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The rapid increases in compensation right now isn’t even the primary motivator. That’s the icing on the cake in case you weren’t sure. In the big companies sen

The rapid increases in compensation right now isn’t even the primary motivator. That’s the icing on the cake in case you weren’t sure. In the big companies senior developers are tired of the failed institutionalism. Most large companies I have worked at are Java shops and do everything the same way. They move so astonishingly slowly and spend a lot of time convincing themselves otherwise with agile. It’s not hard to feel like a 100x developer when working on an open source project that does 10x your corporate equivalent in a fraction of the time. What I have learned from interviewing: * front end skills are dead. If you are a startup use react for everything, otherwise you can dick around with Angular or some custom jQuery looking mistake. It doesn’t matter. Its all unimportant MVP that just needs to look good and will get fixed after business exit or lawsuit. * for backend don’t worry about inverting binary trees. That’s so last generation. Now the interview process is to build an entire tech stack in 3 hours or play in a software toy box of a trillion dependencies or service tools. Good systems automation skills or just services are too boring. * Open source contributions are resume line items, like education. If you want people to take that serious be very explicit about the value of your open source contributions on your resume. Even then be prepared to treat open source as a new business pitch deck if asked. * If you are a non-management developer don’t bother with things of social value. These are commonly viewed as a harmful distractions. This includes professional certifications, social organizations, accreditation’s, security clearances, and so forth.

amcoastal 5y ago
You're the first person to tell me accreditation or clearances are a negative, but maybe we apply for different jobs. I'm going to continue to believe the opposite until you show some evidence.
- cableshaft 5y ago
  They're very important in any company that has a partnership, like with AWS or Microsoft Azure. They have to maintain a certain number of people with certs to keep their partnership, so they push for their employees to get it. Seems very common in consulting, for example. Hiring someone that already has those certs makes things easier. Also for the companies that need security clearances, I've seen plenty of job postings that have security clearances are required (or the job is contingent on your ability to get one). I'd be surprised if that wasn't still valued.
- flerchin 5y ago
  Not OP. It's anecdata, but our worst candidates all had AWS certified developer as a top bullet-point on their resumes.
  - sylens 5y ago
    Maybe the guidance then should be around how much emphasis is placed on the cert in the resume, rather than the mere presence of it. I think we have all seen resumes where there is an alphabet soup of certifications and a lack of real projects or positions. But if they just have a cert casually listed near the bottom, it's usually a compliment to the work they were already doing in that area (and maybe their employer paid them to go and get it)
- arcbyte 5y ago
  "Bad" meaning all the worst candidates have these certificates while very very few of the best candidates had certs (presumably they were busy building things with the knowledge than passing tests). "Good" in that certain roles require certificates to make nondev clients feel better. Government contracts, consulting, etc. Places where appearance/marketing is more important than skill.
- thefourthchime 5y ago
  First chapter in cracking the coding interview also agrees. Certifications may be seen as compensating for lack of experience.
  - backoncemore 5y ago
    Anecdotally, engineers that I have interviewed that had a litany of certifications were very weak candidates. As were bootcampers, which is similar I guess.
david_allison 5y ago
> Open source contributions are resume line items, like education. If you want people to take that serious be very explicit about the value of your open source contributions on your resume. Even then be prepared to treat open source as a new business pitch deck if asked. Do you have any good articles/recommendations on this?
francisofascii 5y ago
Curious why certs would count against you? I know people who spend their free time learning and studying for those exams. Should they simply be spending more time working on open source projects or watching TV?
- ryandrake 5y ago
  A good example might be an MBA. Given how much antagonism I've seen towards the degree here on HN, I've been tempted to remove mention of mine from my resume. If you ask some people here, it's as if it invalidates 20+ years of software development and project management experience.
zz865 5y ago
So front end is dead and back end is dead? We're all just sysadmins now.

amcoastal 5y ago

You're the first person to tell me accreditation or clearances are a negative, but maybe we apply for different jobs. I'm going to continue to believe the opposite until you show some evidence.

cableshaft 5y ago
They're very important in any company that has a partnership, like with AWS or Microsoft Azure. They have to maintain a certain number of people with certs to keep their partnership, so they push for their employees to get it. Seems very common in consulting, for example. Hiring someone that already has those certs makes things easier. Also for the companies that need security clearances, I've seen plenty of job postings that have security clearances are required (or the job is contingent on your ability to get one). I'd be surprised if that wasn't still valued.
flerchin 5y ago
Not OP. It's anecdata, but our worst candidates all had AWS certified developer as a top bullet-point on their resumes.
- sylens 5y ago
  Maybe the guidance then should be around how much emphasis is placed on the cert in the resume, rather than the mere presence of it. I think we have all seen resumes where there is an alphabet soup of certifications and a lack of real projects or positions. But if they just have a cert casually listed near the bottom, it's usually a compliment to the work they were already doing in that area (and maybe their employer paid them to go and get it)
arcbyte 5y ago
"Bad" meaning all the worst candidates have these certificates while very very few of the best candidates had certs (presumably they were busy building things with the knowledge than passing tests). "Good" in that certain roles require certificates to make nondev clients feel better. Government contracts, consulting, etc. Places where appearance/marketing is more important than skill.
thefourthchime 5y ago
First chapter in cracking the coding interview also agrees. Certifications may be seen as compensating for lack of experience.
- backoncemore 5y ago
  Anecdotally, engineers that I have interviewed that had a litany of certifications were very weak candidates. As were bootcampers, which is similar I guess.

david_allison 5y ago

> Open source contributions are resume line items, like education. If you want people to take that serious be very explicit about the value of your open source contributions on your resume. Even then be prepared to treat open source as a new business pitch deck if asked. Do you have any good articles/recommendations on this?

francisofascii 5y ago

Curious why certs would count against you? I know people who spend their free time learning and studying for those exams. Should they simply be spending more time working on open source projects or watching TV?

ryandrake 5y ago
A good example might be an MBA. Given how much antagonism I've seen towards the degree here on HN, I've been tempted to remove mention of mine from my resume. If you ask some people here, it's as if it invalidates 20+ years of software development and project management experience.

zz865 5y ago

So front end is dead and back end is dead? We're all just sysadmins now.