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We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

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Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#351

Post by chatmasta »

sadlion wrote: post #308
RogerL wrote: post #20

tl;dr: The only measure of on the job performance is on the job performance. The only thing that matters to your company is also on the job performance. Why not focus on that? It is utter voodoo. I came up in the late 80s. Interviews were maybe 2 hours long. You might be handed a piece of paper with a problem to aggregate some information distributed in a few different arrays and print them out. You know, write some…

I recently had an on-site interview at a big SV tech company. I had 4 interviews and 3 of them flat out told me they haven't read my resume. I didn't do as well on the whiteboard hazing but I'm confident that I could have solved them if I had more than 30 minutes to come up with an efficient solution. What disappointed me was, 3 of the interviewers had no idea about my background and weren't able to extract my streng…

Stop thinking of your career like a textbook. You don't need to memorize all that bullshit. Just provide value to the world and the rest will come naturally.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#352

Post by PhantomGremlin »

jakobegger wrote: post #342
sadlion wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently had an on-site interview at a big SV tech company. I had 4 interviews and 3 of them flat out told me they haven't read my resume. I didn't do as well on the whiteboard hazing but I'm confident that I could have solved them if I had more than 30 minutes to come up with an efficient solution. What disappointed me was, 3 of the interviewers had no idea about my background and weren't able to extract my streng…

If you want to get a job as an app developer, the easiest way is to build the kind of app you'd like to work on and show it to people. If an interviewer sees that you can deliver exactly what they need, you're an instant hire. Don't complain that interviewers haven't read your resume; it is your job to tell the interviewer about the relevant parts of your resume and why they matter for the job you are applying to.

Don't complain that interviewers haven't read your resume

I disagree. If you're going to interview me for an hour, the least you can do for both of us is to take 10 or 15 minutes ahead of time to familiarize yourself with my background.

it is your job to tell the interviewer about the relevant parts of your resume

Again, I disagree. A resume is only a very cursory overview. You can use it as a starting point to probe me about it, to at least determine if I've actually done what it says or if I'm just a buzzword bullshit artist.

IMO it's very shortsighted for someone to ignore a resume before conducting an interview.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#353

Post by PhantomGremlin »

gknoy wrote: post #307
andrewstuart wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I said to my heart surgeon as I was wheeled in to theatre and I saw he was holding a book. And again on the plane on the way home I said it to the pilot who was carrying a book into the cockpit. And when my 18 year child went out driving for the first time on his own I handed him a book titled "How to drive".

There's some information that I need to memorize (how to use git, how to write code). There are also and other things that are in the periphery of what I need to know, but can look up easily when necessary. These include things like my mother in law's mailing address, my coworkers' phone numbers, my wife's phone number, the population of the US, how to rewire a plug socket, and the recipe for Belgian waffles. Each of…

the population of the US

Yeah, all that stuff is stupid. Who the fuck cares what the capital city is for each of the 50 states? That's what atlases used to be good for, now it's an almost instant search in Wikipedia.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#354

Post by NotSammyHagar »

hiram112 wrote: post #338
NotSammyHagar wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also about 50. I am doing far more senior and interesting work than I was doing when I was 30. I felt like I was just starting to figuring things out then, but now I'm doing way more interesting arch and design for work involving a large team.I had great experience earlier in my career working at large, well respected companies. At 30 I was just getting started. If you feel you peeked, find some new jobs and tech…

I was only referring to salaries regardless of technologies used. In my relatively expensive US city I do not see any companies willing to pay more than about $150k for a senior dev. This is similar to what I see in most cities, and there are not many companies giving stock options as is common at Google, Facebook, etc. The question is: you've been doing higher level work, but has your compensation flatlined?

Flattened? Probably not, it's slightly higher salary, like 5%, but it's not enough time for my stock grants to vest and show a clear trajectory.

I left one of the big internet superstars, and tried a startup. After a year I decided it wasn't going anywhere, so I went to a medium sized company that is really growing. I make slightly more in salary than i did at my internet superstar company, and more $ value in stock grants. My new company is growing so the stock should go up, but its less certain too. My job title looks good, so I will be able to use that in my 'next' job, if there is one; maybe I'll stay here forever. My goal is $400-$500k per year in salary and stock, over a 5 year average. Say you get about 200k in salary, and you get an initial 4 year stock grant, and each year they give you another 4 year one, so it takes several years of that to overlap.

I guess I can say I'm in Seattle.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#355

Post by NotSammyHagar »

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #354
hiram112 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was only referring to salaries regardless of technologies used. In my relatively expensive US city I do not see any companies willing to pay more than about $150k for a senior dev. This is similar to what I see in most cities, and there are not many companies giving stock options as is common at Google, Facebook, etc. The question is: you've been doing higher level work, but has your compensation flatlined?

Flattened? Probably not, it's slightly higher salary, like 5%, but it's not enough time for my stock grants to vest and show a clear trajectory. I left one of the big internet superstars, and tried a startup. After a year I decided it wasn't going anywhere, so I went to a medium sized company that is really growing. I make slightly more in salary than i did at my internet superstar company, and more $ value in stock…

I am probably going on too much, but I really want people not to believe some ridiculous story about being washed up at 30. Learn something new, people! Before you take a job, look at your resume and see what your career trajectory is. Do you work places and go after a year (this can be bad)? Do you have a substantial time period at a strong company? Can you talk about why you left each company? What can you contribute?

I was more than 10 years at Microsoft, mostly IC and some lead work, and then back to being an IC at the internet giant, then lead at a startup, now mixed design and dev at the new company; i was hired on dev skills plus experience.

$150k in stock and salary is reasonable for an experienced dev, say 10 years. At the startup we paid mid career good devs 150k in salary, plus worthless options. A typical deal for devs with 10+ years who can do c++, java, distributed programming is 150-175k in salary, a couple 100k in stock, paid over 4 years, plus new grants each year. 2 years ago when twitter was doing better I got almost 200k in salary, plus double that in stock, payable over 4 years.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#356

Post by PhantomGremlin »

paulddraper wrote: post #81

Just because everyone is trying to hire the best doesn't make the advice wrong. It just means that some will be able to execute it, and some will not. A successful sports team should hire the best, even if that's what everyone else is trying to do too.

A successful sports team should hire the best

No, this can't work at e.g. the NFL. There is a $155 million per year hard salary cap. There are 53 players which much be paid under this cap. Which means the average salary is just under $3 million.

One of "the best" quarterbacks gets paid $20 million."The best" at various other key positions such as left tackle and defensive end and at cornerback can easily get paid $10 million each.

Even if you forget about special teams, you can't afford to pay 11 offensive players $10 million each plus 11 defensive players $10 million each.

Which means that you pay a few superstars at $10 million or more, some more good players $5 million, a bunch of OK players $3 million, and a bunch of rookies and scrubs under $1 million each.

Nobody can afford to hire the best at everything. I'm sure that's just as true in business as it is in sports.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#357

Post by danieltillett »

JBlue42 wrote: post #348
danieltillett wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people (managers) have become scared of firing and so try to avoid all risk. Having had to do it is never fun, but it becomes easier the more you do. The first time I had to fire someone I tried everything I could to avoid it and made the situation worse by dragging out the whole process. The other reason is the company is not really looking to hire, just placate their current employees - "yes we know you are…

>"yes we know you are over worked, just hang in there while we hire someone to take off the load" Which may be why people that are below par haven't been let go? A need to throw bodies at a problem rather than step back and give it some thought / work it out.

Yes it is certainly true that it hard to fire anyone when you are pretending to be looking to expand - nothing breaks the spell that all the hard work is just a consequence of not being able to hire like firing a member of the team.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#358

Post by jakobegger »

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #352
jakobegger wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to get a job as an app developer, the easiest way is to build the kind of app you'd like to work on and show it to people. If an interviewer sees that you can deliver exactly what they need, you're an instant hire. Don't complain that interviewers haven't read your resume; it is your job to tell the interviewer about the relevant parts of your resume and why they matter for the job you are applying to.

Don't complain that interviewers haven't read your resume I disagree. If you're going to interview me for an hour, the least you can do for both of us is to take 10 or 15 minutes ahead of time to familiarize yourself with my background. it is your job to tell the interviewer about the relevant parts of your resume Again, I disagree. A resume is only a very cursory overview. You can use it as a starting point to probe…

I agree that it is inpolite to not read a resume or a cover letter. But as a candidate, you can't change the fact that your interviewer is not well prepared. The job will go to the candidate that makes the best of the situation.

The bigger point I'm trying to get at is the following: do not expect the interviewer to discover how brilliant you are on their own. Being smart, hard working, is not enough -- you also need to tell people about it.

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#359

Post by bdavisx »

wdmeldon wrote: post #73
bdavisx wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, me too, midwest huge insurance company. From what I've seen, there are very few people in mid to upper management that think developers are anything more than a cog in the machine (and only 1 who's ever stated that 'publicly') - I'm looking to leave after 11 years - I've given up on it changing.

Wow. 11 years before you gave up on them changing. That's both impressive and depressing. I lasted about 2 and half years last place I worked.

I moved around in the company, trying to find someplace that was different (e.g. more like a software company) - and I finally did, about 4.5 years ago. The department was outside of the official IT department, because we are vital to the business and have legal reasons to need to move much faster. It was good for a couple of years, but recently, the area I'm in has been getting more like the IT department I left (they are pushing me and other leads to start taking on more "leadership" responsibilities - meaning management type crap, not lead developer) - so I think it's time to move on.

And I should mention that I've looked for other jobs in the area (trying to stay local because of family) - and almost no one pays as good as where I'm at. I'm making a bit above average according to Glassdoor (for my location).

Re: We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else

#360

Post by sadlion »

jakobegger wrote: post #358
PhantomGremlin wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't complain that interviewers haven't read your resume I disagree. If you're going to interview me for an hour, the least you can do for both of us is to take 10 or 15 minutes ahead of time to familiarize yourself with my background. it is your job to tell the interviewer about the relevant parts of your resume Again, I disagree. A resume is only a very cursory overview. You can use it as a starting point to probe…

I agree that it is inpolite to not read a resume or a cover letter. But as a candidate, you can't change the fact that your interviewer is not well prepared. The job will go to the candidate that makes the best of the situation. The bigger point I'm trying to get at is the following: do not expect the interviewer to discover how brilliant you are on their own. Being smart, hard working, is not enough -- you also need…

The first interviewer told me they haven't read my resume at the beginning of my interview. I tried to highlight my strengths. The other 2 tho told me during the conclusion of the interview, when I asked them what skills they'd want to me focus on if I was to start on their team or any advice for a budding engineer. They both started with something along the lines, I don't know your background; didn't get the chance to read your resume. It was too late to go over my resume as I was being escorted to my next event.

I will be more proactive on my next interviews. I did have my github on my resume; I will add more projects to it and get involved in OSS.

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