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Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

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Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#491

Post by _jdzr »

marcinzm wrote: post #374
w10-1 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We brought along the people we thought were the best, who we got along with, who would get the job done" I really appreciate the sentiment. In my experience such networks have been self-serving and mostly exclusionary, rewarding loyalty more than competence. "You need to make some changes" is not particularly helpful when you're outside the fold. What's typically unstated is something about loyalty, esp. not disclos…

>In my experience such networks have been self-serving and mostly exclusionary, rewarding loyalty more than competence. The point being? That is how human social network and constructs work. The ultimate point is to help yourself and not based on some ephemeral grand concept. No matter how competent someone is why would I want to work with them if they will stab me in the back one day? Incompetent people will indirec…

> No matter how competent someone is why would I want to work with them if they will stab me in the back one day?

Let me say this bluntly: everyone has the ability to stab some anyone in the back. Maybe some have had the unique pleasure of not needing to be in a position to do this, which is great for them, but highly unrealistic for an overwhelming majority of people.

Bad situations bring the worst out in people.

Bad situations take competent people and make the incompetent.

Bad situations can make good people behave poorly.

I'd gamble the attitude you've expressed here will cause you lots of issues down the road. The most successful career folks I've met take chances on "incompetent" people but they're systematic. Part of their process allows for tolerance and growth -- i.e. taking a chance. I don't mean to solo you out but this is a very harsh attitude and definitely makes the industry a much worse place to be in.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#492

Post by _jdzr »

adamzerner wrote: post #409
zer00eyz wrote: post #315

I survived the dot com crash (yes I'm old). I have hired (interviewing team member, or hiring manager) hundreds of engineers. If you are hearing "let me know if I can help" (number 5) you might be doing something wrong. You should be hearing some version of " I will talk to my boss" or "I will call for you" or "XXX person I know is looking". I have a list of about 30 people who if they call me I'm going to go out of…

This advice boils down to "be the best of the best" because you'd only go out of your way for someone if they're that good. I don't think people who haven't reached that bar are necessarily doing something "wrong". It takes hard work to reach it and some people prioritize other things in life over hustling. Others simply don't have the talent to reach it.

I would argue most if not everyone has the talent to reach being the "best of the best" but it takes time. Time, Time, Time... It's everything. Some can reach higher bars sooner simply because they were exposed to something earlier and more frequently.

Competency is only ever recognized over time.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#493

Post by nyanpasu64 »

jacquesm wrote: post #477
jasmer wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gosh, no - strongly recommending not doing this. (The lying part) Lying is one of the worst things you can do, it usually speaks to an issue with integrity, a concern that comes before almost all of them even intelligence, education, aptitude, skills. Learn the skill of polite deferral, of saying things without saying them, diverting or embellishing a bit - and then only if it's an issue not relevant to the job. If s…

Companies lie to their prospective employees all the time. About how much runway they have, about the work that you'll be doing, about what it is like to work there.

I wish companies lying to users (in terms of service), shareholders, public announcements, employee announcements were all illegal and criminally prosecuted.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#494

Post by _jdzr »

jasmer wrote: post #375
jacquesm wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company asks you about stuff that isn't any of their business you have my permission (not that you need it) to lie your ass off if you think it will help you. The power asymmetry is such that unless the counterparty is extremely careful about abusing that power that you will end up being cornered and taken advantage of. If you present yourself as more desirable than you are based on your current situation and it…

Gosh, no - strongly recommending not doing this. (The lying part) Lying is one of the worst things you can do, it usually speaks to an issue with integrity, a concern that comes before almost all of them even intelligence, education, aptitude, skills. Learn the skill of polite deferral, of saying things without saying them, diverting or embellishing a bit - and then only if it's an issue not relevant to the job. If s…

Mmm objectively (black and white) lying is a stupid but man taking a moral high ground is even stupider. If you're caught into a position where you either need to lie or divert it's likely a bad situation. The right people, the right job, the right opportunities won't put you in a situation where your boundaries will be tested or you need to lie.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#495

Post by plaguepilled »

MRtecno98 wrote: post #465
SCUSKU wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue I take with this is that employment becomes a form of restriction of free speech. Unfortunately, the reality is most of us can't afford to truly speak our minds because we need a job to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. Still, even with that in mind, I think the best compromise is to provide strong support of your opinions and not just shout whatever political slogan happens to be in vogue.

Honestly if you're going to(hypothetically) rant over the economic system from an extremist viewpoint(like many people on the internet do) i won't be surprised nor blame the employer for not giving you a job in that exact economy you just spent 2k words ranting about; and you shouldn't neither, if you have any integrity that is. Free speech doesn't mean denying any responsibility over what you say, so if an employer…

Complaining about capitalism doesn't really stop you from being proficient in participating in it though.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#496

Post by Silhouette »

xyzelement wrote: post #364
zer00eyz wrote: post #315

I survived the dot com crash (yes I'm old). I have hired (interviewing team member, or hiring manager) hundreds of engineers. If you are hearing "let me know if I can help" (number 5) you might be doing something wrong. You should be hearing some version of " I will talk to my boss" or "I will call for you" or "XXX person I know is looking". I have a list of about 30 people who if they call me I'm going to go out of…

Mainly agree, but maybe can be a bit more generous. "30" sounds low to me, having worked in large companies for many years. Sure, the number of people you worked super-closely with for years is maybe in double digits but you probably know a lot of other people by reputation (which is still good signal) and there may be low effort things you can do for them. I try to, anyway.

This is a hidden danger that I only understood late in my career. I like working at small companies. You can contribute big things relatively easily when there are only a few contributors to begin with. You can build something and nurture it over time - anything from a technical asset to a working relationship with a colleague. You get a more diverse range of things to do because not everyone has to be pigeonholed and not everything needs approval from three different committees. You don't need to constantly try to do "high visibility" projects that will show up in your promotion panel because everyone in the company knows if you're good and the right person to take the lead on the next big thing anyway. You don't need to job hop every year or two to find interesting and well-compensated work for the same reasons.

But then after a while you've only worked in a few different places and with a few different people at each one. Your professional network is much smaller than someone who worked for a variety of big name tech giants in that time doing no-one-really-cares-what and climbing the career ladder by job hopping.

I'm really not bitter. If I could go back and tell my newly graduated self how their career would have gone a few decades later they'd probably still have made very similar decisions even with that knowledge. I've enjoyed many of my roles at small companies immensely and I can't think of many less attractive jobs in this industry than being a cog in the machine at some tech giant whose primary contribution to humanity is turning us all into spyware targets and then ad targets.

But it's undeniably true that sometimes in a tough market - even many years into a career and having reached the equivalent of staff/principal level or followed the independent/entrepreneur route - you can still end up knocking on the front door of an interesting employer or doing the recruiter thing to make a move when habitual networkers with similar YOE would not need to stoop so low because they'd find something via someone some other way.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#497

Post by adra »

tnel77 wrote: post #368
JackFr wrote: post #251

I was laid off in April 2020 as well, and while some of my experience matches the author's some of it was very different. Being laid off was not a relief -- it was terrifying. All indications were that a severe recession was coming. Frankly, it was quite surprising to me that companies were hiring at all given the uncertainty. It was not obvious at the time that broad sectors of the economy could seamlessly move to 1…

I have a bit to go before I’m a software engineer over fifty, but I have a lot of anxiety about it primarily from an ageism standpoint. I don’t really want to go into management because I love coding and solving problems, but I fear that one day I’ll will struggle to find work due to my age. What has your experience been with this issue?

I think age gets thrown around a lot but it's never really appeared to me from my singular data point. I think the larger (at least post screener perspective) is that you always need to stay relevant. If you're working for a company 10+ years doing roughly the same thing doing amazing work, that doesn't mean you're employable in the market at large. You need to feed the trends to at least know what the larger community is doing, and keep relevant skills in your resume (and actually know them) to show you aren't a dinosaur (not in age, but in competence in obsolete tech). I update my resume every couple years if I'm looking for work or not. Not helping, there are a bunch of dead end companies that are the only companies willing to employ the people at the level they do, so it can lead to bleak perspectives when you're forced out and try to work outside your comfort level. I've known more than a few exit software entirely as they were unable to find suitable alternatives.

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#498

Post by some_furry »

yongjik wrote: post #462
chrisbaker98 wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often does that happen though? I'm straight and I don't recall ever being asked about my family or love life in a job interview. Not that I'd keep it secret if asked, but why the hell would they be asking?

Yeah I'm also curious. When I was at Google there were a list of things you were never supposed to ask a candidate because that's Super Illegal(TM) and could expose the company to lawsuits. That included sexual orientation and marriage status. That was more than ten years ago, I'd expect most IT companies would do the same by now, at least in the US.

I've never been asked this sort of question at a large company. Mostly "startups" (scare quotes because they're not Silicon Valley startups; think Orlando or Chicago instead).

They also tend to ask a lot about things that might sound innocuous, like hobbies.

If I was being stupidly honest, I could talk about my involvement in the furry community. Most furries (~80%) are LGBTQ (versus ~3% to 5% of the base population).

Instead, I make vague allusions to being a gamer. (I play video games less than anyone I know, but it's not zero, so that's still technically true.)

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#499

Post by [deleted] »

w10-1 wrote: post #325
zer00eyz wrote: post #315

I survived the dot com crash (yes I'm old). I have hired (interviewing team member, or hiring manager) hundreds of engineers. If you are hearing "let me know if I can help" (number 5) you might be doing something wrong. You should be hearing some version of " I will talk to my boss" or "I will call for you" or "XXX person I know is looking". I have a list of about 30 people who if they call me I'm going to go out of…

"We brought along the people we thought were the best, who we got along with, who would get the job done" I really appreciate the sentiment. In my experience such networks have been self-serving and mostly exclusionary, rewarding loyalty more than competence. "You need to make some changes" is not particularly helpful when you're outside the fold. What's typically unstated is something about loyalty, esp. not disclos…

[deleted]

Re: Hard truths I learned when I got laid off from my SWE job

#500

Post by Blackstone4 »

zer00eyz wrote: post #315

I survived the dot com crash (yes I'm old). I have hired (interviewing team member, or hiring manager) hundreds of engineers. If you are hearing "let me know if I can help" (number 5) you might be doing something wrong. You should be hearing some version of " I will talk to my boss" or "I will call for you" or "XXX person I know is looking". I have a list of about 30 people who if they call me I'm going to go out of…

Doesn’t necessarily apply to every industry… sure to a growing sector like software then maybe yes. In other parts of the economy, teams can have fixed sizes and budgets. This means no wiggle room to bring in new people. I manage a team but can’t hire a new full time person right now…I would put resumes in a pile..
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