The Unemployable Programmer • Hacker News Board

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#371

Post by mkozlows » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:13 PM UTC

amyjess wrote: post #363

kodablah wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a dev in Dallas and I am constantly inundated w/ recruiters to the point of annoyance. Based on my friends' anecdotal management/employer-side stories across several Dallas companies, it is definitely an employee market right now. Many companies are paying hefty salaries/bonuses to move people in from out of state.

During my unemployment spell in 2010-2012, I got lots of recruiters talking to me, and I even had some interviews come out of that. Guess what? The employers were pickier than the recruiters. I've learned to deeply distrust recruiters: they are known to make up lie after lie just to throw as many names in front of an employer as possible on the off chance one of us gets hired so they can grab their commission. They'l…

There are different types of recruiters. Some are those worthless spamlords, who pester candidates with irrelevant jobs and submit worthless candidates to hiring managers.

But the good ones look for good matches and good candidates, and don't waste people's time with junk. One recruiter placed more people on my team, with a much higher hit-rate, than any other one I dealt with; when I was interested in changing positions, I let him know, and after a month in which he didn't bother me at all, he pointed me toward an opening that was a perfect fit for me.

If you build up relationships with recruiters, you'll learn which are which, and how to ignore the Robert Halfs and Manpowers while still getting the benefit of the good ones.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#372

Post by LyndsySimon » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:13 PM UTC

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…

I completely disagree. I was working at FedEx as a programmer in 2012, and decided to make a move due to some internal changes. I made that decisions about two months before PyCon - at PyCon, I had two interviews, one of which landed me a great job at a significant pay increase.

During those two months, I had phone interviews with two other companies, one of which I bowed out of the process because as I learned more I didn't believe in their mission, and the other I got turned down on.

The sum total of my "trying to find a job" was making a profile on StackOverflow Careers and answering a Reddit ad.

For what it's worth, I have no degree and am self-taught. In 2012, I had ~5 years of experience as a full-time dev, and none of it was in a traditional environment.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#373

Post by s73v3r » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:16 PM UTC

fmsf wrote: post #56

duggan wrote: post #44

> Being able to get work in this field without a fancy background is still possible, but only if you have the right connections. Like I said: it's no longer sufficient to be able to do the job This sentiment regularly comes up on HN, and I find it a little exasperating. Human interaction has always been an important part of career. There's a subtle (or not so subtle) contempt for soft skills in these laments. You can…

In most cases we need to sort CVs somehow. If we sort by degree there is a high chance that someone in the top 10 fits the position. Interviewing dozens of candidates is very resource consuming. I can emphasise with his story, but is all game of numbers in the end.

At the same time, you guys are constantly complaining that you can't find qualified people.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#374

Post by ClashTheBunny » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:17 PM UTC

s73v3r wrote: post #354

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…

"Started a tech company in grad school" How could you do that if you don't have a degree? Very few grad schools will admit someone without an undergrad degree.

I think he means that his degree is not in Computer Science or a related field. Not that he does not have a degree.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#375

Post by s73v3r » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:18 PM UTC

jcadam wrote: post #103

mgkimsal wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem there is you can't just go get a security clearance - you have to be ... sponsored(?) - is that the word - by a company already. At least, that was my reading of the situation a few years back. I gave up applying to defense positions years ago because every one required existing security clearance. It's the defense industry version of "you have to have experience before we'll hire you to get the experience".

Right after I graduated with my BSCS in 2002, I went into the Army for four years (which is how I got my clearance). The only employers willing to even look at me ("if you love programming so much, why haven't you been doing it for the past four years?") were defense companies, and only because I already had a clearance. :) We sometimes hire fresh grads without a clearance, but experienced hires are generally expecte…

"We sometimes hire fresh grads without a clearance, but experienced hires are generally expected to already have them"

Sounds like the problem is one entirely of your company's making.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#376

Post by s73v3r » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:32 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #326

School-Cotton wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I'm guessing there was a reason they all up and left. And quite frankly, it's not my fault that you have a bunch of people who want to leave. The stability of your business is not my problem.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#377

Post by genericuser » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:36 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #285

relic wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rationale is to minimize the number of clearances. Even though you can't get information without a need-to-know, the government still likes to limit the number of clearances.

That still isn't a rationale; that's a stated requirement, but what problem is actually solved by limiting clearances?

Fewer people they need to monitor with the level of scrutiny, people with clearance safely assume they are being monitored at.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#378

Post by logfromblammo » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:46 PM UTC

doktrin wrote: post #306

logfromblammo wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shortage of developers with clearance is exacerbated by the number of people with clearance who want to exit the defense contractor ecosystem, because it's a military-industrial clusterfuck from top to bottom. They hire us for our brains, and then tell us not to use them. Except we can't get out because of two factors: 1. The non-defense ecosystem won't fix their insane hiring processes. 2. If you do actually get…

This is fascinating. I work for a research lab and have a clearance, but we all make below private sector industry standard. I've never actually looked at defense contractors and thus had no idea what the pay scale was like.

The official government pay scales are orderly and consistent--consistently lower than private sector pay. They also contain a lot of hidden benefits.

Once you cross into contracting, there is no pay scale. The pay rules are largely set by the contracts. And there are thousands of contracts, all different.

The pay rates in these contracts are not necessarily connected in any way to current market rates, or indeed any portion of reality. They might just be numbers made up to sound plausible.

If you have a clearance as an employee of a contractor, and don't get extra pay for having it, you just leave. It's pretty common for the government to give your company $90 for every hour you work, then it turns around and gives you $45 of that. They keep the rest, sometimes for doing literally nothing except paying you your salary in their own name. This gives the company a lot of wiggle room on pay, because you seldom know how much they are actually charging the government for your work, unless your hobby is reading thousands of pages of government contracts. And never mind if you're an employee of a subcontractor.

Right now, I'm probably at around 70% of equivalent Silicon Valley pay, and 120% of same-region private-sector jobs. I want to move cities and get back to the private sector, but I don't want to go all the way to California.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#379

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:53 PM UTC

fweespeech wrote: post #109

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. I've had about 40-50% of places reject me due to a lack of degree. A couple even sent me hopeful…

[deleted]

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#380

Post by teirce » Mon, Aug 03, 2015, 7:55 PM UTC

mratzloff wrote: post #186

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…

Programming Java in school is not really what they mean by "Java experience". They mean personal projects, freelance projects, etc. > The worst thing about all of this is how harsh and degrading everyone is when you want to get into the industry. Questions are met with disgust derision, as if you are spoiling everyone's worldview. But I am just trying to describe my experience for survival reasons. I have no idea wha…

>I have no idea what this super vague paragraph means.

I think this thread serves as a good example. Someone wrote a blog post saying "I'm having trouble finding a job."

Look at the top comment, it's basically saying "You don't know what the fuck you are talking about, get out of here. Clearly you're doing something wrong, but I'm not going to try to actually address this problem or help you. Shoo now, you're ruining our perfect view of the tech sector."