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Finding a Tech Job Is Still a Nightmare

wired.com

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Re: Finding a Tech Job Is Still a Nightmare

#21

Post by sph »

mg wrote: post #15

I'm surprised there is still so much friction about white collar jobs like programming. One could think that by now, it should be easy for developers to "jump into" a codebase and suggest changes (aka pull requests). Turning the world of developer jobs into a fluid system that adapts instantly to demand and supply. It works pretty well for Wikipedia, where everyone can jump in and edit articles. And then there is som…

> I wonder what the biggest hindrances are.

Three-tiered interview system, flaky interviewers, flaky candidates, insane job requirements for mundane positions, useless recruiters, fake job ads, "hybrid" work?

It's a bloody mess and it has always been. My best interview was in 2006, at my first junior position, when the guy just asked my experience in Linux, what does "ifconfig" do, what languages I know, and I got a paid internship. They expected me to learn on the job, and I did. Now even the junior position have ridiculous requirements, and with 17 years of experience, I get ignored by a clueless recruiter because out of the 10 techs they use, I forgot to list the exact Linux distro they use on my CV, so I'm probably not good enough for them.

I keep hearing there's more demand (for engineers) than there is supply but I call bullshit. That might be true, but the employers make all the rules so even getting an interview this year felt more like winning the lottery than filling a supply shortage. And the lottery you've just won got you in the Squid Game. Now you gotta fight against 50 other candidates, which might be more desperate than you and gladly work for peanuts, 3 days in the office.

Fuck this. Even finding work as a mercenary^Hconsultant is a bloodbath. The only advice is "ask your network." If your network isn't hiring, it's back to the Squid Game for you.

I reckon even Fortune 500 CEO interviews are easier than the average software engineer gauntlet.

Re: Finding a Tech Job Is Still a Nightmare

#22

Post by meiraleal »

badpun wrote: post #13
yellow_lead wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I think about this. Things humans need: food, shelter, healthcare, energy, water. Working in one of these industries or improving access/efficiency of these things could be useful. But there are a lot of tech startups, i.e vertical farming that end up wasting capital because the economics don't make sense.

Individually, most startups fail, so most of them are "wasting capital". As wtih any experimentation, they only make sense in the aggregate, where the total value for society delivered by successful experiments makes up for the cost of the failed ones.

> where the total value for society delivered by successful experiments makes up for the cost of the failed ones.

I disagree. The successful experiments are negative to society just a few years after some startup wins in a niche. The world would be better off without Google, Facebook, Airbnb or Uber now that they already "changed" the market. Every tech dominance becomes society-negative over time.

Re: Finding a Tech Job Is Still a Nightmare

#23

Post by magicalhippo »

mg wrote: post #15

I'm surprised there is still so much friction about white collar jobs like programming. One could think that by now, it should be easy for developers to "jump into" a codebase and suggest changes (aka pull requests). Turning the world of developer jobs into a fluid system that adapts instantly to demand and supply. It works pretty well for Wikipedia, where everyone can jump in and edit articles. And then there is som…

> I wonder what the biggest hindrances are for software development to become this way.

At least for our application, it's hidden/non-explicit dependencies and domain knowledge.

By hidden dependencies I typically mean that process X has to be done before process Y, or similar. Meaning you sometimes can't just rearrange things. A substantial integration test suite could help, but it's a tradeoff. Though often it be tricky to test, as it could depend on customer systems we don't have internal access to.

Domain knowledge is also needed for much of the code. Of course this could be offloaded to a senior, but then those tend to be the limiting factor. For our team, it's been more effective that all the devs have substantial domain knowledge.

Re: Finding a Tech Job Is Still a Nightmare

#24

Post by Traubenfuchs »

mg wrote: post #15

I'm surprised there is still so much friction about white collar jobs like programming. One could think that by now, it should be easy for developers to "jump into" a codebase and suggest changes (aka pull requests). Turning the world of developer jobs into a fluid system that adapts instantly to demand and supply. It works pretty well for Wikipedia, where everyone can jump in and edit articles. And then there is som…

> it should be easy for developers to "jump into" a codebase and suggest changes

You were either VERY selective/lucky with the code bases you had to work on or never worked on complex, old, legacy code bases.

Just consider the single case of having to construct a new request body for another system, without knowing what's needed. It has 50 fields, which are consumed by more than 10 downstream systems that all want a piece of it. Getting any of those fields wrong will lead to a wrong outcome in at least one of those downstream systems. You have no access to the source code of most of those systems, as it is a "principle of least privilege" company working on sensitive secrets related to, e.g. tax fraud detection and tax calculation, which actually doesn't matter as half of the code is cobol or pl/1 anyways, which you can't read. Looking at the git history, you can see no one who worked on the applications you have access to is with the company anymore. You have to find the current owners of all downstream systems, start a dialogue with them, figure out if their QA or yours will test your new request. Your only chance to get an automated e2e test you can trust is if the 60 year old QA lady who is with the company for 40 years now, who only works 20 hours a week because she has bone cancer writes one for you. Any externally perceivable bug or wrong calculation will lead to the minister of finance personally firing you. Yes, that was the second job of my life.

> I wonder what the biggest hindrances are.

Bad code quality, lack of useful and up to date documentation, high code complexity, high organisational complexity.

> Turning the world of developer jobs into a fluid system that adapts instantly to demand and supply.

Ah yes, the good old wet dream of non-technical agile proponents. Agile little cogs that provide perfect forecasting.

Re: Finding a Tech Job Is Still a Nightmare

#25

Post by dxuh »

RugnirViking wrote: post #19

This is a surprise to me lol, job searching right now pretty much every company I talk to is desparate

My experience is not like that at all and I feel like it's messed up in a weird way. I applied to dozens of companies recently and I never got a positive response, mostly automated rejections (both small-ish and larger companies).

The only companies that I ended up in talks with were companies that contacted me and none of those went anywhere (yet) for different reasons. Some of these companies are really cool though.

I am thinking a lot about whether I might just be much worse than I thought (feel free to look at my "Who wants to be hired?" posts in my post history).

Re: Finding a Tech Job Is Still a Nightmare

#26

Post by dxuh »

BaculumMeumEst wrote: post #20

it's really not, if you're the slightest bit strategic about it, and seek employment outside of san francisco. i suppose that wired's editors know this, but like many publications, they will gleefully sow fear, doubt, and anxiety into people who don't know any better in order to make a small amount of money.

What does being strategic about it mean to you? Just searching outside of San Francisco? Because I have only searched inside the EU and I find it quite difficult.

Re: Finding a Tech Job Is Still a Nightmare

#27

Post by expertentipp »

mg wrote: post #15

I'm surprised there is still so much friction about white collar jobs like programming. One could think that by now, it should be easy for developers to "jump into" a codebase and suggest changes (aka pull requests). Turning the world of developer jobs into a fluid system that adapts instantly to demand and supply. It works pretty well for Wikipedia, where everyone can jump in and edit articles. And then there is som…

> I wonder what the biggest hindrances are for software development to become this way.

The biggest hindrance are people desperately holding to their positions. Whether aware they'll be unable to find another job, got too easy and cozy in the current role, having mortgage or other debts, or some other circumstances. For them you can as well write code in "new message" window of Outlook.

Re: Finding a Tech Job Is Still a Nightmare

#28

Post by 5350-uiop-1130 »

sph wrote: post #21
mg wrote: post #15

I'm surprised there is still so much friction about white collar jobs like programming. One could think that by now, it should be easy for developers to "jump into" a codebase and suggest changes (aka pull requests). Turning the world of developer jobs into a fluid system that adapts instantly to demand and supply. It works pretty well for Wikipedia, where everyone can jump in and edit articles. And then there is som…

> I wonder what the biggest hindrances are. Three-tiered interview system, flaky interviewers, flaky candidates, insane job requirements for mundane positions, useless recruiters, fake job ads, "hybrid" work? It's a bloody mess and it has always been. My best interview was in 2006, at my first junior position, when the guy just asked my experience in Linux, what does "ifconfig" do, what languages I know, and I got a…

it's the outcome of saturation. the barriers to entry get higher and higher.

Re: Finding a Tech Job Is Still a Nightmare

#30

Post by saagarjha »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #12
roschdal wrote: post #2

What can people do instead of technology jobs, to make real productive work in the labour market?

Nursing seems to have a shortage basically everywhere. Especially when you factor in the difference in physical strength between men and women. I personally wouldn't want any job where I didn't feel like I was personally helping push out the Pareto frontier of civilization, though. Everything else feels somehow short-sighted to me.

On the contrary, not having people working on the structure needed to support this kind of effort seems to be more short-sighted.
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