4 ms·

> Anything longer, especially if there is a lot of long-term stasis on a resume (e.g. "tech lead on product X" for more than a year or two), is an indication to

> Anything longer, especially if there is a lot of long-term stasis on a resume (e.g. "tech lead on product X" for more than a year or two), is an indication to me of someone who either isn't capable of stretching himself or doesn't want to. That's insane. Someone who is the technical leader of a project for more than two years doesn't "stretch himself"? I see no reason to believe that's true. If anything, it takes years for you to realize design flaws in components of the earliest-developed systems. The extent to which you can learn about how to design well-designed systems is going to be quite limited if just peace out after a year or two, as you suggest.

gaius 9y ago
That's insane. It is insane, but this is how this market operates. Do you feel strongly enough to not play along, at considerable cost to yourself? I'd love to stay and grow somewhere for 10+ years - haven't managed it yet...
jschwartzi 9y ago
Yeah, it's taken us more than two years to bring our product to market. It is a medical device. 2 years seems specific to web apps or something, where there isn't any hardware to support and there aren't any other engineering disciplines changing their stuff. After the first year of development we had a prototype. After the first year of verification testing we learned a lot about how the product needs to work to meet standards. After the second year we've learned about most of the edge cases. Now that we have a working product we're marketing it, and we'll finally get feedback from the field rather than product-market fit data. That's easily two more years of data. I hope GP isn't really throwing out candidates that have more than two years in the same position.
sidlls 9y ago
> If anything, it takes years for you to realize design flaws in components of the earliest-developed systems. This is more a symptom of the lack of engineering that occurs in this industry than it is an indication of deep technical knowledge gained over years of study. I'd agree with what you say if I thought there were anything like engineering happening. I've worked on code bases and systems that are quite large. I never saw the learning you suggest. I saw lots of fighting the last battle and the accumulation of years of poor engineering decisions, usually by people who had been a lead for years.
nikanj 9y ago
According to the modern thinking, in two years you're supposed to switch stacks twice, and rewrite the whole thing five times. With that much churn, there's no value in seniority.
- gaius 9y ago
  The recent expansion of the industry mean that people with little or no experience massively out-vote those with lots.
majkinetor 9y ago
Great point. I actually don't think the one has valuable experience until one spent 2+ years on the same project. All bigger projects get more chaotic and complicated over time and that needs specific set of skills to get managed in all directions. Until you experienced it first hand, you are really just a hello-world-on-steroids.
- sidlls 9y ago
  But once somebody has done that once, it's unlikely that additional years will contribute to experience: there's a steep drop off in the marginal experience gained for additional time spent. That's why I wrote what I did: longer than a year or two on the same project in the same capacity is a negative indicator. It's not a deal-breaker, especially if it's just a small fraction of the employment history. If it represents the majority of the developer's history, then I expect to see significant expansion of his role as time progresses. Otherwise he's just doing the "same experience, N years over" trick, just on the other extreme end from the guy who never lasts longer than a year or so to see a project from initial development through maturity and maintenance.
  - majkinetor 9y ago
    'Only once' can't be true. Its like saying that your first long term project will be ideal in providing every type of experience. That is impossible. IMO, you need to have long standing projects all the time, its a domain on its own. I agree with you that it may mean staling for some people, but no generalization is possible.

gaius 9y ago

That's insane. It is insane, but this is how this market operates. Do you feel strongly enough to not play along, at considerable cost to yourself? I'd love to stay and grow somewhere for 10+ years - haven't managed it yet...

jschwartzi 9y ago

Yeah, it's taken us more than two years to bring our product to market. It is a medical device. 2 years seems specific to web apps or something, where there isn't any hardware to support and there aren't any other engineering disciplines changing their stuff. After the first year of development we had a prototype. After the first year of verification testing we learned a lot about how the product needs to work to meet standards. After the second year we've learned about most of the edge cases. Now that we have a working product we're marketing it, and we'll finally get feedback from the field rather than product-market fit data. That's easily two more years of data. I hope GP isn't really throwing out candidates that have more than two years in the same position.

sidlls 9y ago

> If anything, it takes years for you to realize design flaws in components of the earliest-developed systems. This is more a symptom of the lack of engineering that occurs in this industry than it is an indication of deep technical knowledge gained over years of study. I'd agree with what you say if I thought there were anything like engineering happening. I've worked on code bases and systems that are quite large. I never saw the learning you suggest. I saw lots of fighting the last battle and the accumulation of years of poor engineering decisions, usually by people who had been a lead for years.

nikanj 9y ago

According to the modern thinking, in two years you're supposed to switch stacks twice, and rewrite the whole thing five times. With that much churn, there's no value in seniority.

gaius 9y ago
The recent expansion of the industry mean that people with little or no experience massively out-vote those with lots.

majkinetor 9y ago

Great point. I actually don't think the one has valuable experience until one spent 2+ years on the same project. All bigger projects get more chaotic and complicated over time and that needs specific set of skills to get managed in all directions. Until you experienced it first hand, you are really just a hello-world-on-steroids.

sidlls 9y ago
But once somebody has done that once, it's unlikely that additional years will contribute to experience: there's a steep drop off in the marginal experience gained for additional time spent. That's why I wrote what I did: longer than a year or two on the same project in the same capacity is a negative indicator. It's not a deal-breaker, especially if it's just a small fraction of the employment history. If it represents the majority of the developer's history, then I expect to see significant expansion of his role as time progresses. Otherwise he's just doing the "same experience, N years over" trick, just on the other extreme end from the guy who never lasts longer than a year or so to see a project from initial development through maturity and maintenance.
- majkinetor 9y ago
  'Only once' can't be true. Its like saying that your first long term project will be ideal in providing every type of experience. That is impossible. IMO, you need to have long standing projects all the time, its a domain on its own. I agree with you that it may mean staling for some people, but no generalization is possible.