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Could the system be better? Yes. But there's also a ridiculous amount of entitlement in the tech industry. There are very few other industries where someone wit

Could the system be better? Yes. But there's also a ridiculous amount of entitlement in the tech industry. There are very few other industries where someone with a bachelors degree or no college degree at all can obtain a low to mid six figure job with no prior work experience + benefits. Even for the average experienced hire, who's compensation can easily exceed that of the average doctor, it isn't like things get worse as your career progresses. Many of these "hiring is broken in tech" posts are like you said: moaning or a remarkable lack of self-awareness.

esotericn 7y ago
I don't think of it as entitlement so much as a refusal to see the world as it is. There are a trillion arbitrary signals that will help or hinder your success in various ways. Physical attractiveness, gender, race, parental background, your nationality, where you can work, your accent, language... the list is honestly almost endless. You can wish for a world in which none of this were true, or do your best to find a place within it. Sure, don't lose sight of justice, but recognise that you can't change the world alone.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  The tech industry, and Silicon Valley in particular, has long pretended to be an ultra-rational meritocracy. Some people buy into the rhetoric, and get bitterly disappointed when proven wrong. If the industry didn’t feed the myth, perhaps people would have less of an emotional reaction.
  - esotericn 7y ago
    I say this without meaning to be offensive, but surely it's blindingly obvious that this isn't the case? For all of the reasons I stated above? I think you'd have to be severely mentally deficient in order to think that commercial software development operates in some sort of strict high score board fashion. OSS development I think is significantly closer if you allow for the sampling bias that only certain groups have enough time to contribute.
    - Apocryphon 7y ago
      I think the power of myth and marketing are far more powerful than you expect, especially those who pivot into tech via boot camps and such as an attempt to find a better field to work in. People flocking into tech seem to buy into the concept that the meritocracy will reward them. And unrelated to hiring, tech CEOs are often still regarded as ultra-rational geniuses despite some blowback.
    - watwut 7y ago
      Majority of OSS development is paid for. It is not done by unpaid volunteers feeding themselves by something else. Some of it is like that, but not much. As much as I like open source, there is a lot of myth making around it too. ________ Second whether obvious or not, people argued that we meritocracy on these forums here for years. And some still do. At meritocracy peek, Github had even that meritocracy carpet or whatever it was.
      - edflsafoiewq 7y ago
        I doubt that. The super-star projects with millions of users sure, but the majority of OSS is probably in the long tail of tiny one-man shows, Github projects with five stars, etc.
        watwut 7y ago
        The small one person projects with 5 stars have nothing to do with "operating in some sort of strict high score board fashion" or meritocratic evaluation of anything. Anyway, FOSS makes yearly polls about these topics. It is biased toward more involved projects, but again I don't think someone's one weekend demo is what is talked about here.
phkahler 7y ago
>> moaning or a remarkable lack of self-awareness. As someone who has spent more time on the hiring side than the job seeker side over the last 10 years, I find these articles funny. I ask myself if each method could tell me what I need to know about a candidate. For many, the answer is no. Then I ask myself if I think the remaining method are fair and often the answer is no. Then I think about how much hassle they are for the candidate and the best methods seem really onerous for the candidate. I always come back to the way I handle it. And now that I'm looking for a job again I had one interview where the technique impressed me enough to change my style a bit in the future, or at least add some options to what is a dynamic process.
z3t4 7y ago
Google would have no problem paying out 7 figure, they would pay out 8 figure if they had to. But its a market and no other pays that well. Just go outside SF and the market is different, much lower pay, but they are just as picky.
- o10449366 7y ago
  no other pays that well != the other markets don't pay well Perhaps you're speaking from the perspective of dev jobs in Europe, or just outside the US, but even in the midwest where the only "tech" companies are really just the largest commerce/healthcare/financial institutions, dev jobs still pay $75,000+ for entry-level positions. Ignoring the fact that cost of living and taxes are way lower in the midwest than they are on the coasts, it's still a fact that with just a bachelors degree computer science opens up a plethora of opportunities. If the price to pay is grinding Leetcode problems for a few weeks that's a pretty small price to pay. Honestly.
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    Not GP, but in Europe definitely nobody starts at 75k, not even in the big metro areas with high COL. And the commerce/healthcare/financial enterprises that you mentioned are really picky and don't even care about leetcode, they filter based on resume prestige like law firms. Without connections, having attended a prestigious University or experience at other fancy companies you ain't getting your foot in the door regardless of your leetcode level. If you've only been coding at mom & pop corner shops, you'll be doing that for a long time as most big enetrprises you mentioned won't even look at your resume.

esotericn 7y ago

I don't think of it as entitlement so much as a refusal to see the world as it is. There are a trillion arbitrary signals that will help or hinder your success in various ways. Physical attractiveness, gender, race, parental background, your nationality, where you can work, your accent, language... the list is honestly almost endless. You can wish for a world in which none of this were true, or do your best to find a place within it. Sure, don't lose sight of justice, but recognise that you can't change the world alone.

Apocryphon 7y ago
The tech industry, and Silicon Valley in particular, has long pretended to be an ultra-rational meritocracy. Some people buy into the rhetoric, and get bitterly disappointed when proven wrong. If the industry didn’t feed the myth, perhaps people would have less of an emotional reaction.
- esotericn 7y ago
  I say this without meaning to be offensive, but surely it's blindingly obvious that this isn't the case? For all of the reasons I stated above? I think you'd have to be severely mentally deficient in order to think that commercial software development operates in some sort of strict high score board fashion. OSS development I think is significantly closer if you allow for the sampling bias that only certain groups have enough time to contribute.
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    I think the power of myth and marketing are far more powerful than you expect, especially those who pivot into tech via boot camps and such as an attempt to find a better field to work in. People flocking into tech seem to buy into the concept that the meritocracy will reward them. And unrelated to hiring, tech CEOs are often still regarded as ultra-rational geniuses despite some blowback.
  - watwut 7y ago
    Majority of OSS development is paid for. It is not done by unpaid volunteers feeding themselves by something else. Some of it is like that, but not much. As much as I like open source, there is a lot of myth making around it too. ________ Second whether obvious or not, people argued that we meritocracy on these forums here for years. And some still do. At meritocracy peek, Github had even that meritocracy carpet or whatever it was.
    - edflsafoiewq 7y ago
      I doubt that. The super-star projects with millions of users sure, but the majority of OSS is probably in the long tail of tiny one-man shows, Github projects with five stars, etc.
      - watwut 7y ago
        The small one person projects with 5 stars have nothing to do with "operating in some sort of strict high score board fashion" or meritocratic evaluation of anything. Anyway, FOSS makes yearly polls about these topics. It is biased toward more involved projects, but again I don't think someone's one weekend demo is what is talked about here.

phkahler 7y ago

>> moaning or a remarkable lack of self-awareness. As someone who has spent more time on the hiring side than the job seeker side over the last 10 years, I find these articles funny. I ask myself if each method could tell me what I need to know about a candidate. For many, the answer is no. Then I ask myself if I think the remaining method are fair and often the answer is no. Then I think about how much hassle they are for the candidate and the best methods seem really onerous for the candidate. I always come back to the way I handle it. And now that I'm looking for a job again I had one interview where the technique impressed me enough to change my style a bit in the future, or at least add some options to what is a dynamic process.

z3t4 7y ago

Google would have no problem paying out 7 figure, they would pay out 8 figure if they had to. But its a market and no other pays that well. Just go outside SF and the market is different, much lower pay, but they are just as picky.

o10449366 7y ago
no other pays that well != the other markets don't pay well Perhaps you're speaking from the perspective of dev jobs in Europe, or just outside the US, but even in the midwest where the only "tech" companies are really just the largest commerce/healthcare/financial institutions, dev jobs still pay $75,000+ for entry-level positions. Ignoring the fact that cost of living and taxes are way lower in the midwest than they are on the coasts, it's still a fact that with just a bachelors degree computer science opens up a plethora of opportunities. If the price to pay is grinding Leetcode problems for a few weeks that's a pretty small price to pay. Honestly.
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  Not GP, but in Europe definitely nobody starts at 75k, not even in the big metro areas with high COL. And the commerce/healthcare/financial enterprises that you mentioned are really picky and don't even care about leetcode, they filter based on resume prestige like law firms. Without connections, having attended a prestigious University or experience at other fancy companies you ain't getting your foot in the door regardless of your leetcode level. If you've only been coding at mom & pop corner shops, you'll be doing that for a long time as most big enetrprises you mentioned won't even look at your resume.