3 ms·

I once interviewed a guy who was technically adequate but who was a complete snake oil salesman in the coding interview. He couldn't solve one particularly dif

by dkarl 7y ago

I once interviewed a guy who was technically adequate but who was a complete snake oil salesman in the coding interview. He couldn't solve one particularly difficult problem, which was totally fine (most people we hired couldn't solve it) but he blustered a lot trying to verbally convince us that his solution was correct even after we pointed out a case it failed on. Then he tried to Jedi mind trick us into thinking we had agreed that his solution was correct, and when that didn't work, he spent the rest of his time drawing complicated diagrams that had no apparent bearing on the problem and muttering random theoretical terms under his breath while waving away our attempts to help him make progress. Finally, when we told him our time was up, he said, "Well, it looks like I've encountered a problem I can't solve" ...dramatic pause... "WHICH RARELY HAPPENS." When we discussed this behavior afterwards, my boss's response was, "Don't worry about it. He's been working as a consultant for the last couple of years, and consultants have to act like that. It's a survival thing." So... yeah. I think you are going to have to think very hard about what you CAN say that will produce the same effect as the things you won't say. I suspect there are a lot of things that aren't literally true or false that you could say to communicate to people that they will be in good hands with you. If you decide to give it up in the end, I think people will be very sympathetic to you applying for a permanent position as a developer and saying that you tried contracting and decided you weren't cut out for it. I think most people working permanent jobs in software engineering can't imagine themselves succeeding as contractors and will admire that you even tried it.

ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
I’ve already figured out that it’s worthless to even try looking at permanent positions. No one wants to hire anyone over 40 as an engineer. After a series of insults and attempts at humiliation, I realized the deal. It’s a very different world from the one I left, when I joined that Japanese company. I won’t lie, and I won’t compromise my personal integrity. If that means that no one will want to hire me to develop their critical must-not-fail products, then so be it. It's surprising to learn that people actively seek out folks with compromised ethics for these types of gigs, but it's a funny old world. I’ve already reconciled myself to the fact that this means that I may never work for anyone other than myself; which is acceptable, but not ideal. I just find it rather personally offensive to encounter this kind of willful self-destructiveness. I have the skills and experience to make a lot of money for people. I’m quite willing to take risks with startups, and have a truly vast array of experience in many, many disciplines (which is usually fairly valuable for things like startups). I have tremendous self-discipline and integrity (You get that, when your boss is 7,000 miles away, and doesn't speak English), clean up pretty well, and am used to selling complex ideas to powerful, skeptical, conservative managers. I'm a top-shelf writer, having been writing since I was a child. I'm a very good architect, having developed infrastructure-level systems that have lasted decades (If you order the current SDK for DSLRs from my alma mater, you will find a module in there that I designed in 1994, and I've also developed a really big open-source infrastructure for NPOs, that is becoming the worldwide standard after more than ten years). My GitHub ID Activity Log is solid green. My entire career has been delivering software (as opposed to just “writing” software), I don’t have a need for ego-gratification, I’m fine with a very reasonable compensation, and am mostly doing this because I simply love software development. If I say all that in an interview, though, it's assumed that I'm lying, even though I have a vast open-source portfolio of hundreds of thousands of lines of hand-crafted, ultra-high-quality, single-origin, small-batch (and also really big-batch), artisanal code, over a decade of commit history, in dozens of repos and gists, hundreds of pages of documentation, reams of articles, blog posts, and other examples of top-quality writing that describe, in detail, how I work, think, design, assess risk, test and deliver. It's all up-to-date, too. My last checkins will probably happen later today. I'm working on delivering a new Bluetooth explorer app to the App Store. It looks like today is Submit Day. It's my experience that no one will even glance at that. I think it's kind of crazy. I would have killed for that kind of data on prospective hires. I’m actually perfectly fine, doing my own thing, but I find that I miss being on a team.
- dkarl 7y ago
  > I’ve already figured out that it’s worthless to even try looking at permanent positions. > > No one wants to hire anyone over 40 as an engineer. Maybe you're shooting too low. People hire a lot of engineers over forty, but mostly into high-level positions where they are expected to mentor junior developers, guide decisions about technology, work closely with people outside of engineering, and otherwise help set standards and direction for the team. It's still technically an individual contributor role, but you're judged by your influence on the performance of everyone around you. The emphasis you place on your individual technical achievements indicates that you aren't aware of that aspect of the role that companies expect someone with your level of experience to fill. On one hand, I think it's unfortunate, because if you want to concentrate on producing excellent individual work, there should be the same place for you at 40 or 50 as there is for somebody doing that at 30. On the other hand, they're demanding more of you because they expect that somebody with your level of experience should be able to deliver it, and they're probably right. You probably are capable of doing that stuff if you are aware of the expectations and aware of your influence on the organization around you. And it can be kind of demoralizing for a team when leadership is required (as it always is) and someone with your chops and experience fails to step up and provide it because they're focused on the amazing quality of their individual work. Again, I think you can probably do everything these higher positions require, but you'll have to rebalance the way you pitch yourself (add some stuff about your ability to mentor, guide technology decisions, etc.) to show that you accept those expectations and will do your best to live up to them.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
    You have a good point. I've assumed that it's the opposite. People see that I've been a manager, and don't want me on their team because I'll try to take it over (one of the reasons that I'm leaning towards a consultant role, as that's less of a threat). Well...it will all come out in the wash or the rinse. I'll be giving online courses in Swift and Bluetooth soon. I have to set up the presentations and curricula for them. I've been mentoring and training for decades; almost entirely for the open-source work I've done. I suspect that it may be a direction worth exploring. I have been absolutely stunned at the virulence of the ageism. I guess that it's maybe a by-product of all the polarization that's going on.

by dkarl 7y ago

ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago

I’ve already figured out that it’s worthless to even try looking at permanent positions. No one wants to hire anyone over 40 as an engineer. After a series of insults and attempts at humiliation, I realized the deal. It’s a very different world from the one I left, when I joined that Japanese company. I won’t lie, and I won’t compromise my personal integrity. If that means that no one will want to hire me to develop their critical must-not-fail products, then so be it. It's surprising to learn that people actively seek out folks with compromised ethics for these types of gigs, but it's a funny old world. I’ve already reconciled myself to the fact that this means that I may never work for anyone other than myself; which is acceptable, but not ideal. I just find it rather personally offensive to encounter this kind of willful self-destructiveness. I have the skills and experience to make a lot of money for people. I’m quite willing to take risks with startups, and have a truly vast array of experience in many, many disciplines (which is usually fairly valuable for things like startups). I have tremendous self-discipline and integrity (You get that, when your boss is 7,000 miles away, and doesn't speak English), clean up pretty well, and am used to selling complex ideas to powerful, skeptical, conservative managers. I'm a top-shelf writer, having been writing since I was a child. I'm a very good architect, having developed infrastructure-level systems that have lasted decades (If you order the current SDK for DSLRs from my alma mater, you will find a module in there that I designed in 1994, and I've also developed a really big open-source infrastructure for NPOs, that is becoming the worldwide standard after more than ten years). My GitHub ID Activity Log is solid green. My entire career has been delivering software (as opposed to just “writing” software), I don’t have a need for ego-gratification, I’m fine with a very reasonable compensation, and am mostly doing this because I simply love software development. If I say all that in an interview, though, it's assumed that I'm lying, even though I have a vast open-source portfolio of hundreds of thousands of lines of hand-crafted, ultra-high-quality, single-origin, small-batch (and also really big-batch), artisanal code, over a decade of commit history, in dozens of repos and gists, hundreds of pages of documentation, reams of articles, blog posts, and other examples of top-quality writing that describe, in detail, how I work, think, design, assess risk, test and deliver. It's all up-to-date, too. My last checkins will probably happen later today. I'm working on delivering a new Bluetooth explorer app to the App Store. It looks like today is Submit Day. It's my experience that no one will even glance at that. I think it's kind of crazy. I would have killed for that kind of data on prospective hires. I’m actually perfectly fine, doing my own thing, but I find that I miss being on a team.

dkarl 7y ago
> I’ve already figured out that it’s worthless to even try looking at permanent positions. > > No one wants to hire anyone over 40 as an engineer. Maybe you're shooting too low. People hire a lot of engineers over forty, but mostly into high-level positions where they are expected to mentor junior developers, guide decisions about technology, work closely with people outside of engineering, and otherwise help set standards and direction for the team. It's still technically an individual contributor role, but you're judged by your influence on the performance of everyone around you. The emphasis you place on your individual technical achievements indicates that you aren't aware of that aspect of the role that companies expect someone with your level of experience to fill. On one hand, I think it's unfortunate, because if you want to concentrate on producing excellent individual work, there should be the same place for you at 40 or 50 as there is for somebody doing that at 30. On the other hand, they're demanding more of you because they expect that somebody with your level of experience should be able to deliver it, and they're probably right. You probably are capable of doing that stuff if you are aware of the expectations and aware of your influence on the organization around you. And it can be kind of demoralizing for a team when leadership is required (as it always is) and someone with your chops and experience fails to step up and provide it because they're focused on the amazing quality of their individual work. Again, I think you can probably do everything these higher positions require, but you'll have to rebalance the way you pitch yourself (add some stuff about your ability to mentor, guide technology decisions, etc.) to show that you accept those expectations and will do your best to live up to them.
- ChrisMarshallNY 7y ago
  You have a good point. I've assumed that it's the opposite. People see that I've been a manager, and don't want me on their team because I'll try to take it over (one of the reasons that I'm leaning towards a consultant role, as that's less of a threat). Well...it will all come out in the wash or the rinse. I'll be giving online courses in Swift and Bluetooth soon. I have to set up the presentations and curricula for them. I've been mentoring and training for decades; almost entirely for the open-source work I've done. I suspect that it may be a direction worth exploring. I have been absolutely stunned at the virulence of the ageism. I guess that it's maybe a by-product of all the polarization that's going on.