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If you put a job spec out in London for anything technical you can easily get 1000s of CVs coming back. Location is super easy to filter on. If you apply for a

If you put a job spec out in London for anything technical you can easily get 1000s of CVs coming back. Location is super easy to filter on. If you apply for a job, the experience you list should match the tech stack in the job spec. Don't list roles that aren't relevant (i.e. no .net if it's a Python role). I helped hire a DS this week. Their CV was among 20 excellent candidates all in London with their latest role matching most of the tech stack we're looking for. All the candidates are in London. This is what you're competing against.

EnderMB 7y ago
How is that possible if you have any professional experience? Do I list my CS degree from a decade ago and only my most recent job? Similarly if I am applying for a .NET role (which I've got eight years of consecutive experience in) - do I just focus on those years and have a two year gap in time? While I appreciate that there's a need to filter candidates, surely it proves that there is either no shortage of experienced developers out there, or that companies would rather hire less experienced devs with more relevant experience? If the latter is true, then companies shouldn't moan about a shortage in talent when there is obviously demand for more senior roles.
- amypinka 7y ago
  Its fine to leave gaps, the latest role is the most important. The .net work doesn't add much to a DS role so there isn't much weight in mentioning it and it shows you spent less than 100% of your focus on DS. If there aren't other candidates then that's fine but there are 10s of candidates that are more or less DS-only on paper. If candidates could see the other applicant's CVs it would kick off an arms race.
  - EnderMB 7y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by DS, but I would strongly disagree that work in one stack is irrelevant to work in another. Two years ago, I took a role in a tech stack I've never used before, and in less than a month I was productive in Node and Rails. I work with half a dozen developers that switched from one stack to another, and regularly do so to use the best tool for the job, and it's not as hard as some companies make it out to be.
- pyb 7y ago
  Is anyone actually claiming a shortage of experienced developers in London? Or is this just what we developers would like to hear? IMO there are few, if any, tangible signs of a shortage locally.
  - EnderMB 7y ago
    It depends who you ask, I guess. There's a definite shortage outside of London, although few companies seem to want to up their salaries to attract experienced talent. One of the reasons I switched stack was because I would get recruiters emailing every day with new roles, but rarely anything that paid over £45k in Bristol. In your experience, as a Londoner, is there a demand for experienced devs? I would've thought that big companies would always be looking for developers.
    - Distozion 7y ago
      There is for sure enough opportunities to move around, but it will all depend on how well you match what the company needs (Had 3 perm positions in last 2 years in London, every move increasing my take home) Even right now the publicly owned bank that I work for is constantly hiring mid+ developers and in two weeks we get like <10 applications for some positions. So I'm guessing it would heavily depend what kind of company are you targeting. From experience I can say that we refuse experienced devs only if they want to do a career shift while getting the same or higher wage without showing that they actually did some learning before applying (example would be moving from backend Java/c# stack to Frontend JS role). Remember, if taking a chance, it's cheaper to take on a promising junior to train than an experienced dev that puts no effort upfront. Are you looking to go straight to £70k+? Then better have the experience / match the stack / have the personality and sell yourself (I kinda feel that I got my current role more through selling myself than my CV, since I got the offer after ~1.5h talk with a few higher-ups, no coding, whiteboards or anything) Are you a senior dev who's willing to work in a new stack on an experienced mid wage? Then you shouldn't have a lot of problems finding you next role.
    - pyb 7y ago
      There is always a fair amount of demand, but from the way hiring companies act, one can feel they have many decent candidates to choose from.

EnderMB 7y ago

How is that possible if you have any professional experience? Do I list my CS degree from a decade ago and only my most recent job? Similarly if I am applying for a .NET role (which I've got eight years of consecutive experience in) - do I just focus on those years and have a two year gap in time? While I appreciate that there's a need to filter candidates, surely it proves that there is either no shortage of experienced developers out there, or that companies would rather hire less experienced devs with more relevant experience? If the latter is true, then companies shouldn't moan about a shortage in talent when there is obviously demand for more senior roles.

amypinka 7y ago
Its fine to leave gaps, the latest role is the most important. The .net work doesn't add much to a DS role so there isn't much weight in mentioning it and it shows you spent less than 100% of your focus on DS. If there aren't other candidates then that's fine but there are 10s of candidates that are more or less DS-only on paper. If candidates could see the other applicant's CVs it would kick off an arms race.
- EnderMB 7y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by DS, but I would strongly disagree that work in one stack is irrelevant to work in another. Two years ago, I took a role in a tech stack I've never used before, and in less than a month I was productive in Node and Rails. I work with half a dozen developers that switched from one stack to another, and regularly do so to use the best tool for the job, and it's not as hard as some companies make it out to be.
pyb 7y ago
Is anyone actually claiming a shortage of experienced developers in London? Or is this just what we developers would like to hear? IMO there are few, if any, tangible signs of a shortage locally.
- EnderMB 7y ago
  It depends who you ask, I guess. There's a definite shortage outside of London, although few companies seem to want to up their salaries to attract experienced talent. One of the reasons I switched stack was because I would get recruiters emailing every day with new roles, but rarely anything that paid over £45k in Bristol. In your experience, as a Londoner, is there a demand for experienced devs? I would've thought that big companies would always be looking for developers.
  - Distozion 7y ago
    There is for sure enough opportunities to move around, but it will all depend on how well you match what the company needs (Had 3 perm positions in last 2 years in London, every move increasing my take home) Even right now the publicly owned bank that I work for is constantly hiring mid+ developers and in two weeks we get like <10 applications for some positions. So I'm guessing it would heavily depend what kind of company are you targeting. From experience I can say that we refuse experienced devs only if they want to do a career shift while getting the same or higher wage without showing that they actually did some learning before applying (example would be moving from backend Java/c# stack to Frontend JS role). Remember, if taking a chance, it's cheaper to take on a promising junior to train than an experienced dev that puts no effort upfront. Are you looking to go straight to £70k+? Then better have the experience / match the stack / have the personality and sell yourself (I kinda feel that I got my current role more through selling myself than my CV, since I got the offer after ~1.5h talk with a few higher-ups, no coding, whiteboards or anything) Are you a senior dev who's willing to work in a new stack on an experienced mid wage? Then you shouldn't have a lot of problems finding you next role.
  - pyb 7y ago
    There is always a fair amount of demand, but from the way hiring companies act, one can feel they have many decent candidates to choose from.