5 ms·

Thanks! FWIW it's not a knee-jerk reaction post, though choice of words can always be better, especially for someone who doesn't have English as their native la

Thanks! FWIW it's not a knee-jerk reaction post, though choice of words can always be better, especially for someone who doesn't have English as their native language. I'm not irritated. I'm more lost for words. And I honestly wanted to ask others what's their experience. In 2021. In Scandinavia or worldwide. In a so-called "hot market". Post Corona etc. My examples come from tenS of interviews, maybe even hundreds. It's not 10 interviews. Obviously many have been totally fine, regardless it still ends in a "no, thanks" on any side. But a good chunk of them are light years away from "we have a problem to solve, this is us, this is you, can we work together?" I truly respect even snarky comments pointing out how rude and infatuated I come out, but my experience is exactly the opposite: everyone seems to be doing things perfectly, except they can't find replacements or more people, and when someone gets interested in joining, they become defensive. As you point out, one needs to ask the question: is it me the problem? And nobody is perfect, not even close. Not me at least. But that thing is that I am expected to be perfect. Like a comment says: I should learn to lie and pass the polygraph test. Well, I will never do that, so now we know what that will get me (from the same comment).

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
I have the same thought as grandparent commenter, and your last paragraph isn't making my perception any better. IMO, go to a career coach, or psychiatrist, and get a neutral perspective of whether they see you as having a difficult personality. I've read that most people decide on hiring on the idea of whether they'd want to have a beer with that person. Yeah it's not fair, but well, they're paying for those beers (being metaphoric here), and how badly do you need one?
- aeortiz 5y ago
  This strikes a chord because I struggle with social anxiety...I wouldn't want to go out for a beer with any coworker, only with friends I've vetted over months/years. I hope I am in any other way capable of being a good engineer. Should I not be hired because of it?
  - nordicengineer 5y ago
    Thanks for writing this! We're all so different, socially, stage in life (kids for instance), ways of working, etc. not to mention thinking of how this applies to hiring women. "What? You don't want to grab a drink with me?" Lost for words.
    - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
      Well, ignore the last bit then, but I hope you don't ignore the first part, I'm genuinely curious if you didn't like my suggestion and would use that beer thing to dismiss me as another "who doesn't get it". If I had a physical discomfort and asked online for ideas what it could be, and someone said e.g. "it could be that you're lacking magnesium, you should confirm that with a professional.", I would do so. I already asked for advice, to dismiss people giving them would be, well what's the point of me asking?
  - 15kingben 5y ago
    I think "wanting to go for a beer" is a pretty bad metric for many reasons, not the least of which is that I don't like drinking beer. A better metric might be: "If I need help would I regret asking this person?" or "If I had a disagreement would it be an overall positive experience?" I have worked with people who excel technically but that skill is largely offset by the negative effect they have on social interactions.
    - zcw100 5y ago
      I don't think it's a bad metric (it really isn't a metric at all) but it's a bad example. It doesn't have anything to do with going out or drinking beer. I think there's a negative connotation because people interpret it as, "Less talented developers who can schmooze and socialize will get ahead". I don't think that's what this means at all. It's that writing software is a team sport and thinking that you can go it alone and that interacting with teammates isn't important is a flag right there. Your skills generally only effect yourself. If you're on a team of 10 your own personal skills are only 1/10 of the contribution. Worst case is you aren't that good but the damage is limited to 1/10th. If you've got problems interacting with people you can take out the entire team. Am I going to come in on Monday and have 5 developers at my door telling me about all the crap you pulled? Larry says you told him that you're just being honest but his code sucks. Susan says you revered her code and then made a monster commit touching nearly everything without telling anyone. Apparently you spent the entire weekend reworking the entire build system to some new system because according to you it's way better than what we are using and now no one can get any work done until they figure out what you've done nor did you get permission to even make the changes. Then to top it off insulted the entire team by implying they were too stupid to see how awesome what you have done is and they should be thanking you. How are you going to fix this? If you were a weak developer there are things you can do to about that. Fixing a persons inability to get along with others is more difficult. So now they're in the position of firing you. You'd have to be really bad not to make it an unpleasant business and afterward it's going to take weeks to shake off the bad feelings. As a hiring manager I'm never going be given a hard time for passing on what might have been a good candidate but I'm definitely going to hear it about hiring someone who makes their lives miserable on a daily basis. See the problem now? That isn't a description of you but they don't know that but they've probably had experiences like that so they're simply playing the numbers at risk mitigation and when you give them reason to think that might be the way things are going to go they pass.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago

I have the same thought as grandparent commenter, and your last paragraph isn't making my perception any better. IMO, go to a career coach, or psychiatrist, and get a neutral perspective of whether they see you as having a difficult personality. I've read that most people decide on hiring on the idea of whether they'd want to have a beer with that person. Yeah it's not fair, but well, they're paying for those beers (being metaphoric here), and how badly do you need one?

aeortiz 5y ago
This strikes a chord because I struggle with social anxiety...I wouldn't want to go out for a beer with any coworker, only with friends I've vetted over months/years. I hope I am in any other way capable of being a good engineer. Should I not be hired because of it?
- nordicengineer 5y ago
  Thanks for writing this! We're all so different, socially, stage in life (kids for instance), ways of working, etc. not to mention thinking of how this applies to hiring women. "What? You don't want to grab a drink with me?" Lost for words.
  - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
    Well, ignore the last bit then, but I hope you don't ignore the first part, I'm genuinely curious if you didn't like my suggestion and would use that beer thing to dismiss me as another "who doesn't get it". If I had a physical discomfort and asked online for ideas what it could be, and someone said e.g. "it could be that you're lacking magnesium, you should confirm that with a professional.", I would do so. I already asked for advice, to dismiss people giving them would be, well what's the point of me asking?
- 15kingben 5y ago
  I think "wanting to go for a beer" is a pretty bad metric for many reasons, not the least of which is that I don't like drinking beer. A better metric might be: "If I need help would I regret asking this person?" or "If I had a disagreement would it be an overall positive experience?" I have worked with people who excel technically but that skill is largely offset by the negative effect they have on social interactions.
  - zcw100 5y ago
    I don't think it's a bad metric (it really isn't a metric at all) but it's a bad example. It doesn't have anything to do with going out or drinking beer. I think there's a negative connotation because people interpret it as, "Less talented developers who can schmooze and socialize will get ahead". I don't think that's what this means at all. It's that writing software is a team sport and thinking that you can go it alone and that interacting with teammates isn't important is a flag right there. Your skills generally only effect yourself. If you're on a team of 10 your own personal skills are only 1/10 of the contribution. Worst case is you aren't that good but the damage is limited to 1/10th. If you've got problems interacting with people you can take out the entire team. Am I going to come in on Monday and have 5 developers at my door telling me about all the crap you pulled? Larry says you told him that you're just being honest but his code sucks. Susan says you revered her code and then made a monster commit touching nearly everything without telling anyone. Apparently you spent the entire weekend reworking the entire build system to some new system because according to you it's way better than what we are using and now no one can get any work done until they figure out what you've done nor did you get permission to even make the changes. Then to top it off insulted the entire team by implying they were too stupid to see how awesome what you have done is and they should be thanking you. How are you going to fix this? If you were a weak developer there are things you can do to about that. Fixing a persons inability to get along with others is more difficult. So now they're in the position of firing you. You'd have to be really bad not to make it an unpleasant business and afterward it's going to take weeks to shake off the bad feelings. As a hiring manager I'm never going be given a hard time for passing on what might have been a good candidate but I'm definitely going to hear it about hiring someone who makes their lives miserable on a daily basis. See the problem now? That isn't a description of you but they don't know that but they've probably had experiences like that so they're simply playing the numbers at risk mitigation and when you give them reason to think that might be the way things are going to go they pass.