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> Although no company is perfect, at CircleCI I’ve had opportunities to grow my career in an environment I enjoy. Small gripe. Its funny how software developer

> Although no company is perfect, at CircleCI I’ve had opportunities to grow my career in an environment I enjoy. Small gripe. Its funny how software developers think they have a career. Once you leave a job you are basically an entry level programmer again. What I mean is if you stay somewhere 5 years using one set of technologies, you'll find that you are not qualified for the vast amount of open positions that use other new (just came about in the last 5 years) technologies. You basically have to start all over again or somehow find a team that is using the same set of technologies (which is rare). You know (React now) wait until 5 years from now when you try for a new job, there will be something else and your experience won't count only your knowledge of the hot new thing. At the new job, the culture will be white make dominated, if not age < 32 white male dominated. So a career in software == a job in software that gets reset every time you change jobs, and there is no escaping white male domination because software is based is often blind trust and the ones with the highest probability of getting that are white males (It may be hard to swallow but it is true). As for mentor ship, the culture of most places dictate that the most experienced mentor who that like. Females are usually excluded from this group and made to handle the bug list and given minor tasks. After 15 years they may be put in a position of leadership so that the company can save face (if the female employee sticks around for that long).

aiisjustanif 7y ago
No offense but you sound like someone who got burned. > Once you leave a job you are basically an entry level programmer again. What I mean is if you stay somewhere 5 years using on set of technologies, you'll find that you are not qualified for the vast amount of open positions that use other technologies. I doubt this is true for your average Java/Python/C# developer or even a powershell person. > At the new job, the culture will be white make dominated, if not age < 32 white male dominated. What does this have to do with anything related to the first point? > As for mentor ship, the culture of most places dictate that the most experienced mentor who that like. Females are usually excluded from this group and made to handle the bug list and given minor tasks. This is still true at some companies, but I think it is changing far and wide in the US. I've met some amazingly gifted female developers, some terrible. I've met amazing male devs and terrible ones too. When we become blind to that bias and we have a good diversity on a team, I find teams become pretty cool to be apart of, especially when we have a mindset of mentoring.
- externalreality 7y ago
  >No offense but you sound like someone who got burned. No offense taken. If I didn't get burned (I guessed "burned" means to have observed this first hand countless times over 15 years in the industry), then how would I know it to be true? > I doubt this is true for your average Java/Python/C# developer or even a powershell person. You can know Java, but if the team is using mongo and you don't know mongo, then there is a problem - if you know java and mongo - but there is a react front-end, then there is a problem... get my drift. The industry is going with a "experience doesn't count - you have to know what I know or be good at faking it" kind of theme. It very prevalent. > What does this have to do with anything related to the first point? I has to do with the article. Did you read it? > This is still true at some companies, but I think it is changing... "Changing" isn't good enough. Think about something horrible , anything, would you want it to be "changing", or would you want it changed?
  - aiisjustanif 7y ago
    As a minority, I guess I'll just have to agree to disagree.
hadsed 7y ago
I think you're making a reasonable point that's coming in too strong. - I've been in several companies whose teams were not white male dominated, including leadership. - The situation with women in engineering teams is a problem, but I have witnessed at least one place myself that was doing very well (big tech co) - I work in AI, which beyond the applied math and science parts, is basically just backend, data, and infrastructure engineering. My experience is that the particular technologies aren't super important, and experience does transfer. I've also used nothing but Python for the last 7 years and this has been perfectly fine. I've had to learn several different database technologies, though at some point I expect to not have to do this much more. Architectures are obviously different, but that will always be true. And it doesn't mean that you can't apply prior knowledge to have important insights. All of my more senior colleagues and managers understood this, sometimes explicitly saying so in our interviews. Certainly this is a discussion point when I've hired people. I'd like to know a little more about why you've come up with what you have here. I do think something in your experience is a little off, because it really doesn't match mine.

aiisjustanif 7y ago

No offense but you sound like someone who got burned. > Once you leave a job you are basically an entry level programmer again. What I mean is if you stay somewhere 5 years using on set of technologies, you'll find that you are not qualified for the vast amount of open positions that use other technologies. I doubt this is true for your average Java/Python/C# developer or even a powershell person. > At the new job, the culture will be white make dominated, if not age < 32 white male dominated. What does this have to do with anything related to the first point? > As for mentor ship, the culture of most places dictate that the most experienced mentor who that like. Females are usually excluded from this group and made to handle the bug list and given minor tasks. This is still true at some companies, but I think it is changing far and wide in the US. I've met some amazingly gifted female developers, some terrible. I've met amazing male devs and terrible ones too. When we become blind to that bias and we have a good diversity on a team, I find teams become pretty cool to be apart of, especially when we have a mindset of mentoring.

externalreality 7y ago
>No offense but you sound like someone who got burned. No offense taken. If I didn't get burned (I guessed "burned" means to have observed this first hand countless times over 15 years in the industry), then how would I know it to be true? > I doubt this is true for your average Java/Python/C# developer or even a powershell person. You can know Java, but if the team is using mongo and you don't know mongo, then there is a problem - if you know java and mongo - but there is a react front-end, then there is a problem... get my drift. The industry is going with a "experience doesn't count - you have to know what I know or be good at faking it" kind of theme. It very prevalent. > What does this have to do with anything related to the first point? I has to do with the article. Did you read it? > This is still true at some companies, but I think it is changing... "Changing" isn't good enough. Think about something horrible , anything, would you want it to be "changing", or would you want it changed?
- aiisjustanif 7y ago
  As a minority, I guess I'll just have to agree to disagree.

hadsed 7y ago

I think you're making a reasonable point that's coming in too strong. - I've been in several companies whose teams were not white male dominated, including leadership. - The situation with women in engineering teams is a problem, but I have witnessed at least one place myself that was doing very well (big tech co) - I work in AI, which beyond the applied math and science parts, is basically just backend, data, and infrastructure engineering. My experience is that the particular technologies aren't super important, and experience does transfer. I've also used nothing but Python for the last 7 years and this has been perfectly fine. I've had to learn several different database technologies, though at some point I expect to not have to do this much more. Architectures are obviously different, but that will always be true. And it doesn't mean that you can't apply prior knowledge to have important insights. All of my more senior colleagues and managers understood this, sometimes explicitly saying so in our interviews. Certainly this is a discussion point when I've hired people. I'd like to know a little more about why you've come up with what you have here. I do think something in your experience is a little off, because it really doesn't match mine.