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What would a recession mean for developers?

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Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#71

Post by iLoveOncall »

usrbinbash wrote: post #60
advael wrote: post #8

The weird part of this advice to me is all the "CS fundamentals" biz. It's admittedly been quite a while since I've felt the need to go out for "junior" roles, but I have a lot of close friends who are recent boot camp grads, and it seems to me that most success in an interview boils down to interpersonal skills and confidence in problem-solving. There's a significant backlash at least in the startup space to "whiteb…

> There's a significant backlash at least in the startup space to "whiteboard coding" Good. Whiteboard coding is probably one of the least useful methods I have ever seen to evaluate candidates. It tells me nothing about the persons actual qualification and can be gamed.

While I agree that it won't tell you if a candidate is good, it will often show very quickly that a candidate is absolutely terrible.

My warm-up questions are usually something like "reverse a singly-linked-list" or "check if a string is a palindrome", and you would be surprised at how many people have just no clue on how to do it, even with a lot of help (and I work in a FAANG so we should be getting decent candidates).

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#72

Post by newbye3 »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #71
usrbinbash wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a significant backlash at least in the startup space to "whiteboard coding" Good. Whiteboard coding is probably one of the least useful methods I have ever seen to evaluate candidates. It tells me nothing about the persons actual qualification and can be gamed.

While I agree that it won't tell you if a candidate is good, it will often show very quickly that a candidate is absolutely terrible. My warm-up questions are usually something like "reverse a singly-linked-list" or "check if a string is a palindrome", and you would be surprised at how many people have just no clue on how to do it, even with a lot of help (and I work in a FAANG so we should be getting decent candidat…

Don't hire me, this version cons a lot )): (defun palindrome(str) (string= str (coerce (reverse (coerce str 'list)) 'string))

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#73

Post by pharmakom »

onion2k wrote: post #59
pharmakom wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PG has an agenda on this one. Doing a start-up, the job market and my skills are my security. If the work gets scarce the risk profile of doing a start-up gets worse.

If you're looking for security you shouldn't be doing a startup in the first place. It's pretty much the riskiest move you can make as far as your career goes.

That’s binary thinking. Risk level is a spectrum.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#74

Post by pharmakom »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #56
pharmakom wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 4 year degree had some hard theoretical CS content. Yes I could have learned it all on YouTube or whatever, but I did the assignments and the exams so I have proven I could learn the stuff - of course it’s all pretty rusty now. I see a quality degree as a great signal when hiring, and I don’t just mean a few elite schools. If evaluating a degree from somewhere I haven’t heard of, I will poke around the course webs…

I don't think my degrees are worthless either, as at the very least they exposed me to certain types of content. However, my experiences (non-SV) have been that even if these degrees show one can pick up difficult things fast, hiring managers basically wave it off. They are looking for individuals who can effectively step into most of their (absurdly bloated) tech stack by tomorrow. Maybe it's another story in SV/US,…

This is a huge market inefficiency being exploited by firms like Jane Street.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#75

Post by imtringued »

acchow wrote: post #10
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #2

The market being harder for juniors seems correct from what I’m seeing. I’ve been looking frequently for the last month to see what’s out there, and virtually no one I’ve noticed is seeking junior developers.

If the funnel for juniors tightens up for a couple years, won't the shortage for senior+ worsen down the road? I see this as overall bad for innovation.

Abandoning people with long term consequences for short term gain is a hallmark of capitalism. If it doesn't pay a positive interest rate throw it in the trash and save the money that would have to be spent to keep it alive. By "it" I include humans.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#76

Post by ghaff »

TavsiE9s wrote: post #26
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #9

I've been contacted by a number of recruiters recently who are recruiting for positions that are paying FAR more than the market average of just a few years ago. I'm talking an average increase of over 50%. I'm honestly concerned that my entire team, after having received low percentage pay increases in the past year, is going to end up leaving within the next 4-6 months, and I'm not sure the product is capable of su…

I’ve heard the whole “money can’t be everything when deciding on a job” a couple of times when discussing salaries recently. Mostly from companies who realise they can’t or don’t want to compete with the market. Shrug and move on. They’ll learn eventually.

>They’ll learn eventually.

A lot of companies just can't afford to match big tech Silicon Valley salaries in general. They may make exceptions for specific individuals but my impression is there's a fairly widespread attitude, however resigned, that if you can get a job with Facebook and you're fine with that, we're not going to try to outbid them.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#77

Post by mbalex99 »

pharmakom wrote: post #73
onion2k wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're looking for security you shouldn't be doing a startup in the first place. It's pretty much the riskiest move you can make as far as your career goes.

That’s binary thinking. Risk level is a spectrum.

Yes but the risk is highly asymmetric. Starting a company is skewed towards danger and not certain reward in both bull and bear market.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#78

Post by willcipriano »

cabraca wrote: post #45
mandeepj wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mentor some juniors and the ability to talk to a specific target audience about a topic is the most important skill a dev can have. Sure, it comes with experience and lessons learnt. But, I don't think a junior dev would straight talk to finance guys for money. They would have support from his own tribe in some form (PM/Manager/Director). Nonetheless, you are making a good point. In sprint demos, I make sure my t…

finance was just a example. replace it with the stakeholder, the PM of another team or an external partner. > In sprint demos, I make sure my team members do not bring up any tech jargon thats exactly what i mean. the audience does not care about the tech, they care that their problems are solved and money is made.

I wonder if it works that way in other fields.

Do the suits at Boeing get upset that the engineer they hired keeps talking about things like thrust, lift and control surfaces instead of what EBITDA will be this quarter? Actually maybe... That might be the reason airplanes are throwing themselves at the ground and why all your personal information is now public knowledge.

Re: What would a recession mean for developers?

#80

Post by DANK_YACHT »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #55
DANK_YACHT wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea I was in school at the time.

Were you studying at an "approved" school? Back then that was a big thing for some of the FAANGs.

I don’t know. My school wasn’t very good, so I can’t imagine it was on any type of approved school list.
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