5 ms·

I generally don't care what the tech stack is. I can learn how to program in just about any language and use just about any tool. I care about the domain. I car

I generally don't care what the tech stack is. I can learn how to program in just about any language and use just about any tool. I care about the domain. I care about the market for that domain. I care about what position the company is in in that market. But, primarily, I care about solving interesting problems in that domain. I want challenging problems to work on. I don't want to do the same thing over and over except this time in <fancy new tech>. You want me to put data from a form in to a db? Pass. You want me to figure out how to shine your company name onto a baseball as it is traveling to home plate? HELL YEAH!

the_other 6y ago
I love this attitude and feel some accord at a personal/intellectual level. You learn “programming” first, not a stack. (Well, ok, you tend to learn one language first and then branch out, but I assume you have been through that stage). So programming and problem solving should translate fairly well across domains. However, my experience with looking for jobs in London is that if I don’t have more experience with most of the stack than someone else in a company/recruiter’s candidate set, I will not get the job (regardless of how well I communicate my ability to work in teams or problem solve). Even after 15 years professional coding and a Masters in Software Engineering. How does your position work for you? Have you been able to learn new stacks “on the job”? Can we characterise a hiring pattern for different geographic areas? Do you go learning a prospective employer or client’s problem domain before making contact with them, and base conversations around that?
- chooseaname 6y ago
  > Do you go learning a prospective employer or client’s problem domain before making contact with them, and base conversations around that? Yes, I try to do exactly that. The goal is to be able to speak their language in the interview as well as determine if I'm interested. I try and find out everything I can about the company, their product and the product of any competitors. If I'm enthusiastic about it, I figure out where to send my resume. As far as tech stacks, I've learned Java, Progress, C#, various scripting and shell languages all on the job without ever knowing them prior to getting the job (I started my career as a C++ programmer which I already knew, so there's that). I think the key has been the fact that when I interview I already know about the company and their product and domain and I can ask pointed, intelligent questions and generally have a great discussion about it with them. The companies that have hired me knowing I don't know, say, Java, haven't cared. The companies that don't hire me because I don't know Java, only care about hiring Java developers and I'm glad they spared me the trouble. I don't know if it is luck, but I generally don't get many rejections. I also don't generally send my resume to more than a few companies before getting hired.
  - the_other 6y ago
    Great response. Thanks for going into that much detail.

the_other 6y ago

I love this attitude and feel some accord at a personal/intellectual level. You learn “programming” first, not a stack. (Well, ok, you tend to learn one language first and then branch out, but I assume you have been through that stage). So programming and problem solving should translate fairly well across domains. However, my experience with looking for jobs in London is that if I don’t have more experience with most of the stack than someone else in a company/recruiter’s candidate set, I will not get the job (regardless of how well I communicate my ability to work in teams or problem solve). Even after 15 years professional coding and a Masters in Software Engineering. How does your position work for you? Have you been able to learn new stacks “on the job”? Can we characterise a hiring pattern for different geographic areas? Do you go learning a prospective employer or client’s problem domain before making contact with them, and base conversations around that?

chooseaname 6y ago
> Do you go learning a prospective employer or client’s problem domain before making contact with them, and base conversations around that? Yes, I try to do exactly that. The goal is to be able to speak their language in the interview as well as determine if I'm interested. I try and find out everything I can about the company, their product and the product of any competitors. If I'm enthusiastic about it, I figure out where to send my resume. As far as tech stacks, I've learned Java, Progress, C#, various scripting and shell languages all on the job without ever knowing them prior to getting the job (I started my career as a C++ programmer which I already knew, so there's that). I think the key has been the fact that when I interview I already know about the company and their product and domain and I can ask pointed, intelligent questions and generally have a great discussion about it with them. The companies that have hired me knowing I don't know, say, Java, haven't cared. The companies that don't hire me because I don't know Java, only care about hiring Java developers and I'm glad they spared me the trouble. I don't know if it is luck, but I generally don't get many rejections. I also don't generally send my resume to more than a few companies before getting hired.
- the_other 6y ago
  Great response. Thanks for going into that much detail.