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The Unemployable Programmer

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Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#271

Post by drzaiusapelord »

ryandrake wrote: post #228
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. How many years of experience and how much demonstrated expertise did he require from these" entry-level" candidates that he supposedly can't find?

None. Straight out of community college were being placed.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#272

Post by DaveWalk »

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…

It gets to me as well. I thought it might have just been my lack of skills, but I've had this conversation across several fields with recruiters who have said similar things.

The best description I've heard is that it's a spectrum from "100% training provided" to "productive on day one." Older recruiters tell me that decades ago the spectrum was too far in the other direction -- willing to hire anyone, and piling on the training. But now it's too far the other way, dropping good candidates who aren't able to perform independently on day one.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#273

Post by jokoon »

Feels pretty accurate. The real source of the problem is political, meaning how people perceive tech in modern days. It's very different when you look at IT business history.

Going mainstream implies major changes, which are not technological, but still exclude many players because big corporate players bring immense business differences.

To be honest, skill and intelligence never mattered when it's about success. Humans want to be happy, technological progress interests nobody. That's where the "overskilled" comes from.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#274

Post by djKianoosh »

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…

what does "complete nightmare socially" mean? :)

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#275

Post by doktrin »

chii wrote: post #217
doktrin wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something being glossed over by most of the responses. Age discrimination (or rather, age preconception, if that's a less loaded term) is frighteningly real.

i would expect that an older person with more battle tested experience ought to fair better tbh, so i don't get it with the agism. Unless the position is meant for a high strung startup where you're expected to basically live there, with no dependents to look after etc.

There are several reasons younger developers are sometimes valued over older candidates. Work life balance is part of it, but there are other factors at play. This is a pretty well trodden topic, and you can find a lot of the typical discussion points by Googling. A common explanation, for instance, is that experience in tech doesn't accrue a ton of value due to tech obsolescence - 20 Cobol experience doesn't really translate to much of anything these days.

However, rather than re-hash all that, it's worth taking a look at the numbers - numbers that absolutely indicate a younger skewing workforce. For instance, the average age at Facebook is 26, and 31 at Google. Tech as a whole leans young, with the "oldest" tech company workforce (HP) still younger than the national median [1]

Now, whether simply having a younger workforce points towards actual age discrimination is a matter of fair debate. A perfectly reasonable explanation might be that tech is a young field, hence a young workforce. However, there are enough confounding factors (limitations of experience, work/life balance in dev roles, etc.) that certainly make for rational arguments in favor of age being more of burden than boon.

Then, of course, you have stuff like this :

> "Young people are just smarter. Why are most chess masters under 30? I don't know. Young people just have simpler lives. We may not own a car. We may not have family. Simplicity in life allows you to focus on what's important." -- Zuckerberg

True or not, it would be weird to argue that his opinion is somehow a rare isolated outlier. It speaks to a common conception - both in the valley and in tech - that this is a business for the young.

[1] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/05/technology-workers-...

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#276

Post by djKianoosh »

voidfunc wrote: post #137
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…

Can anyone please tell me what developers use training budgets for? I feel like most things I have learned are from free resources such as blogs and StackOverflow. What do people spend money on? Books I suppose are the most likely candidate, but those can definitely be bought with $500... Do people actually get value out of conferences? Those always seem more like cash grabs and marketing events than actual training…

I think you'll get more value from local Meetups and the very few non-marketing conferences out there. If it's a tech company putting on a conference, expect a lot of marketing. Conferences like Strangeloop and the no-fluff ones are usually better.

Other than that, books and screencasts seem to be a good way to spend that training budget as well. But there's a ton of videos online available for free too.

Of course, they all require time. Which is money. :)

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#277

Post by mindcrime »

vonmoltke wrote: post #136
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…

> 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…

What is baffling is this Valley-centric, web and mobile development-centric line being repeated constantly in this thread. Most of the world is a different story. Outside the Valley and a couple other metros, and outside the web and mobile fields in general: 1) degrees are usually required; 2) employers are much pickier.

I haven't found that to be the case here in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area. I never finished my bachelors degree (although, I do have three different associates degrees), and I have never found it to be an inhibition to my career.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#278

Post by Bartweiss »

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…

I think this overlooks the difference between qualified and credentialed.

In the valley, there are plenty of experienced and uncredentialed people working great jobs. There are relatively few unqualified people doing the same, except when hiring squeezes exceedingly tight.

Outside the valley, defending the decision to hire someone without credentials is virtually impossible. There may be plenty of interest, but someone along the way will chicken out rather than risk the backlash if someone without a degree turns out to be incompetent.

The fact that 'marginally-qualified' people get hired is orthogonal (or maybe even antithetical) to whether 'marginally-credentialed' people do. If a company can't judge competence, they just look for degrees and get shitty employees. That's what's happening outside the valley, and it hurts companies and skilled, degree-less employees alike.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#279

Post by bsg75 »

chii wrote: post #217
doktrin wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something being glossed over by most of the responses. Age discrimination (or rather, age preconception, if that's a less loaded term) is frighteningly real.

i would expect that an older person with more battle tested experience ought to fair better tbh, so i don't get it with the agism. Unless the position is meant for a high strung startup where you're expected to basically live there, with no dependents to look after etc.

In some cases, those with less experience are threatened by people who have more, and if a company has a low median age experience might be an issue to the interviewers. The problem is exacerbated when the interviewee is not impressed when the latest, bleeding edge tech is in use at the target company, and has seen similar projects completed with stable and boring tech.

In others, especially those with the high-strung startup mentality you mention, they are looking for people to work more hours for less pay and promises. Younger people are more able / willing to take risks. Experienced workers are not as interested in promises, but prefer defined returns on their individual investments.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#280

Post by eropple »

HillRat wrote: post #257
proksoup wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Roach-motel markets: you can get in, but you can't get out. More technically, monopsonistic or oligopsolistic factor markets, where the number of employers is small and thus control hiring in the local market. (Though I would expect Nebraska to be fairly competitive in hiring, given its surprisingly large number of finance and insurance companies.)

That's another possible way to look at it, but wasn't what I meant. The companies I know that went to Nebraska (or Idaho) pretty much had everything handed to them and they're not exactly states known for being big on protection of the middle and lower class. (People in favor of the approaches taken by these states might call them "business-friendly" climates; I think being friendly towards corporations, in an age where people cheer them for being amoral, is kind of stupid.) Monopsonic/oligopsonic concerns are another one to keep in mind, though.
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