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Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

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Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#51

Post by em-bee »

cupofpython wrote: post #36
thaumaturgy wrote: post #25

I'm experiencing this now and it's taking some energy to not become disillusioned with the industry. Generalists, or people with a "wide T", are also a lot less valuable than specialists. For any given technology or stack right now, some company out there is doing something cool with it, and they only want to hire people who are already familiar with their particular configuration. The couple of tech interviews I've…

> you have to make big decisions early on about what you're most interested in and then pursue a deep specialization in it I am seeing similar trends to you wrt Generalists, and this is annoying but good advice. Even when hired, generalists tend to get stuck with all the most tedious work from every department that simply no one wants to do. You end up being a one-stop shop for all intern and junior related work, wit…

generalists tend to get stuck with all the most tedious work from every department that simply no one wants to do

someone has to do it, and if the pay is adequate, it's a matter of attitude.

not getting credit (appropriate $ compensation) for your influence

i don't understand this part. you already have your salary, as negotiated. are you saying that such a positions are always underpaid?

and if such a position really has influence, it actually sounds appealing to me.

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#52

Post by bboylen »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #49
avgDev wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a signal you can get an interview.

You can get a phone screen and potentially a take home/first round, sure.

Aren't the technical interviews the primary component at these companies at lower levels though?

Hard to imagine someone with a few years of "the wrong experience" who is well versed technically and can handle the coding interview will consistently fail interviews just because the interviewer doesn't recognize their company.

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#53

Post by crispyambulance »

ChrisPebble wrote: post #44
nnoitra wrote: post #37

Yes, it's called ageism. Young and fresh is perceived as better than experienced because some bozo will make the argument that they've been doing software engineering "wrong".

This is definitely true sometimes, but the “wrong” kind of experience can definitely hamper people. I have a highly skilled senior developer with a desktop app development background who joined our web team, he’s excellent at many tasks but keeps getting tripped up when dealing with state. He logically knows how it works, but his muscle memory when programming is so used to being able to rely on state that it’s hard…

> He’s still an amazing asset to the team, but in this case he does have some experience that’s hampering him in a new role.

OK, but how much could it possibly "hamper" him if he's still an "amazing asset"? Is it a permanent condition? Or is it just something that you noticed once or twice and made a mental note of?

We all have gaps and shortcomings. Overcoming them is a matter of practice, but if someone is second-guessing and judging every brain-fart, that's not good for anyone.

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#54

Post by jacksnipe »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #25

I'm experiencing this now and it's taking some energy to not become disillusioned with the industry. Generalists, or people with a "wide T", are also a lot less valuable than specialists. For any given technology or stack right now, some company out there is doing something cool with it, and they only want to hire people who are already familiar with their particular configuration. The couple of tech interviews I've…

Hmm this has not been my personal experience (as a highly generalist dev), but maybe I’m just lucky. If anything, my extremely broad lens has led to some really great systems design rounds, and I always crush the behavioral.

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#55

Post by kingrazor »

bena wrote: post #23

I think I've felt this a little bit. As a non-degreed individual, I didn't hear anything from places I would apply. Eventually, I applied for a non-development job at a company that also claimed it developed software. With the hopes I'd be able to kind of prove my chops while in the other role to get moved over. Luckily, the company I applied for had no fucking clue what they were doing and hired me for a software de…

I also had no degree and wound up working for a small software company as an IT "intern" which quickly lead to being their sole IT person. That company was also a complete shit-show, but had I not worked there I wouldn't have gained the skills that lead to my current role, which is the best job I've had yet.

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#56

Post by opportune »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #25

I'm experiencing this now and it's taking some energy to not become disillusioned with the industry. Generalists, or people with a "wide T", are also a lot less valuable than specialists. For any given technology or stack right now, some company out there is doing something cool with it, and they only want to hire people who are already familiar with their particular configuration. The couple of tech interviews I've…

This doesn’t match my experience at all. A lot of companies at the cutting edge know that nobody is ramped up on their area and aren’t trying to limit themselves to only poaching from competitors. In particular at big tech your previous scope and projects (like launching features, leading a feature or infrastructure team, shipping an entire product) are so much more important than eg your background in advertising - a background in advertising may be a plus for an advertising team, especially if you’re getting hired at a very high level (8+), but not a requirement or even target for recruiting purposes.

I know HN loves to hate on big tech but a lot of the cutting edge is there. IME startups and “less selective” companies are more focused on getting people with very specific experience because they can’t afford to train someone up or risk them being a bad fit - and while startups almost by definition are doing something different than incumbents, that doesn’t mean they’re the whole cutting edge. Or, they are old-school and bin everyone as a “Java spring boot dev” either because HR doesn’t understand what things are easy to learn and what are hard, or engineering buckets themselves into these fixed categories and has a kind of “my turf”/static mindset with no expectation to learn or work on new things.

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#57

Post by firebaze »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #25

I'm experiencing this now and it's taking some energy to not become disillusioned with the industry. Generalists, or people with a "wide T", are also a lot less valuable than specialists. For any given technology or stack right now, some company out there is doing something cool with it, and they only want to hire people who are already familiar with their particular configuration. The couple of tech interviews I've…

How do you come to this conclusion? Sincere question. I'm not posting personal anecdotes to support or disprove your argument, I have an opinion, and it may or may not overlap with yours.

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#58

Post by opportune »

strgcmc wrote: post #18
heavenlyblue wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I work for the highest bidder" Uhm, I find people like these are actually the easiest to keep. They know their price and define it. You know what to expect.

There is a difference between (A) a skilled expert who takes pride in their craft, and understandably goes with whichever employer appreciates their skills and compensates accordingly, vs (B) a middle-of-the-pack journeyman who just DGAF about their work and treats all jobs as equally disposable and replaceable (these are also the types of people who are likely to try out /r/overemployed, cuz why not). We may all pre…

You can’t have all A’s. I’d rather have B’s than a hypothetical C who is just trying to hold down a job and not get fired, or a D who DGAF but isn’t middle of the pack and takes your lower-paying job because it’s the best they could do (sure, the B is basically the same, but at least there is some theoretically higher quality on average).

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#59

Post by halfmatthalfcat »

bboylen wrote: post #52
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can get a phone screen and potentially a take home/first round, sure.

Aren't the technical interviews the primary component at these companies at lower levels though? Hard to imagine someone with a few years of "the wrong experience" who is well versed technically and can handle the coding interview will consistently fail interviews just because the interviewer doesn't recognize their company.

I'm not speaking to whether one with "the wrong experience" can or cannot pass FAANG-level interviews, I'm just commenting on the recruiter outreach from FAANG or startups (particularly AMZ) don't necessarily know or care about your skill, they only care about the buzzwords listed on your social profile(s) and maintaining a "hot" pipeline; aka getting bodies through the pipeline and hoping not to piss off engineering because of the amount of low quality candidates.

Recruiters are (usually) not technical and/or have never been engineers, so the barrier to the first round (if you've been reached out to) is super low and not necessarily indicative as to whether you have what it takes to make it through the whole loop/offer stage.

Re: Having no experience can be better than having the wrong experience

#60

Post by nnoitra »

ChrisPebble wrote: post #44
nnoitra wrote: post #37

Yes, it's called ageism. Young and fresh is perceived as better than experienced because some bozo will make the argument that they've been doing software engineering "wrong".

This is definitely true sometimes, but the “wrong” kind of experience can definitely hamper people. I have a highly skilled senior developer with a desktop app development background who joined our web team, he’s excellent at many tasks but keeps getting tripped up when dealing with state. He logically knows how it works, but his muscle memory when programming is so used to being able to rely on state that it’s hard…

Lol, it's web development it's not rocket science. He doesn't need to wait for the next reincarnation cycle before he can be made fresh again to learn Redux.
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