The Unemployable Programmer • Hacker News Board

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#321

Post by nordic_nomad » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 5:09 PM UTC

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #313

nordic_nomad wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I'm self taught, no degree, and I get job offers and headhunters out of the blue from all over the central US. Denver, Kansas City, Omaha, Des Moines, Chicago, and small cities I've never heard of. The best thing I ever did was look at my friends early on who were getting found on linked in and organized my linkedin profile to look as similar as theirs as I could truthfully. The next best thing was taking 6 months…

>Did one of those code bootcamps to learn back end C# .Net MVC work in 6 months and got my first developer job at $40k, got the next one at $60k 6 months later, $75k 6 months after that, and $100k 6 months after that. That's a ridiculously good trajectory actually. Did you go to each next job based on what you built previously (plus the business experience), or were you also doing your own stuff in parallel to work?

So the first 2 years I was significantly underpaid with the digital agency we started really, where I was the only person doing front end and everyone else being a data scientist or strictly back-end person.

Front-end work was really undervalued as we priced our work, but the only thing that was less valued were my MBA and business operations skills, so I kept doing that until student loans kicked in.

I did a lot of community centered work for free and freelance stuff on the side after I left especially after my Senior UX job at a startup that was making money fell through, but it wasn't until I built my portfolio and assembled what I could that was all over the place and used it as my initial resume that I realized people would hire me as like an actual employee web developer.

It's a couple years out of date now, and really starting to show its age, but this is what I used when doing my initial job hunting early in 2013. http://www.startup-designs.com

So some of the trajectory is due to the foundation I had already, but most of it was talking to people I knew who were where I wanted to get to and blatantly copying what they told me I needed to do. It's not rocket science the stuff that actually works, but it's not intuitive either.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#322

Post by vonmoltke » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 5:09 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #255

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.

Are you open to Houston? I can provide suggestions on where to apply there.

Absolutely. I have made a few attempts to break into the oil and gas industry there, since my wife is affiliated with the industry.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#323

Post by vonmoltke » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

nordic_nomad wrote: post #292

vonmoltke wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Honestly I don't tend to use angular with pure .net stuff. Razor and Linq handle all the templating for a single page app and data piping. Really all I'd add to the standard environment is something like this ( https://github.com/SignalR/SignalR ) so you can get real time data and refresh the page without postback. For node work you really need it, but if you're using .net you're running a framework on top of your fr…

I designed the system as a set of (mostly) REST services, with the goal of keeping it as flexible as possible. Not only is the UI completely separate from the system, it is actually optional. The system is designed so that our current or future customers could slot it into an existing, larger analysis system if they wanted to.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#324

Post by fweespeech » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 5:16 PM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #284

fweespeech wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? 1) I received several requests for an updated resume with a degree. 2) I was pulled aside in one interview and told I couldn't get what I was asking without a degree. So, out of the people that I got a rejection reason for, basically. Last J…

Wow, that's harsh. I'm sorry to hear you've met with such rejection. But I guess that's the difference between a hard requirement and a soft requirement on a job posting - you can usually fudge or talk your way around a soft requirement, but not a hard requirement. Additionally, I've estimated that 30-40% of places I've interviewed don't really know what position they're hiring someone for; or they aren't serious abo…

> Wow, that's harsh. I'm sorry to hear you've met with such rejection. But I guess that's the difference between a hard requirement and a soft requirement on a job posting - you can usually fudge or talk your way around a soft requirement, but not a hard requirement.

Well, supposedly, they are soft requirements as they say something like "Degree or N years relevant experience".

I've found a number of those were in the "You must have a degree pile" which is what made me conclude what I did.

> For the 6 that would have taken you for $10k less, that sounds like negotiation. Why didn't you take those jobs? Were you offered more elsewhere at the same time?

Sorry, that was one example of one that got to the interview stage. It wasn't all exactly like that, they were varying amounts from $8-15k.

> For the 6 that would have taken you for $10k less, that sounds like negotiation. Why didn't you take those jobs? Were you offered more elsewhere at the same time?

I was looking because we had a major layoff coming and I wasn't sure I'd stay. I basically kept my job and I literally cannot find people offering me what I make now.

> Additionally, I've estimated that 30-40% of places I've interviewed don't really know what position they're hiring someone for; or they aren't serious about hiring and are just testing the waters to see how good their employees are. Maybe for you that's closer to 5-10%? It sounds like you get a lot more informative responses than I get. (But I'm in system & network administration and virtualization, not software development)

I wouldn't really know. Most failures are silent or non-responses that say nothing. It could be you are correct and I'm attributing it to degrees

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#325

Post by ianstallings » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 5:20 PM UTC

NumberSix wrote: post #315

The "technology" industry is extremely and irrationally picky in selecting and retaining technical employees, primarily programmers or software engineers. Not everyone does it. Not every company that does it does it consistently. It is largely subconscious. Technical or "cultural fit" excuses are typically cited to explain and justify the rejection of the taboo candidate. There are a number of non-technical criterion…

Fact - gray hair gives +1 to programming ability.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#326

Post by brightball » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 5:21 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #87

eitally wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny you mention that. My hiring success (in terms of impact the new hires made) went way up when we stopped wording job postings using traditional enterprisy language & bullets and instead posted much simpler "hackers wanted" at the local universities. Note: this was in Mexico, not the US, though a handful of the folks I recruited there have gone on to work for SV startups. I feel obligated to note one special…

What's wrong with poaching? You don't own your employees; this isn't 1850.

When you lose 5 people to the same place that's usually from insider recruiting. A lot of companies use No Raid clauses in both employee and client contracts specifically to prevent that type of thing.

If you want to go work somewhere else, that is totally up to you but I'm more than allowed to have a policy stating that you're not allowed to recruit away my entire staff because that destabilizes the entire business, makes the business unable to meet it's contractual obligations and in a multitude of cases can jeopardize the jobs of everybody who is still there.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#327

Post by fweespeech » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 5:22 PM UTC

erroneousfunk wrote: post #127

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…

But 40-50% really isn't that bad at all, considering in the general (non-programming) job market, people often send out dozens and dozens of resumes before getting an interview at all. I have many non-programmer friends who have been looking for work for months, with a college degree. So you have to send out two resumes where the average degree'ed programmer has to send out one? Could be worse. You did, after all, op…

Eh, its more like 80% factoring in the jobs that didn't meet my criteria to consider them "degree related rejections".

But yeah, 5:1 resume:interview isn't bad. I'm just saying some people do care.

> So you have to send out two resumes where the average degree'ed programmer has to send out one? Could be worse. You did, after all, opt to not spend four years of your life in an academic institution -- there are pros and cons to that decision.

Yeah. That more or less seems to be the case. I'm not complaining, just replying to the post I replied to originally which said "no one cares" about a degree.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#328

Post by aianus » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

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's not like you push anything important your first day. You spend two hours doing some simple bug fix that would usually take you 15 min and then spend the next six hours learning how the CI and deployment pipeline works, usually with someone holding your hand.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#329

Post by norea-armozel » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 5:29 PM UTC

NumberSix wrote: post #315

The "technology" industry is extremely and irrationally picky in selecting and retaining technical employees, primarily programmers or software engineers. Not everyone does it. Not every company that does it does it consistently. It is largely subconscious. Technical or "cultural fit" excuses are typically cited to explain and justify the rejection of the taboo candidate. There are a number of non-technical criterion…

The minority status thing is a problem from what I can tell among LGBT developers for sure (if you're looking for work outside of San Francisco or New York). I can't seem to understand why one's ethnicity or gender identity and/or sexual orientation should ever be an impediment to doing one's job, but for some reason certain people seem to fear the Other.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#330

Post by aianus » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 5:33 PM UTC

jellicle wrote: post #291

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it seems exaggerated, that's because it is. Outside of NYC and SF, there's basically nowhere in the US where businesses wouldn't hire a competent programmer on the spot.

If you actually believe that, I pity you. The reality is that CEOs talk up a shortage while holding salaries absolutely steady and even while laying off thousands of programmers: http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-201508... The reality is also that a 40+, non-degreed programmer will have their resume thrown away by the first line HR people in 95%+ of cases. Not qualified for senior jobs due to lack…

Well, GoogBookSoft comes to Canada every year and wastes many millions sponsoring J1s, TNs, H1Bs, and relocation while paying the same salaries as they do to Americans.

Why would they do that if there was no shortage of qualified American programmers in the bay?