I would work for this guy any day, he makes sense. Although I do know how to spell PHP and code in it it's not my cup of tea however.
How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans
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Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans
#12If you want to find developers, read their resumes in their entirety before you solicit them to apply. A couple of days ago I was solicited to work as an assembler.
Stuff like this concerns me. If a company I'm interested in solicits me for a phone call and the position is a much more senior level than I've had in the past, or is of a more demanding skillset than I have experience with, I feel like I am not only wasting both of our time, but hurting my chances if something more on my grade becomes available in the future. On the other hand, I wouldn't want to outright refuse, wo…
To be honest those initial inquiries are done by HR recruiters who have no way to evaluate your skill set. If interested, try to get a call with the hiring manager before you proceed far. Some positions can accommodate engineers of various skill level.
Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans
#13IMO, the corporate world more and more develops a culture of dis-respect. People are not unfriendly or rude. They are increasingly self centered and just don't care about the other person.
Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans
#14>, I am to the point in my career where I have a LinkedIn profile that if you printed out in a PDF, it would be 5 or 7 pages. I have 10 or 12 GitHub repos out there that show what my code is. If you as a developer manager are not qualified to read through my GitHub Repo [...], and if you’re not qualified to look at my LinkedIn profile and see that I show a progression of responsibilities,
That's great for him but it's not workable for a pool of 22-year old college graduates with no work experience, or 40-something developers who never had a chance to write open source for github. That's one of the reasons why companies actively recruiting from colleges use fizzbuzz and whiteboard coding tests.
What's the % of compsci college grads that have github activity of any significance? Less than 10%?
>Free lunches, that’s crap. [...] I understand the mentality of free lunches and dry cleaning and all of this. Those exist so the company can keep the developer’s butt in their seat longer, and they exist for no other reason.
I disagree about employer provided lunches. The other stuff like foosball tables and onsite volleyball court I don't have a strong opinion on but employer provided lunch is a very nice thing to have.
So many days I'm hungry and I really don't want to get into a hot 120 degree car or fight the rain and snow just to get something to quick to eat.
The employer catered lunch is very convenient especially if the vendor brings in healthy food (veggie sandwiches, etc). It is very hard in some locations to get a healthy lunch when the closest restaurants are junk food places like McDonalds and Taco Bell.
Every place I worked at that had employer provided lunch never had any social pressure that forced you to eat your lunch while being chained to your desk. Maybe he only sees companies forcing programmers to multitask the lunch hour by eating a sandwich with one hand and banging out code with the other. He doesn't realize there are companies out there that provide lunch simply as a progressive benefit instead of some kind of abusive weapon.
Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans
#15"anytime they’re looking at job ads, serious developer positions, not front end developers... " Ouch. I guess I never should have dropped PHP for client side MVC apps.
The full quote is "The second thing, if I see Photoshop on a developer ad, that’s a red flag immediately. What it tells me is you don’t understand what you want, so you’re just throwing everything out there. I advise developers, anytime they’re looking at job ads, serious developer positions, not front end developers, but mid range and back end developers, if they see Photoshop on it, walk away." He's not saying "front-end developers are not serious developer positions"; he's saying "if you see Photoshop on a job ad — and it's not for a front-end position — that's a red flag".
Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans
#16I'm not sure this is the person we should listen to on engineering management. This quote is a huge red flag to me:
"I advise developers, anytime they’re looking at job ads, serious developer positions, not front end developers..."
How can he retain great front end engineers if he doesn't even think it's a "serious" position? I've done machine learning, kernel hacking, back end, mobile, and front end, and it takes just as long to learn to be amazing at front end as it does to learn any of the other categories.
Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans
#17I'm not sure this is the person we should listen to on engineering management. This quote is a huge red flag to me: "I advise developers, anytime they’re looking at job ads, serious developer positions, not front end developers..." How can he retain great front end engineers if he doesn't even think it's a "serious" position? I've done machine learning, kernel hacking, back end, mobile, and front end, and it takes ju…
I feel like he's confusing "front end developer" with "front end DESIGNER". The mention of Photoshop seems key. I don't think it was meant to be a slight to those using Javascript on the front end, so much as those who know only the barest scraps of Javascript, and mostly spend their time in image editing, with a bit of HTML and CSS thrown in.
Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans
#18"anytime they’re looking at job ads, serious developer positions, not front end developers... " Ouch. I guess I never should have dropped PHP for client side MVC apps.
The full quote is "The second thing, if I see Photoshop on a developer ad, that’s a red flag immediately. What it tells me is you don’t understand what you want, so you’re just throwing everything out there. I advise developers, anytime they’re looking at job ads, serious developer positions, not front end developers, but mid range and back end developers, if they see Photoshop on it, walk away." He's not saying "fro…
Even if it is; you're going to be pigeonholed as a designer, not a developer.
Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans
#19I have so many comments on this article but this stood out:
> I do not negotiate salaries.
> I ask the person what do you need.
That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. Did you honestly tell your employer "oh I only needed $X to pay my bills and eat ramen"?
> I’ve got a junior developer saying I need $100,000, that’s not reasonable
Actually according to glassdoor[1] - salaries for a "junior developer" range from $60k to over $100k.
[1] - http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/junior-developer-salary-SR...
Re: How to Find, Hire, and Retain Developers – Interview with Cal Evans
#20I have so many comments on this article but this stood out: > I do not negotiate salaries. > I ask the person what do you need. That is the most absurd thing I have ever heard. Did you honestly tell your employer "oh I only needed $X to pay my bills and eat ramen"? > I’ve got a junior developer saying I need $100,000, that’s not reasonable Actually according to glassdoor[1] - salaries for a "junior developer" range f…
Not agreeing or disagreeing but I don't think he meant what do you need to survive but after he goes on to say that it means "what do you need to be happy with this job".