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Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

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Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#161

Post by time_to_smile »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #53
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> many developers by their mid-30's are sitting on a million+ in assets and good ones can rake in 200K+ easy. What !!! Edit: I did return to tone down my reaction but I would be interested in any (evidence based) research on the pay scales in and out of SV. I understand it is only the very top tech (FAANG) that pay so highly and mostly though share options. It's not like that in Europe I am afraid. But even so, if…

GP definitely lives in a SV/US bubble. Here in Europe I know devs in high CoL areas having less than a thousand Euros left at the end of the month. Having millions in assets is fantasy for us unless you won some crypto/stock gambles.

> SV/US bubble

It's not SV, it's the US. 200k is easily achievable for a senior engineer anywhere in the US with the rise in wfh.

But what percent of software engineering jobs are in the US? It's not really a bubble if it's the majority of software positions.

Reminds me of Dijkstra's "On the fact that the Atlantic Ocean has two sides" followed by Alan Kay's rebuttal "On the fact that most software is written on one side of the Atlantic Ocean."

Sure developers in the EU get paid less, developers in Mobile Alabama working locally also probably get paid less, but most developers aren't in these areas.

I also know plenty of EU citizens working for US companies making 200k+ remotely, so it's not like these positions are closed off from people residing in the EU.

Even Dijkstra eventually ended up at UT Austin.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#162

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

ipaddr wrote: post #138
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience is that, whether it be via interview, take-home, or whiteboard test, what employers are looking for, is $buzzwordDuJour . I may be being generous. I am noticeably “older,” so it may have simply been bald-faced ageism, in my case. Maybe younger folks would have been given more latitude. I remember getting a take-home, once, where they asked me to write an iOS app that leveraged a specific library. They d…

Ghosting after take home tests are extremely common. Usually the longer the test the more likely you are to be ghosted.

It was also pretty damn stupid. That was one of the motivators for me to stop bothering to look. I didn't need the work, and I was looking for work that interested me (this was a hardware company that made a system that interested me).

They maybe didn't like that I used classic MVC for the app, because it is ... less than optimal ... to use other patterns, when writing a UIKit app. Of course, it's also possible that they finally brought in a tech manager, who figured out I was old, so...

But I regularly write full apps in record time. My GH repos are full of test harnesses that I toss together in no time at all. Pretty much every test harness is one that many folks would be proud to submit to the App Store. I’ve had over 20 published native apps, over the last ten years (mostly deprecated, these days), so I’m used to regularly shipping (and maintaining) native iOS apps.

I'd suggest that someone that can chock together an app like that, in just a few hours, while under a serious amount of external stress, could be someone worth following up on. BTW: The library was MapBox. I'd never worked with it before. I enjoyed the opportunity to learn about it, as I may use it in the future (offline maps, and it's a pretty decent dependency).

But that was about three years ago, and I'm actually really glad that I got chased out of the rat race. It just took me a while to appreciate it.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#163

Post by gsibble »

yupper32 wrote: post #142
gsibble wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Sounds like we wouldn't want you anyways if you have such poor work ethic. Ouch. I knew I saw red flags in your original post. This seals the deal.

What red flags did you see? That we pay top of market? That we work to have a low stress environment? That we put life before work instead of work before life? That we prioritize having the best benefits on the market, including platinum health care with $0 employee contribution and full mental health coverage for therapy and medication not covered through insurance? That we don't overload our top performers by giving them more work when they overperform but instead let them take the extra time off? Which of those is a red flag? Everyone at our company is very happy. Apparently some people don't like coding exercises. That's fine. We require people to demonstrate they can code. Everyone at the company has to go through that. We'll miss out on some candidates because of that, but I'd much rather miss a few candidates than have some false positives. I'm sorry that ruffles some feathers. We honestly strive to have the best work environment possible for engineers based upon my many years of being abused, overworked, and having to go through absolutely horrible, long, miserable interview processes. We do 1-2 interviews and ask you to code a little. I don't think that's unreasonable, especially considering all of the benefits on the other side.

All of these are policies I've worked hard to implement to create the absolute best environment in the world for my engineers to thrive. I've had to fight for them since they aren't cheap. It hurts me when someone says taking an hour out of their week to do a coding interview isn't worth it when I've taken dozens to hundreds out of mine to make their job as easy and enjoyable when they get accepted into our culture. It's insulting to me to say that asking for an hour of your time is not worth everything above and much more that I've strived for to make our company a fantastic place to work at.

So, like I said, what red flags did you see exactly?

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#164

Post by jenscow »

ipaddr wrote: post #143
gsibble wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 might not be good at judging candidates. A good cto uses their gut and experience. An inexperienced or someone who doesn't have the gut uses tricks. Where do you fit? Have you taken any courses or worked with professionals to help you with this?

There are people who genuinely believe they are good at their job, when they're not. They're not bullshitting and the conversation is genuine.

Just 10 minutes of coding (or attempting to), tells you they can't code. A little longer can tell you roughly how good they are.

Experienced developers who can code have had the misfortune of working with people who couldn't pass this, and may appreciate that the members of their new team can.

Where do you fit?

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#165

Post by PainfullyNormal »

jenscow wrote: post #164
ipaddr wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might not be good at judging candidates. A good cto uses their gut and experience. An inexperienced or someone who doesn't have the gut uses tricks. Where do you fit? Have you taken any courses or worked with professionals to help you with this?

There are people who genuinely believe they are good at their job, when they're not. They're not bullshitting and the conversation is genuine. Just 10 minutes of coding (or attempting to), tells you they can't code. A little longer can tell you roughly how good they are. Experienced developers who can code have had the misfortune of working with people who couldn't pass this, and may appreciate that the members of th…

There are ways of discovering if somebody can code without making them do fizzbuzz.

This is a good process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfyWvJdsDRI

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#166

Post by jenscow »

PainfullyNormal wrote: post #165
jenscow wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people who genuinely believe they are good at their job, when they're not. They're not bullshitting and the conversation is genuine. Just 10 minutes of coding (or attempting to), tells you they can't code. A little longer can tell you roughly how good they are. Experienced developers who can code have had the misfortune of working with people who couldn't pass this, and may appreciate that the members of th…

There are ways of discovering if somebody can code without making them do fizzbuzz. This is a good process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfyWvJdsDRI

No post body was provided.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#168

Post by gsibble »

sys_64738 wrote: post #157
pjmlp wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Tell us who you are and what your company is. You truly sound like a terrible employer based on your shocking responses. You came here to ask for feedback and then when you got it you didn't like it. You are clearly the issue of why you can't hire developers. I'd wish you good luck but I won't.

We're a terrible employer? Let me tell you what kind of employer we are.

We pay top 1% of market. We work to have a low stress environment. We put life before work instead of work before life. We prioritize having the best benefits on the market, including platinum health care with $0 employee contribution and full mental health coverage for therapy and medication not covered through insurance. We don't overload our top performers by giving them more work when they overperform but instead let them take the extra time off. We give everyone when they join a private office and an unlimited budget to buy tech and decorate it to their heart's desire. We don't have required hours in the office or even require that people come to the office at all. Most people do though since they enjoy their nicely decorated private offices with multiple high end monitors and tricked out desktops.

Which part of that makes us a terrible employer? That we ask people for an hour of their time to do a coding exercise? Is that how your judge if an employer is good or bad?

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#170

Post by techdragon »

gsibble wrote: post #168
sys_64738 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell us who you are and what your company is. You truly sound like a terrible employer based on your shocking responses. You came here to ask for feedback and then when you got it you didn't like it. You are clearly the issue of why you can't hire developers. I'd wish you good luck but I won't.

We're a terrible employer? Let me tell you what kind of employer we are. We pay top 1% of market. We work to have a low stress environment. We put life before work instead of work before life. We prioritize having the best benefits on the market, including platinum health care with $0 employee contribution and full mental health coverage for therapy and medication not covered through insurance. We don't overload our…

I could have missed it since I’m reading on my phone before my morning coffee, but you don’t appear to have stated where you work. I’m curious where it is since if you would employ someone remote from overseas you sound like a great “no bullshit” employer/company!
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