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Finding a new software developer job

henrikwarne.com

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Re: Finding a new software developer job

#161

Post by majormajor »

angarg12 wrote: post #103

I'm a ML Engineer at FAANG and I have been passively looking for the last half year. Common wisdom might make you think that I should be having companies throwing wads of cash at me, but my experience has been very different. * It's true that my profile attracts many messages from recruiters. However ghosting is the name of the game. More than half of recruiters have ghosted me at different stages of the process. Ove…

I think the assumption would be more that FAANG would throw wads of cash at non-FAANG candidates than the reverse. There's a few "common knowledge" things (assumptions, but often accurate) about recruiting from FAANG that would certainly explain the lack of "wads of cash":

* Golden handcuffs are real and deliberate and in many ways rational: very few other companies have similar-sized wads of cash to throw OR similarly-scaled problems where FAANG-level salaries are likely to produce significant ROI

* FAANG stacks tend to have a lot of amazing in-house niceties that can't be found elsewhere, so there's a certain "are they an expert or are they just an expert at using Google's internal stack"? Would they be productive out of the gate or would they need to rebuild all that stuff first?

Everybody wants the prestige of telling their CEO or their investors that they poached people from FAANG but few have the wallet or the precise scenarios to get into a bidding war about it.

I had these issues as a HM in 2020 trying to hire ML engineers. (At mid-size places there's also often a "WTF do we do with a ML engineer" problem where if you aren't a data scientist or a general SW engineer, it's hard to carve out a role in between. Especially if the org has data scientists who aren't particular "engineer savvy" in terms of workflow and tooling. And then the ML engineer makes things shiny and version-controlled and all... and the data team mostly just ignores it since moving over to that stuff isn't one of their KPIs...)

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#162

Post by justech »

bradly wrote: post #41

> One company used an IQ test This is interesting. I haven't had that one yet, but last week I had an application with a "personality" test that asked whether I tend to vote for left-leaning candidates or right-leaning candidates. This company was in the healthcare space. GitHub asking for approval for AI to review my resume was a bit of a beat too. I did not give permission, and it definitely left me feeling at a di…

I don't know where I found it, but I saw a job ad for a dev role that asked for an MBTI test first (it's about personality types thing like INFJ INFP etc).

Asking for this in a job for coding was... something else. And I thought leetcode was all I had to study

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#163

Post by marshray »

4hg4ufxhy wrote: post #146
smileson2 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, on my end reviewing resume or when we did take-homes things like names and photos were always erased to prevent 'bias' We did interview and hire a lot more women and PoC than other firms I've worked with so I guess it works to some degree

Should you conduct the interview without camera and with a voicechanger?

Some US employers no longer conduct interviews at all for some positions.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#164

Post by jongjong »

I've been looking for a job for the past 6 months or so.

Last time I looked for a job 4 years ago, I would get so many calls and I had to drop many of them.

Now that I'm even more experienced and I have a stellar resume, I'm struggling to get first interviews.

I ace every interview I get BTW; both technical and communication. I'm just not given the chance to prove myself. There's something weird going on.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#165

Post by neilv »

4hg4ufxhy wrote: post #146
smileson2 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, on my end reviewing resume or when we did take-homes things like names and photos were always erased to prevent 'bias' We did interview and hire a lot more women and PoC than other firms I've worked with so I guess it works to some degree

Should you conduct the interview without camera and with a voicechanger?

We can't eliminate all unfair biases, but if we can reduce unfair biases preventing people from even getting to the interview, that's a win.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#166

Post by bojan »

Aurornis wrote: post #130
neilv wrote: post #74

> Key Elements for Job Search Microsite > * Have a professional profile picture I don't do this, for two reasons: 1. Being a photographer taught me that I'm much better on the buttons side of the camera, not the lens side. 2. Photos really don't belong in hiring in the US. Due to the long history of unfair prejudices, which are still ongoing in some ways. Even better would be if we could remove names, for being cues…

> 2. Photos really don't belong in hiring in the US. The author of the post is in Sweden, not the US. As weird as it sounds, profile photos are prominent features of resumes in many European countries. It shocked me when I first started hiring in our EU offices, but that's just the way it is. I was surprised because we've often been told so many different ways that Europe is ahead of the US in matters of discriminati…

The discrimination in Europe works slightly differently than in the US, as having a native sounding name is just as, or even more, important than having a "right" skin color.

So to be certain you'll avoid discrimination, you'd need to omit both the photo and the name from the CV, and that's not common at all.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#167

Post by slumpt_ »

coffeecloud wrote: post #142

Anecdotally I've noticed that while the job market isn't good for software engineers, its seems to be much much worse for all the supportive roles like eng managers/product managers/designers/dev rel/ etc. In my circle these seem to be the people who have been really struggling to find work, whereas the devs do seem to be finding work (just at a slower pace and with worse benefits than before.) Is this just my bubble…

Job market seems healthy for anyone with sufficient experience.

My company is hiring, my inbox is slammed with companies hiring. And this is for product engineering and leadership.

The market is cold for juniors, and unclear when/how that’s changing.

Edit for context, but this is in silicon valley. Never relocated during the pandemic - always suspected this might end up being the case.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#168

Post by askonomm »

lr4444lr wrote: post #61

I later found another good way of finding companies to check to see if they have any open roles: google “competitor to” or “alternative to” and a company name, to find similar companies. This cannot be understated. Having inside info on a competitor you already worked at is definitely eye catching to a recruiter. It may not get you the job, but will get you noticed, and is definitely an asset your non-tech interviews…

Unfortunately, as per my experience, this is mostly illegal to do. Every contract I've ever had prohibits me to work for competitors for X amount of years.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#169

Post by otteromkram »

neilv wrote: post #139
oortoo wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously, learning all popular tech stacks is not entirely realistic, but IMO when a SE or any engineer is looking for work, at least 1-2 months of researching and getting proficient with the full breadth of what's out there for your interest is going to pay off. Unless you are moving jobs to just do the exact same thing somewhere else (who wants that) you kind of have to take it on yourself to show up the the inter…

> You may even need to exaggerate your experience. [...] meaning you need to just get really good at faking it and not be afraid to back it up later after some late-night study sessions. Please don't do this, and don't normalize other people doing it. Dishonesty isn't something I want to have to be understanding about in colleagues. Like, maybe they just see it as a little while lie, and some job-hunting Web pages to…

> Please don't do this, and don't normalize other people doing it

Unfortunately, that's how the competitive market works.

People shouldn't be penalized for the tech stack that their company used vs. what companies are looking for. Skills from one platform to another are very fungible (eg - Java/.NET, AWS/Azure), so "beefing up" a resume is what's required if you plan on getting any calls back.

> Dishonesty isn't something I want to have to be understanding about in colleagues.

I have some bad news for you...

> .. I don't want there to be more rationalization for crappy interview process.

No one is forcing you to participate in interviews which require doing a coding test or system design review. You are more than capable of withdrawing your candidacy.

I would bet that a lot of equally-skilled people are lining up behind you and ready to do that extra work in order to stand out and get a job. Don't place yourself on too-high of a pedestal, my friend.

Re: Finding a new software developer job

#170

Post by culopatin »

pyb wrote: post #55
qwertygnu wrote: post #25

I don't question that is takes hard work, even for more senior devs like the author, but 30 apps leading to 3 offers is a dream. Most early-career people are probably at >100 app with maybe a few interviews and hopefully one offer.

The author has 30+ years of experience and was applying to jobs paying less than 6 figures a year (USD). His expectation were modest, compared to the average US developer.

This is also not realistic (if other people in his position aim for much more). Wouldn’t you wonder “why is this person with 30 years of experience applying for this role? Maybe got confused? Maybe they’re troubled in some way? Maybe they’ll stay for 2 months and get bored and leave?”.
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