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The Unemployable Programmer

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Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#451

Post by speeder »

swah wrote: post #437
speeder wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are poor choices because most jobs available to me are for java/ruby/python/etc... I personally like Lua (that I NEVER saw a job opening for this), and C and C++ that I learned as a kid. When I find the rare C or C++ job, usually they want 20+ years of experience or soemthing impossible like taht to me (I am 27 years old, obviously I can't have 20 years of experience), or are jobs in other countries, but unwilli…

I do feel kinda like you, though I'm more of a "jack of all trades". You can find C jobs in the embedded industry, in Brazil, have you considered it?

Yes of course, I got ONE interview (coincidentally, yesterday, in a company that makes cashier machines).

And I mean ONE interview over the course of 6 years looking for a job

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#452

Post by LorenPechtel »

Mikushi wrote: post #143
MagicWishMonkey wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Sounds like there's something else at play with this guys inability to find work. Maybe he doesn't interview very well?

He's old (early 40'). Taboo subject in the sector.

Yeah, that was my first thought on reading that article. He's old and doesn't have a gazillion skills on his resume because he stayed in one place for a long time.

Since he was explicitly told that they wouldn't be sending his resume to anyone else that pretty much means the failings are purely resume-based, not ability or interview skills. I have a hard time picturing a resume making one unemployable other than due to age discrimination.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#453

Post by engi_nerd »

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…

> Software as a profession is one where you have to constantly be learning.

This is one thing that software shares with engineering disciplines

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#454

Post by mmorett »

milspec wrote: post #392
vonmoltke wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, I'll do that. For the record, my professional programming experience is about 2/3 real-time embedded signal processing code, 1/3 NLP research and prototyping. I have also had a straight EE role that involved some embedded and test set code.

I think I recall getting you an interview. (at http://advancedsecuritylabs.com/ in Florida) Did we not give you an offer? Did you reject an offer? We could easily put you in San Antonio or Austin. We might even be able to do Seattle or Cambridge (near Boston), though those are tiny offices. If I remember right and we did reject you, try a different office.

First sentence: "Did we not give you an offer? Did you reject an offer?"

Third sentence: "If I remember right and we did reject you..."

---------

Where do I even begin with this.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#455

Post by kagamine »

kragen wrote: post #444
kagamine wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, the WWW then. Let's be honest, the average Joe didn't use the Internet before the WWW came along (at least not knowingly). But I should know better than to mix the two up.

The WWW is 25 years old. I find the implication in your "let's be honest" to be repugnant. I was being honest.

Untwist your knickers, you are not the victim you think you are. You are a pedant.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#456

Post by swah »

speeder wrote: post #451
swah wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do feel kinda like you, though I'm more of a "jack of all trades". You can find C jobs in the embedded industry, in Brazil, have you considered it?

Yes of course, I got ONE interview (coincidentally, yesterday, in a company that makes cashier machines). And I mean ONE interview over the course of 6 years looking for a job

Perto?

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#457

Post by strathmeyer »

Merovius wrote: post #215
strathmeyer wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's baffling is people in denial blaming the victims. We admit it is our fault for thinking a Computer Science degree had any value. We weren't fooled, we were just dumb. But we still want to survive, that doesn't make us bad people just because we enjoy programming.

What I don't understand is, why aren't you getting a degree ? If you acknowledge a degree is important to get hired, why not just get one? At least here in germany it takes you three years to get a degree -- if you can actually code I would claim you even have more than enough time to work on the side to finance it. Given that you'll probably get a good job with six figures right of the bat if you are even borderline…

Uh I got a BS in Computer Science in 2004. There were never any jobs for us, much less ones that offered six figures. I thought that I was borderline competent. I was the smartest kid in my high school. I programmed an operating system and a raytracer. I built games for fun. But when I look for jobs everyone just tells me what a good investment my degree was. Having a degree doesn't get your foot in the door. How can I make it an investment that pays off? It was something that was completely worthless.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#458

Post by strathmeyer »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #316
strathmeyer wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's baffling is people in denial blaming the victims. We admit it is our fault for thinking a Computer Science degree had any value. We weren't fooled, we were just dumb. But we still want to survive, that doesn't make us bad people just because we enjoy programming.

> thinking a Computer Science degree had any value. Interesting. I thought that in 1984, and I've been right ever since then. As have most of the classmates I have kept up with (perhaps a self-selection bias there, granted). Maybe it was the time or I've been very lucky.

Maybe it's the sort of field where the successful people like to shit on those trying to survive.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#459

Post by strathmeyer »

nordic_nomad wrote: post #345
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…

Make your own job man, if you did any freelance work then you were self employed. If you find yourself unemployed, hack on something in between interviews and call it a startup that didn't work out. Never, never, never admit to any hiring person that you weren't in charge of your career path at all times. That's one of the few distinctions they can make with technical people about whether or not they're qualified or…

...but, I've never been in charge of my career path. There have never been any jobs for us. Yes I work on video games in my free time but now I have been doing it for a decade and I have never found anyone to show my games to. The problem isn't that my startup did work out, the problem is that my life isn't working out. How am I supposed to feed myself every day if I don't have money? How am I supposed to program every day when I can't feed myself. Every day I am slipping further and further behind and nobody has any clue what to do.

I don't have any clue how to talk to hiring people. Ever since I got a degree, they were experts at fishing the worst things out of my life that somehow disqualified me from employment. Whether it was a bad grade I got somewhere that is somehow completely my fault, or the way I am supposed to ask and beg for a job as an unemployed person.

If I knew how to make my own job I wouldn't be starving and homeless.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#460

Post by strathmeyer »

nordic_nomad wrote: post #345
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…

Make your own job man, if you did any freelance work then you were self employed. If you find yourself unemployed, hack on something in between interviews and call it a startup that didn't work out. Never, never, never admit to any hiring person that you weren't in charge of your career path at all times. That's one of the few distinctions they can make with technical people about whether or not they're qualified or…

...but, I've never been in charge of my career path. There have never been any jobs for us. Yes I work on video games in my free time but now I have been doing it for a decade and I have never found anyone to show my games to. The problem isn't that my startup did work out, the problem is that my life isn't working out. How am I supposed to feed myself every day if I don't have money? How am I supposed to program every day when I can't feed myself. Every day I am slipping further and further behind and nobody has any clue what to do.

I don't have any clue how to talk to hiring people. Ever since I got a degree, they were experts at fishing the worst things out of my life that somehow disqualified me from employment. Whether it was a bad grade I got somewhere that is somehow completely my fault, or the way I am supposed to ask and beg for a job as an unemployed person.

If I knew how to make my own job I wouldn't be starving and homeless.

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