5 ms·

I treat the "we want people who know stack X" kind of thing as a "Here's what stack we are using" and nothing more. I don't lie and say that I know the stack,

by Vendan 9y ago

I treat the "we want people who know stack X" kind of thing as a "Here's what stack we are using" and nothing more. I don't lie and say that I know the stack, but I don't want to work for a company that doesn't understand that a good programmer can switch to a new stack in a very short time frame. On the other hand, you need the ability to pick up a new stack easily.

scarface74 9y ago
I hire contractors. I don't have time for people to ramp up on the job. I need them to come in knowing the stack we are working in. If I were hiring full time devs, I would take a chance but I would expect them to meet deadlines as if they were fluent in the stack - meaning if they have to work weekends or more than 40 hours a week to be just as efficient as someone who knows the stack, they should do it. I put myself to the sane standards when I'm an FTE. If the company advertised they wanted a proficient React developer for instance and I was honest with them about my lack of experience and I convinced them that I was willing to learn, I would make sure I produced 35-40 hours worth of productive work even if it took me 60 hours to do it. I'm not putting in extra hours necessarily for the company, I'm doing it to further my own career.
- franciscop 9y ago
  I work as a contractor and that is kind of similar to what I do. If I have to use a new tech (an important one in the stack but not the main one) I will normally invest 5~10h of my time pre-anything in learning the basics of the stack. Then if I get stuck at something I'll try to fix it first, then learn more about the stack to see if I'm missing something basic and finally ask for help. These go normally for free if it's because of my lack of knowlege; otherwise I'll charge for them ofc. I've also found out it's quite important to explain this to whoever is hiring you. That way they don't feel cheated on (money) nor like you are slacking off and working only X hours instead of 2X per week. PS, your comment sounded quite negative/exploiting, probably that's why the downvotes.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    PS, your comment sounded quite negative/exploiting, probably that's why the downvotes. How is that "exploitive"? When I'm contracting I always get paid 10 -30% more than I could get as an FTE all in - even if I include the cost of benefits, paid time off, the gap between employment, etc. When they want me to work more than 40 hours a week, they pay me for more than 40 hours a week. Companies don't hire contractors over FTEs as software developers to save money per hour worked. They hire them because they need to ramp up development fast and need the flexibility of reducing head count fast. The only difference between an FTE and a contractor in today's economy is that the company is honest about your expendability. As a contractor, you should charge a premium.
    - franciscop 9y ago
      > "When I'm contracting I always get paid 10 -30% more" From my experience (and quite a few people in a similar situation), as a foreign contractor I am making ~50% less money than FTE are making doing the exactly same job just because of the country I was born in. I am not charging this learning time because I don't want/need to, but I would certainly not work with a company who would require me to do part of the job for free. However I am in a privileged situation where I can choose. Forcing an employee to do a not-in-the-contract learning for free is exploiting them (because they could have other needs to do in their own time, family, other jobs, etc). If they want to learn something on their own time that would improve their work that's great and definitely a plus, but not everyone can do that.
      - scarface74 9y ago
        but I would certainly not work with a company who would require me to do part of the job for free. If I'm hired as a React developer to implement a set of business requirements, they are hiring me to learn and implement the business requirements. They are not hiring me to learn React. If they hired me with the knowledge that I'm not a seasoned React developer, the expectation is that they will not be expecting me to charge them for my learning React as billable time. How is that unfair? My React skills increase my marketability and I'm investing in myself by learning it. If a person is not willing to sacrifice to learn skills on their own time, software development is not the field they should be in.
- learc83 9y ago
  Hiring contractors is a different, but if you skip over an experienced JavaScript developer for a W-2 position because they aren't familiar with React, you're going to miss out on a lot of great employees. You'll miss out on people like me who refuse to play that game. I don't expect to be fully productive for the first few weeks on the job and I'm not working through the weekends to try to be. I also don't expect anyone I hire to be fully productive until they get familiar with our stack. It's completely absurd to put the burden of training completely on the employee. Culturally we need to stop accepting this.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    It's completely absurd to put the burden of training completely on the employee. Culturally we need to stop accepting this. Why is that so absurd? Part of the culture in tech is that there is no loyalty on the side of the company or the employee -- I'm okay with that. The company can lay me off at anytime but I can also change jobs and take the skills I learned with me and probably earn a higher pay anytime. What incentive does a company have to train employees in that environment?
    - learc83 9y ago
      Much of what you learn to get up to full speed doesn't directly transfer and is more beneficial to the employer than the employee. >What incentive does a company have to train employees in that environment? The normal incentive is access to a larger employee pool and cost. You have access to a much larger group of applicants if you're not looking for 100% productivity on day 1. Also if you are willing to spend a bit of time training your employees, they are less likely to leave. Give them raises equal to what they're worth on the open market and most of them have no reason to leave. Reducing employee churn is worth a lot of money. No employee is anywhere close to 100% effective on day 1, and from experience, training goes a long way towards improving employee retention. Not providing training because you're afraid an employee will leave sounds a bit like a shop owner who is so scared that someone is going to steal a few pieces of candy that he locks down his store so tight no one wants to shop there. Sure a few people will take your training and run, but that's just the cost of doing business.
- scarmig 9y ago
  That's entirely your prerogative. If 100% productivity is expected first week, though, I'm going to make lots of assumptions about what management is like at your company, and not apply. But if you're not having trouble finding the engineers you want/need, all the more power to you.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    "Being 100% productive" and knowing the stack aren't the same thing. If I'm willing to pay a premium for expertise and all of the uncertainty that comes with being a contractor, I don't expect them to have to ramp up on the stack and the environment - just the environment.
- lsc 9y ago
  > I hire contractors. I don't have time for people to ramp up on the job. I need them to come in knowing the stack we are working in. Employers can bluster all they want; in the end, either they need to be happy hiring someone willing to work for the wages offered, increasing the wages offered and spending a lot more time looking (better wages gets you access to a larger pool, but it in no way chases away the incompetent, you still need to filter) or doing without the employee. As an interviewing worker, this means that you don't need to outrun the bear; you just need to be better than nothing, and better than anyone else willing to work for the same position. I've been working since '95 or'96, and personally don't feel I've actually been qualified to do any job I've had... but I'm better than nothing, and beating the competition is usually not very challenging. As far as I can tell, the facts on the ground for contract work (which is to say, lower total comp than working as a FTE at one of the local big companies, lower job security, less respect, and generally slightly worse working conditions) means that when you are hiring contractors for a big company, you are hiring from a pool of people who are unable to get the same job at the same sort of company as a FTE.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    As far as I can tell, the facts on the ground for contract work (which is to say, lower total comp than working as a FTE at one of the local big companies, lower job security, less respect, and generally slightly worse working conditions) means that when you are hiring contractors for a big company, you are hiring from a pool of people who are unable to get the same job at the same sort of company as a FTE. Contractors making less and being less qualified aren't the facts on the ground at all in my neck of the woods. If you're making less as a contractor than the similarly skilled FTE, you're doing it wrong. When I'm W2 contracting, I take what I think my yearly salary should be, divide by 1800 to allow for unpaid holidays, vacations, and 3 weeks to find a new gig and make that my hourly rate. I also add in a premium for the crap I know I'm going to put up with and the lack of benefits. When you're contracting you get paid for every hour you work, if anything, being an FTE is more exploitive. EDIT: I guess I should add for context that I get benefits through my wife's very stable government job. That allows me to be more flexible with jumping back and forth between full time and contracting.
- kelnos 9y ago
  For contract work I can understand that mindset, but for FTEs that's incredibly short-sighted. I absolutely object to expecting someone new to a stack to spend crazy hours until they're up to speed. I see framework onboarding as equivalent to any other part of the onboarding process where a new employee figures out their new team's source code repo layout, build tooling, deployment process, etc. Hell, even if you're using a framework that I'm intimately familiar with, most frameworks are flexible enough that it'll take a little while to get used to exactly how you're using it.
- brians 9y ago
  It's very big of you to be willing to pay overtime for new staff that way. I invest in my staffs' intellectual equity too, but usually ask them to do their reading and learning on the clock.

by Vendan 9y ago

scarface74 9y ago

I hire contractors. I don't have time for people to ramp up on the job. I need them to come in knowing the stack we are working in. If I were hiring full time devs, I would take a chance but I would expect them to meet deadlines as if they were fluent in the stack - meaning if they have to work weekends or more than 40 hours a week to be just as efficient as someone who knows the stack, they should do it. I put myself to the sane standards when I'm an FTE. If the company advertised they wanted a proficient React developer for instance and I was honest with them about my lack of experience and I convinced them that I was willing to learn, I would make sure I produced 35-40 hours worth of productive work even if it took me 60 hours to do it. I'm not putting in extra hours necessarily for the company, I'm doing it to further my own career.

franciscop 9y ago
I work as a contractor and that is kind of similar to what I do. If I have to use a new tech (an important one in the stack but not the main one) I will normally invest 5~10h of my time pre-anything in learning the basics of the stack. Then if I get stuck at something I'll try to fix it first, then learn more about the stack to see if I'm missing something basic and finally ask for help. These go normally for free if it's because of my lack of knowlege; otherwise I'll charge for them ofc. I've also found out it's quite important to explain this to whoever is hiring you. That way they don't feel cheated on (money) nor like you are slacking off and working only X hours instead of 2X per week. PS, your comment sounded quite negative/exploiting, probably that's why the downvotes.
- scarface74 9y ago
  PS, your comment sounded quite negative/exploiting, probably that's why the downvotes. How is that "exploitive"? When I'm contracting I always get paid 10 -30% more than I could get as an FTE all in - even if I include the cost of benefits, paid time off, the gap between employment, etc. When they want me to work more than 40 hours a week, they pay me for more than 40 hours a week. Companies don't hire contractors over FTEs as software developers to save money per hour worked. They hire them because they need to ramp up development fast and need the flexibility of reducing head count fast. The only difference between an FTE and a contractor in today's economy is that the company is honest about your expendability. As a contractor, you should charge a premium.
  - franciscop 9y ago
    > "When I'm contracting I always get paid 10 -30% more" From my experience (and quite a few people in a similar situation), as a foreign contractor I am making ~50% less money than FTE are making doing the exactly same job just because of the country I was born in. I am not charging this learning time because I don't want/need to, but I would certainly not work with a company who would require me to do part of the job for free. However I am in a privileged situation where I can choose. Forcing an employee to do a not-in-the-contract learning for free is exploiting them (because they could have other needs to do in their own time, family, other jobs, etc). If they want to learn something on their own time that would improve their work that's great and definitely a plus, but not everyone can do that.
    - scarface74 9y ago
      but I would certainly not work with a company who would require me to do part of the job for free. If I'm hired as a React developer to implement a set of business requirements, they are hiring me to learn and implement the business requirements. They are not hiring me to learn React. If they hired me with the knowledge that I'm not a seasoned React developer, the expectation is that they will not be expecting me to charge them for my learning React as billable time. How is that unfair? My React skills increase my marketability and I'm investing in myself by learning it. If a person is not willing to sacrifice to learn skills on their own time, software development is not the field they should be in.
learc83 9y ago
Hiring contractors is a different, but if you skip over an experienced JavaScript developer for a W-2 position because they aren't familiar with React, you're going to miss out on a lot of great employees. You'll miss out on people like me who refuse to play that game. I don't expect to be fully productive for the first few weeks on the job and I'm not working through the weekends to try to be. I also don't expect anyone I hire to be fully productive until they get familiar with our stack. It's completely absurd to put the burden of training completely on the employee. Culturally we need to stop accepting this.
- scarface74 9y ago
  It's completely absurd to put the burden of training completely on the employee. Culturally we need to stop accepting this. Why is that so absurd? Part of the culture in tech is that there is no loyalty on the side of the company or the employee -- I'm okay with that. The company can lay me off at anytime but I can also change jobs and take the skills I learned with me and probably earn a higher pay anytime. What incentive does a company have to train employees in that environment?
  - learc83 9y ago
    Much of what you learn to get up to full speed doesn't directly transfer and is more beneficial to the employer than the employee. >What incentive does a company have to train employees in that environment? The normal incentive is access to a larger employee pool and cost. You have access to a much larger group of applicants if you're not looking for 100% productivity on day 1. Also if you are willing to spend a bit of time training your employees, they are less likely to leave. Give them raises equal to what they're worth on the open market and most of them have no reason to leave. Reducing employee churn is worth a lot of money. No employee is anywhere close to 100% effective on day 1, and from experience, training goes a long way towards improving employee retention. Not providing training because you're afraid an employee will leave sounds a bit like a shop owner who is so scared that someone is going to steal a few pieces of candy that he locks down his store so tight no one wants to shop there. Sure a few people will take your training and run, but that's just the cost of doing business.
scarmig 9y ago
That's entirely your prerogative. If 100% productivity is expected first week, though, I'm going to make lots of assumptions about what management is like at your company, and not apply. But if you're not having trouble finding the engineers you want/need, all the more power to you.
- scarface74 9y ago
  "Being 100% productive" and knowing the stack aren't the same thing. If I'm willing to pay a premium for expertise and all of the uncertainty that comes with being a contractor, I don't expect them to have to ramp up on the stack and the environment - just the environment.
lsc 9y ago
> I hire contractors. I don't have time for people to ramp up on the job. I need them to come in knowing the stack we are working in. Employers can bluster all they want; in the end, either they need to be happy hiring someone willing to work for the wages offered, increasing the wages offered and spending a lot more time looking (better wages gets you access to a larger pool, but it in no way chases away the incompetent, you still need to filter) or doing without the employee. As an interviewing worker, this means that you don't need to outrun the bear; you just need to be better than nothing, and better than anyone else willing to work for the same position. I've been working since '95 or'96, and personally don't feel I've actually been qualified to do any job I've had... but I'm better than nothing, and beating the competition is usually not very challenging. As far as I can tell, the facts on the ground for contract work (which is to say, lower total comp than working as a FTE at one of the local big companies, lower job security, less respect, and generally slightly worse working conditions) means that when you are hiring contractors for a big company, you are hiring from a pool of people who are unable to get the same job at the same sort of company as a FTE.
- scarface74 9y ago
  As far as I can tell, the facts on the ground for contract work (which is to say, lower total comp than working as a FTE at one of the local big companies, lower job security, less respect, and generally slightly worse working conditions) means that when you are hiring contractors for a big company, you are hiring from a pool of people who are unable to get the same job at the same sort of company as a FTE. Contractors making less and being less qualified aren't the facts on the ground at all in my neck of the woods. If you're making less as a contractor than the similarly skilled FTE, you're doing it wrong. When I'm W2 contracting, I take what I think my yearly salary should be, divide by 1800 to allow for unpaid holidays, vacations, and 3 weeks to find a new gig and make that my hourly rate. I also add in a premium for the crap I know I'm going to put up with and the lack of benefits. When you're contracting you get paid for every hour you work, if anything, being an FTE is more exploitive. EDIT: I guess I should add for context that I get benefits through my wife's very stable government job. That allows me to be more flexible with jumping back and forth between full time and contracting.
kelnos 9y ago
For contract work I can understand that mindset, but for FTEs that's incredibly short-sighted. I absolutely object to expecting someone new to a stack to spend crazy hours until they're up to speed. I see framework onboarding as equivalent to any other part of the onboarding process where a new employee figures out their new team's source code repo layout, build tooling, deployment process, etc. Hell, even if you're using a framework that I'm intimately familiar with, most frameworks are flexible enough that it'll take a little while to get used to exactly how you're using it.
brians 9y ago
It's very big of you to be willing to pay overtime for new staff that way. I invest in my staffs' intellectual equity too, but usually ask them to do their reading and learning on the clock.