The Unemployable Programmer • Hacker News Board

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#171

Post by JoshTriplett » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:43 PM UTC

mgkimsal wrote: post #88

jcadam wrote: post #69

Hmm... I'm a 35 year old programmer and I work in Defense/Aerospace. If you think finding a good developer is hard, try finding a good developer who also holds a security clearance. If you're any good at all, you will always be employed and well compensated. The work can be dull, with Vogon-esque processes and procedures, but I have side projects to keep me sane :) Every couple of years (ok, at least every year) I'll…

Problem there is you can't just go get a security clearance - you have to be ... sponsored(?) - is that the word - by a company already. At least, that was my reading of the situation a few years back. I gave up applying to defense positions years ago because every one required existing security clearance. It's the defense industry version of "you have to have experience before we'll hire you to get the experience".

Interesting. Is there no way to pay the same fee a company would pay to apply for clearance for yourself?

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#172

Post by doktrin » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:43 PM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #141

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…

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…

> 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?

How many positions have you applied for that itemized the reasons for rejection? I've had that happen maybe once, and it was for a role at a startup.

Anyhow, often times the degree is a hard requirement. Mine is in Philosophy, and for a long time I left it off my CV because I didn't perceive it as being relevant.

When I applied for a position with a research lab, the [engineering] team politely responded asking if I had any academic credentials whatsoever. They wanted to move me along the interview process, but the lack of a degree would have kiboshed the whole thing.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#173

Post by DaveWalk » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:44 PM UTC

duiker101 wrote: post #153

wtbob wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

But that's still how you are most likely to get women(or jobs) and how it's been done since forever.

Well said. Why are we so apt to forget how things worked in the past?

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#174

Post by gexla » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:45 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…

Two points on this.

"Cold calling" is a great method for making sales.

Cold calling and talking to women is hard, but doing hard things is a great first step for breaking out of a shell and getting ahead.

The more you practice defeating your resistance to change, the more you build your confidence that you can do it. It may or may not become easier, but at least you can become familiar with and even embrace the pain. Feel the burn!

Taking it easy may have been what got him into this mess in the first place.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#175

Post by mratzloff » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:45 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

Maybe not "random" offices, but otherwise that's exactly how I found my first programming job out of college. No one does this, and you'll get a lot of rejections, but it can work to get a quick in-person chat with a hiring manager about your skill set. Doing some research on the companies beforehand is useful, of course.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#176

Post by phamilton » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:45 PM UTC

mkozlows wrote: post #132

omouse wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Mayb…

Three points to that: 1. This differs more from workplace to workplace than industry to industry. Many dev workplaces will give developers a week or two of official "training time." Many other industries have workplaces that don't do that. 2. The reality is, training on new technologies has more value to you than it does to your employer. If your employer uses J2EE, Subversion, and Oracle, there's little benefit to t…

2. The same could be said about any compensation. It generally benefits you, not your employer. That doesn't mean there's no incentive to pay you.

Training should be seen as a part of compensation. While there's some alignment with the employers needs, giving employees a training budget shoulder be seen as a cheap way to provide more compensation and they should be able to use it to hone their skills in whatever area they want, regardless of its utility to employers.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#177

Post by vonmoltke » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:46 PM UTC

ScottWhigham wrote: post #152

vonmoltke wrote: post #136

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. What is baffling is this Valley-centric, web and mobile development-centric line being repeated c…

If that were true, it would mean that The Valley hires, on average, lower quality developers than non-Valley employers. Is that what you are suggesting?

I don't think it means "on average", since I do think the average quality of a dev is higher in the Valley is better than elsewhere. However, I am saying that getting hired as a marginal dev is easier in the Valley than elsewhere, since there are not enough warm bodies in that area and Valley companies only seem to be willing to reach outside the area for really good people.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#178

Post by studentrob » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:46 PM UTC

fringedgentian wrote: post #37

I once found myself unemployable as well, maybe what I did can help someone. This was quite a few years ago when the ColdFusion job I had just ended and the job I had before that was in Visual FoxPro (and a few other even less known technologies). Talk about unemployable. Also I am not in a major city, so I was getting pretty much no responses to my resume. After a few months I realized I was unemployable and set out…

This is a great story. Perhaps OP will see it and get motivated

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#179

Post by jschwartzi » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:46 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #60

What about people that instead NEVER had a job? I got my degree in 2009, at the height of the crisis (for now at least... here in Brazil the crisis of 2009 is finally getting worse), I NEVER had a legal job, all the stuff I put in LinkedIn were semi-legal or outright illegal stuff (or my startup). Also my programming language of choice were clearly a poor choice, I learned C, and C++ and whatnot when I was a kid (I w…

C/C++ are almost all I use all day, with some Lua for good measure. If you can find a register in a memory map and have a good concept of time and how it relates to the hardware clock you'd probably make an excellent embedded developer.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#180

Post by Bluestrike2 » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 2:48 PM UTC

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #151

vonmoltke wrote: post #136

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. What is baffling is this Valley-centric, web and mobile development-centric line being repeated c…

Agreed, sometimes people aren't aware that HN is its own little echo chamber. I was talking to a recruiter recently for a managerial job and somehow got onto the topic of hiring. I asked him what's the hardest jobs for him to fill right now. He told me he's dying for entry level .NET/ASP and Java developers. Corporations have built their castles on these technologies, not FOSS/Mobile and need staff. Degrees were an i…

Companies like that would benefit from being more flexible on the degree issue; there are a huge number of programmers out there who are self-taught. It makes things seemingly more difficult in judging qualifications, but if you aren't filling the positions to begin with, that would seem like a good problem to have in the first place.