171–180 of 250 posts
Little bit of nitpicking: If x = y = 1, then value = 0. I wonder why he didn't just choose value to be 100y/x.
Every time I read the word passion in one of these articles I cringe. This has to be the most overused word in silicon valley. It's really just a convenient way to abuse people. Can't work 90 hours? Not passionate enough. Have a family commitment? Where's your passion? Passion. We get it already.
Every time I read "engineer," I cringe. I don't give a crap how fantastic you are at programming, if you don't have a college degree then you aren't an engineer.
I'd say that you get to be an engineer if the "Engineer" is printed somewhere on your diploma.
Unless you drive trains.
Every time I read the word passion in one of these articles I cringe. This has to be the most overused word in silicon valley. It's really just a convenient way to abuse people. Can't work 90 hours? Not passionate enough. Have a family commitment? Where's your passion? Passion. We get it already.
Every time I read "engineer," I cringe. I don't give a crap how fantastic you are at programming, if you don't have a college degree then you aren't an engineer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a certain state of the economy, you're right. But, at least here in the US, we currently have way more demand for good developers than we have supply. Basic economics says that your model will not work. For example, the company for which I work bills me out at $250 / hr. I get something like 15-30 job requests from other companies a week. It would not make any economic sense for me to pursue any of these other com…
If they're a relatively good developer (top 25%) How does one know that one is a top developer? I'd imagine it's easy to have a false knowledge of being in the top 25% (what with Dunning-Krueger and all) but how does a true top 25 percenter know that he is such?
Questions to ask yourself:
- Do you consistently get higher ratings than your peers?
- Do other developers come to you first if they want advice on the correct way to do something?
- Have you produced features that cause applause in sales teams or customers?
- Have all of your products been successful (maybe allowing for slips in schedule or budget)?
- Do people understand your code? (i.e. do you get a lot of emails from people asking to explain things?)
- Do features that you have created have significantly fewer bugs than other features?
- Do tech leads or product managers seek you out to help them build products or features?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they're a relatively good developer (top 25%) How does one know that one is a top developer? I'd imagine it's easy to have a false knowledge of being in the top 25% (what with Dunning-Krueger and all) but how does a true top 25 percenter know that he is such?
I think it's relatively easy if you work within companies of a certain size. If so, compare yourself to another 100 developers that you've worked with. If you only work with start-ups, it may be more difficult. Questions to ask yourself: - Do you consistently get higher ratings than your peers? - Do other developers come to you first if they want advice on the correct way to do something? - Have you produced features…
Hiring is entirely broken. I don't think anyone is listening to developers. I took some data about this (tracking pixel in a Developer Auction profile), but someone did an even better job than me and posted in these comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5730843 I want a company that treats me with dignity and respect, even before and during the interviewing pipeline. How a company treats people during interv…
Bootcamp in the Marine Corps is an example of a tough hiring practice. Are your friends and family doctors or lawyers, per chance? Both professions use grueling hiring marathons which are much, much worse than a software engineering interview (residency and the bar exam). All other engineering professions require a rigorous licensing process, whereas software engineering is one of the cushiest jobs on the planet. In…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The bar exam is a licensure process, not a hiring process. The hiring process at a large firm (analagous to a big software company) is a 20 minute screener where you chat about the weather, followed by a callback where they put you up in a nice hotel, and you have a series of 20 minute chats about the weather punctuated by a nice lunch at the local steakhouse. Gruelling it isn't... Not that I would suggest replicatin…
The bar exam is a part of the hiring process, its just that its outsourced to a licensing agency. In the software field, each company just does it themselves.
Every time I read the word passion in one of these articles I cringe. This has to be the most overused word in silicon valley. It's really just a convenient way to abuse people. Can't work 90 hours? Not passionate enough. Have a family commitment? Where's your passion? Passion. We get it already.
Ha, you forgot this list: "disrupt!" "only the beginning" "ninja" "agile" "seamless" "social media"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The bar exam is a part of the hiring process, its just that its outsourced to a licensing agency. In the software field, each company just does it themselves.
It's really not. At least at large organizations, it is taken for granted that anyone you hire will pass the bar exam. It doesn't factor into the hiring decision at all.
I've been a junior developer for almost 2 years now at a fairly large company. At my current position, there hasn't been a single task thrown at me that I have not been able to complete with ease. I've worked with multiple languages and technologies that I was not familiar with at all when I started. I tend to figure them out pretty quickly and get on with the task at hand. I've built a bunch of side projects (not al…
If white board algorithm problems terrify you, the only thing that will help is practice. Take the opportunity to try to discuss different solutions with colleagues at work. Or, if you can't do it at work, try to get a couple of friends together and just take turns presenting and asking questions. Yeah, you won't get the adversarial atmosphere that way, but you will get used to the setting.