The Unemployable Programmer • Hacker News Board

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#141

Post by stephengillie » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:28 PM UTC

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…

How do you know that 40-50% of places are rejecting you because of your lack of degree? Do they say this outright in their rejection emails? What's your overall rejection rate?

I don't even get a timely response (within a month of application) to 50% of the positions I apply for. That's why it's absolutely essential to be able to apply to places in bulk - have a cover letter and resume that are just generic enough to use for any job you would want.

I fully expect to have to apply to 100 places in order to have 3 solid interviews. And I expect that number to grow.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#142

Post by strathmeyer » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:29 PM UTC

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…

What's baffling is people in denial blaming the victims. We admit it is our fault for thinking a Computer Science degree had any value. We weren't fooled, we were just dumb. But we still want to survive, that doesn't make us bad people just because we enjoy programming.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#143

Post by Mikushi » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:29 PM UTC

MagicWishMonkey wrote: post #117

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…

Agreed. Sounds like there's something else at play with this guys inability to find work. Maybe he doesn't interview very well?

He's old (early 40'). Taboo subject in the sector.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#144

Post by mkozlows » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:30 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #130

branchless wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Most hiring managers are hiring people because they have a definite need for a developer. Every day that they don't find one, they have work that's going undone, projects that are proceeding too slowly, bugs going unfixed. And if they're not finding people, after a while their directors start to question whether they're doing their job properly.

There is nothing a hiring manager loves more than finding a hire-able candidate.

That doesn't mean that the interview is going to be a cakewalk, though. The hiring manager wants someone who's going to be a success in the job, and they're going to try to filter for that. The only thing worse than not hiring a good developer is hiring a bad one, and the process is trying to stop that latter from happening, too.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#145

Post by dublinclontarf » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:30 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #83

dublinclontarf wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are multiple problems we're talking about here. One is the selection problem, that orgs have great difficulty in working out who is a good developer and who is not. The other is that there are a lot of developers who have difficulty in getting work, and to a large extent a lot of them just aren't any good and would be better off in a different career (sorry but that's just the way it is). Once you've removed th…

> Once you've removed the rubbish developers there are indeed far more jobs than developers. Agree. And once you add in the big companies like FB, Google, etc... picking up a huge lot of the good+ developers, everyone else is scrambling to find someone who can at a minimum do FizzBuzz.

I don't know, I am certain that the big co's miss a LOT of good developers who just don't fit their interview process. I went through Google's once and got cut off pretty early in the process, and never attempted a large Co's interview process again after that.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#146

Post by wnevets » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:30 PM UTC

That's my biggest fear trying to make a living in this world.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#147

Post by myderpyaccount » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:32 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #130

branchless wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

At a few companies I interviewed at, fairly established but not tech centered companies, the interviewers had literally just come out of the companies introductory training program.

I don't know if that is really smart, or really dumb. But a lot of jobs I could have probably done really well, I was passed over, and I honestly have to say, inexperienced interviewers have smug attitudes. I got the sense that there was the background thought of "ugh, god, I have to deal with someone's brain that isn't mine".

It's annoying to have to deal with those kinds of attitudes, because it perpetuates them, by causing the people who have bad experience from them to behave defensively next time around.

I've had some okay experience with getting positive feedback leading to callbacks, but these were typically answers to questions that I could have found online verbatim by studying an interview manual. I try not to do that because I think that is dishonest in my actual value.

The best interviews I've had are where it's clear that it is two people talking, and not two computers.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#148

Post by potatolicious » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:32 PM UTC

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…

> "one doesn't find a job by approaching random offices asking for work"

Actually one does, this is in fact one of the best (though not the easiest) ways to get jobs.

In my very first semester in college my whole class had to find internships (Waterloo representin'), and being effectively high school graduates with no real experience, it was pretty tough going.

The "smart" advice was to go to as many job fairs as possible, look at as many job boards as possible, apply to as many jobs as possible, and hope for the best.

A good friend of mine, who was a good deal older than the rest of us snotty 18 year-olds - who had a rougher life than most and was later to the college game - decided to drive down the highway with a stack of resumes and stop at every company along the way. He'd insist on talking to someone sufficiently senior (aka not the assistant) before leaving his resume with them.

Took about a week for him to get a job - while the rest of us were still waiting by the phone for a call-back. The job was unadvertised at any job board or job fair, and they in fact weren't planning to hire an intern at all.

It's not conventional, but it does work. Most job opportunities are unadvertised, and indeed many job opportunities don't exist until you ask for them. A lot of companies have problems they'd like solved but haven't formalized it into an open position.

To be clear - soft skills are incredibly important for everyone, and by all means you should be networking your butt off, but randomly approaching offices asking for work does work, really well.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#149

Post by segmondy » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:32 PM UTC

I do a lot of interviews, and I interview plenty of programmers who have 10+ years experience or so they say. Knowledge of Java, C#, C++, Python, etc in their resume.

Most cannot tell the difference between private and protected.

Most have no idea what an abstract class is or a static variable. Let's not even talk about an interface.

The vast majority have no idea what transactions are.

These are stupid basic things. I don't ask any library or framework questions. I stick to the basics, to the core language. It's the most depressing thing ever. I don't even go into language specific details.

I understand why there are so many unemployable programmers. They let themselves rot. :-(

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#150

Post by duiker101 » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:33 PM UTC

mike-cardwell wrote: post #66

I've spent the last 13/14 years writing Perl so I started getting worried a year or two back that I was making myself unemployable by not branching out. I've been doing a lot of front-end development since, learning JavaScript and NodeJS to a good level, familiarising myself with JavaScript frameworks like React and Angular and learning/launching a couple of simple sites using NodeJS/Express and Python/Django (two ot…

I really like how you laid out the skillset!