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Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

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Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#121

Post by teeray »

kube-system wrote: post #20
voidfunc wrote: post #9

Number one reason: You're not offering me enough good reasons to leave my current job. I don't think HR and software recruiting has really caught up to the reality that many developers by their mid-30's are sitting on a million+ in assets and good ones can rake in 200K+ easy. Further we usually find equilibrium with our roles wherever we are even if we have gripes with how things are because most devs are pragmatic p…

Don't write off a company just because they have an unlimited PTO policy. Check out the culture first, some actually respect it. Especially in smaller companies, it's sometimes just easier to judge people based on their output rather than the number of days their butt is behind a keyboard.

I don’t do unlimited PTO unless there’s a mandatory minimum time off.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#122

Post by pjmlp »

gsibble wrote: post #120
pjmlp wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to be sorry, I wouldn't apply to your company, and you would be lucky to even get a reply from me if contacting me on the typical social networks for developers. Sorry.

No worries. Sounds like we wouldn't want you anyways if you have such poor work ethic.

There are plenty of fish in the sea....

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#123

Post by intelVISA »

gsibble wrote: post #109
intelVISA wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No issue with take home approach, I think it's incredibly valuable if done in a manner that respects everybody's time. Personally I'd probably do some sort of FizzBuzz/LC easy type low filter and then a fast (i.e. no compiled langs) take home in an area adjacent to the job description paid at said job's rate with a time expectation so you don't end up getting billed 20hrs for a Node RESTful API.

We very infrequently get asked to reimburse for time but we do limit how much when we do. We usually give various challenges as take homes which people find fun and engaging, projects that I myself have spent hours or even days trying to solve in my spare time. We want them to be fun. We rarely get complaints. We're happy to accomodate if you'd rather do it in person or over zoom. It's really up to the applicant.

I can appreciate that and obviously what you're doing is working out for you :)

Guess I'm prob the odd one out here -- unless the job was incredible (like pair programming with J Carmack) I wouldn't be able to commit to any meaningful unpaid take home as I can spend that time programming for profit rather than solving challenges for a company that may or may not work out.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#124

Post by sys_64738 »

gsibble wrote: post #56
sys_64738 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You lost me at "with a take home". I'm not interested in your silly games.

Ok. What would you suggest instead? I need to know you can, you know, actually code.

I know that code and that’s what the resume says.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#125

Post by silisili »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #106
silisili wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We allow them to use Godoc, of course. That said > Isn't that the kind of thing that someone senior would typically look up? Not at all. There's at least two ways to do this very easily in Go(one line, no errors to worry about even), and I'd expect someone who claims to use it daily to know one of them offhand. While I think languages are just tools, in our instance we're very clear we need people versed and ready to…

That skill has nothing specifically to do with Go. Most languages have some "ParseInt" function or so. And of all the languages I use for daily work I could not 100% tell you what that function is exactly called. By doing that you are wasting a potentially good developper because they didn't happen to remember some languages exact syntax. It's also just straight up insulting. If someone worked for x years in a relate…

Converting ints to strings isn't a 'skill'. It's a simple task to see if they are well versed enough in Go to get started.

And no the question isn't 'convert a number to a string', it's a small function tasked with doing something along those lines.

I don't get why you feel that's insulting. If I were applying for a job speaking French, was asked to translate a simple sentence, and couldn't...I wouldn't expect to be hired. I don't see this much differently.

> And of all the languages I use for daily work I could not 100% tell you what that function is exactly called.

And see, that would be fine. In this example, if one would say 'oh it's in strconv let me look that up' or 'oh can I look up the string formatting symbols' this would be perfectly acceptable, to me.

Writing things like string(i) or i + "x", not so much.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#126

Post by plusmax1 »

gsibble wrote: post #91
jstx1 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a bunch of other people could have writeen it just as well or better and it wouldn't have made a difference to the valuation of the company anyway.

That's actually quite an insulting thing to say.

But probably true nonetheless.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#127

Post by sys_64738 »

gsibble wrote: post #117
WkndTriathlete wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk to the candidate. If you (and the candidate) cannot communicate well enough in 30 minutes to discover that then either (a) you don't know enough to work well with a really good developer or (b) the developer doesn't know enough to work with you or (c) both are true. I have never been let down by this rule, either as a candidate or an interviewer. In my experience coding exercises as part of an interview process…

Trust me when I say I've talked to plenty of candidates who I thought were great only to learn they couldn't actually code fizzbuzz. Talking to candidates doesn't work.

You want programmers to do tricks and silly initiation dances which is your whole problem. If you actually asked real questions about their experience then you’d get a good grounding. I might do silly problems for a high profile employer but that’s likely not you. In which case if I tell you to stop wasting my time and walk out of your attempted initiation ritual then you won’t like it.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#128

Post by NaturalPhallacy »

I think the tech screens are the worst part, they're often so artificial and unlike the actual job that they result in a lot of false negatives. Here's how I rank the methods I've seen recently from best to worst:

1. FizzBuzz, quick and easy for anyone who can actually code. Honestly #2 is about as good, but this is quicker, so I put it first.

2. A code review - this is something most jobs will actually entail. Coming at some bit of code or a PR cold is something you'll do on the job. Spotting problems is something you will really need to do. It's not quite coding, but I'm going to google half the things I need to do, tweak someone else's working code and move on. To quote my favorite manager, "I love lazy programmers, they're the best!"

3. Pair programming to improve some already or nearly working code. This isn't too bad lets you feel out if you can work with the other person too. Writing whole algorithms from scratch is something that I'd google first anyway, so testing on that is silly.

3. Take home coding challenge - Awful and wildly burdensome. Can be a big time expenditure as they're often not trivial.

4. Live coding in a browser - Awful! Nobody actually works like this. So you're not testing for reality at all really. And having someone watch over your shoulder as you code can bring even the best and the brightest down to "can't write an if statement". Wild amounts of false negatives.

5. Outsourced, proctored, coding exercise. I halt the process at these now. Ridiculous practice.

Using #3-5 is a major red flag to me about the company. They don't know how to hire and/or have industrialized the process so how good can my team be? They already see developers as cogs.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#129

Post by Hatrix »

Companies only seem to move forward if you are doing exactly what they are doing exactly the same way they are doing it.

They do not want to give you a chance to adapt your skills to the position. They will not give you feedback. They will not work with you to clear-up what might be minor misunderstandings. They really do not want to hire anyone.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#130

Post by nawgz »

gsibble wrote: post #112
nawgz wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I can live out the rest of my days with ... $200K-$500k annual salary” Sorry, but this isn’t “living out the rest of my days with” money, this is a top 5-1% pay range you’ve just suggested. I don’t necessarily disagree with your point but anyone who needs a $500K salary clearly is not financially independent

In the bay area, a $500k annual salary is really not that much in the grand scheme of thngs.

It's literally an elite salary. It makes no sense to imply you're living a frugal, simple life if you need an elite salary to do it.
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