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The Unemployable Programmer

unemployable.pen.io

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Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#221

Post by vonmoltke »

nordic_nomad wrote: post #201
vonmoltke wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I live in Dallas. I have been fishing in Dallas and Austin over the past several months and can't get any interviews. I would like to know where all these "desperate" companies are and what domains they are in.

Well the quick answer is JavaScript is needed everywhere. I'd bone up on that, and learn angular inside and out as well as a couple of other JavaScript frameworks for good measure. That's what gets me hired as a C# developer in php, ruby, and java shops where I can then gradually show them I know UX, devops, and other little valuable things. The trick is that the hot thing in short supply will change this time next y…

Hence the reason I said "web and mobile development-centric" in the post that started this sub-thread.

I'm actually writing a UI in Angular right now or a Java-based system I wrote. I hate it. It is a pain I'm going through because I need a UI for this prototype, but there is no way I would want to do this full-time.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#223

Post by ryandrake »

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…

If there is really an under-supply of (or over-demand for) developers, why aren't developer salaries skyrocketing? Something doesn't add up.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#224

Post by vonmoltke »

bitshepherd wrote: post #220
vonmoltke wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I live in Dallas. I have been fishing in Dallas and Austin over the past several months and can't get any interviews. I would like to know where all these "desperate" companies are and what domains they are in.

My experience with fishing in Austin is that they love you when you're not in Texas. If you're in Texas, you don't exist to them, so you don't get an interview.

I have definitely got that impression. Over the past few years I have seen a parade of articles about "missions" from Austin to the Valley to try to recruit people, yet they seem to think Dallas and Houston don't exist.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#225

Post by kfk »

One reason I stayed in finance is that the programming scene is very fragmented. Some people say everybody that can do a print "hi" gets a job, yet many job advertisements come with increasing requirements. Startups keep looking for the 0.1%, whatever that means, that tells me that there is, indeed, strong competition for candidates (and that I have a 99.9% chance of not getting any job in those startups). Finally, age does come into play, one thing is to go into this at 20, another is at 30 and even another a 40, etc.

There is a lot of survival bias. So far, I did not hear any salary higher than 50k euro from face to face talk in Germany (mine is higher, with no coding job). Thus, I am also not clear how real is to have one of those $100k+ salaries just doing "normal" coding (no managerial stuff). If that were possible and achievable even in a 3 years span, I'd definitely jump into it, but reality tells me it's not. At least out of the tech hubs (SV, etc.), but then the 0.1% thing kicks in, so you have a 99.9% chance of not getting any of those jobs, while you have plenty of opportunity to get a steady carrier just where you are.

And finally, programming will go through some kind of "commoditization", it's already happening. It might be good to "only" be coding today, but 10 years from now, older and with kids (so no possibility to work week ends anymore), this will probably not be enough and will move you more towards the unemployable zone.

Just some thoughts from an ex-wannabe programmer.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#226

Post by eropple »

vonmoltke wrote: post #193
DaveWalk wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it goes deeper than this: there's a greater emphasis today on the candidate being productive from day one. I don't know what is causing it (too much exposure to efficient software?), but in many industries hiring managers would rather keep looking for an absolute perfect candidate while leaving behind several that have the skills but need the training. I have heard the stories about managers spending 100 extr…

> I'd say it goes deeper than this: there's a greater emphasis today on the candidate being productive from day one. Which drives me crazy. Nobody can be truly productive on day one. You have processes to learn, even if it is just an informal "way we do things". You have existing code to become familiar with. You have team dynamics to work into. It takes time. Personally, I cringe whenever I read a job advert mention…

I agree that in the general case it's very unlikely for your average developer to be truly productive on day one, but I wouldn't say that nobody is. This is a large part of my value prop: I spend the first day or two getting infodumps to get up to speed, but even during that time I'm building up plans of attack to get done what I'm being paid to get done (and to me and to the people paying for me, that is productive).

I'm a consultant/contractor (depending on the gig), though, so the social dynamic is different and it's less about integrating into a team and more about understanding the exact problem domain.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#227

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#228

Post by ryandrake »

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…

> He told me he's dying for entry level .NET/ASP and Java developers.

How many years of experience and how much demonstrated expertise did he require from these" entry-level" candidates that he supposedly can't find?

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#229

Post by JoshTriplett »

vonmoltke wrote: post #207
JoshTriplett wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Clearance requests must be accompanied by a justification, which basically means "needed to work on Project XYZ". You cannot get a clearance unless you actually need it to do work, and should not be cleared any higher than is necessary[1]. This leads to the chicken-and-egg situation with cleared positions: you need a clearance to work on these programs, but you can't get a clearance for the first time until asked to…

What's the rationale for that? Clearance is surely a lot of work to obtain, but that's what the cost of the investigation should offset.

I would think even with clearance you can't actually get information you don't need to know, such as information on a project you're not working on.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#230

Post by proksoup »

eropple wrote: post #219
manyxcxi wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in Seattle and am getting lots of contact from recruiters in DFW and Austin, and not just the usual LinkedIn spam BS. My background is heavy on DevOps and I've got about a 50/50 split on .NET and Java.

I can corroborate this, though more from the LinkedIn side of things. Out of every twenty LinkedIn messages I get, probably six are SF, four are Boston (I'm local), two each are NYC and DC, and two or three are between DFW and Austin. (The last couple are usually Idaho or Nebraska or one of the other corporate-fief states.)

What are the corporate-fief states? What does that mean, or what is that in reference to?
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