10 ms·

I hate that the market is so great right now because I really can’t take advantage of it. I would love to start the process, to try and get a salary increase a

I hate that the market is so great right now because I really can’t take advantage of it. I would love to start the process, to try and get a salary increase anywhere from 30%-100% but unfortunately I’ve stagnated sharply skills wise. Don’t qualify for the jobs I see I think I’d enjoy, and don’t even qualify for the jobs that meet my salary preferences that I’d otherwise dislike. I also would have to be looking at immediately remote roles which just makes things harder. I also am about 90% I could not perform on interviews at most places. Digging myself out of the aforementioned stagnation and prepping for interviews is likely to take years at this point and who knows what the market will look like at that point.

chana_masala 5y ago
15 years at Oracle? I doubt it's as bad as you think. Go for breadth and see where you're weak. Practice leetcode, system design and do mock interviews on pramp
devoutsalsa 5y ago
You didn’t qualify for the first job you got. The only difference now is you have more experience and less hubris. What I do is cut my teeth in a few bad interviews, polish off the rough edges, and then I do fine. It’s all about attitude and confidence.
Redoubts 5y ago
Meh, honestly just shoot for it. The worst they can say is no, and a lot of job reqs are just long wishlists anyways. Hell, pick a dumb company you'll never want to work for, like Uber, if you want real-world practice. Then you at least know what real-world failure looks like.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  I'm back in the job market and it doesn't even seem like HR has a clue what programmers do. My favorite was: "Must be fluent in: C#, .NET, and .NET Framework..."
  - mark-r 5y ago
    I've found that the understood meaning of .NET has changed from when the term was first defined by Microsoft. Originally it meant the C# language and the multi-language library that it employed. Now it means specifically the parts of that library that are used for server applications.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      Eh, I hear people talk about .NET desktop apps all the time and they are understood quite well. .NET (and, frankly, everything that isn't HTML/CSS/JS) may be less used outside of backend use than was once the case, but I don't think .NET is conventionally understood to be backend-specific in any general sense.
      - mark-r 5y ago
        Perhaps that's still true in casual conversation, but in the hiring world .NET appears to be about server applications exclusively. At least in my observations.
        MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
        Yeah when I see anything .NET related, it's always backend or fullstack oriented positions.
  - brailsafe 5y ago
    The best I've seen is (verbatim) "Excellent Javascript(ES6) and CSS skills with minimum 10 years of Java (enterprise) for services/apis development experience, 5 years experience in ReactJS/redux or similar, 5 years nodejs"
hnuser847 5y ago
> I’ve stagnated sharply skills wise I felt the same way over the past few years and decided to switch to a Technical Product Owner role at the beginning of this year. I used to be your typical HN user who was extremely passionate about programming, learning new frameworks, functional programming, etc, but at some point over my 10 year career I kinda stopped caring about tech entirely. Switching to a product owner role was great for me. I still get to leverage my technical knowledge without having to worry about the actual implementation too much. I also get to develop my soft skills like planning, communication, and conflict resolution, which is frankly a lot more interesting and satisfying than programming ever was.
- quickpost 5y ago
  Could you talk more about how you made this pivot? Was the transition to product owner a step down initially?
  - hnuser847 5y ago
    It was a lateral move within the same company, so my compensation is identical to what it was before. Honestly I credit my manager and the company in general for allowing me to make the move. My manager was extremely supportive when I expressed interest in product management and was quick to throw my name into the hat when an internal job opening popped up. I think it helps that I work for an extremely large company. I doubt I would have been able to make the switch if I was still working at a startup.
caeril 5y ago
> I’ve stagnated sharply skills wise I'm sorry, but what does this even mean? Nothing has changed in a significant way since 1996, other than ops per second and memory bandwidth. If you're an old school C programmer who knows how pointer arithmetic and memory allocation works, you're better than 99% of the total trash new-school Node.js/Django/Rails/React developers who think JSX is some sort of "innovation". Having "stagnated" is definitely a hiring plus. It means you're less likely to slow down my systems with eight quadrillion layers of dynamic dispatch and abstraction, and you're not going to agitate for infecting my systems with Kubernetes specifically because I now need to orchestrate ten times more production machines to run the ensuing inefficient bloatware. I can't imagine anyone being more highly sought after than a "stagnating" programmer.
- the_only_law 5y ago
  Hey, by stagnating I mean I’ve barely written code in over a year, and haven’t done any significant greenfield work my whole career. The work I have done has been mostly in legacy or obsolete technologies, and by that I mean mostly old version of stuff that’s still out there. So by stagnating I don’t only mean not up on all the new hype tech, but also the caricature of a “code monkey”. Certainly on paper at least. > you're not going to agitate for infecting my systems with Kubernetes specifically because I now need to orchestrate ten times more production machines to run the ensuing inefficient bloatware. Sadly this seems to be the sort of thing that most employers want.
  - mixmastamyk 5y ago
    Start a new project on the side, using the skills you’d like to develop.
    - the_only_law 5y ago
      How do you balance this on the resume. I got plenty of cool project ideas, but outside of entry level, it just seems odd to list them on the resume (which I presume is the only way they’ll be seen by anyone giving the consensus on LinkedIn and personal sites). o feel it’d just look weird when you have projects and skills that seemingly have no relevance to your work experience especially when applying to roles that are mid level or senior. It seems that a lot of things are just no possible to learn on the side as well. For example, doing anything at a large scale. That could be HPC stuff or just designing and building systems that need to handle high throughput without slowing or failing. I can’t afford to have the sort of projects that would allow me to learn those things. The exception I can imagine is working on high visibility OSS projects and is a huge time sink and might as well be a second job.
sirmike_ 5y ago
Why are you saying crazy self-fulfilling prophesies? Do you hate money? Take the leap into something you WANT. Skills, Sschmills! You can learn can't you? Life means learning new stuff all the time. Learning never takes a time out. The military was a bastion of learned lessons for me. One key takeaway: You are your own best advocate. Everything in an interview or negotiation related to you springs from that viewpoint. That's one of the most basic you will repeat infinitely. Use it boldly, not arrogantly.
- the_only_law 5y ago
  > Take the leap into something you WANT. Skills, Sschmills! You can learn can't you? It’s just about time really. I could skill up but what’s the market going to look like by the point I’m ready.
  - robotresearcher 5y ago
    Get the job and then learn the skill. The value proposition you present is that you can learn stuff. This is not a flippant reply! I’m totally serious.
    - brailsafe 5y ago
      Ya but companies genuinely don't care about that. We'd all like them to, but when the first step of an interview process is an automatically generated global talent test, administered by an hr person, there's no room for this sales pitch really. "Lets hire this guy who tells us he can learn, or let's hire this new grad who's been grinding leetcode for 2 years straight and happens to test well on the tech we bet our whole codebase on".
      - jjeaff 5y ago
        The article you are commenting on literally talks about how lots of companies are skipping the skills tests right now.
ddek 5y ago
You stagnated because you don't have a job that stretches you. Even if you think the best you can do is the same job you have right now, but in a different place, you'll see a significant bump. But it's highly likely you can do better than that. Why not try?
- the_only_law 5y ago
  > Even if you think the best you can do is the same job you have right now, but in a different place, you'll see a significant bump. Because I doubt I could get the bump I’m looking for doing the same thing I do now with current restraints > Why not try? Time sink, especially with people talking about 4-5 stage interviews. Without some level of confidence I’d rather not use all my PTO or try to schedule hack at the moment.
  - alfiedotwtf 5y ago
    > Time sink, especially with people talking about 4-5 stage interviews. From friends who are at FAANGs, it sounds like the prep work has been about 100 hours. That's re-reading things like Sedgewick and burning all your spare time at things like leetcode.
    - the_only_law 5y ago
      Maybe, but I don’t have much energy anymore, I can’t even manage to pay attention to a 15m YouTube video before describing to slump off back to bed. I also feel slow in general these days, probably from a number of factors. But I was mainly referring to the actually interviews themselves. 4-5 seems like so many, especially if they fly you out vs just being done remotely.
      - brundolf 5y ago
        Friend, it doesn't sound like this is really about skills or scheduling. It sounds to me like you're simply depressed. Have you considered talking with a therapist?
      - 5y ago
analyst74 5y ago
You overestimate how much expert experience matters. I recently went from a start-up to FANG after a gap in my resume, and the new job is in an area I have no experience in. Many people I know have gone through similar experiences. You do need strong interview skill though.
bandaid 5y ago
You should go for it anyways! Like the article says, people are desperate for talent! People are skipping technical interviews, offering immediate remote opportunities, and are willing to teach the skills required as long as you have some previous experience and work hard
capelio 5y ago
You’re right. You can’t take advantage of it. But not for any of the reasons you listed. You’ve already decided you would fail, and that’s all it takes to seal the deal. Dare a little. You’ve already made a list of your weaknesses. Now make a list of your strengths. Then sell yourself on how each weakness can be explained as a strength. If there’s nothing there at the end of the exercise, you haven’t lost anything. But you may just end up with some useful clarity on your worth in the marketplace.

chana_masala 5y ago

15 years at Oracle? I doubt it's as bad as you think. Go for breadth and see where you're weak. Practice leetcode, system design and do mock interviews on pramp

devoutsalsa 5y ago

You didn’t qualify for the first job you got. The only difference now is you have more experience and less hubris. What I do is cut my teeth in a few bad interviews, polish off the rough edges, and then I do fine. It’s all about attitude and confidence.

Redoubts 5y ago

Meh, honestly just shoot for it. The worst they can say is no, and a lot of job reqs are just long wishlists anyways. Hell, pick a dumb company you'll never want to work for, like Uber, if you want real-world practice. Then you at least know what real-world failure looks like.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
I'm back in the job market and it doesn't even seem like HR has a clue what programmers do. My favorite was: "Must be fluent in: C#, .NET, and .NET Framework..."
- mark-r 5y ago
  I've found that the understood meaning of .NET has changed from when the term was first defined by Microsoft. Originally it meant the C# language and the multi-language library that it employed. Now it means specifically the parts of that library that are used for server applications.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    Eh, I hear people talk about .NET desktop apps all the time and they are understood quite well. .NET (and, frankly, everything that isn't HTML/CSS/JS) may be less used outside of backend use than was once the case, but I don't think .NET is conventionally understood to be backend-specific in any general sense.
    - mark-r 5y ago
      Perhaps that's still true in casual conversation, but in the hiring world .NET appears to be about server applications exclusively. At least in my observations.
      - MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
        Yeah when I see anything .NET related, it's always backend or fullstack oriented positions.
- brailsafe 5y ago
  The best I've seen is (verbatim) "Excellent Javascript(ES6) and CSS skills with minimum 10 years of Java (enterprise) for services/apis development experience, 5 years experience in ReactJS/redux or similar, 5 years nodejs"

hnuser847 5y ago

> I’ve stagnated sharply skills wise I felt the same way over the past few years and decided to switch to a Technical Product Owner role at the beginning of this year. I used to be your typical HN user who was extremely passionate about programming, learning new frameworks, functional programming, etc, but at some point over my 10 year career I kinda stopped caring about tech entirely. Switching to a product owner role was great for me. I still get to leverage my technical knowledge without having to worry about the actual implementation too much. I also get to develop my soft skills like planning, communication, and conflict resolution, which is frankly a lot more interesting and satisfying than programming ever was.

quickpost 5y ago
Could you talk more about how you made this pivot? Was the transition to product owner a step down initially?
- hnuser847 5y ago
  It was a lateral move within the same company, so my compensation is identical to what it was before. Honestly I credit my manager and the company in general for allowing me to make the move. My manager was extremely supportive when I expressed interest in product management and was quick to throw my name into the hat when an internal job opening popped up. I think it helps that I work for an extremely large company. I doubt I would have been able to make the switch if I was still working at a startup.

caeril 5y ago

> I’ve stagnated sharply skills wise I'm sorry, but what does this even mean? Nothing has changed in a significant way since 1996, other than ops per second and memory bandwidth. If you're an old school C programmer who knows how pointer arithmetic and memory allocation works, you're better than 99% of the total trash new-school Node.js/Django/Rails/React developers who think JSX is some sort of "innovation". Having "stagnated" is definitely a hiring plus. It means you're less likely to slow down my systems with eight quadrillion layers of dynamic dispatch and abstraction, and you're not going to agitate for infecting my systems with Kubernetes specifically because I now need to orchestrate ten times more production machines to run the ensuing inefficient bloatware. I can't imagine anyone being more highly sought after than a "stagnating" programmer.

the_only_law 5y ago
Hey, by stagnating I mean I’ve barely written code in over a year, and haven’t done any significant greenfield work my whole career. The work I have done has been mostly in legacy or obsolete technologies, and by that I mean mostly old version of stuff that’s still out there. So by stagnating I don’t only mean not up on all the new hype tech, but also the caricature of a “code monkey”. Certainly on paper at least. > you're not going to agitate for infecting my systems with Kubernetes specifically because I now need to orchestrate ten times more production machines to run the ensuing inefficient bloatware. Sadly this seems to be the sort of thing that most employers want.
- mixmastamyk 5y ago
  Start a new project on the side, using the skills you’d like to develop.
  - the_only_law 5y ago
    How do you balance this on the resume. I got plenty of cool project ideas, but outside of entry level, it just seems odd to list them on the resume (which I presume is the only way they’ll be seen by anyone giving the consensus on LinkedIn and personal sites). o feel it’d just look weird when you have projects and skills that seemingly have no relevance to your work experience especially when applying to roles that are mid level or senior. It seems that a lot of things are just no possible to learn on the side as well. For example, doing anything at a large scale. That could be HPC stuff or just designing and building systems that need to handle high throughput without slowing or failing. I can’t afford to have the sort of projects that would allow me to learn those things. The exception I can imagine is working on high visibility OSS projects and is a huge time sink and might as well be a second job.

sirmike_ 5y ago

Why are you saying crazy self-fulfilling prophesies? Do you hate money? Take the leap into something you WANT. Skills, Sschmills! You can learn can't you? Life means learning new stuff all the time. Learning never takes a time out. The military was a bastion of learned lessons for me. One key takeaway: You are your own best advocate. Everything in an interview or negotiation related to you springs from that viewpoint. That's one of the most basic you will repeat infinitely. Use it boldly, not arrogantly.

the_only_law 5y ago
> Take the leap into something you WANT. Skills, Sschmills! You can learn can't you? It’s just about time really. I could skill up but what’s the market going to look like by the point I’m ready.
- robotresearcher 5y ago
  Get the job and then learn the skill. The value proposition you present is that you can learn stuff. This is not a flippant reply! I’m totally serious.
  - brailsafe 5y ago
    Ya but companies genuinely don't care about that. We'd all like them to, but when the first step of an interview process is an automatically generated global talent test, administered by an hr person, there's no room for this sales pitch really. "Lets hire this guy who tells us he can learn, or let's hire this new grad who's been grinding leetcode for 2 years straight and happens to test well on the tech we bet our whole codebase on".
    - jjeaff 5y ago
      The article you are commenting on literally talks about how lots of companies are skipping the skills tests right now.

ddek 5y ago

You stagnated because you don't have a job that stretches you. Even if you think the best you can do is the same job you have right now, but in a different place, you'll see a significant bump. But it's highly likely you can do better than that. Why not try?

the_only_law 5y ago
> Even if you think the best you can do is the same job you have right now, but in a different place, you'll see a significant bump. Because I doubt I could get the bump I’m looking for doing the same thing I do now with current restraints > Why not try? Time sink, especially with people talking about 4-5 stage interviews. Without some level of confidence I’d rather not use all my PTO or try to schedule hack at the moment.
- alfiedotwtf 5y ago
  > Time sink, especially with people talking about 4-5 stage interviews. From friends who are at FAANGs, it sounds like the prep work has been about 100 hours. That's re-reading things like Sedgewick and burning all your spare time at things like leetcode.
  - the_only_law 5y ago
    Maybe, but I don’t have much energy anymore, I can’t even manage to pay attention to a 15m YouTube video before describing to slump off back to bed. I also feel slow in general these days, probably from a number of factors. But I was mainly referring to the actually interviews themselves. 4-5 seems like so many, especially if they fly you out vs just being done remotely.
    - brundolf 5y ago
      Friend, it doesn't sound like this is really about skills or scheduling. It sounds to me like you're simply depressed. Have you considered talking with a therapist?
    - 5y ago

analyst74 5y ago

You overestimate how much expert experience matters. I recently went from a start-up to FANG after a gap in my resume, and the new job is in an area I have no experience in. Many people I know have gone through similar experiences. You do need strong interview skill though.

bandaid 5y ago

You should go for it anyways! Like the article says, people are desperate for talent! People are skipping technical interviews, offering immediate remote opportunities, and are willing to teach the skills required as long as you have some previous experience and work hard

capelio 5y ago

You’re right. You can’t take advantage of it. But not for any of the reasons you listed. You’ve already decided you would fail, and that’s all it takes to seal the deal. Dare a little. You’ve already made a list of your weaknesses. Now make a list of your strengths. Then sell yourself on how each weakness can be explained as a strength. If there’s nothing there at the end of the exercise, you haven’t lost anything. But you may just end up with some useful clarity on your worth in the marketplace.