5 ms·

> The biggest gap in knowledge is with JavaScript frameworks > Most often, employers want developers who know AngularJS, Node.js, and React. Am I overthinking

> The biggest gap in knowledge is with JavaScript frameworks > Most often, employers want developers who know AngularJS, Node.js, and React. Am I overthinking this? When I've been looking for jobs, I've found the emphasis on JavaScript frameworks slightly perplexing and frustrating. I would assume that a competent web developer should be capable of quickly learning a framework. Having to know JavaScript, CSS, etc. to the level of passing a technical interview is already demanding. Learning one framework very well is another opportunity cost. Researching and picking a framework to invest time into, then building a project or two using this new framework is another. Keeping up with the world of JavaScript framework developments is a whole project in and of itself.

tenaciousDaniel 9y ago
I'm not sure I believe that "most often" employers want this. I did quite a few interviews last year, and I was freaked out because I didn't know any of the latest frameworks. I didn't even know Angular. But no one cared. As long as you understand the problem frameworks are trying to solve, then you're good. And btw, I interviewed with some relatively big tech names - Squarespace, Blue Apron, etc. Edit: most of them did list specific frameworks, but upon an actual interview, they revealed that they didn't really care if you had worked with it before as long as you understand basic MVC stuff.
- expertentipp 9y ago
  Believe yourself being lucky or sheltered because over here it's "HOW MUCH OF EXPERIENCE DO YOU HAVE WITH ANGULAR WHICH VERSION OF IT WE ARE MIGRATING EVERYTHING TO REACT ALL FRONT END DEVELOPERS HAVE LEFT THE COMPANY WE ARE SENDING RIGHT NOW CODING CHALLENGE TO BE DONE IN RXJS!". Then rejection email regardless of solving the challenge or not. I think I'll start simply disconnecting on such calls.
  - tenaciousDaniel 9y ago
    Jesus, that's terrible. I do live in NYC, so my options are considerably greater than elsewhere. What a stupid set of requirements. Sorry you have to go through that. Really makes me want to stay at my current job for as long as possible. I'm not interested in that bullshit.
  - tw1010 9y ago
    You're applying to the wrong companies.
rattray 9y ago
Right, they don't want to have to pay you to do the learning. It's usually not "how to get a simple task done with React" – many engineers can get there very quickly – but rather having an understanding of best-practices in terms of architecting your application. Angular, well, can take a while to learn how to use properly.
- expertentipp 9y ago
  The problem is that in the most of the Europe they dont’t pay market wages. Way below them. Certainly not enough to keep up to date with the the JS framework brainfuck.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    Statistically, how can most of a market not pay market wages?
    - expertentipp 9y ago
      The entire market being low cost, or at the bottom of corporate outsourcing chain. Market rates == they have higher recruitment requirements than in developed markets where there are higher wages.
      - scarface74 9y ago
        I'm still trying to parse that. If the market in question is paying low wages for the industry, that is the market rate. The entire market can't pay below market rate. Are you sure that the rate is below market or are you just looking at the inflated rates of the west coast in the U.S.? I don't live on the west coast, I live in a major metropolitan area in the south, with good wages for developers (90-140K with experience) and even that would be considered below market compared to the west coast.
        expertentipp 9y ago
        How about developing EU country with wages 25-35K? Doing project exclusively for German/British/American markets, where one would have to pay developers locally at least twice... and no, the life is not that much cheaper over here.
dentemple 9y ago
Once you learn one front-end framework, you're halfway there to learning any of them. There's a lot of shared ideas and concepts among the most popular choices. So it's much faster for, say, an Angular Dev to get productive with Vue.js than it would with a vanilla JS developer doing the same thing.
InclinedPlane 9y ago
It's an example of how brain-dead the hiring process is for tech in general. Most of the jobs I've worked in my entire career have involved working with languages, not just frameworks, that I didn't know beforehand. I learned all of them and became good at them on the job. If you have a good grounding in programming fundamentals and you are reasonably productive then it's pretty easy to pick up any language in a short amount of time, especially now. I think part of this is that there is this common delusion that tech workers in hot fields (like silicon valley startups) have to all be rockstars or have to all have some exceptional level of expertise. And having those people on board is how you crank out software better and faster. The reality is that someone who coincidentally happens to have experience with whatever your current technology stack is may not have the highest level of overall expertise or talent that you truly need.
collyw 9y ago
Yes, I got given a "full stack" test. Entirely in JavaScript. No database element. Required to use React. Screw that, its going to take me a couple of days to get up to speed in a framework that I don't know, and I likely won't make a good job of my first attempt.
codingdave 9y ago
> I would assume that a competent web developer should be capable of quickly learning a framework. I agree. And I got hired by a company who agrees, and who let me learn on the job. Not all hiring processes are as broken as one might believe solely by reading posts and discussions online. But it does take some effort to put out enough feelers to find those companies, because there are also a plethora of folks who hire for skill sets, not skill.
commandlinefan 9y ago
> I would assume that a competent web developer should be capable of quickly learning a framework Well, not that I disagree with you that a lot of employers are being awfully ridiculous when it comes to Angular background requirements, but... you're in for a shock if you try to pick up Angular quickly. Angular is more than a framework - or rather, Angular is a framework that depends on a sprawling ecosystem of other dependencies, each with its own idiosyncrasies. It's not just that Angular is a huge, complex, vast, partly undocumented framework that changes almost completely every few months (Angular 1 and Angular 2 are completely incompatible), but Angular is also heavily dependent on node.js and npm which are themselves pretty complex and prone to break in odd ways that Googling error message doesn't normally help much with. And that's assuming that you don't want to do any sort of unit testing, because the Karma/Jasmine/Protractor frameworks are themselves prone to unexpected breakage and version incompatibilities. But you'd better plan on doing a lot of unit testing, because debugger support is nonexistent too. This is all assuming you have a VERY good handle on HTML, CSS, and Javascript - don't even dream about trying to make sense out of Angular if you're not already an expert on all of those (especially Javascript, even though Angular doesn't use Javascript directly any more). I've been coding now for 25 years, and the only things I've seen come along that were as loved by executives and as fragmented and hard to troubleshoot have been Corba, EJB and Ruby on Rails... so I'm inclined to wonder if any time spent learning Angular will actually be well spent in the long term.
- expertentipp 9y ago
  That's true, especially the testing part (ever seen chain of promises, a deferred object, and completely useless error stack trace?). Debugging? Source maps, transpilers, file watchers - impenetrable pulp. Why the community is so fixated on forcing the framework down the throat of developers? It certainly solves some problems, but these problems could probably be solved in a more comprehensible and simpler way. Angular it not the new cool thing - it's a complex thing with multiple versions, each incompatible with the others.

tenaciousDaniel 9y ago

I'm not sure I believe that "most often" employers want this. I did quite a few interviews last year, and I was freaked out because I didn't know any of the latest frameworks. I didn't even know Angular. But no one cared. As long as you understand the problem frameworks are trying to solve, then you're good. And btw, I interviewed with some relatively big tech names - Squarespace, Blue Apron, etc. Edit: most of them did list specific frameworks, but upon an actual interview, they revealed that they didn't really care if you had worked with it before as long as you understand basic MVC stuff.

expertentipp 9y ago
Believe yourself being lucky or sheltered because over here it's "HOW MUCH OF EXPERIENCE DO YOU HAVE WITH ANGULAR WHICH VERSION OF IT WE ARE MIGRATING EVERYTHING TO REACT ALL FRONT END DEVELOPERS HAVE LEFT THE COMPANY WE ARE SENDING RIGHT NOW CODING CHALLENGE TO BE DONE IN RXJS!". Then rejection email regardless of solving the challenge or not. I think I'll start simply disconnecting on such calls.
- tenaciousDaniel 9y ago
  Jesus, that's terrible. I do live in NYC, so my options are considerably greater than elsewhere. What a stupid set of requirements. Sorry you have to go through that. Really makes me want to stay at my current job for as long as possible. I'm not interested in that bullshit.
- tw1010 9y ago
  You're applying to the wrong companies.

rattray 9y ago

Right, they don't want to have to pay you to do the learning. It's usually not "how to get a simple task done with React" – many engineers can get there very quickly – but rather having an understanding of best-practices in terms of architecting your application. Angular, well, can take a while to learn how to use properly.

expertentipp 9y ago
The problem is that in the most of the Europe they dont’t pay market wages. Way below them. Certainly not enough to keep up to date with the the JS framework brainfuck.
- scarface74 9y ago
  Statistically, how can most of a market not pay market wages?
  - expertentipp 9y ago
    The entire market being low cost, or at the bottom of corporate outsourcing chain. Market rates == they have higher recruitment requirements than in developed markets where there are higher wages.
    - scarface74 9y ago
      I'm still trying to parse that. If the market in question is paying low wages for the industry, that is the market rate. The entire market can't pay below market rate. Are you sure that the rate is below market or are you just looking at the inflated rates of the west coast in the U.S.? I don't live on the west coast, I live in a major metropolitan area in the south, with good wages for developers (90-140K with experience) and even that would be considered below market compared to the west coast.
      - expertentipp 9y ago
        How about developing EU country with wages 25-35K? Doing project exclusively for German/British/American markets, where one would have to pay developers locally at least twice... and no, the life is not that much cheaper over here.

dentemple 9y ago

Once you learn one front-end framework, you're halfway there to learning any of them. There's a lot of shared ideas and concepts among the most popular choices. So it's much faster for, say, an Angular Dev to get productive with Vue.js than it would with a vanilla JS developer doing the same thing.

InclinedPlane 9y ago

It's an example of how brain-dead the hiring process is for tech in general. Most of the jobs I've worked in my entire career have involved working with languages, not just frameworks, that I didn't know beforehand. I learned all of them and became good at them on the job. If you have a good grounding in programming fundamentals and you are reasonably productive then it's pretty easy to pick up any language in a short amount of time, especially now. I think part of this is that there is this common delusion that tech workers in hot fields (like silicon valley startups) have to all be rockstars or have to all have some exceptional level of expertise. And having those people on board is how you crank out software better and faster. The reality is that someone who coincidentally happens to have experience with whatever your current technology stack is may not have the highest level of overall expertise or talent that you truly need.

collyw 9y ago

Yes, I got given a "full stack" test. Entirely in JavaScript. No database element. Required to use React. Screw that, its going to take me a couple of days to get up to speed in a framework that I don't know, and I likely won't make a good job of my first attempt.

codingdave 9y ago

> I would assume that a competent web developer should be capable of quickly learning a framework. I agree. And I got hired by a company who agrees, and who let me learn on the job. Not all hiring processes are as broken as one might believe solely by reading posts and discussions online. But it does take some effort to put out enough feelers to find those companies, because there are also a plethora of folks who hire for skill sets, not skill.

commandlinefan 9y ago

> I would assume that a competent web developer should be capable of quickly learning a framework Well, not that I disagree with you that a lot of employers are being awfully ridiculous when it comes to Angular background requirements, but... you're in for a shock if you try to pick up Angular quickly. Angular is more than a framework - or rather, Angular is a framework that depends on a sprawling ecosystem of other dependencies, each with its own idiosyncrasies. It's not just that Angular is a huge, complex, vast, partly undocumented framework that changes almost completely every few months (Angular 1 and Angular 2 are completely incompatible), but Angular is also heavily dependent on node.js and npm which are themselves pretty complex and prone to break in odd ways that Googling error message doesn't normally help much with. And that's assuming that you don't want to do any sort of unit testing, because the Karma/Jasmine/Protractor frameworks are themselves prone to unexpected breakage and version incompatibilities. But you'd better plan on doing a lot of unit testing, because debugger support is nonexistent too. This is all assuming you have a VERY good handle on HTML, CSS, and Javascript - don't even dream about trying to make sense out of Angular if you're not already an expert on all of those (especially Javascript, even though Angular doesn't use Javascript directly any more). I've been coding now for 25 years, and the only things I've seen come along that were as loved by executives and as fragmented and hard to troubleshoot have been Corba, EJB and Ruby on Rails... so I'm inclined to wonder if any time spent learning Angular will actually be well spent in the long term.

expertentipp 9y ago
That's true, especially the testing part (ever seen chain of promises, a deferred object, and completely useless error stack trace?). Debugging? Source maps, transpilers, file watchers - impenetrable pulp. Why the community is so fixated on forcing the framework down the throat of developers? It certainly solves some problems, but these problems could probably be solved in a more comprehensible and simpler way. Angular it not the new cool thing - it's a complex thing with multiple versions, each incompatible with the others.