Finally the market is correcting themself. Software engineers aren't worth more than any other engineers.
I kinda agree with this sentiment, I've certainly known plenty of software engineers who weren't half what they were getting paid, mostly juniors but also a few seniors. But I've also known plenty of software engineers who were worth every cent. However, I'd argue the bigger problem is other engineers are underpaid, especially considering many types of engineering require a strong grasp of advanced mathematics and physics. Then again, most professions in this world are woefully underpaid.
Man this is such an empty article basically answering no questions at all
A bit bland sure, but it's in there. They are going exactly where I expected them to: Companies that aren't considered tech companies, but have a need for software developers and engineers. From the article: Farming equipment, car industry, banking, insurers and retail. These places have been struggling to hire for years, now they can finally fill those positions, or at least some of them.
I mean, the article does list those places but doesn't provide any sort of numbers at all.
Who knows if John Deere hired 10k people before the layoffs and 3k afterwards. Sure some of the laid off people in this scenario could have gone to John Deere but it's more likely they've displaced other candidates JD would've hired as opposed to JD sponging up laid off people.
I guess working on your empathy skills and trying to understand emotions of others (instead of solely focusing on your own) might make your life easier. I have met many engineers who thought along the same lines of “technology is the end and sales and product managers are the means to have me do whatever I want to code" and agree that these people struggled in environment focusing on "the customer". I doubt, that "cu…
The most shocking thing to me I’ve observed during my career is how many good technologists lack empathy. I hazard it’s because the same neurological structure that optimizes for what makes a good dev/technologist is also what makes empathy and social skills lacking, very broadly speaking. You can learn/fake it with enough time and practice (I’ve met those who do), it just doesn’t seem to be that common of a hack. ht…
One of the programmers I used to work with took an online personality test, and told us that it reported him having "less empathy than Stalin". He was a good programmer, though!
The biggest reason I've seen FAANG candidates (mostly Google, FB, and Amazon) get rejected is too much experience with proprietary technology, esp. if they've been there a long time, like 5+ years. I've even spoke to some FAANG candidates who think their internal proprietary tech is widely known or commercial products.
Yeup. I had a similar comment above. I tried phone screening someone, and they had no working knowledge of the commercial apps that we integrate with, the databases we use, etc. And I can hire literally for half the price someone with working knowlege AND know they won't be resentful about the job....
Exactly. I'm also seeing this trend among new grads/early career SWEs. AWS, MongoDB, and all sorts of cloud first product companies have been plugging their software to the university system, and these kids come out of college w/o understanding of the computing layer below these products. Like they don't know what a server is, what a data center is, how storage works. Is that not being taught in CS programs?
I guess working on your empathy skills and trying to understand emotions of others (instead of solely focusing on your own) might make your life easier. I have met many engineers who thought along the same lines of “technology is the end and sales and product managers are the means to have me do whatever I want to code" and agree that these people struggled in environment focusing on "the customer". I doubt, that "cu…
The most shocking thing to me I’ve observed during my career is how many good technologists lack empathy. I hazard it’s because the same neurological structure that optimizes for what makes a good dev/technologist is also what makes empathy and social skills lacking, very broadly speaking. You can learn/fake it with enough time and practice (I’ve met those who do), it just doesn’t seem to be that common of a hack. ht…
I am not a psychological professional, and I should keep my mouth shut, but I don’t believe this is terribly unique to the tech sector. I think this is more closely linked to institutionalized people. That is, people who spent long amounts of time in schools, the military, prison, and so on. These large organizations themselves lack empathy. A person formed by such a machine will begin to find that treatment normal and replicate that treatment. As many technologists are university graduates, they’d fall into this category of institutionalized people. It doesn’t help that many then get hired by megacorps which are also institutions.
And if you're leaving Google and willing to relocate, you probably have "enough" savings.
having worked at Google doesn't make you a good saver or dictate a sustainable lifestyle
No but having a severance package that covers your expenses for at least 6 months means that the BMW lease is still covered in the near future even if you don't have savings.
“every laid off individual” should be “every laid off individual with a LinkedIn account”.
I wouldn't be surprised if most FAANG and similar tier companies require a linkedin account; mine did. HR sent policies, and would help you with a headshot, with the idea you'd use that w/ your email, Teams, etc. as well.
Neither Facebook nor Google requires employees to have a LinkedIn account.
I was recruited by two different google people in the last six months and both of them are unemployed now according to LinkedIn. The only tech dudes I know there are on visas and they haven't been axed.
> John Deere, an American tractor-maker, has been snapping up fired tech workers to help it make smarter farm machinery. Oh yay. Who wants to work for a company that is actively antagonistic against its own customer base?
The same people that wanted to work for Meta and Amazon?
They could all become mall cops and do a lot less harm.
I don't think an elevated salary at a FAANG implies over-qualified, though. I phone-screened someone from a FAANG, and they knew very little about non-proprietary technologies that we used on a day-to-day. Any of the big-branded commercial apps, they weren't familiar with, and I can hire someone for a lot less with the required working knowledge AND know that they won't be resentful about it. I think it's going to ta…
> and they knew very little about non-proprietary technologies that we used on a day-to-day. I had an eye opening experience several years ago. My group was partnering with a group at Google. Their developers were sharp, as one would expect. But were very lacking in what would otherwise be considered table stakes, the reason always wound back to they had a proprietary Google equivalent of X, so thus they weren't fami…
This just shows how dumb it is to require specific knowledge of products of clearly qualified people.