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How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

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Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#51

Post by ska »

yunyu wrote: post #43
robbyking wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a related note, I dated a woman who was promoted to vice president of a small start up when she was in her 20's. She had to hide her title on her resume when she left because no established firm wanted to hire someone whom they assumed they'd need to pay a quarter million dollars to be competitive. Sometimes grandiose titles can work against you.

A quarter million dollars is what a typical new grad offer looks like nowadays

> a typical new grad offer

That's mare than stretching "typical"

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#52

Post by wccrawford »

druadh wrote: post #41

Not senior, but junior... I recently started Web Development (well, it's been almost a year now). I am technically in a 'Junior' position, but I've read articles stating that it's only detrimental to list yourself as a Junior. What are your thoughts? Am I still a Junior after a year? Should I keep the "Junior" label on my resume/linkedin if I'm still a Junior?

My standard advice is to use a job title that fits your ability. If you don't, it's going to be a bad fit.

That said, if you're looking for a new job and are still a junior, you're probably switching far too quickly.

My plan was to switch at 3 years experience, at which point I'd drop the junior title for sure. I ended up staying longer (because they increased my pay very well the first 3 years, and then started screwing me over) and my second job was "lead developer", which I still have 11 years later. I'm sure I could get more money if I switched, but I like my job and my company and my coworkers, so it's been hard to find anything I want more, no matter the money.

In short, no, if you switch jobs, you shouldn't call yourself a junior, one way or another.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#53

Post by gambiting »

yunyu wrote: post #43
robbyking wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a related note, I dated a woman who was promoted to vice president of a small start up when she was in her 20's. She had to hide her title on her resume when she left because no established firm wanted to hire someone whom they assumed they'd need to pay a quarter million dollars to be competitive. Sometimes grandiose titles can work against you.

A quarter million dollars is what a typical new grad offer looks like nowadays

I love how HN sometimes behaves as if the entire world is one or two small corners of the US.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#54

Post by evanmoran »

druadh wrote: post #41

Not senior, but junior... I recently started Web Development (well, it's been almost a year now). I am technically in a 'Junior' position, but I've read articles stating that it's only detrimental to list yourself as a Junior. What are your thoughts? Am I still a Junior after a year? Should I keep the "Junior" label on my resume/linkedin if I'm still a Junior?

Junior is fine for a year or two. Lots of people start that way so if your career really is just starting it’s ok to be junior, intern, or associate to get in the door. Then try to get a title change / promotion when you can by asking what their expectations are. Usually it’s pretty fast at that level so it should easy for them to speak to.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#55

Post by munificent »

nicholasjarnold wrote: post #2

I've been involved in hiring decisions on teams I've been part of for a long time now. Blatant plagiarism, obvious embellishments and more subtle BS is literally part of the game unfortunately. This is particularly prevalent when dealing with (almost) any consultancy, large and small. I will not specifically call out names, but the some of the largest and most well known consultancies do this as a matter of practice…

> is literally part of the game unfortunately

I strongly disagree with this framing. There is no "game". There are just the actions of the individual players. Yes, in some sense, lying is part of the "game" in that some players will do it.

But extending that to saying "it's part of the game" implies that all players must use those moves, which is absolutely false. It also implies that you are morally excused from doing so because you didn't choose to lie, you were just obliged to by the rules of the "game".

A core concept behind something being a "game" is that it exists in a morally isolated sandbox. You can't be a good or bad person based on which legal moves you make in a game of chess. The whole point is to create an environment where you are able to play freely largely unencumbered by the social consequences of your moves.

Hiring is the exact opposite of a game. Every move has significant stakes, moral implications, and long term consequences on the entire field.

I have never lied on a resume and I would massively lose respect for anyone who did. They are doing something wrong and they should feel bad for it. The fact that other people do it doesn't excuse the act any more than the existence of litterers makes it OK to throw your trash out the window.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#56

Post by gmadsen »

a4isms wrote: post #16
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look around Indeed, Senior Engineer is basically equal to 5 years experience.

Pardon me while I blow the dust off the standard quip about "years of experience:" "Is that one year of experience, repeated five times?"

id rather have someone with one year repeated 5 times than someone with just one year. Those aren't equivalent

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#57

Post by kodah »

> While I certainly don't approve of these practices, I'm also not saying that these companies are only evil. I view that they serve a very strong need in some corners of the system, like a coding bootcamp for the less fortunate.

Absolutely not. I was in college for CS/CE, dropped out during an economic crisis, joined the military, and had to work my way through technician, network engineer, systems engineer, DevOps, SRE, and finally I am a very senior SWE. That was over a decade long journey and has made quite an impact on how I've lived my life.

I didn't lie to get jobs or interviews, I didn't embellish. Instead I had to research what was being done with my resume, I had to work with third-party recruiters, I had to write letters to hiring managers to get interviews. The people that are the subject of this article had the privilege to go to and finish college, that is your free pass. You don't get to cheat the job market just because you think you deserve it.

If you can't tell, I'm incredibly frustrated reading this post.

Edit: I do feel for people who have a lack of opportunity. I was there, I lived it, I felt it. That said, it's certainly not the only emotion I connect with when reading this story.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#58

Post by Leherenn »

druadh wrote: post #41

Not senior, but junior... I recently started Web Development (well, it's been almost a year now). I am technically in a 'Junior' position, but I've read articles stating that it's only detrimental to list yourself as a Junior. What are your thoughts? Am I still a Junior after a year? Should I keep the "Junior" label on my resume/linkedin if I'm still a Junior?

I would say drop it. Personally, I see "junior" positions as a way for companies to advertise they're willing to hire people with little to no professional experience (e.g. new grads). Once hired, a "junior" probably has the same responsibilities as a "normal"/non-senior developer, just less is expected of you, so there's little reason to differentiate. You just have a bit more to learn.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#59

Post by pvarangot »

nebulous_two wrote: post #38
ameminator wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's sad, but honestly the prevalence of these practices (and perhaps growth of them?) only makes the genuine among us more valuable. I wish this were the case, but I don't think it's true. On the one hand, real, proven experts do get called in to fix these phonies' messes. On the other, often these people succeed often enough that it devalues our labor as a whole. Finally, if employers cannot determine real experts…

If they succeed then aren't they an acceptable fit for the role? If it devalues the role then that means the job isn't as demanding as the title makes it seem.

Yeah that would be great is success meant "sound engineering that meets the requirements and is delivered on time without generating friction with stakeholders or adding unneeded complexity". Unfortunately on some companies that don't actually ship much of what gets engineered success means "we got to the next financing round" or "our skills got noted by upper management so we are still allowed to hang around". Bad engineers survive in the last two environments and at the same time stockpile credentials about how many years they were senior at Google or Lyft or whatever, but they really can't actually engineer anything most of the time.

Re: How fresh grads with zero experience get hired as senior engineers

#60

Post by [deleted] »

druadh wrote: post #41

Not senior, but junior... I recently started Web Development (well, it's been almost a year now). I am technically in a 'Junior' position, but I've read articles stating that it's only detrimental to list yourself as a Junior. What are your thoughts? Am I still a Junior after a year? Should I keep the "Junior" label on my resume/linkedin if I'm still a Junior?

[deleted]
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