8 ms·

What stopped me from working for 20+ startups

56 points by CodeLikeAGirl 9y ago

trumpownsyou420 9y ago
blog name checks out
analyst74 9y ago
I like the mentality of the author, this is how you land good jobs at good companies for good pay. If you think that you're lucky to have a job offer, like I did when I first started out, then you'll sure get to work with people who think they're doing you a favor by underpaying you for some shitty work.
- andriesm 9y ago
  I actually hate the attitude of the author, maybe because I'm almost 40? I would NEVER hire someone so clueless and demanding. You get to be demanding when you have exceptionally valuable skills princess. It is not 20 startups that are (mainly) the problem, it is YOU who expect other people to train and baby you. You don't have formal training from a university degree, neither are you willing to self learn your way to becoming a master coder. Why would a high stakes startup engage a liability like you? This is what I would tell the author.
  - FLUX-YOU 9y ago
    The qualities in this post are not demanding at all. It sounds like things that should be standard between two adults.
  - sgift 9y ago
    > neither are you willing to self learn your way to becoming a master coder. How did you reach that conclusion?
    - mythrwy 9y ago
      In depth learning usually entails a period of significant sacrifice. In university, at an apprenticeship, alone late at night drilling concepts into your head and getting a bit funny upstairs from so much screen time. This post sounds a bit like she wants to be pampered and well paid while being handed knowledge. That being said I'm glad it worked out for her. I wish the best for every good person. Just hoping we don't see a follow up "Why I left toxic company X" post in a couple of months.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - brandall10 9y ago
    I'm 41 w/ a degree in CS from UCSD (what was at the time a top 10 CS school), spent about 15 years primarily in enterprise healthcare doing C++/C#, then the last 6 years as a Rails/React/Angular dev. I also helped advise a friend on her path to becoming a dev by way of a coding bootcamp, career advice, etc. I think the author is on point. A high-functioning team should embrace a mentor-mentee approach between their sr. and jr. staff. That doesn't preclude self-learning, it accelerates it. Otherwise you're leaving productivity on the floor, and quite frankly, if your sr. staff isn't adept at doing it they probably are not all that sr (being a sr. dev is alot more than simply being a good coder).
    - arghIdontwantto 9y ago
      Mind sharing your recommendations for your friend? I have a friend in a similar position that asked me for help but I'm a bit at lost on what to recommend her. I've been a professional developer for over 20 years. I honestly don't remember what it is not to know what a for loop is and can't find any decent paths from 'non-developer' to 'junior developer' in an easy to follow manner.
      - brandall10 9y ago
        The route taken was: - Do some pro-bono work as an intern of sorts on side of current job for at least a few months - in this case you could help her out with any friends of yours who perhaps have a web consulting business, otherwise go to local meetups and offer her services (just moderate HTML/CSS is fine). Live lean during this time and pocket savings if she doesn't have at least 6 months of cushion + any expenses for a bootcamp. This way she'll have some real-world experience coming out of the bootcamp and some cushion while trying to land her first job. - Find a good bootcamp known to have a decent conversion rate and block out everything else from her life... it can be intense. - Try to find a decent job ASAP after graduation, the initial salary isn't important and (IMO) it's still not a bad idea to do any pro-bono or below market contract work if the experience itself would be esp. good. My friend's first year or so ended up being a mixture of moderately paid and poorly paid contract work. - In the end though, she ended up making $70k w/ great benefits, fully remote in San Diego (roughly equiv to ~$100k in SV) in less than two years from graduation, nearly double what she made at her previous job. With her first year and some 4-5 projects under her belt interviews were considerably easier to get.
  - thex10 9y ago
    She, as a junior dev without a degree, would rather not throw away her crucial first few years of her career to a startup that won't even bother to think about helping cultivate her. You may think that's heinous, but I'm OK with that.
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    I'm almost 50 and I don't share your opinion, so that's probably not it... She's not falsely advertising herself; she clearly states "junior" developer. And she's looking for a place with some idea of what mentorship means - a concept and practice that, I might add, is commonplace in traditional engineering fields. It has even been formalized into the licensing process in those that require licensing (subsets of civil engineering mostly). Yet in software it's surprisingly common to refuse to acknowledge that mentoring has any place or role. Is this wishful thinking on the part of introverted devs who would rather not do it? Then we wonder where all these cowboy coders came from. Well, they taught themselves, like you wanted! The truth is though, you're right - mentorship is not a startup kind of thing. The author would find it easier to get what she needs by working a few years for a BigCorp. They can offer more mentoring because they can afford it, they take a longer-term view, and the people hiring might even be more than just one or two years more experienced than the candidate. Whereas a startup is likely to be young, fast, and ainobodygot time fadat. Edit to add: Author didn't major in CS yet somehow learned JS, so it seems like she can indeed teach herself.
    - thex10 9y ago
      Co-signed. This is essentially what I did - I worked in startups a few years but realized I wanted more mentoring, so I went to a BigCorp and got it! If she finds a startup that could give her that, more power to her.
  - stale2002 9y ago
    "Why would a high stakes startup engage a liability like you?" Thats fair. But if that is the company's opinion, then they shouldn't waste anyone's time by reaching out to her and interviewing her. Sometimes things are not a good fit, and that is ok. But it is disrespectful to waste people's time when you are clearly so not interested in them. This is not about "She deserves a job". This is about "she deserves respect as a candidate". Basic stuff like not sending follow up emails for weeks to a candidate, no matter who the candidate is, tells me that a company cares very little about respecting anyone and should be avoided.
  - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
    Rubbish. Coding-at-all can be self-learned. Computer science requires formal teaching. Good, industrial-quality coding requires mentoring. When I graduated from university, my code was crap and I barely even knew the words "version control". When I had some internships and finished my MSc, I kinda knew what version control was. After I was a year into my first Real Job, then I could actually do testing, code formatting, and commit messaging properly, then I could produce code that would pass review and get merged without problem, and mostly wouldn't create regression problems. This is learned on the job, every time, for every person.
    - dozzie 9y ago
      > Good, industrial-quality coding requires mentoring. For some value of "good", "industrial-quality", "requires", and "mentoring". I belive, for instance, that it's perfectly attainable to learn how to write robust production code without getting somebody to learn that from. I've seen it happen.
      - Clubber 9y ago
        It's possible, but it's a lot more painful. "Learning the hard way," is called that for a reason. When building enterprise class software, learning the hard way involves a lot of production downtime and scalability issues that could be avoided by someone who has done it before.
        dozzie 9y ago
        Funny choice of words, you know. "Enterprise class software" I've seen up to now is mostly overcomplicated, slow, resource-hungry garbage beyond repair. I don't think people writing "enterprise class software" for living have much to teach anybody with regard to scalability or operations.
        Clubber 9y ago
        They can be. Maybe you need to work in better shops. It is, by definition all of that: Although there is no single, widely accepted list of enterprise software characteristics,[4] they generally include performance, scalability, and robustness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_software
  - TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
    I'm the far side of 50, and I was expecting this to be a clueless and demanding me me me piece. It wasn't. At all. I think she stated some perfectly reasonable adult expectations, to the point where if I was hiring and her code was good I'd certainly consider her - precisely because she has reasonable adult expectations, and that's a transferrable skill that's rarer than it should be in developers at all levels.
  - rainbowmverse 9y ago
    That's okay. No one wants to work for someone who thinks it's okay to call an adult they don't know and have consent from princess.
- jroseattle 9y ago
  > this is how you land good jobs at good companies for good pay. No, it's not. I get it as a negotiation strategy, but that's very short-term. Landing the job isn't as valuable as keeping the job, and your skills will define that long after the impression of mentality fades away.
payne92 9y ago
I'd be interested: how many OFFERS did she get (or plausibly could have gotten)? It seems easy to read this article and conclude that a junior developer in similar circumstances might be picking and choosing between working at 20 different companies. The reality might be more like picking between 1-2, and the "reasons [she] didn't work for them [the rest]" were THEIR reasons, not hers.
- brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
  I'm interested too. Most junior devs I've known recently have to apply to hundreds of companies before anyone is "interested" in what they are offering. (which is just ridiculous if there is actually a "skills gap". Companies should take some responsibility in training, if they can.) After that, they have to take jobs that pay less than restaurant server work. I wonder why she had so many interviews. Good for her, though. I'm glad she was able to be picky with a goal of working with a team who could help her improve over time. Everyone should get to work with people who inspire and support them.
  - kareemsabri 9y ago
    > I'm glad she was able to be picky I'm not sure she was that picky. She doesn't explicitly say the reasons were all her reasons. For example, one of the main things that stopped me from working at Facebook is that they declined to make me an offer.
    - user5994461 9y ago
      Doubt she was picky. Half the points would get her rejected by the company, not the opposite.
ryanx435 9y ago
Why did she retract her applications from companies during salary negotiations just because of the way the ask for first bid was phrased? ("How much are you expecting us to pay him you?") Seems like she should have asked for more than she wanted with the expectation that the company would make a lower counter offer. I mean, a job is literally money in exchange for services. It's reasonable for both sides to talk about what the exchange rate is going to be during the interview process. Edit: she admits that she is a junior developer and often doesn't know what she is doing in her post. It's reasonable for this to be factored into her salary. None of you downvoters have yet to provide an answer to my question of why she withdrew applications because of the way salary negotiations where phrased to her.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  I believe it was the "given that you don't know what you're doing" part, not the "how much do you expect us to pay you" part.
- hughdbrown 9y ago
  She thought it was important that the company was talking down to her. It's not a matter of accident just in the salary negotiation. It's a leading indicator of how they thought of her and what she could expect on the job. It's a red flag, and red flags are reasons to get out while you can.
- borplk 9y ago
  You ignored the "So given that you don't really know what you are doing" part. With that included the question sounds rude and makes it sound like the candidate should be grateful for whatever they are going to pay. It's like a candidate going to an interview at a company in bad technical shape and saying "So given your product is an outdated buggy piece of crap, how much are you paying me to put up with it?".
  - ryanx435 9y ago
    Yeah, that's a common negotiating tactic, which is why I'm confused as to why she withdrew her applications
thesmallestcat 9y ago
"Dropping the ball on follow ups"... well yea, I too find a company losing interest to be a substantial barrier to starting work there.
jroseattle 9y ago
Interesting article! This is pretty timely for me as someone hiring engineers right now. I've been in her shoes before, and know both sides of the table. For those reading this and identifying with the situation, allow me to challenge in good faith the commentary in this post. I'd summarize the overall tone of the post as this: "I'm working hard to grow my career. I want to find the best place and role to help me do that. Please approach your side of the conversation as prepared and excited as I am, otherwise don't waste my time in getting there." For a young engineer, this is simple and to the point. It's also wrong. First, it attempts to minimize exposure to failure based on perceived value. The thing with failure is that you can choose to learn from it or ignore it. Trying to determine what failures are valuable beforehand is folly. Soak it up and become knowledgeable. I learned things early that frustrated the hell out of me, and figured out the lesson much later. Second, hiring decisions include lots of legal situations. Here's the truth: you'll never really know why someone really didn't want to hire you. When you hear lots of glowing things but you're not hired....there's a big issue somewhere. If you want feedback to be useful, you must look for trends, which means multiple attempts (and failures.) Third, don't take the title literally as "startups". These are all personal interactions, and organization size or makeup isn't a useful filter here. I doubt the author intended this post to be limited to just small companies, though.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
bsdpython 9y ago
It's a good list and these points are indeed very bad signals. When you break it down most points fall under the category of basic professional courtesy and it's shocking how rare that is. Most people that I interview and give prompt and honest feedback really appreciate it. You do have to deal with the occasional rude response however - it's the cost of being a professional. "They tell you they like you, you’d be a great fit, your code looks great, but then discontinue because they just noticed you don’t have a piece of paper." It could be that they somehow didn't notice and then singularly rejected you for that reason. It's also possible that they were willing to overlook it but once they had the chance to evaluate you as a whole they decided that the total package wasn't enough and the degree was the reason given. To me the degree is more about proving that the candidate has true interest in the subject and has been able to commit to it over an extended period of time more than anything else. I am asking them for a big commitment over an extended period of time to join my company after all.
- birken 9y ago
  > It's a good list and these points are indeed very bad signals. When you break it down most points fall under the category of basic professional courtesy and it's shocking how rare that is. Most people that I interview and give prompt and honest feedback really appreciate it. You do have to deal with the occasional rude response however - it's the cost of being a professional. This is very true. Interviewing is critical for basically every company, but the actual interview process sucks for the employee who actually is doing it. A lot of companies, and startups especially, don't have the discipline or foresight to realize this and instill in their employees that professional courtesy is important, even if the actual interviewing process is annoying and that professional courtesy is likely to be "wasted" on somebody you won't hire. But I do think it is a useful (bad) signal, because a company that doesn't have the foresight to create a decent interview experience probably is dropping the ball in other critical areas and should be avoided.
rdiddly 9y ago
I laughed darkly at the part about being strung along forever. I've been on both sides of it. Sometimes the wheels of consensus grind slowly and there's nothing you can do to speed things up, even if you're really excited about hiring someone. That said, I think pestering should be done once or twice weekly. But let it be done by an email bot, preferably custom-written by the candidate. It might even impress them, who knows. Then while that's going on, you can continue with your job search.
- jarofgreen 9y ago
  There is something you can do - keep the candidate up to date with what's going on. If the candidate has to write a sodding bot to pester the company, that's a sign the company has dropped the ball on communications. I've been there. Had coffee with start up boss when unemployed, was good. Had chat with current senior Dev, was good. Ask about discussing further, nothing. Chase, nothing. 2 months later I have a different job, I see boss at event, we wave across room and the next day he emails asking if I'm still looking. No. How is this a professional way to deal with someone? In contrast, good interviews have always told me clearly when things would happen and have stuck to that. It only takes a minute to communicate well, and it really pays off.
  - rdiddly 9y ago
    Agreed, but I guess I'm saying those people deserve bots. There's a certain amount of justice in it.
brooklyntribe 9y ago
Why work for a company that has a +95% chance of failure, a fraction of the cash you would make at a FANG, after 3 years at FB think the "average" hire is now worth like $3M. Why work at a startup? Makes zero sense. Source: Work at a startup. Have not been paid in 2 years. But I do get to go to the beach when I want. And learned how to live on nothing. :-)
- davidjnelson 9y ago
  Some good points but 1.6MM/year pre tax, 840k/year after tax / 740k after expenses not living somewhere nice total comp? That's roughly what you'd need with an 8% return to get to 3MM in 3 years. They pay well but that sounds pretty far fetched. I could see 300k/year pre tax, 185k/year after tax / 85k after expenses not living somewhere nice. After 3 years at an 8% return that'd be roughly 350k... Not 3 million. If you're getting promoted regularly you might be able to hit 3MM in 15 years, 10 if promotions went faster and you lived super cheap with 8 roommates.
  - brooklyntribe 9y ago
    That's quoting from Chaos Monkey. His numbers. Includes stock options.
- user5994461 9y ago
  You don't get to FANG with no degree and zero experience.
carapace 9y ago
Ive noticed sometimes in interviews the interviewer will start to try to "sell" me on the company. Once, they didn't even ask me any questions, just kept telling me all about the company and how great it was. Generally when this happens it has correlated with other red flags... YMMV
yanilkr 9y ago
I feel like someone has to advice younger generation to be not so arrogant and so fragile. At some point while reading this post, I notice myself thinking what a self entitled piece of opinionated garbage am I reading?. Is this person too smart for their own good? How do you deal with someone like this at workplace? Too sensitive to handle a rude interviewer or too picky about miscommunications? how are you going to handle an angry client or a hard project or a project with older technologies thats not fancy? If you are looking for The perfect place to work at, there is very little scope for you to shine. If a place is a mess and you go and make it better, you might be recognized for it. It appears "gossipy" and out of place when a junior candidate comes to an interview and talks about startups and valuations. The role is usually for someone to be good at a specified job or want to be good at a particular role. Certain conversations are not appropriate during the interview unless that is for a co-founder or an executive role. People Dodge questions in interviews because thats the right thing to do and you have not yet earned that level of trust yet.
JonasJSchreiber 9y ago
I have to respectfully disagree with many points in this post. I think many points of contention boil down to the norms of startups. Yes, they may seem cliquey, but you quickly become part of the clique when there's just a few people there. I agree that degrees shouldn't be mandatory at a startup, but I've never seen one that requires them. Miscommunications: I'm not sure how one gets into an interview where one of the requirements is 5+ years with Java, and that person has only JS. Dodging questions: startups often are making the rules as they go, and might not have a concrete answer for you. Drill down and find out what direction they might take. Dropping the ball on follow ups: they probably don't want to give you a hard "no". Just move on and keep (or try to have) a positive attitude. They need someone more experienced: take a job requiring no experience, and then you'll have more experience.
pb001 9y ago
Meritocracy is the goal in this space, whether you have a degree or not should not matter. By asking for a degree some companies just want to know whether you can study and achieve on your own. At the same time expecting mentorship is wrong. Asking for apprenticeship is not. Mentor-mentee approach is often taken in the wrong direction. The onus is on the mentee to ask for help, study and better his or her skills, with slight correction from someone willing to help you. BTW, there are many other ways to get help from outside of the company without whining about it (Stackoverflow? RTFM?). You want to work for a startup - you have to have a self-starter mentality. Sort of like: Give me a training budget that I can use to my advantage, and an environment to apply what I have learned. And leave me alone to produce better code. I want to be a viable contributor to the team. I can only do so when I can stand on my two feet. Nothing personal. Many developers are not opposed to help, far from it. It's just that when the student is ready the master comes. Mentors should select their mentees though earned relationship, potential, performance, IMHO.
wils124 9y ago
A lot of the replies in this thread seem to conflate demanding basic respect with being unwilling to start at the bottom. All of the signals OP lists are good indicators of either toxic culture or disorganization. Why is it such a sign of millennial moral decay to ask for everything you can get? The company on the other side of the table is certainly going to.

56 points by CodeLikeAGirl 9y ago

blog name checks out

I like the mentality of the author, this is how you land good jobs at good companies for good pay. If you think that you're lucky to have a job offer, like I did when I first started out, then you'll sure get to work with people who think they're doing you a favor by underpaying you for some shitty work.

andriesm 9y ago
I actually hate the attitude of the author, maybe because I'm almost 40? I would NEVER hire someone so clueless and demanding. You get to be demanding when you have exceptionally valuable skills princess. It is not 20 startups that are (mainly) the problem, it is YOU who expect other people to train and baby you. You don't have formal training from a university degree, neither are you willing to self learn your way to becoming a master coder. Why would a high stakes startup engage a liability like you? This is what I would tell the author.
- FLUX-YOU 9y ago
  The qualities in this post are not demanding at all. It sounds like things that should be standard between two adults.
- sgift 9y ago
  > neither are you willing to self learn your way to becoming a master coder. How did you reach that conclusion?
  - mythrwy 9y ago
    In depth learning usually entails a period of significant sacrifice. In university, at an apprenticeship, alone late at night drilling concepts into your head and getting a bit funny upstairs from so much screen time. This post sounds a bit like she wants to be pampered and well paid while being handed knowledge. That being said I'm glad it worked out for her. I wish the best for every good person. Just hoping we don't see a follow up "Why I left toxic company X" post in a couple of months.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- brandall10 9y ago
  I'm 41 w/ a degree in CS from UCSD (what was at the time a top 10 CS school), spent about 15 years primarily in enterprise healthcare doing C++/C#, then the last 6 years as a Rails/React/Angular dev. I also helped advise a friend on her path to becoming a dev by way of a coding bootcamp, career advice, etc. I think the author is on point. A high-functioning team should embrace a mentor-mentee approach between their sr. and jr. staff. That doesn't preclude self-learning, it accelerates it. Otherwise you're leaving productivity on the floor, and quite frankly, if your sr. staff isn't adept at doing it they probably are not all that sr (being a sr. dev is alot more than simply being a good coder).
  - arghIdontwantto 9y ago
    Mind sharing your recommendations for your friend? I have a friend in a similar position that asked me for help but I'm a bit at lost on what to recommend her. I've been a professional developer for over 20 years. I honestly don't remember what it is not to know what a for loop is and can't find any decent paths from 'non-developer' to 'junior developer' in an easy to follow manner.
    - brandall10 9y ago
      The route taken was: - Do some pro-bono work as an intern of sorts on side of current job for at least a few months - in this case you could help her out with any friends of yours who perhaps have a web consulting business, otherwise go to local meetups and offer her services (just moderate HTML/CSS is fine). Live lean during this time and pocket savings if she doesn't have at least 6 months of cushion + any expenses for a bootcamp. This way she'll have some real-world experience coming out of the bootcamp and some cushion while trying to land her first job. - Find a good bootcamp known to have a decent conversion rate and block out everything else from her life... it can be intense. - Try to find a decent job ASAP after graduation, the initial salary isn't important and (IMO) it's still not a bad idea to do any pro-bono or below market contract work if the experience itself would be esp. good. My friend's first year or so ended up being a mixture of moderately paid and poorly paid contract work. - In the end though, she ended up making $70k w/ great benefits, fully remote in San Diego (roughly equiv to ~$100k in SV) in less than two years from graduation, nearly double what she made at her previous job. With her first year and some 4-5 projects under her belt interviews were considerably easier to get.
- thex10 9y ago
  She, as a junior dev without a degree, would rather not throw away her crucial first few years of her career to a startup that won't even bother to think about helping cultivate her. You may think that's heinous, but I'm OK with that.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  I'm almost 50 and I don't share your opinion, so that's probably not it... She's not falsely advertising herself; she clearly states "junior" developer. And she's looking for a place with some idea of what mentorship means - a concept and practice that, I might add, is commonplace in traditional engineering fields. It has even been formalized into the licensing process in those that require licensing (subsets of civil engineering mostly). Yet in software it's surprisingly common to refuse to acknowledge that mentoring has any place or role. Is this wishful thinking on the part of introverted devs who would rather not do it? Then we wonder where all these cowboy coders came from. Well, they taught themselves, like you wanted! The truth is though, you're right - mentorship is not a startup kind of thing. The author would find it easier to get what she needs by working a few years for a BigCorp. They can offer more mentoring because they can afford it, they take a longer-term view, and the people hiring might even be more than just one or two years more experienced than the candidate. Whereas a startup is likely to be young, fast, and ainobodygot time fadat. Edit to add: Author didn't major in CS yet somehow learned JS, so it seems like she can indeed teach herself.
  - thex10 9y ago
    Co-signed. This is essentially what I did - I worked in startups a few years but realized I wanted more mentoring, so I went to a BigCorp and got it! If she finds a startup that could give her that, more power to her.
- stale2002 9y ago
  "Why would a high stakes startup engage a liability like you?" Thats fair. But if that is the company's opinion, then they shouldn't waste anyone's time by reaching out to her and interviewing her. Sometimes things are not a good fit, and that is ok. But it is disrespectful to waste people's time when you are clearly so not interested in them. This is not about "She deserves a job". This is about "she deserves respect as a candidate". Basic stuff like not sending follow up emails for weeks to a candidate, no matter who the candidate is, tells me that a company cares very little about respecting anyone and should be avoided.
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  Rubbish. Coding-at-all can be self-learned. Computer science requires formal teaching. Good, industrial-quality coding requires mentoring. When I graduated from university, my code was crap and I barely even knew the words "version control". When I had some internships and finished my MSc, I kinda knew what version control was. After I was a year into my first Real Job, then I could actually do testing, code formatting, and commit messaging properly, then I could produce code that would pass review and get merged without problem, and mostly wouldn't create regression problems. This is learned on the job, every time, for every person.
  - dozzie 9y ago
    > Good, industrial-quality coding requires mentoring. For some value of "good", "industrial-quality", "requires", and "mentoring". I belive, for instance, that it's perfectly attainable to learn how to write robust production code without getting somebody to learn that from. I've seen it happen.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      It's possible, but it's a lot more painful. "Learning the hard way," is called that for a reason. When building enterprise class software, learning the hard way involves a lot of production downtime and scalability issues that could be avoided by someone who has done it before.
      - dozzie 9y ago
        Funny choice of words, you know. "Enterprise class software" I've seen up to now is mostly overcomplicated, slow, resource-hungry garbage beyond repair. I don't think people writing "enterprise class software" for living have much to teach anybody with regard to scalability or operations.
        Clubber 9y ago
        They can be. Maybe you need to work in better shops. It is, by definition all of that: Although there is no single, widely accepted list of enterprise software characteristics,[4] they generally include performance, scalability, and robustness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_software
- TheOtherHobbes 9y ago
  I'm the far side of 50, and I was expecting this to be a clueless and demanding me me me piece. It wasn't. At all. I think she stated some perfectly reasonable adult expectations, to the point where if I was hiring and her code was good I'd certainly consider her - precisely because she has reasonable adult expectations, and that's a transferrable skill that's rarer than it should be in developers at all levels.
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  That's okay. No one wants to work for someone who thinks it's okay to call an adult they don't know and have consent from princess.
jroseattle 9y ago
> this is how you land good jobs at good companies for good pay. No, it's not. I get it as a negotiation strategy, but that's very short-term. Landing the job isn't as valuable as keeping the job, and your skills will define that long after the impression of mentality fades away.

payne92 9y ago

I'd be interested: how many OFFERS did she get (or plausibly could have gotten)? It seems easy to read this article and conclude that a junior developer in similar circumstances might be picking and choosing between working at 20 different companies. The reality might be more like picking between 1-2, and the "reasons [she] didn't work for them [the rest]" were THEIR reasons, not hers.

brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
I'm interested too. Most junior devs I've known recently have to apply to hundreds of companies before anyone is "interested" in what they are offering. (which is just ridiculous if there is actually a "skills gap". Companies should take some responsibility in training, if they can.) After that, they have to take jobs that pay less than restaurant server work. I wonder why she had so many interviews. Good for her, though. I'm glad she was able to be picky with a goal of working with a team who could help her improve over time. Everyone should get to work with people who inspire and support them.
- kareemsabri 9y ago
  > I'm glad she was able to be picky I'm not sure she was that picky. She doesn't explicitly say the reasons were all her reasons. For example, one of the main things that stopped me from working at Facebook is that they declined to make me an offer.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    Doubt she was picky. Half the points would get her rejected by the company, not the opposite.

ryanx435 9y ago

Why did she retract her applications from companies during salary negotiations just because of the way the ask for first bid was phrased? ("How much are you expecting us to pay him you?") Seems like she should have asked for more than she wanted with the expectation that the company would make a lower counter offer. I mean, a job is literally money in exchange for services. It's reasonable for both sides to talk about what the exchange rate is going to be during the interview process. Edit: she admits that she is a junior developer and often doesn't know what she is doing in her post. It's reasonable for this to be factored into her salary. None of you downvoters have yet to provide an answer to my question of why she withdrew applications because of the way salary negotiations where phrased to her.

rdiddly 9y ago
I believe it was the "given that you don't know what you're doing" part, not the "how much do you expect us to pay you" part.
hughdbrown 9y ago
She thought it was important that the company was talking down to her. It's not a matter of accident just in the salary negotiation. It's a leading indicator of how they thought of her and what she could expect on the job. It's a red flag, and red flags are reasons to get out while you can.
borplk 9y ago
You ignored the "So given that you don't really know what you are doing" part. With that included the question sounds rude and makes it sound like the candidate should be grateful for whatever they are going to pay. It's like a candidate going to an interview at a company in bad technical shape and saying "So given your product is an outdated buggy piece of crap, how much are you paying me to put up with it?".
- ryanx435 9y ago
  Yeah, that's a common negotiating tactic, which is why I'm confused as to why she withdrew her applications

thesmallestcat 9y ago

"Dropping the ball on follow ups"... well yea, I too find a company losing interest to be a substantial barrier to starting work there.

jroseattle 9y ago

Interesting article! This is pretty timely for me as someone hiring engineers right now. I've been in her shoes before, and know both sides of the table. For those reading this and identifying with the situation, allow me to challenge in good faith the commentary in this post. I'd summarize the overall tone of the post as this: "I'm working hard to grow my career. I want to find the best place and role to help me do that. Please approach your side of the conversation as prepared and excited as I am, otherwise don't waste my time in getting there." For a young engineer, this is simple and to the point. It's also wrong. First, it attempts to minimize exposure to failure based on perceived value. The thing with failure is that you can choose to learn from it or ignore it. Trying to determine what failures are valuable beforehand is folly. Soak it up and become knowledgeable. I learned things early that frustrated the hell out of me, and figured out the lesson much later. Second, hiring decisions include lots of legal situations. Here's the truth: you'll never really know why someone really didn't want to hire you. When you hear lots of glowing things but you're not hired....there's a big issue somewhere. If you want feedback to be useful, you must look for trends, which means multiple attempts (and failures.) Third, don't take the title literally as "startups". These are all personal interactions, and organization size or makeup isn't a useful filter here. I doubt the author intended this post to be limited to just small companies, though.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

bsdpython 9y ago

It's a good list and these points are indeed very bad signals. When you break it down most points fall under the category of basic professional courtesy and it's shocking how rare that is. Most people that I interview and give prompt and honest feedback really appreciate it. You do have to deal with the occasional rude response however - it's the cost of being a professional. "They tell you they like you, you’d be a great fit, your code looks great, but then discontinue because they just noticed you don’t have a piece of paper." It could be that they somehow didn't notice and then singularly rejected you for that reason. It's also possible that they were willing to overlook it but once they had the chance to evaluate you as a whole they decided that the total package wasn't enough and the degree was the reason given. To me the degree is more about proving that the candidate has true interest in the subject and has been able to commit to it over an extended period of time more than anything else. I am asking them for a big commitment over an extended period of time to join my company after all.

birken 9y ago
> It's a good list and these points are indeed very bad signals. When you break it down most points fall under the category of basic professional courtesy and it's shocking how rare that is. Most people that I interview and give prompt and honest feedback really appreciate it. You do have to deal with the occasional rude response however - it's the cost of being a professional. This is very true. Interviewing is critical for basically every company, but the actual interview process sucks for the employee who actually is doing it. A lot of companies, and startups especially, don't have the discipline or foresight to realize this and instill in their employees that professional courtesy is important, even if the actual interviewing process is annoying and that professional courtesy is likely to be "wasted" on somebody you won't hire. But I do think it is a useful (bad) signal, because a company that doesn't have the foresight to create a decent interview experience probably is dropping the ball in other critical areas and should be avoided.

rdiddly 9y ago

I laughed darkly at the part about being strung along forever. I've been on both sides of it. Sometimes the wheels of consensus grind slowly and there's nothing you can do to speed things up, even if you're really excited about hiring someone. That said, I think pestering should be done once or twice weekly. But let it be done by an email bot, preferably custom-written by the candidate. It might even impress them, who knows. Then while that's going on, you can continue with your job search.

jarofgreen 9y ago
There is something you can do - keep the candidate up to date with what's going on. If the candidate has to write a sodding bot to pester the company, that's a sign the company has dropped the ball on communications. I've been there. Had coffee with start up boss when unemployed, was good. Had chat with current senior Dev, was good. Ask about discussing further, nothing. Chase, nothing. 2 months later I have a different job, I see boss at event, we wave across room and the next day he emails asking if I'm still looking. No. How is this a professional way to deal with someone? In contrast, good interviews have always told me clearly when things would happen and have stuck to that. It only takes a minute to communicate well, and it really pays off.
- rdiddly 9y ago
  Agreed, but I guess I'm saying those people deserve bots. There's a certain amount of justice in it.

brooklyntribe 9y ago

Why work for a company that has a +95% chance of failure, a fraction of the cash you would make at a FANG, after 3 years at FB think the "average" hire is now worth like $3M. Why work at a startup? Makes zero sense. Source: Work at a startup. Have not been paid in 2 years. But I do get to go to the beach when I want. And learned how to live on nothing. :-)

davidjnelson 9y ago
Some good points but 1.6MM/year pre tax, 840k/year after tax / 740k after expenses not living somewhere nice total comp? That's roughly what you'd need with an 8% return to get to 3MM in 3 years. They pay well but that sounds pretty far fetched. I could see 300k/year pre tax, 185k/year after tax / 85k after expenses not living somewhere nice. After 3 years at an 8% return that'd be roughly 350k... Not 3 million. If you're getting promoted regularly you might be able to hit 3MM in 15 years, 10 if promotions went faster and you lived super cheap with 8 roommates.
- brooklyntribe 9y ago
  That's quoting from Chaos Monkey. His numbers. Includes stock options.
user5994461 9y ago
You don't get to FANG with no degree and zero experience.

carapace 9y ago

Ive noticed sometimes in interviews the interviewer will start to try to "sell" me on the company. Once, they didn't even ask me any questions, just kept telling me all about the company and how great it was. Generally when this happens it has correlated with other red flags... YMMV

yanilkr 9y ago

I feel like someone has to advice younger generation to be not so arrogant and so fragile. At some point while reading this post, I notice myself thinking what a self entitled piece of opinionated garbage am I reading?. Is this person too smart for their own good? How do you deal with someone like this at workplace? Too sensitive to handle a rude interviewer or too picky about miscommunications? how are you going to handle an angry client or a hard project or a project with older technologies thats not fancy? If you are looking for The perfect place to work at, there is very little scope for you to shine. If a place is a mess and you go and make it better, you might be recognized for it. It appears "gossipy" and out of place when a junior candidate comes to an interview and talks about startups and valuations. The role is usually for someone to be good at a specified job or want to be good at a particular role. Certain conversations are not appropriate during the interview unless that is for a co-founder or an executive role. People Dodge questions in interviews because thats the right thing to do and you have not yet earned that level of trust yet.

JonasJSchreiber 9y ago

I have to respectfully disagree with many points in this post. I think many points of contention boil down to the norms of startups. Yes, they may seem cliquey, but you quickly become part of the clique when there's just a few people there. I agree that degrees shouldn't be mandatory at a startup, but I've never seen one that requires them. Miscommunications: I'm not sure how one gets into an interview where one of the requirements is 5+ years with Java, and that person has only JS. Dodging questions: startups often are making the rules as they go, and might not have a concrete answer for you. Drill down and find out what direction they might take. Dropping the ball on follow ups: they probably don't want to give you a hard "no". Just move on and keep (or try to have) a positive attitude. They need someone more experienced: take a job requiring no experience, and then you'll have more experience.

pb001 9y ago

Meritocracy is the goal in this space, whether you have a degree or not should not matter. By asking for a degree some companies just want to know whether you can study and achieve on your own. At the same time expecting mentorship is wrong. Asking for apprenticeship is not. Mentor-mentee approach is often taken in the wrong direction. The onus is on the mentee to ask for help, study and better his or her skills, with slight correction from someone willing to help you. BTW, there are many other ways to get help from outside of the company without whining about it (Stackoverflow? RTFM?). You want to work for a startup - you have to have a self-starter mentality. Sort of like: Give me a training budget that I can use to my advantage, and an environment to apply what I have learned. And leave me alone to produce better code. I want to be a viable contributor to the team. I can only do so when I can stand on my two feet. Nothing personal. Many developers are not opposed to help, far from it. It's just that when the student is ready the master comes. Mentors should select their mentees though earned relationship, potential, performance, IMHO.

wils124 9y ago

A lot of the replies in this thread seem to conflate demanding basic respect with being unwilling to start at the bottom. All of the signals OP lists are good indicators of either toxic culture or disorganization. Why is it such a sign of millennial moral decay to ask for everything you can get? The company on the other side of the table is certainly going to.