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The Unemployable Programmer

unemployable.pen.io

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Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#121

Post by vvanders »

amm wrote: post #40

Degrees only matter for "serious companies" and are used as a filter by often clueless HR employees without technical background. As long as you can prove practical experience, you should be fine. Your network, on the other hand, becomes more important as you get older. Hiring an unknown person in his/her 40s or 50s has a much lower risk/reward ratio than hiring a random developer in his 20s who will a) do whatever y…

Not always true, I work for a fairly "serious" company without a degree.

What many other posters here has said is true, you need relevant experience in place of the degree. This is either projects you've worked on or jobs that are appropriate.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#122

Post by fweespeech »

je_bailey wrote: post #113
fweespeech wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. I've had about 40-50% of places reject me due to a lack of degree. A couple even sent me hopeful…

I think it's important to differentiate that it depends on the company and the field. For lack of a better phrase there are sexy companies and not so sexy companies in the IT world. They get different people applying to them and they have different wants. If you are looking at doing R&D at a startup software company, the competition is going to be far different than working at a medium sized independent insurance com…

Yes, but the 50% ratio is for those that aren't doing R&D or the like. They are literally asking for stuff that has been done 912834902384902380492349023 times before from an IT perspective like a standard OS db cluster backing a web app which is behind a CDN+Load Balancer combination.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#123

Post by navait »

Udo wrote: post #22
cmdkeen wrote: post #15

The developers we hire in their 40s don't all have degrees, but what they do have is relevant experience. Now that relevance may be domain knowledge in the industry, or it might be experience with particular part of our stack - the classic example is the very experienced Oracle developer. You'll all too easily lose out to the young, hungry graduate who will also need to learn lots of things on the job, but doesn't co…

> The OP might well have lots of relevant experience but it hardly comes across in the post. Strange, I read it very differently. Just because those things aren't specifically addressed didn't leave me with the impression there isn't anything there. Very early in the article it was stated how they spend a lot of time honing their skills, presumably all their life, not sure I agree with your impression this is an unsk…

Being sufficently vague is a common way of hiding the fact that you don't actually have required knowledge.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#124

Post by smtddr »

mkozlows wrote: post #82

This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing…

>>And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing move... unless you turn it into one, by letting your skills stagnate and wither, which is on you.

HN is going to hate me for saying this, but there's another problem besides your actual skillset. At least in the start-up bay area scene, working 10 years at a big company[1] absolute is a negative to a bunch of people because they __assume__ you won't be a good culture fit.

_____

1. Not talking about the Facebook/Apple/Google trendy companies. I'm talking of Wells Fargo, JCPenny's and at&t.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#125

Post by omouse »

mkozlows wrote: post #82

This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing…

>And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing move... unless you turn it into one, by letting your skills stagnate and wither, which is on you.

Working 40 hrs without training or proper mentoring leads to skill stagnation. A $500 training budget will get you nowhere and you'll find yourself using long weekends (like I'm doing right now) learning new skills. Maybe that's expected in the industry and I've made my peace with it but in other industries you get sent to training courses even if they take away few days or even weeks of "productive" time.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#126

Post by EC1 »

wtbob wrote: post #114
gexla wrote: post #52

I want to start dating. I put my profile up to dating sites. I spend much of my days sending messages to women's profiles. I take their personality tests, but I never get messages (or replies to mine) even though I'm sure I get matches. I even started looking at niche sites such as "nerd dating..." Dude, just get out and actually talk to women. I'm not going to say how to get gigs, jobs, etc because I'm out of my lea…

> Dude, just get out and actually talk to women. That's a lot easier said than done. The parallel with employment is actually not bad: one doesn't find a job by approaching random offices asking for work any more than one finds a wife by asking random if they would like to get hitched (yes, some small number of people succeed with both approaches); one often finds a job by being introduced to the right opportunity by…

>That's a lot easier said than done.

Derive your self worth from yourself and you'll never feel awkward. Everyones interesting in some way. Just get out there and talk, if she doesn't like you or is rude, who gives a shit? Move on to the next.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#127

Post by erroneousfunk »

fweespeech wrote: post #109
mkozlows wrote: post #82

This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing…

> This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. I've had about 40-50% of places reject me due to a lack of degree. A couple even sent me hopeful…

But 40-50% really isn't that bad at all, considering in the general (non-programming) job market, people often send out dozens and dozens of resumes before getting an interview at all. I have many non-programmer friends who have been looking for work for months, with a college degree.

So you have to send out two resumes where the average degree'ed programmer has to send out one? Could be worse. You did, after all, opt to not spend four years of your life in an academic institution -- there are pros and cons to that decision.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#128

Post by Zimdale »

magicbuzz wrote: post #42

The whole 'do an open source' project is a crock. I single-handedly wrote a large Javascript module for a well-known editor. It's used by hundreds of people around the world but all the folks employing 'front-end' programmers seem to bin my CV as my current fulltime job is 100% Python.

I feel like this could be companies looking more for a designer role rather than a front end programmer role. They are often mixed because most people don't know what to label developers.

I work for a company now that frequently interviews front end/js devs and frankly if we find ANY github/public code it puts you in the lead above the next guy. What you normally write doesn't matter a whole lot because most concepts transfer to any language.

Most of our applicants give us no previous code they have actually written. I fail to see how it can ever be argued that something < nothing.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#129

Post by octo_t »

fweespeech wrote: post #109
mkozlows wrote: post #82

This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing…

> This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. I've had about 40-50% of places reject me due to a lack of degree. A couple even sent me hopeful…

40%-50% rejection is really amazing, I don't think you quite realise how tough the job market is right now.

I have a friend with chemistry PhD who has - with no exaggeration here - applied for at least 300 jobs with varying levels of success.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#130

Post by potatolicious »

branchless wrote: post #107
mkozlows wrote: post #82

This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing…

Developers should realise that when you come to an interview the interviewer isn't looking to dismiss you because you can't recite Knuth. For the vast majority of jobs they are desperate for you to be competent having just interviewed 5 incompetent people. I've worked as a programmer for 3 very good paying companies over 15 years and none of them could get enough good developers.

Welllllll... Yes and no.

Yes, companies are generally desperate for programmers right now, and companies definitely want you to succeed in your interviews.

Interviewers on the other hand can be a fickle bunch. I have met many (in fact, maybe even most) who seem to treat it as some kind of hazing or initiation and act as if the candidate is an opponent to be outsmarted.

It doesn't help that in literally none of the companies I've ever worked for do programmers receive any training on interviewing, so this kind of behavior goes uncorrected.

The company definitely wants you to succeed and get hired, but there's still a pretty profound disconnect between the company's priorities and what happens in the room between candidate and interviewer.

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