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Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

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Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#81

Post by nawgz »

glouwbug wrote: post #22
Victerius wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

200k is not chump change for every other profession. Get off your high horse. You're not special because you know software.

Money really doesn't much once you've hit financial independence. I can live out the rest of my days with $1m invested. $200K-$500k annual salary, hell, even $100k, is enough at that point.

“I can live out the rest of my days with ... $200K-$500k annual salary”

Sorry, but this isn’t “living out the rest of my days with” money, this is a top 5-1% pay range you’ve just suggested. I don’t necessarily disagree with your point but anyone who needs a $500K salary clearly is not financially independent

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#82

Post by JJMcJ »

Ensorceled wrote: post #70
yupper32 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have 1-2 interviews with a take home. > fire those that don't perform up to expectations quickly. This attitude is why I haven't been recruited. I have 10 years at big tech and companies expect me to jump ship with the threat of getting fired if I don't immediately live up to expectations (even if I'm confident that I will, but I'll never know how high your expectations are until it's too late). Add on wild take ho…

> threat of getting fired if I don't immediately live up to expectations I also try to fire fast and every single time the issue is that they do not actually have the skills they listed on their resume. That's why the coding test and that's why you need to fire fast. I have all kinds of patience for good people that need ramp up time.

You need to have a very very clear idea of what the new hire will be doing when they start.

Plenty of companies assign people badly and then act all surprised that they don't have a Plug Compatible Interchangeable Engineer. https://kidneybone.com/c2/wiki/PlugCompatibleInterchangeable...

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#83

Post by coupdejarnac »

Ensorceled wrote: post #51
bpicolo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take homes are one of the single biggest turnoffs for experienced talent in interview processes. People don't want to do them. Especially good devs who can land a job anywhere. > Don't make them jump through hoops The take homes are the hoops.

For people with side/brochure projects, my "take home" tests are always "add these simple features to your git hub project xxx". Often it gets done the same day. Otherwise, I'll do something simple, on a shared screen in the language of their choice. It shouldn't be hours and hours and, ideally, it's a win/win.

Is this commonly done? I haven't seen this before. If I had an interviewer do this for me, I would be very impressed.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#84

Post by jstx1 »

gsibble wrote: post #24
Victerius wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

200k is not chump change for every other profession. Get off your high horse. You're not special because you know software.

I wrote banking software that took a company's valuation from $400 million to $6 billion when it went public. That's not a special ability?

There's probably a bunch of other people could have writeen it just as well or better and it wouldn't have made a difference to the valuation of the company anyway.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#85

Post by bdangubic »

kube-system wrote: post #68
karamanolev wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some actually respect it I'm yet to see one or hear from a friend who works in one. I admit there might exist one somewhere, but by and large, they don't. Unlimited PTO = culture of overworking, at least for me. And small companies with unlimited PTO, 3-5 engineer teams (and some other staff, obviously) seem to be the worst offenders. The bigger the company, the higher the chance unlimited PTO might actually work.…

It works as long as you have a culture where people don't abuse it. It's not workable if people think it's acceptable to disappear with some critical information only in their head and screw their coworkers. Document stuff. Set deadlines in advance, and expect people to meet them. Have a team that collaborates and is considerate to their peers. If people do this, nobody is counting how many days they're out. I'd rath…

Therein lies the problem… Define “abuse it.”? If there is such a thing than PTO should be limited to that ;) Dont say it is unlimited and then say that actually is limited…

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#86

Post by AQuantized »

uhuruity wrote: post #45
silisili wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree in principle, but not in experience. I've interviewed a few people lately, Senior Eng somehow, who have impressive resumes. I ask basic coding tasks just to make sure they actually know the language claimed - just something like converting numbers to strings, and you'd be amazed how many people had no idea where to start.

> just something like converting numbers to strings Isn't that the kind of thing that someone senior would typically look up? Do you think that whether or not they have that part of the language API stored in their working memory is a good predictor of their ability to do a good job as a senior eng?

Honestly while I would agree for a lot of obscure methods, I can't imagine a senior engineer not knowing how to convert an integer to a string.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#87

Post by bpicolo »

Ensorceled wrote: post #51
bpicolo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take homes are one of the single biggest turnoffs for experienced talent in interview processes. People don't want to do them. Especially good devs who can land a job anywhere. > Don't make them jump through hoops The take homes are the hoops.

For people with side/brochure projects, my "take home" tests are always "add these simple features to your git hub project xxx". Often it gets done the same day. Otherwise, I'll do something simple, on a shared screen in the language of their choice. It shouldn't be hours and hours and, ideally, it's a win/win.

Not being facetious here - if they have notable github projects, why do you want a new feature versus viewing or talking through something they've already developed in one of them? Why is the novelty important?

The shared coding screen is definitely the most common method. And the one I've found most folk prefer. There won't ever be a one size fits all solution, but ideally your interview methods are equitable across all candidates, and ones that the majority of candidates are comfortable going through. Disparate processes hurts the former.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#88

Post by gsibble »

PenguinCoder wrote: post #57
gsibble wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never poached someone without giving them a significant raise for one thing. I'm always clear about my expectations which are pretty simple - your time belongs to you. We pay you a high salary and expect you to get your assigned work done. As long as you get it done on time, you can fuck off and enjoy all of the excess time you have. If you do all of your two week sprint work in 20 minutes, you can enjoy the nex…

> If you do all of your two week sprint work in 20 minutes, you can enjoy the next two weeks off. Citation/sources wanted. That was my expectation with a 'salary' job; being paid to get the work done. Work is done under 40hr, congrats go home! Work takes longer than 40hr, oh well. In my experience though, in _every single_ company punishes efficiency and hard work, with more work. You're done in 20h? CONGRATS, you ge…

Yes, I/we do things significantly different than any other company I've worked for. Working fully remote makes it easier since you don't see people getting up from their desks or not coming into work. Our developers have no set hours, can work any hours they want, and are only expected to get the work assigned to them during a sprint done, no more, no less. I brought this style of work to our workplace and it's been a massive success. Everyone is extremely happy and productivity is through the roof. Makes for very loyal and hard working employees.

If you read Drive by Daniel Pink, you'll learn that the things that unlock higher performance are Mastery, Autonomy, and Purpose. That's what we strive to give to our employees, including autonomy over their own time and how they get their work done.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#89

Post by kube-system »

bdangubic wrote: post #85
kube-system wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works as long as you have a culture where people don't abuse it. It's not workable if people think it's acceptable to disappear with some critical information only in their head and screw their coworkers. Document stuff. Set deadlines in advance, and expect people to meet them. Have a team that collaborates and is considerate to their peers. If people do this, nobody is counting how many days they're out. I'd rath…

Therein lies the problem… Define “abuse it.”? If there is such a thing than PTO should be limited to that ;) Dont say it is unlimited and then say that actually is limited…

I did define it... in the rest of my comment.

If the workplace culture isn't such that it is clear what abuse of the policy is, then yeah, it's not going to work out. Expectations have to be clear.

Re: Why is recruiting developers so difficult?

#90

Post by AnimalMuppet »

trebbble wrote: post #50
humanwhosits wrote: post #5

Whenever I think about changing jobs, I think about the interview process and just keep putting it off.

Consider that FAANG-style interviews are pretty expensive to conduct. Consider that the big tech companies could agree on some kind of standardized test to replace much of the worst of the interviews—but haven't. Consider that they often make you leetcode even if you've already passed their interviews before, even if you've passed a couple other leetcode-style companies' interviews before, and so on. Recall that seve…

Interesting. I'd quibble with the degree of certainty in the last paragraph, but this is an interesting take with some concrete observations behind it.
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