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The Unemployable Programmer

unemployable.pen.io

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Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#231

Post by segmondy »

logfromblammo wrote: post #188
segmondy wrote: post #149

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 have done a lot of interviews where I was told that I was the single strongest candidate on the tech screen. I would be told, in the interview, that I correctly answered questions that no other previous candidate could, often prefaced with "I don't know exactly, but if I had to guess..." And then I never hear from them again. I am not making this up. And this has happened on multiple occasions. I get strong positiv…

That's rather unfortunate. I will never say that to someone and not offer them the job, unless they have a personality problem.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#232

Post by rrss1122 »

I think the important thing that the author acknowledge he missed is not getting to know the right people. Get to know your coworkers, connect with them on LinkedIn, and keep those connections fresh. When you need to find a job later, you can tap your contacts network and have a much better chance than randomly applying or using a hiring agency.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#233

Post by obstacle1 »

strathmeyer wrote: post #139

I got a degree but am still unemployable because I didn't have a job when I graduated and apparently nobody hires unemployed people. It's like there's just some tiny step I need to get over. Recently a recruiters said all I needed was a little Java experience and I could be making a lot of money. But I have plenty of Java experience, why can't I find a job anywhere? The worst thing about all of this is how harsh and…

>Recently a recruiters said all I needed was a little Java experience and I could be making a lot of money. But I have plenty of Java experience, why can't I find a job anywhere?

Maybe you have personality defects which make people unwilling to work with you, but you are blind to them. Therapy could help you to identify whether or not the case, and if it is, to get better.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#234

Post by sharemywin »

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…

But if you choose wrong sorry about your luck. I've been working on a mobile app using corona on my own. I also was involved in a giant $20 million dollar project that was in an obscure platform. so, haven't keep up on the latest .net technology. so, too bad for me.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#235

Post by sjcrank »

outworlder wrote: post #187
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Why does he need so many entry level programmers? > We talked about pay, and it wasn't terrible impressive Is the recruiter trying to staff a company with mostly entry-level programmers, paying low wages? I've seen plenty of companies like that, including those who used mostly trainees. Usually, the work environment was the crappiest possible, and w…

In the interest of building an experience-diverse workforce employers need entry level, mid level, and experienced developers with skills in their core stack, which in many cases is Java or .NET.

My theory is that technology trends are leading the entry level developers to learn Python, Ruby, and JavaScript rather than .NET or Java, thereby reducing the supply and putting these candidates in high demand.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#236

Post by bengale »

matwood wrote: post #93
alkonaut wrote: post #19

I think being around 40 with a decade of dev experience should be pretty attractive, at least if the programming experience is somewhat modern. 10 years OO-programming should be translatable to any OO language with ease, regardless of what you actually used before, for example. There are "unemployable" developers out there, but they are 10-20 years older and have 15 years of niche in-house platforms in some huge ente…

I've interviewed people like this though not as extreme. Basically person gets a job. They learn the job in about 3-6 months and now repeat the same job for years without ever learning anything else. So on paper it shows 5-10 years experience, but in reality they still have about 3-6 months experience. Part of the blame lies on the company for not giving the employee a growth path, but the largest part lies on the em…

It's been a big problem when I've been recruiting for developers. 10 years experience or 10 of the same year, normally it's the latter.

Personally if I feel I'm no longer learning then I raise it with my manager. If after a few months nothing has changed then I start interviewing.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#237

Post by ryandrake »

branchless wrote: post #107
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…

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.

But the question is, as always, why could they never find enough good developers? It's not necessarily an under-supply.

1. Are they offering enough in salary to attract the good developers?

2. Is their knowledge/skills expectation of a "good developer" too high?

3. Is there something about their hiring process that is filtering out the good developers you see?

4. Is there something about their reputation (grueling interview process, salary reputation, ethical misbehavior, etc.) that is causing the good developers to not even apply?

HN loves to just jump to the mythical "shortage of developers" conclusion, but it may be more complicated.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#238

Post by mike-cardwell »

duiker101 wrote: post #150
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!

It's just a tree of lists inside lists :) I tried to make it look clean and made sure it was responsive though.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#239

Post by jondubois »

You have to sell yourself with confidence. Employers often want people who have enthusiasm (not just skill).

Unfortunately, people who had a really tough career like the author often tend to lack enthusiasm (which is understandable) - It's one of life's vicious cycles and it's almost impossible to get out of.

You just have to hustle. Try a lot of different things and make yourself known to as many people as possible - It's all about odds. If you find a way to spam out your resume to thousands of potential employers, you're bound to get some responses.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#240

Post by sharemywin »

notNow wrote: post #73

To the author of this piece: Have you tried any of the following alternative in your quest to land a job: 1- Theme marketplaces like Envato. The competition is really fierce but you could make it and establish a name and sharpen your skills and be up to date when the latest trends and movements in our profession. 2- Kickstarter campaign to crowd-fund a technical project that you're passionate about to showcase your t…

He said his skill weren't up to date. That's the whole point. Companies would rather hire kids out of college with recent experience than someone with years of experience that's not the what's in fashion.
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