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Finding a new software developer job

henrikwarne.com

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Re: Finding a new software developer job

#11

Post by arter4 »

mgaunard wrote: post #5
arter4 wrote: post #2

>For a typical job there were four or five interviews: an initial interview with a recruiter, an interview with a hiring manager, one or two technical interviews (either live coding, or going through a take-home assignment). There could also be an interview with a product manager, and/or one with a CTO or founder. All in all, quite a time commitment. This is not news at this point, but it is pretty crazy.

Now think about being the people doing the recruiting, offering to 1% of the candidates they interview and still failing 30% of them during their trial period. Hiring is a huge time sink for all people involved. The best people are hard to find and the best jobs are hard to get.

Sure but do you actually need the absolute best people around? An average company probably doesn't need exceptional developers. If you're not a tech company and you don't have an extremely challenging setup, your survival as a company doesn't rely on exceptional IT skills. You can do a lot with less than 10 virtual machines, any decent web app framework (Spring? Laravel?), and a version control system. Even apparently insane requirements are entirely reasonable: 100 thousands transactions per day is... 1 TPS. Make that 10 TPS to adjust for peaks. Unless you're doing extremely complex queries, you can definitely handle 10 TPS with reasonably limited resources.

Meanwhile, cargo culting and FOMO leads companies to adopt tech stacks, interview styles,... that make sense for FAANGs and other unicorns, but not for your average setup.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#12

Post by Clubber »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #7
arter4 wrote: post #2

>For a typical job there were four or five interviews: an initial interview with a recruiter, an interview with a hiring manager, one or two technical interviews (either live coding, or going through a take-home assignment). There could also be an interview with a product manager, and/or one with a CTO or founder. All in all, quite a time commitment. This is not news at this point, but it is pretty crazy.

That's not crazy. Some of these are probably what 30 minutes? Tech interviews 60 mins? So what, five hours? Remember when on-site interviews meant an hour total commute plus say six hours of total interview plus lunch event. Some high demand companies put candidates through more than one round of that. Not to mention if you were flying from out of town... I remember a friend who interviewed with Google and got stuck…

I remember when on-site interviews were an hour and that was it. All this stuff companies do now is insane. If a person isn't performant, you'll know within 30 days, but you'll never know by interviewing them.

I haven't had to cold interview in 20+ years. I hope I never have to based on how it works now. I get all my jobs from previous colleagues. Companies are closing the door to a lot of great talent based on this silliness, but they'll never learn.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#13

Post by friggeri »

In my experience, the most effective way to minimize the odds of a company never responding is to identify someone who works at that company who either you know personally (best) or they know someone you know and you ask for an intro. This allows you to skip the online application black hole. As a corollary, invest in your network and keep good relationships with former coworkers.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#14

Post by arter4 »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #7
arter4 wrote: post #2

>For a typical job there were four or five interviews: an initial interview with a recruiter, an interview with a hiring manager, one or two technical interviews (either live coding, or going through a take-home assignment). There could also be an interview with a product manager, and/or one with a CTO or founder. All in all, quite a time commitment. This is not news at this point, but it is pretty crazy.

That's not crazy. Some of these are probably what 30 minutes? Tech interviews 60 mins? So what, five hours? Remember when on-site interviews meant an hour total commute plus say six hours of total interview plus lunch event. Some high demand companies put candidates through more than one round of that. Not to mention if you were flying from out of town... I remember a friend who interviewed with Google and got stuck…

It is crazy because it dilutes the interview experience and you never know when it's going to end and when they're going to decide (and actually tell you).

And why should you talk to all those people? Talk to the tech folks, then to the CTO, then the founder, then what, the VC investors, the whole board? Can the CTO not describe the company vision and how IT fits in that picture? It does smell of a lack of vision or an inability to delegate.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#15

Post by jedberg »

stefan_ wrote: post #6
arter4 wrote: post #2

>For a typical job there were four or five interviews: an initial interview with a recruiter, an interview with a hiring manager, one or two technical interviews (either live coding, or going through a take-home assignment). There could also be an interview with a product manager, and/or one with a CTO or founder. All in all, quite a time commitment. This is not news at this point, but it is pretty crazy.

In my experience they could reliably cut out the recruiter and hiring manager interviews.

The hiring manager is for you, not them. It’s to make sure you actually want to work for that person.

And usually HR is the one who is getting your comp and other requirements so again mostly for you.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#17

Post by itsautomatisch »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #7
arter4 wrote: post #2

>For a typical job there were four or five interviews: an initial interview with a recruiter, an interview with a hiring manager, one or two technical interviews (either live coding, or going through a take-home assignment). There could also be an interview with a product manager, and/or one with a CTO or founder. All in all, quite a time commitment. This is not news at this point, but it is pretty crazy.

That's not crazy. Some of these are probably what 30 minutes? Tech interviews 60 mins? So what, five hours? Remember when on-site interviews meant an hour total commute plus say six hours of total interview plus lunch event. Some high demand companies put candidates through more than one round of that. Not to mention if you were flying from out of town... I remember a friend who interviewed with Google and got stuck…

Most interview loops aren't just 4-6 hours, though. A lot of times the virtual on-sites are 5+ hours alone, and then you still usually have 2-4 stages of scattered interviews before you even get there. It's also not an efficient way to figure out if both sides are a "good fit" because you're basically doing a whirlwind tour of video chats with people you most likely won't work with. Even worse, the entire interview process itself can take over a month or two depending on the company, making it hard to stay engaged the entire period, especially if you're interviewing for more than one place (which I assume most job-seekers are).

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#18

Post by eikenberry »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #7
arter4 wrote: post #2

>For a typical job there were four or five interviews: an initial interview with a recruiter, an interview with a hiring manager, one or two technical interviews (either live coding, or going through a take-home assignment). There could also be an interview with a product manager, and/or one with a CTO or founder. All in all, quite a time commitment. This is not news at this point, but it is pretty crazy.

That's not crazy. Some of these are probably what 30 minutes? Tech interviews 60 mins? So what, five hours? Remember when on-site interviews meant an hour total commute plus say six hours of total interview plus lunch event. Some high demand companies put candidates through more than one round of that. Not to mention if you were flying from out of town... I remember a friend who interviewed with Google and got stuck…

5-6 hours is about right on the low end, but on the high end you double the hours interviewing and add up to 30-40 hours of work for the take homework. It varies a lot. The average seem to be around the 12-20 hours with homework or 5-10 without.

Personally I still prefer the version with a take home project, even if longer, as I don't like performative programming.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#19

Post by LeafItAlone »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #7
arter4 wrote: post #2

>For a typical job there were four or five interviews: an initial interview with a recruiter, an interview with a hiring manager, one or two technical interviews (either live coding, or going through a take-home assignment). There could also be an interview with a product manager, and/or one with a CTO or founder. All in all, quite a time commitment. This is not news at this point, but it is pretty crazy.

That's not crazy. Some of these are probably what 30 minutes? Tech interviews 60 mins? So what, five hours? Remember when on-site interviews meant an hour total commute plus say six hours of total interview plus lunch event. Some high demand companies put candidates through more than one round of that. Not to mention if you were flying from out of town... I remember a friend who interviewed with Google and got stuck…

> I remember a friend who interviewed with Google and got stuck in SF for three weeks due to snow storms on the east coast

This is literally unbelievable. I cannot remember a time when the east coast was inaccessible for three weeks…

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#20

Post by lazyasciiart »

LeafItAlone wrote: post #19
throwawaymaths wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not crazy. Some of these are probably what 30 minutes? Tech interviews 60 mins? So what, five hours? Remember when on-site interviews meant an hour total commute plus say six hours of total interview plus lunch event. Some high demand companies put candidates through more than one round of that. Not to mention if you were flying from out of town... I remember a friend who interviewed with Google and got stuck…

> I remember a friend who interviewed with Google and got stuck in SF for three weeks due to snow storms on the east coast This is literally unbelievable. I cannot remember a time when the east coast was inaccessible for three weeks…

It probably wouldn’t have saved his job to reach any random spot on the east coast, so you don’t have to think of a time when it was all inaccessible.
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