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Developers are burned out, quitting jobs and creating a crisis for recruiters

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Re: Developers are burned out, quitting jobs and creating a crisis for recruiters

#81

Post by goodpoint »

rhacker wrote: post #14

It points to developer apathy. I sometimes wonder if that's just the global feeling at the moment. Everyone that's working on widget X suddenly doesn't care because of all the crises going on. Rampant inflation, extreme inequality. By continuing to work on widget x they are just supporting more of the same. Think people want society to change a bit before moving forward with being happy.

> Rampant inflation, extreme inequality

[I'll add climate change to that.]

It's well known that burnout is often caused by work goals being misaligned with personal goal.

Obviously millions of people don't feel like the purpose of their life is to make some billionaire more wealthy.

People feel burned out by working on SEO instead of things important for the future of humanity.

Re: Developers are burned out, quitting jobs and creating a crisis for recruiters

#82

Post by everforward »

Sevii wrote: post #33
strict9 wrote: post #15

Not a surprise. When senior devs leave an org due to mismanagement or other reasons, it creates more work for those left behind. And it's become extremely difficult to find replacement for the seniors that left. Senior devs are nowhere to be found through regular applicant pipelines. They seem to be leaving as a result of reaching out to friends/former colleagues. Also relevant: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id…

People really don't talk about landslide risk enough. A project with a high tech debt or operations burden is at high risk of losing enough people to zero out the project. Lose one or two people at the same time and suddenly the rest of the team is in an untenable situation. Maybe they were thinking casually about leaving before, but now that their burden has increased by 30% its more serious. Then you just keep losi…

I don't think that's unavoidable, but businesses typically fail to correctly reassess the value of those employees.

If the business responded appropriately, I think people could be convinced to stay.

E.g. if they offered:

1: An instant promotion with raise for anyone not at the max level for an IC, to acknowledge that they are now the most knowledgeable people on that product.

2: Double pay until those slots are filled and newbies are trained.

3: A contract saying they get a month of PTO when the slots are filled and newbies trained.

4: Assurances that they are offering above-market rates to get the slots filled quickly (which should still be lower than the new rates for people who stayed).

What usually gets offered is pittances. A 10% raise to work 30% more hours. Maybe some flex time. It doesn't make sense for workers to stay, they can usually get better benefits and lower working hours by leaving anyways. Businesses need to offer substantially more than employees can get elsewhere.

Re: Developers are burned out, quitting jobs and creating a crisis for recruiters

#83

Post by _xrp0 »

ipaddr wrote: post #80
_xrp0 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't find a job with a "proven track record" in this market , you're doing something horribly wrong. I'm willing to bet $100 that your resume is not stellar. Many people are bad at evaluating themselves. I've seen countless posts by juniors apparently "grinding hard" to get a job, and you just take 1 look at their resume and everything makes sense. Zero research on how to write resumes, zero prep, projects ar…

The market is pretty rough now. Layoffs are flooding the market, pay is not going up and companies happy to interview are scared to hire.

Layoffs hit overvalued, bloated companies, and the majority of laid of people are non-technical staff, or junior employees.

None of this has ANY effect on competent software engineers. Most of my peers keep getting massive offers left and right. Nothing has changed for them.

Re: Developers are burned out, quitting jobs and creating a crisis for recruiters

#84

Post by PainfullyNormal »

_xrp0 wrote: post #72
jongjong wrote: post #13

I don't get it. I have a stellar resume and a proven track record in the public domain (open source but I've been struggling to find work and have accepted short term work for half my normal rate. There are so few opportunities, I had to switch to teaching people how to code.

If you can't find a job with a "proven track record" in this market , you're doing something horribly wrong. I'm willing to bet $100 that your resume is not stellar. Many people are bad at evaluating themselves. I've seen countless posts by juniors apparently "grinding hard" to get a job, and you just take 1 look at their resume and everything makes sense. Zero research on how to write resumes, zero prep, projects ar…

> If you can't find a job with a "proven track record" in this market, you're doing something horribly wrong.

Can you define both what "horribly wrong" looks like and what "not horribly wrong" looks like? Because I can't.

The problem with a "proven track record" is that nobody believes what you write on your resume and nobody wants to bother looking at your code. That leaves hiring on "feel" and I have no idea what somebody needs to put in their cover letter and/or resume to "feel" right to a recruiter, an HR rep and a hiring manager all at the same time.

Re: Developers are burned out, quitting jobs and creating a crisis for recruiters

#85

Post by Silhouette »

acchow wrote: post #46
jongjong wrote: post #13

I don't get it. I have a stellar resume and a proven track record in the public domain (open source but I've been struggling to find work and have accepted short term work for half my normal rate. There are so few opportunities, I had to switch to teaching people how to code.

This goes against the feeling I have of the market (nonstop recruiters). At which point in time did you feel the market had more opportunities? 2020? 2017?

I get seemingly endless messages from recruiters too but I don't think that's a very useful metric for the state of the market. Probably 1/3 of the roles they send to me don't look anything like my profile at all. At least another 1/3 match technically but are offering nowhere near what I already make. Of the final 1/3 or less that aren't immediately ruled out I am probably interested enough to respond to maybe half and at least 80% of those turn out to be snake oil one way or another. So maybe 3% of the recruiter emails I receive might actually be a real opportunity that I'd consider exploring. And that's before even speaking with a potential employer/client to see what the role really is and whether we're any kind of fit at all culturally.

Re: Developers are burned out, quitting jobs and creating a crisis for recruiters

#86

Post by hguant »

strict9 wrote: post #15

Not a surprise. When senior devs leave an org due to mismanagement or other reasons, it creates more work for those left behind. And it's become extremely difficult to find replacement for the seniors that left. Senior devs are nowhere to be found through regular applicant pipelines. They seem to be leaving as a result of reaching out to friends/former colleagues. Also relevant: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id…

>Senior devs are nowhere to be found through regular applicant pipelines. They seem to be leaving as a result of reaching out to friends/former colleagues.

Anecdotal, and I wouldn't call myself senior dev (though, with 10 years in industry, I'm not a junior any more), but apart from my actual first job, I've never "applied" anywhere that I haven't already been offered a position, and I know that's true for everyone I've hired/recruited. The need for engineers/developers with hands on skillsets who have actually delivered something is ridiculous, and I'm not even in the Bay area. Hell, the last time I had a technical interview it was in a pool at DEFCON, and that was only so the company could tell their board that they'd had a "rigorous and competitive interview process" (their founders words).

It's to the point where I'm a little cautious about how I talk about work outside of it, because if someone thinks you're unhappy, they'll set up a lunch in a heartbeat.

Re: Developers are burned out, quitting jobs and creating a crisis for recruiters

#87

Post by ravenstine »

ipaddr wrote: post #76
ravenstine wrote: post #38

Not only is there burn-out on the job, but could there also be interviewing burn-out? In the software industry, you're doing yourself a disservice by staying at a company for more than 3 years. Even 2 years is pushing it, that is unless you are seeing wage increases that match or exceed inflation. And even if you haven't reached that amount of time, it's smart to start applying and interviewing earlier so you can hav…

I went through this recently and by the time we reached the last stages of the process I've lost interest. I realized I literally need to be unemployed to bother going through all of these useless stages. Things I realized: The pay that is in the ad is always lower. That recruitor who won't go away just wants you part of a funnel they get paid for, if the company really wanted you they would just make an offer. Ghost…

Ghosting after a take home test really bites. Either provide feedback or give an expectation on how long it will take to make a decision. Don't make me do free work and leave me hanging.

But yeah, it does happen. I used to advocate for take home assignments, but now I really don't know what the answer is for directly assessing skill. Leetcode sucks, but take home assignments have their own problems. Maybe the problem with both approaches is that there really is no sort of standardization of practices or measurement of success that I'm aware of.

Re: Developers are burned out, quitting jobs and creating a crisis for recruiters

#88

Post by WorldMaker »

ravenstine wrote: post #38

Not only is there burn-out on the job, but could there also be interviewing burn-out? In the software industry, you're doing yourself a disservice by staying at a company for more than 3 years. Even 2 years is pushing it, that is unless you are seeing wage increases that match or exceed inflation. And even if you haven't reached that amount of time, it's smart to start applying and interviewing earlier so you can hav…

I spent 8 hours on a Saturday the other weekend on a take home assignment and then spent most of Sunday regretting it and angry with myself that I'd let that eat into my weekend so much. The least companies could do is compensate this useless labor.

Interviewing also has been putting me into a spot where I'm starting to wonder if changing professions entirely may be less work.

I wish this profession would grow up. The hazing requirements of every interview cycle are so childish and immature and so perpetually stuck in "college bro culture". If we want a test before jobs, let's make it a standardized test you only need to take once in your career like a real profession would have. So many interviewers would appreciate the principal of DRY and yet as an industry we can't abstract away this menial repetitivity that other industries solved centuries ago?

Re: Developers are burned out, quitting jobs and creating a crisis for recruiters

#89

Post by Aeolun »

ryandrake wrote: post #54
ravenstine wrote: post #38

Not only is there burn-out on the job, but could there also be interviewing burn-out? In the software industry, you're doing yourself a disservice by staying at a company for more than 3 years. Even 2 years is pushing it, that is unless you are seeing wage increases that match or exceed inflation. And even if you haven't reached that amount of time, it's smart to start applying and interviewing earlier so you can hav…

I have a family and kid and hobbies and an already-demanding (time-wise) job and can absolutely say that the current high-friction hazing ritual style of tech interviewing dissuades me from looking around, even though I know I could make more by going through Thunderdome again. Even with recruiters reaching out and starting the process, interviewing is a grueling “second full-time job”.

It’s not that the interviews themselves are so terrible. I’m just a bit tired of random people saying I’m not a good fit because I couldn’t answer a specific question to their satisfaction.

I’ve been a valuable member of the team at my current company, and have received a mix of raises and promotions. I’m inclined to believe I’d do equally well elsewhere, but I first have to prove in a few hours what the past few years apparently couldn’t…

Re: Developers are burned out, quitting jobs and creating a crisis for recruiters

#90

Post by claytonjy »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #52
claytonjy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How should a company address this? They can provide developers cover and time to improve those processes, but that delays product goals at a time when those goals are more important to the ongoing survival of the business than at any point in the past decade+. If companies wouldn't let developers fix stuff when money was easy, how will they now that money is hard? To make matters slightly worse, I increasingly get th…

I am someone who routinely pushes back on improvements and fights them. Why? 1. I get held accountable for delays. The Scum Master will whine to me about "why is X taking so long?" and I capitulate as I do not care. 2. Production bugs are blameless. The team gets blamed as a whole and it gets blamed, particularly at one job, on the non-existence of a team lead. Basically, incentives at two of my jobs make me want to…

I really appreciate this reply from the other side. Seems like a rational response to incentives, even if as a potential coworker I don't like the outcomes.
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