instead develop the social skills and confidence needed to answer any questions confidently while enforcing boundaries about what you will and won't answer. Outright lying can come from a place of weakness and fear which isn't good to encourage.

Let me give you an example: you're gay and your employer has a thing about gay people. They will not ask you outright 'are you gay?' because that, while legal might result in an anti discrimination suit upon rejection of the candidate which they could very well lose. Lots of other situations and questions like that which are strictly speaking none of the employer's business. When given the option between telling the…

You’ve drastically shifted the goal posts from the topic of “are you looking at other companies?” to discrimination. It’s hard to have any meaningful insight with those in the same bucket.

The former is completely standard procedural (do we need to accelerate the process to compete) and competitive (who are we up against).

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

#553

Post by kortilla »

jacquesm wrote: post #540
worik wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not because it is morally wrong that you should not lie. It is because it is very bad for you. Lies beget lies and no one trusts a liar. It is morally wrong to lie. You should not do it The fact that they do it, when they face different incentives, is not a reason for you to

You are generalizing a lot. I outlined a very specific situation: A company inquires into aspects of your life that are none of their business. In that particular situation as far as I'm concerned - and not as far as you are concerned - you are free to lie. Because the alternative is going to end with you not getting the job, no matter how qualified you are.

Lying about being arrested is a quick way to get fired when the background check comes through. Your antisocial suggestion has now escalated from something you could have preemptively explained into termination of employment. Nicely done.

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

#554

Post by throwaway2037 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #450
mixmastamyk wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could interviewing be anything but a game? I understand some wouldn't want it spoken of however.

Part of it is, indeed, talking about unspoken rules. But part of it is that the hiring managers and CEOs are humans like everyone else - some may have ego issues, or buy a little too much into their company's branding.

Exactly this. The first rule of fight club is don't talk about fight club.

What surprises me more: Many people don't think interviewing is a game. They think it is straightforward and "rules-based". I guess those same people also believe PR. :)

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

#555

Post by doix »

anon50118810 wrote: post #440
doix wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are we talking like 10-15 applications per hour? Pretty much, around 5 minutes per application. >provide detailed information about every job I've had since I was a teenager, every reference up front, agree to legal statements, or whatever else they might insist on, knowing I could be fired later on if I get any of it wrong Either you're completely overthinking it and you can just omit a bunch of stuff, or you're a…

We may be talking past each other. I'm talking about applications for unremarkable positions at large corporations where the application forms are either branded by the company or done through something like iCIMS, Taleo or Workday. You create an account and then you're faced with several steps asking for who knows what. The experience question might be "List all past jobs starting with the most recent" with no date…

> List all past jobs starting with the most recent" with no date limit. Later on you'll have to agree that you answered everything fully and honestly or you can be fired. Maybe I'm a fool for taking that seriously but the meaning is straightforward to me.

This is the most standard thing ever. The ycombinator job board[0] works the exact same way. No one is going to fire you if you leave out that you worked at Pizza Hut when you were younger. They will fire you if you claim to have worked at Google but never actually did. Or if you claim N years of experience in some technology despite never using it. Just make sure your CV matches what you enter into the software and that you're not lying on your CV, that's it.

> I'm happy to hear if you have any insight from the recruiting side at these places.

I have experience working on the recruiting side of a fairly large company that used Jobvite (which is why I mentioned it, first piece of software I could think of) for their application tracking system. It asked you the same sort of questions, even some really stupid ones like your Myers Briggs personality type, despite me arguing very strongly against it.

Yes, HR would do some filtering, they probably filtered out good candidates and let many bad ones through to the next stage to get filtered by the hiring people. This shouldn't stop you from applying, who cares if you get filtered out by HR at X% of the time? You'll get through 100-X% of the time, and if you apply to a lot of places, that'll be a lot of people looking at your CV. An application should not take you longer than 5-10 minutes, it's not a big investment of time.

> instead the hostile and opaque application process mirrors their actual hiring process, or at least I assume so

Yes, the hiring process will be shit. But it's not intentionally hostile, it's "hostile" because that's the way it's always been and there's too much momentum to change it. I'm certain the Myers Briggs questions turned off many good candidates. I would immediately close a job application if it was asking stuff like that (assuming I wasn't desperate). But the company was genuinely looking to hire good people. I feel like you underestimate how difficult it is to change anything at a large company where tech is a cost center :).

[0] https://www.workatastartup.com/

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

#556

Post by jacquesm »

kortilla wrote: post #553
jacquesm wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are generalizing a lot. I outlined a very specific situation: A company inquires into aspects of your life that are none of their business. In that particular situation as far as I'm concerned - and not as far as you are concerned - you are free to lie. Because the alternative is going to end with you not getting the job, no matter how qualified you are.

Lying about being arrested is a quick way to get fired when the background check comes through. Your antisocial suggestion has now escalated from something you could have preemptively explained into termination of employment. Nicely done.

If a background check is done there is no point in asking. And arrest records are confidential unless they resulted in a conviction.

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

#557

Post by jacquesm »

kortilla wrote: post #552
jacquesm wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me give you an example: you're gay and your employer has a thing about gay people. They will not ask you outright 'are you gay?' because that, while legal might result in an anti discrimination suit upon rejection of the candidate which they could very well lose. Lots of other situations and questions like that which are strictly speaking none of the employer's business. When given the option between telling the…

You’ve drastically shifted the goal posts from the topic of “are you looking at other companies?” to discrimination. It’s hard to have any meaningful insight with those in the same bucket. The former is completely standard procedural (do we need to accelerate the process to compete) and competitive (who are we up against).

From the first comment in this thread that I made my position has been consistent, I have no idea what you are on about.

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

#558

Post by jghn »

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…

Most people don’t understand how bad “average” is.

It’s true that a bad hire has a large impact. But people assume this means the folks like you’re describing. When not taking money into account I view those types of people as net neutral.

A good litmus is to answer the question “would the team be any better off if we replaced them with no one”, and usually the answer is “no” or at least close to it.

Factoring money in does change things. Especially for smaller companies. But even then people overestimate what “bad” means when they cite the massive impact of a bad hire

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

#559

Post by Nihilartikel »

senbrow wrote: post #517
ferrumfist wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A good manager would have broached the subject with the employee and gently moved them in the direction of adjustment and likely some therapy.

That sort of people pleasing behavior can easily come from a past where asserting even a minor need or boundary was met with abuse from caretakers or peers.

Not saying it's not maladaptive and irritating behavior. It is! But they probably came by it honestly.

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

#560

Post by mindentropy »

eulers_secret wrote: post #186
fein wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What situation are people in that they have to result to this? Is this an issue with getting laid off and trying to find a FAANG job? I was laid off from one consulting company back in 2018 or so and had a new gig with more pay a week or so later. No leetcode or dev tests, just talking with people in phone interviews. It was a company I had previously done contract work for, and they called me, but nothing at the FAA…

For what it’s worth in my 15+ year career I have also never had to do leetcode interviews… until now. Part of it is that I’m pivoting from systems software (Linux kernel) to webstuff. I have zero network here, if I wanted to do systems again I’d have an easier time of it.

I am into systems and I still get Leetcode type questions. For a USB position I was asked code to solve certain regular expressions.
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