4 ms·

> Wow, what an incredibly tone deaf response. It's really not though. Here's the bottom line: You want money from a company. The company doesn't owe you jack.

by jimmy1 8y ago

> Wow, what an incredibly tone deaf response. It's really not though. Here's the bottom line: You want money from a company. The company doesn't owe you jack. shit. If they fucking whiteboard, and you want money from them, then do the whiteboard. Later, when you are employed by them, try to suggest they improve their process. If you have better options, take them. > Maybe changing this prospective is the point of the "incessant whining." Sure. But is that the companies #1 priority, or do they have other things to do, like make money and stay in business that take precedent? Anyways, the way you do this is from within or providing feedback and having conversations with recruiters -- you know, human interaction. This job board is the ultimate culmination of millennial passive-aggressive behavior.

aianus 8y ago
> If you have better options, take them. > This job board is the ultimate culmination of millennial passive-aggressive behavior. This job board just enables more people to pursue a course of action that you're already suggesting they do!
- jimmy1 8y ago
  I will admit, maybe I am reading too much into the convictions or intentions of the job boards -- but we all are human, so I can only assume this was created by someone who was tired of having to do whiteboards, and rather than confront the problem head on and potentially drive industry-wide change (channeling "one person can change the world"), goes behind the scenes. The job board further fragments and confuses things for everyone. The better option, of course in my opinion, is make things better for everyone by fighting the battle where the companies are. I am frustrated at times just as much as any other engineer by playing "monkey-see-monkey-do" in front of an audience in order to receive employment and I have indeed passed up job offers because I was turned off by the interview process (but again, that was my choice) but if you take a step back, look at the overall job market, and what other workers have to go through to get a job, we really do have it made, and this seems like a minor nuisance at best.
  - sanderjd 8y ago
    > rather than confront the problem head on and potentially drive industry-wide change (channeling "one person can change the world"), goes behind the scenes. No, this is how change is driven. How do you think change happens? Getting a big committee together and getting buy in from all interested parties? That's not how it works. But maybe this is how it works, maybe this job board attracts a bunch of candidates who are tired of the status quo, and other candidates start telling the companies on other job boards that, sorry, but they're more interested in the companies that list on this particular job board, and those companies then see that the talent pool they're drawing from is smaller than it needs to be, and they decide they want to draw from the larger pool, so they change their practices, and then that snowballs, well maybe now you have industry-wide change. I don't personally see this having much of an impact, but I think the people who started this are doing exactly what you're saying they should be doing, except that you're pillorying them for it because they aren't doing it through some impossible broad consensus approach. > what other workers have to go through to get a job, we really do have it made, and this seems like a minor nuisance at best It is true that we have it made, but I do not think it is true that we have it made in this sense. We have it made because our skills are very highly in demand and because of that, we are treated well and paid handsomely once we get a job. It is true that we should never ignore, down-play, or fail to appreciate this privilege, but that doesn't imply that we should not discuss or advocate for improvements where needed. Where we don't have it made is in the predictability of employment once competence has been demonstrated. Other professions and trades usually have long-and-tedious up-front competence proving phases, but then they have a credential that will be respected by future employers when they have open positions. We are fairly unique in forcing people with long and distinguished careers to continually re-prove themselves. Our employers have open positions, but it takes a lot of pointless and duplicated busy-work for a competent person to slot into them. I think what it comes down to is that our process is relatively mediocre, good, or even great for inexperienced unproven new entrants to the job market, but rather sub-par for experienced and proven folks. And that's why you see people looking for a better way.
    - doorbumper 8y ago
      I think there's two different complaints at play in this thread. Surely you're not suggesting that candidates be exempt from proving themselves. The number of developers who become incompetent over time is high. I think the question is whether they should prove themselves through algorithmic questions. I'll never higher anyone just because they have credentials. A Computer Science degree is a credential, yet so many with that credential cannot write the simplest of programs.
sanderjd 8y ago
Here's the other bottom line: A company wants to use your industry and creativity to make more money than it will give to you. You don't owe the company jack. shit. I agree with your bottom line as well. Both are true! It's a negotiation, and it isn't zero-sum. Working is good for both the employee and the company. Neither is in a universally stronger negotiating position. I'm not annoyed by bad interview processes and strong preference for false-negatives, I'm annoyed by that in conjunction with the claim that there is a shortage of competent workers. There is some lower-hanging fruit to take care of before that claim makes sense, and improving recruiting processes is among the lowest hanging (along with raising wages, obviously).
- jimmy1 8y ago
  > Here's the other bottom line: A company wants to use your industry and creativity to make more money than it will give to you. You don't owe the company jack. shit. Unfortunately, unless the sides are favored to the labor market (in our cases it is not, and even if it was, there is always outsourcing), this equation is not equal. Both are true, but it is an extremely unbalanced equation. At the end of the day, the company has the money and you have the skills. Unfortunately only one of those helps you pay the bills -- unless you can figure out a way to pay your rent in exchange for your skills.
  - sanderjd 8y ago
    This is not true for the industry we're talking about (or at least not as true as you seem to think). It really is in companies' best interest to be attractive to skilled workers in this industry and there really is a chance they will find themselves struggling if they get the wrong reputation. It seems (to me) like this is a major undercurrent in IBM's struggles, for instance (and outsourcing has not been a silver bullet). Thinking the balance is more skewed than it actually is is one of the things that skews the balance.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
scarface74 8y ago
It's really not though. Here's the bottom line: You want money from a company And the company wants to make money from me. In my market, there are a lot more open positions for senior devs than senior devs that are actively looking for jobs. I
- jimmy1 8y ago
  And if you have all the time in the world to play that out --great. If you have limited savings like the vast majority of Americans -- time is your enemy, and eventually rent will come due. The company can survive for months, years without your labor and if they have to, they will simply purchase it or outsource it if need be. You need that money more than they need you. There really are few exceptions to this rule -- AI being one of them. Again I wish it wasn't like this, but it's the reality for the overwhelmingly majority of software developers in this country.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Yes, my comment has a few assumptions 1. That you are in an area of the country with a lot of opportunities 2. That you kept your eye on the market and made sure that your skill set in demand 3. That you kept your resume updated 4. That you kept your network of recruiters, former coworkers, and references fresh. If you have limited savings like the vast majority of Americans -- time is your enemy With the unemployment rate of software developers being extremely low, the chances are that someone looking for a job that you are interviewing, already has a job. When I said my turn around from looking for a job to getting a job is about three weeks, I didn't mean to imply that I was a special snowflake. A company I was working for went through a few rounds of layoffs before everyone was let go -- this was in 2011. Without fail, every developer and even L2 support person had another comparable job within a month. If a company makes the hiring process too long, more than likely if you are in the right market and you are just a regular old "Full Stack Developer", by the time you go through the process, you've already received a couple of offers Besides, if I'm looking for a job and I am unemployed, the time I am taking to do homework, I can be meeting with recruiters, preparing for interviews, brushing up on my skillset, etc...

by jimmy1 8y ago

aianus 8y ago

> If you have better options, take them. > This job board is the ultimate culmination of millennial passive-aggressive behavior. This job board just enables more people to pursue a course of action that you're already suggesting they do!

jimmy1 8y ago
I will admit, maybe I am reading too much into the convictions or intentions of the job boards -- but we all are human, so I can only assume this was created by someone who was tired of having to do whiteboards, and rather than confront the problem head on and potentially drive industry-wide change (channeling "one person can change the world"), goes behind the scenes. The job board further fragments and confuses things for everyone. The better option, of course in my opinion, is make things better for everyone by fighting the battle where the companies are. I am frustrated at times just as much as any other engineer by playing "monkey-see-monkey-do" in front of an audience in order to receive employment and I have indeed passed up job offers because I was turned off by the interview process (but again, that was my choice) but if you take a step back, look at the overall job market, and what other workers have to go through to get a job, we really do have it made, and this seems like a minor nuisance at best.
- sanderjd 8y ago
  > rather than confront the problem head on and potentially drive industry-wide change (channeling "one person can change the world"), goes behind the scenes. No, this is how change is driven. How do you think change happens? Getting a big committee together and getting buy in from all interested parties? That's not how it works. But maybe this is how it works, maybe this job board attracts a bunch of candidates who are tired of the status quo, and other candidates start telling the companies on other job boards that, sorry, but they're more interested in the companies that list on this particular job board, and those companies then see that the talent pool they're drawing from is smaller than it needs to be, and they decide they want to draw from the larger pool, so they change their practices, and then that snowballs, well maybe now you have industry-wide change. I don't personally see this having much of an impact, but I think the people who started this are doing exactly what you're saying they should be doing, except that you're pillorying them for it because they aren't doing it through some impossible broad consensus approach. > what other workers have to go through to get a job, we really do have it made, and this seems like a minor nuisance at best It is true that we have it made, but I do not think it is true that we have it made in this sense. We have it made because our skills are very highly in demand and because of that, we are treated well and paid handsomely once we get a job. It is true that we should never ignore, down-play, or fail to appreciate this privilege, but that doesn't imply that we should not discuss or advocate for improvements where needed. Where we don't have it made is in the predictability of employment once competence has been demonstrated. Other professions and trades usually have long-and-tedious up-front competence proving phases, but then they have a credential that will be respected by future employers when they have open positions. We are fairly unique in forcing people with long and distinguished careers to continually re-prove themselves. Our employers have open positions, but it takes a lot of pointless and duplicated busy-work for a competent person to slot into them. I think what it comes down to is that our process is relatively mediocre, good, or even great for inexperienced unproven new entrants to the job market, but rather sub-par for experienced and proven folks. And that's why you see people looking for a better way.
  - doorbumper 8y ago
    I think there's two different complaints at play in this thread. Surely you're not suggesting that candidates be exempt from proving themselves. The number of developers who become incompetent over time is high. I think the question is whether they should prove themselves through algorithmic questions. I'll never higher anyone just because they have credentials. A Computer Science degree is a credential, yet so many with that credential cannot write the simplest of programs.

sanderjd 8y ago

Here's the other bottom line: A company wants to use your industry and creativity to make more money than it will give to you. You don't owe the company jack. shit. I agree with your bottom line as well. Both are true! It's a negotiation, and it isn't zero-sum. Working is good for both the employee and the company. Neither is in a universally stronger negotiating position. I'm not annoyed by bad interview processes and strong preference for false-negatives, I'm annoyed by that in conjunction with the claim that there is a shortage of competent workers. There is some lower-hanging fruit to take care of before that claim makes sense, and improving recruiting processes is among the lowest hanging (along with raising wages, obviously).

jimmy1 8y ago
> Here's the other bottom line: A company wants to use your industry and creativity to make more money than it will give to you. You don't owe the company jack. shit. Unfortunately, unless the sides are favored to the labor market (in our cases it is not, and even if it was, there is always outsourcing), this equation is not equal. Both are true, but it is an extremely unbalanced equation. At the end of the day, the company has the money and you have the skills. Unfortunately only one of those helps you pay the bills -- unless you can figure out a way to pay your rent in exchange for your skills.
- sanderjd 8y ago
  This is not true for the industry we're talking about (or at least not as true as you seem to think). It really is in companies' best interest to be attractive to skilled workers in this industry and there really is a chance they will find themselves struggling if they get the wrong reputation. It seems (to me) like this is a major undercurrent in IBM's struggles, for instance (and outsourcing has not been a silver bullet). Thinking the balance is more skewed than it actually is is one of the things that skews the balance.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

scarface74 8y ago

It's really not though. Here's the bottom line: You want money from a company And the company wants to make money from me. In my market, there are a lot more open positions for senior devs than senior devs that are actively looking for jobs. I

jimmy1 8y ago
And if you have all the time in the world to play that out --great. If you have limited savings like the vast majority of Americans -- time is your enemy, and eventually rent will come due. The company can survive for months, years without your labor and if they have to, they will simply purchase it or outsource it if need be. You need that money more than they need you. There really are few exceptions to this rule -- AI being one of them. Again I wish it wasn't like this, but it's the reality for the overwhelmingly majority of software developers in this country.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Yes, my comment has a few assumptions 1. That you are in an area of the country with a lot of opportunities 2. That you kept your eye on the market and made sure that your skill set in demand 3. That you kept your resume updated 4. That you kept your network of recruiters, former coworkers, and references fresh. If you have limited savings like the vast majority of Americans -- time is your enemy With the unemployment rate of software developers being extremely low, the chances are that someone looking for a job that you are interviewing, already has a job. When I said my turn around from looking for a job to getting a job is about three weeks, I didn't mean to imply that I was a special snowflake. A company I was working for went through a few rounds of layoffs before everyone was let go -- this was in 2011. Without fail, every developer and even L2 support person had another comparable job within a month. If a company makes the hiring process too long, more than likely if you are in the right market and you are just a regular old "Full Stack Developer", by the time you go through the process, you've already received a couple of offers Besides, if I'm looking for a job and I am unemployed, the time I am taking to do homework, I can be meeting with recruiters, preparing for interviews, brushing up on my skillset, etc...