9 ms·

This a hundred times over. I still remember in 2020 multiple places asking me "I see you've used .NET core, what version have you used?". I had a kind of car

This a hundred times over. I still remember in 2020 multiple places asking me "I see you've used .NET core, what *version* have you used?". I had a kind of career crisis/breakdown, where I realised no one gave a shit about anything except my utility as a walking set of tech keywords. Accepting that it wasn't working for me was one of the best things I've done for my career.

purplecats 5y ago
did you expect others to have empathy for you?
- LAC-Tech 5y ago
  It's not that I wanted them to love me for who I am as a human or anything. It's that I firmly believe that there's more to software dev than just knowing a 'stack'. And even then, fair enough if they were curious about my .NET skills. But them asking about specific versions of .NET core really woke me up into how much of a commodity labourer they were trying to turn me into.
- vmception 5y ago
  I think the bigger issue here is that this process has made it too random and dilutive of the candidate pool. Many software engineers have accepted that they have to continually learn and will do so. This process though, makes it impossible to know what to learn with an impossible random and unknown credential set. It's not the same as something like elevator attendants having an obsoleted skillset. It's a combination of not having time in a lifetime to even try to specialize in the random employer chosen skillset. When instead, employers should expect a good engineer to adapt quickly and employers should also commit to training staff.
  - purplecats 5y ago
    > When instead, employers should expect a good engineer to adapt quickly and employers should also commit to training staff. At the risk of suggesting you might be dating yourself, I think this is an outdated model. It's simply no longer realistic. I personally believe that having personal expectations of what my adversaries or those outside of my control "should" do will inevitably result in sadness on my part. Corporations will aim to do what they must to increase profits (given, by definition). Any additional assumptions from that are liable to be faulty. Perhaps you are used to the times when they needed to train staff but that's simply a symptom of the circumstances as opposed to a duty.
    - vmception 5y ago
      I’m not used to that time, it would be more productive than what is currently happening which does not increase the profits of the corporations
garren 5y ago
Could you elaborate on how accepting it improved your career? Did it change the way you interview or the kinds of jobs you accept?
- LAC-Tech 5y ago
  It made me realise my normal process of: - going on $JOB_BOARD - sending out CV & Cover letter - talking to recruiter - going to 3 interviews - rinse and repeat Wasn't working. I was not in demand. I had to constantly reach out to people, just to get interviews at places I didn't really want to work for. And even then they'd usually reject me. It was a wake up call that I was on the fast track to nowhere, and something had to change. Ended up specialising in an industry and doing contract work. I'm not super successful yet, but there's a lot more interest in me. My work days are much less frustrating and I'm earning more.
  - vlttnv 5y ago
    Looks like I am on a similar path to you but you are a couple of steps ahead of me. Is there a place I can contact you with a few questions. I'd really appreciate it.
    - LAC-Tech 5y ago
      Sure, email in profile, happy to chat.
MattGaiser 5y ago
> where I realised no one gave a shit about anything except my utility as a walking set of tech keywords. I am genuinely asking. Why is this objectionable? Why do people find it so horrible that their labour is a commodity? To me that just tells me I should treat my labour like a merchant treats his goods. Always be checking the market to ensure you have something worth selling and while you might sign long term deals, periodically check for the best price to ensure you are getting it. Why is it important to you that your employer view you as a person?
- yarky 5y ago
  > Why is it important to you that your employer view you as a person? Because we, generally speaking, are people and not robots ;) That being said, I agree with your point : people would have less issues if they just felt happy about whatever makes logical sense. That's just way too hard to live by for most people.
- phdelightful 5y ago
  The answer to a charitable interpretation of your question: most tech workers don't mind exchanging their labor for money, of course. The answer to the question as written is...of course people want the entity that has outsize influence on 40 hours of their week to view them as a person instead of a mindless cog in a machine. People get treated better than cogs. Workers want their working hours to be as pleasant as possible, which is much more likely if your employer sees you as a person. Is that really surprising to you?
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    Not a mindless cog, but more as a merchant or even a labour supplying Lambda function. Just simply acknowledge that my employer and I are trading, the arrangement may end at any point for business reasons, and likely will end in a few years as our needs diverge. Needs can include a nice workplace and you can negotiate specific details about what that means to you. I did not mean to say that it needs to be money.
    - 5y ago
jshmrsn 5y ago
Is it possible the interviewer was asking this question because they wanted to get a sense of if you were aware of which version was being used? And as follow on, were you part of the decision to update or not update, and your thoughts on the trade offs in that kind of scenario? Just a possibility. Certainly if the recruiter is asking you that, that’s a bad sign (although recruiters are often very detached from the thinking of the teams they’re hiring for).
stadium 5y ago
> Accepting that it wasn't working for me was one of the best things I've done for my career. How did you pivot after this?
smcl 5y ago
Yeah it could be a lazy way for an interviewer to check a requirements box that says ".NET Core 3.1 experience". But there is a chance that this is a way to determine whether any upcoming questions are relevant - like if you haven't used .NET Core 3.x, it's probably pointless to ask a question relating to some feature introduced in C# 8.0. It's a contrived example of course (particularly if the end goal was just to check the "knows feature X from C# 8" box!) and I wasn't at those interviews so I've no way to know what their intent was. I'm occasionally on the other side of the interviewing table though so I'm just trying to reason through why this might come up. FWIW I hate the "what isn't in a linux inode" type questions, or situations designed to fuck with the interviewees.
amitport 5y ago
The fact that they ask this question does show some bias but it may not be as much as you think. I can interview a person and be interested in finding out how much he/she fits like a glove for the tech stack and still put more focus on other qualities. Moreover, I expect a capable dev to not be too judgmental/unconfident and just answer something along the lines: "No, I'm not familiar with this, but I have done [market themselves, mention relevant experience, ask relevant questions] and I'm confident I can get the job done"
moistoreos 5y ago
I think this is a problem for the greater .NET community in general. I've participated in dozens of interviews where the "technical" interview is them asking obscure .NET or C# related questions like your some kind of technical glossary. What's worse is these questions are likely related to the one or two instances it's ever used in their entire codebase(s).
machinevision 5y ago
What did you do differently once you accepted it?
Too 5y ago
Asking what version of a tool was used, actually reveals a lot about the candidate. It's not about knowing if you know the exact same version as the company. First probe is if the candidate doesn't have slightest clue what version they were using, that's a big red flag. This is more common than you would believe. Second probe, candidate knows, but they only used a 25 year old version (also more common than you would believe when it comes to c++), this can be a warning flag that they are not interested in learning new things. But doesn't have to be if it was company policy, which is also interesting if they were in position to change this. Third probe, ask follow up questions on differences since version N-1, this shows if candidate is staying up to date with latest trends or not.

This a hundred times over. I still remember in 2020 multiple places asking me "I see you've used .NET core, what *version* have you used?". I had a kind of car

purplecats 5y ago

did you expect others to have empathy for you?

LAC-Tech 5y ago
It's not that I wanted them to love me for who I am as a human or anything. It's that I firmly believe that there's more to software dev than just knowing a 'stack'. And even then, fair enough if they were curious about my .NET skills. But them asking about specific versions of .NET core really woke me up into how much of a commodity labourer they were trying to turn me into.
vmception 5y ago
I think the bigger issue here is that this process has made it too random and dilutive of the candidate pool. Many software engineers have accepted that they have to continually learn and will do so. This process though, makes it impossible to know what to learn with an impossible random and unknown credential set. It's not the same as something like elevator attendants having an obsoleted skillset. It's a combination of not having time in a lifetime to even try to specialize in the random employer chosen skillset. When instead, employers should expect a good engineer to adapt quickly and employers should also commit to training staff.
- purplecats 5y ago
  > When instead, employers should expect a good engineer to adapt quickly and employers should also commit to training staff. At the risk of suggesting you might be dating yourself, I think this is an outdated model. It's simply no longer realistic. I personally believe that having personal expectations of what my adversaries or those outside of my control "should" do will inevitably result in sadness on my part. Corporations will aim to do what they must to increase profits (given, by definition). Any additional assumptions from that are liable to be faulty. Perhaps you are used to the times when they needed to train staff but that's simply a symptom of the circumstances as opposed to a duty.
  - vmception 5y ago
    I’m not used to that time, it would be more productive than what is currently happening which does not increase the profits of the corporations

garren 5y ago

Could you elaborate on how accepting it improved your career? Did it change the way you interview or the kinds of jobs you accept?

LAC-Tech 5y ago
It made me realise my normal process of: - going on $JOB_BOARD - sending out CV & Cover letter - talking to recruiter - going to 3 interviews - rinse and repeat Wasn't working. I was not in demand. I had to constantly reach out to people, just to get interviews at places I didn't really want to work for. And even then they'd usually reject me. It was a wake up call that I was on the fast track to nowhere, and something had to change. Ended up specialising in an industry and doing contract work. I'm not super successful yet, but there's a lot more interest in me. My work days are much less frustrating and I'm earning more.
- vlttnv 5y ago
  Looks like I am on a similar path to you but you are a couple of steps ahead of me. Is there a place I can contact you with a few questions. I'd really appreciate it.
  - LAC-Tech 5y ago
    Sure, email in profile, happy to chat.

MattGaiser 5y ago

> where I realised no one gave a shit about anything except my utility as a walking set of tech keywords. I am genuinely asking. Why is this objectionable? Why do people find it so horrible that their labour is a commodity? To me that just tells me I should treat my labour like a merchant treats his goods. Always be checking the market to ensure you have something worth selling and while you might sign long term deals, periodically check for the best price to ensure you are getting it. Why is it important to you that your employer view you as a person?

yarky 5y ago
> Why is it important to you that your employer view you as a person? Because we, generally speaking, are people and not robots ;) That being said, I agree with your point : people would have less issues if they just felt happy about whatever makes logical sense. That's just way too hard to live by for most people.
phdelightful 5y ago
The answer to a charitable interpretation of your question: most tech workers don't mind exchanging their labor for money, of course. The answer to the question as written is...of course people want the entity that has outsize influence on 40 hours of their week to view them as a person instead of a mindless cog in a machine. People get treated better than cogs. Workers want their working hours to be as pleasant as possible, which is much more likely if your employer sees you as a person. Is that really surprising to you?
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Not a mindless cog, but more as a merchant or even a labour supplying Lambda function. Just simply acknowledge that my employer and I are trading, the arrangement may end at any point for business reasons, and likely will end in a few years as our needs diverge. Needs can include a nice workplace and you can negotiate specific details about what that means to you. I did not mean to say that it needs to be money.
  - 5y ago

jshmrsn 5y ago

Is it possible the interviewer was asking this question because they wanted to get a sense of if you were aware of which version was being used? And as follow on, were you part of the decision to update or not update, and your thoughts on the trade offs in that kind of scenario? Just a possibility. Certainly if the recruiter is asking you that, that’s a bad sign (although recruiters are often very detached from the thinking of the teams they’re hiring for).

stadium 5y ago

> Accepting that it wasn't working for me was one of the best things I've done for my career. How did you pivot after this?

smcl 5y ago

Yeah it could be a lazy way for an interviewer to check a requirements box that says ".NET Core 3.1 experience". But there is a chance that this is a way to determine whether any upcoming questions are relevant - like if you haven't used .NET Core 3.x, it's probably pointless to ask a question relating to some feature introduced in C# 8.0. It's a contrived example of course (particularly if the end goal was just to check the "knows feature X from C# 8" box!) and I wasn't at those interviews so I've no way to know what their intent was. I'm occasionally on the other side of the interviewing table though so I'm just trying to reason through why this might come up. FWIW I hate the "what isn't in a linux inode" type questions, or situations designed to fuck with the interviewees.

amitport 5y ago

The fact that they ask this question does show some bias but it may not be as much as you think. I can interview a person and be interested in finding out how much he/she fits like a glove for the tech stack and still put more focus on other qualities. Moreover, I expect a capable dev to not be too judgmental/unconfident and just answer something along the lines: "No, I'm not familiar with this, but I have done [market themselves, mention relevant experience, ask relevant questions] and I'm confident I can get the job done"

moistoreos 5y ago

I think this is a problem for the greater .NET community in general. I've participated in dozens of interviews where the "technical" interview is them asking obscure .NET or C# related questions like your some kind of technical glossary. What's worse is these questions are likely related to the one or two instances it's ever used in their entire codebase(s).

machinevision 5y ago

What did you do differently once you accepted it?

Too 5y ago

Asking what version of a tool was used, actually reveals a lot about the candidate. It's not about knowing if you know the exact same version as the company. First probe is if the candidate doesn't have slightest clue what version they were using, that's a big red flag. This is more common than you would believe. Second probe, candidate knows, but they only used a 25 year old version (also more common than you would believe when it comes to c++), this can be a warning flag that they are not interested in learning new things. But doesn't have to be if it was company policy, which is also interesting if they were in position to change this. Third probe, ask follow up questions on differences since version N-1, this shows if candidate is staying up to date with latest trends or not.