4 ms·

Just a minor note: > What that looks like in practice is you somehow find that an engineering company is hiring, which by the way, every company that has more

Just a minor note: > What that looks like in practice is you somehow find that an engineering company is hiring, which by the way, every company that has more than 10 engineers is going to hire engineers this quarter. Not mine. We haven't hired an engineer, or anybody else, in over a year. We aren't struggling, either. We just don't have the work volume. Maybe we are the exception, but anyone following this advice and trying to contact, say, me is just setting themselves up for disappointment.

rubidium 11y ago
Yea, there's hiring freezes too at bigger corps. Even if they loose a dev that can't always replace her.
bryanlarsen 11y ago
Are you saying if a superstar dream engineer came along and offered to work for your company you wouldn't somehow find room for her? The only time that's been true for any company I've worked for is in the few months immediately following massive layoffs...
- nommm-nommm 11y ago
  No, we wouldn't. Maybe for a few startups who are "growing" this is a good strategy (idk) but not the majority of businesses. It isn't good business to randomly hire engineers you don't have work for only to lay them off in a year because... you don't have work for them!!! Your rockstar engineer isn't going to have a good time twiddling their thumbs all day anyways. My company has way more than 10 engineers but we rarely hire. Our work level has been very constant over the last decade and people rarely leave so they don't need replacing often. The majority of our engineers have been working at the company for over a decade. That's not even how the majority of businesses work and many hiring managers aren't even allowed to hire without a specific job opening. My boss (also the hiring manager) at the company I interned for wanted to hire me full time instead of replacing me with a new intern after my internship ended (which was protocol for that project I was working on). He couldn't without the higher ups, who worked in another office, approving a new full time job opening which they didn't want to do at that moment. He was only allowed to replace me with another intern because that's what the higher ups called for, it was an intern position. There was no other full time positions open. Yeah, it's true that you should try to network in case there is a job opening somewhere that hasn't been advertised yet. But it's not going to work to assume every company is hiring all the time. That's just setting yourself up for disappointment. Realistically most companies aren't just going to hire someone on a whim. This whole article sounds like an unrealistic pipe dream. I guess this is how "startups" operate, I don't know, I don't live anywhere near California. (Oh yeah, non-salary benefits like vacation or health insurance are just not negotiated, they are determined by an algorithm in the company handbook)
  - awakeasleep 11y ago
    Hard to imagine a job where, as a developer, you can't find work to do.
    - nommm-nommm 11y ago
      I work solely on contracts for external companies. If a job with Z features is negotiated for $X you can't just throw in a couple more engineers, give them a couple features they didn't ask for, and charge $Y. You can only charge work on a project if that work is specified in the contract. Otherwise that's fraud. And anyway, you're apparently going to hire all the engineers who ask you out to lunch (according to this article) so you're going to have a whole lot of engineers very soon if you are hiring this way.
- sbov 11y ago
  Our company couldn't afford a superstar dream engineer. I've met a total of one. He makes nearly half a million at Netflix. Most companies I know of also aren't willing to shell out the cash required for superstar dream engineers.
- vonmoltke 11y ago
  Basically what nommm-nommm said. We have craploads of work to do, but what limits our bandwidth is what our customers will actually pay us to do. We do bespoke work on contracts, so if we don't have the contracts we can't do the work or hire the people, no matter how badly we might have to.
  - infinite8s 11y ago
    How do you have too much work that no one will pay for?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
bbarn 11y ago
See, I have had the opposite experience in almost all of my jobs. It could be the supply/demand in your locale/field but the shops I've been at have usually always been looking for more good engineers, even if they didn't have an open posting. Point being, as he mentions elsewhere, you should do it in parallel. For every company that isn't, there's probably another that is open to hiring.
- atonse 11y ago
  I think part of the "shortage" is also that companies are looking for good engineers at a price _they_ are willing to pay, not what the market is necessarily asking for, which is why they have to reject a whole swath of higher quality candidates saying they're too senior. I know a lot of good engineers that just become contractors because that's the only way to transcend the market salaries for programmer employees. There are a half dozen jobs I'd love to apply for but the salaries just don't match what I make as a contractor (even taking many benefits into account).
  - bbarn 11y ago
    I agree with you RE: the salary price being a factor, but I think what I'm saying is, there's a lot of companies perpetually hiring good candidates - even if they don't have a desperate need for one enough to be actively recruiting. Employee referrals from good developers are often some of the easiest good hires you can find, and when they fall into your lap if you can afford them, and they fit in, you jump on it. There's a reason so many companies offer referral bonuses. It's downright cheap to give a dev 5K to refer his friend/former coworker compared to paying 18-22% in recruiting fees for a higher risk hire.
- developer2 11y ago
  10 years ago I contacted a small company (7-8 developers) across the country from the city I was living in, that "wasn't hiring". A week later, after a simple coding exercise and a few interesting hours on the phone, I was scheduling my all-expenses-paid relocation. That relocation was the best decision of my life. And it started with contacting a company that originally indicated they were not hiring. If you're interested, you make contact. Just don't expect that it has to lead somewhere. It never hurts to try.
ryandrake 11y ago
I liked the article overall, but I also took issue with that quote. Every company might be _interviewing_ but not as many are actually seriously hiring. There's a difference. I think in today's job market, companies can afford to take their time and "fish" for the best bargains. There's no shortage of under-employed tech workers.
- scruple 11y ago
  Yep, there is a massive difference. I've seen it said before on HN: They're real serious about interviewing and not at all serious about hiring. I could actually go on about this at length. Over the past year, I've witnessed some close, personal friends going through it. From what we've observed from their experiences, as far as we can tell, it's legacy cruft, hazing rituals, and dysfunction combined.
pound 11y ago
In general if engineers changing jobs after 2 or 3 years (quite common), let's say every 2.5 years, then for team of 10 engineers it would be exactly need for one hire a quarter.
- vonmoltke 11y ago
  I have been here for four years. Two engineers and three coding researchers have been here longer than me. Three engineers and one coding researcher have been here less. In that time a grand total of three engineers and one researcher have left, so we average one per year. At my previous large company, where I spent nearly ten years, I can count on one hand the number of engineers who left for reasons other than firing or retirement. This "engineer churn" is very much a product of certain overheated markets. For most of the world it just is not the case. In fact, that is my main issue with articles like this. Not every market is overheated like the Valley, and you cannot cast what goes on there like it is the way the world works.
goldbrick 11y ago
> We aren't struggling, either. We just don't have the work volume. This is a bit of a contradiction. If you aren't growing, you are dying.

rubidium 11y ago

Yea, there's hiring freezes too at bigger corps. Even if they loose a dev that can't always replace her.

bryanlarsen 11y ago

Are you saying if a superstar dream engineer came along and offered to work for your company you wouldn't somehow find room for her? The only time that's been true for any company I've worked for is in the few months immediately following massive layoffs...

nommm-nommm 11y ago
No, we wouldn't. Maybe for a few startups who are "growing" this is a good strategy (idk) but not the majority of businesses. It isn't good business to randomly hire engineers you don't have work for only to lay them off in a year because... you don't have work for them!!! Your rockstar engineer isn't going to have a good time twiddling their thumbs all day anyways. My company has way more than 10 engineers but we rarely hire. Our work level has been very constant over the last decade and people rarely leave so they don't need replacing often. The majority of our engineers have been working at the company for over a decade. That's not even how the majority of businesses work and many hiring managers aren't even allowed to hire without a specific job opening. My boss (also the hiring manager) at the company I interned for wanted to hire me full time instead of replacing me with a new intern after my internship ended (which was protocol for that project I was working on). He couldn't without the higher ups, who worked in another office, approving a new full time job opening which they didn't want to do at that moment. He was only allowed to replace me with another intern because that's what the higher ups called for, it was an intern position. There was no other full time positions open. Yeah, it's true that you should try to network in case there is a job opening somewhere that hasn't been advertised yet. But it's not going to work to assume every company is hiring all the time. That's just setting yourself up for disappointment. Realistically most companies aren't just going to hire someone on a whim. This whole article sounds like an unrealistic pipe dream. I guess this is how "startups" operate, I don't know, I don't live anywhere near California. (Oh yeah, non-salary benefits like vacation or health insurance are just not negotiated, they are determined by an algorithm in the company handbook)
- awakeasleep 11y ago
  Hard to imagine a job where, as a developer, you can't find work to do.
  - nommm-nommm 11y ago
    I work solely on contracts for external companies. If a job with Z features is negotiated for $X you can't just throw in a couple more engineers, give them a couple features they didn't ask for, and charge $Y. You can only charge work on a project if that work is specified in the contract. Otherwise that's fraud. And anyway, you're apparently going to hire all the engineers who ask you out to lunch (according to this article) so you're going to have a whole lot of engineers very soon if you are hiring this way.
sbov 11y ago
Our company couldn't afford a superstar dream engineer. I've met a total of one. He makes nearly half a million at Netflix. Most companies I know of also aren't willing to shell out the cash required for superstar dream engineers.
vonmoltke 11y ago
Basically what nommm-nommm said. We have craploads of work to do, but what limits our bandwidth is what our customers will actually pay us to do. We do bespoke work on contracts, so if we don't have the contracts we can't do the work or hire the people, no matter how badly we might have to.
- infinite8s 11y ago
  How do you have too much work that no one will pay for?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

bbarn 11y ago

See, I have had the opposite experience in almost all of my jobs. It could be the supply/demand in your locale/field but the shops I've been at have usually always been looking for more good engineers, even if they didn't have an open posting. Point being, as he mentions elsewhere, you should do it in parallel. For every company that isn't, there's probably another that is open to hiring.

atonse 11y ago
I think part of the "shortage" is also that companies are looking for good engineers at a price _they_ are willing to pay, not what the market is necessarily asking for, which is why they have to reject a whole swath of higher quality candidates saying they're too senior. I know a lot of good engineers that just become contractors because that's the only way to transcend the market salaries for programmer employees. There are a half dozen jobs I'd love to apply for but the salaries just don't match what I make as a contractor (even taking many benefits into account).
- bbarn 11y ago
  I agree with you RE: the salary price being a factor, but I think what I'm saying is, there's a lot of companies perpetually hiring good candidates - even if they don't have a desperate need for one enough to be actively recruiting. Employee referrals from good developers are often some of the easiest good hires you can find, and when they fall into your lap if you can afford them, and they fit in, you jump on it. There's a reason so many companies offer referral bonuses. It's downright cheap to give a dev 5K to refer his friend/former coworker compared to paying 18-22% in recruiting fees for a higher risk hire.
developer2 11y ago
10 years ago I contacted a small company (7-8 developers) across the country from the city I was living in, that "wasn't hiring". A week later, after a simple coding exercise and a few interesting hours on the phone, I was scheduling my all-expenses-paid relocation. That relocation was the best decision of my life. And it started with contacting a company that originally indicated they were not hiring. If you're interested, you make contact. Just don't expect that it has to lead somewhere. It never hurts to try.

ryandrake 11y ago

I liked the article overall, but I also took issue with that quote. Every company might be _interviewing_ but not as many are actually seriously hiring. There's a difference. I think in today's job market, companies can afford to take their time and "fish" for the best bargains. There's no shortage of under-employed tech workers.

scruple 11y ago
Yep, there is a massive difference. I've seen it said before on HN: They're real serious about interviewing and not at all serious about hiring. I could actually go on about this at length. Over the past year, I've witnessed some close, personal friends going through it. From what we've observed from their experiences, as far as we can tell, it's legacy cruft, hazing rituals, and dysfunction combined.

pound 11y ago

In general if engineers changing jobs after 2 or 3 years (quite common), let's say every 2.5 years, then for team of 10 engineers it would be exactly need for one hire a quarter.

vonmoltke 11y ago
I have been here for four years. Two engineers and three coding researchers have been here longer than me. Three engineers and one coding researcher have been here less. In that time a grand total of three engineers and one researcher have left, so we average one per year. At my previous large company, where I spent nearly ten years, I can count on one hand the number of engineers who left for reasons other than firing or retirement. This "engineer churn" is very much a product of certain overheated markets. For most of the world it just is not the case. In fact, that is my main issue with articles like this. Not every market is overheated like the Valley, and you cannot cast what goes on there like it is the way the world works.

goldbrick 11y ago

> We aren't struggling, either. We just don't have the work volume. This is a bit of a contradiction. If you aren't growing, you are dying.