5 ms·

I work for a small-ish engineering firm on a small rock off the Norwegian coast. The local labour market for engineers, technicians and developers is pretty mu

by lb1lf 5y ago

I work for a small-ish engineering firm on a small rock off the Norwegian coast. The local labour market for engineers, technicians and developers is pretty much empty - as in, everybody with the skills required and the desire to live here already does. Recruiting more often than not means sniping, or, if we're lucky - that someone has recently found a partner with desirable skills and coaxed them into moving up here. Anyway, we've found that word of mouth is the most effective way; we simply let friends and associates, former colleagues and whatnot know that we're looking for X. This is a hundred times more effective than LinkedIn for vetting candidates - people are quite unlikely to uncritically recommend someone when they will be reminded of their sell-in for years if it is a dud. (Much unlike LinkedIn endorsements...) It turns out with friends&associates, friends&associates' friends&associates &c, you can cast a quite wide net - and also, the sell-in works better both ways; the candidates who do show up for interviews already have been told ours is a good place to be and are, more often than not, a good cultural fit. (And, before someone asks - 'cultural fit' means 'Happy to work in a rather unstructured madhouse where the unofficial motto is 'We've never done that before, so we're probably quite good at it!') - we've assembled a motley crew from just about every nook and cranny of the planet, from Sri Lanka via Belarus to Argentina and Japan and lots inbetween. Oh, and the occasional Norwegian. All making world-class subsea equipment on a small islet way out in the boonies.

e-pelaza 5y ago
Seeing your team from all over the world, are you guys still hiring? Taking apprentice?
- lb1lf 5y ago
  Oh, they all arrived here as flotsam some way or other - through love or war, basically. (The catch being that we currently do not have any remote employees and it is nigh on impossible to hire someone from outside the Schengen area unless they've already found another way to legally stay here. That usually means either being granted asylum or marrying someone, I'm afraid)
  - e-pelaza 5y ago
    So, assuming I can get Schengen Visa from another country, is the process easier? I want to immigrate and Norway, Sweden, Finland are my top 3 destination. The thing is, getting visa there is harder. But if getting a Schengen visa would help (probably from France), I'm interested about the process to follow, can we have a chat?
    - flakron 5y ago
      At least for Sweden the process is pretty straightforward (at least at the moment). Once you have a job offer, the offering company usually hires some lawyer or company licensed (to fast track the visa within a week, a month at max). Drop me some contact info, I can refer you. At least you can go through the process and check it out.
      - e-pelaza 5y ago
        You can email me at ralinoro [at] outlook [dot] fr.
    - BurningFrog 5y ago
      They're talking about changing it, but AFAIK, you can still get a pretty automatic visa for Sweden if an employer wants to hire you.
      - e-pelaza 5y ago
        How is the view towards self taught in Sweden?
        BurningFrog 5y ago
        Legally, you just need a job offer. There are no degree requirements.
celroid 5y ago
Do you not hire remotely from the entirety of the European Union? Would you consider hiring a web developer with 4 years of experience, of which 2.5 is backend and 1.5 is full stack (HTML, CSS, JS within a CMS)? I am asking because that reflects my situation and I am having a difficult time interviewing with most people expecting 3+ year exclusively in frontend. I have been trying to make a switch from backend to frontend development. I went from Backend Dev -> Fullstack Dev and I am currently trying to do the next step to -> Frontend Dev. Would be nice to know how to approach this.
- lb1lf 5y ago
  -We're at the other end of the stack, I'm afraid - Siemens S7 PLCs for the most part; whenever I code I basically write assembly code like it's 1979 - and it will never, ever be exposed to the web if I've got any say in the matter.
  - peteradio 5y ago
    No github then?
    - hutzlibu 5y ago
      He is talking about the running code. But since it is probably not open source, no GitHub either.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    Ah well, you can use (allmost) all the web technologies completely offline and even interfacing with low level hardware. So you could have javascript and html to power your devices, but you probably do not want to.
    - lb1lf 5y ago
      That we can, but we do not want to. :) We basically sold our soul to SIMATIC, Siemens' automation ecosystem long ago. While it does have its quirks (to put it charitably), it is utterly predictable; as a first-order approximation, the ridiculously underpowered, ridiculously overpriced hardware never fails. (Unless you exert undue influence with a blunt object or high voltage) I've (recently) patched code on Siemens PLCs being made in West Germany, that is, before October 1990. They still go about doing their thing. That kind of reliability makes me willing to suffer quite a lot of quirks. Hence, STL, Siemens' near-assembly experience, it is. Snippet below: A "InData".Joystick.WinchHoistCmd JCN lowr L "WinchDrumDb".SpeedExpCmd L "WinchDrumSetupDb".Winch.MaxJoystickSpeedCmd *R T "WinchDrumDb".SpeedCmd JU end2 At least it has mnemonics!
samvher 5y ago
That honestly sounds fantastic. I just accepted another job so I’m not looking now but I could easily imagine that this would be exactly the kind of thing (and place!) where I’d want to head a few years from now, and I think I would have a relevant profile (as an aerospace engineer with software skills and some exposure to embedded work and robotics). Would you mind dropping me an email (address in profile) with some more detail about the company?
pyb 5y ago
"Happy to work in a rather unstructured madhouse where the unofficial motto is 'We've never done that before, so we're probably quite good at it!'" OTOH, some of us are at their happiest in this kind of environment!
rolleiflex 5y ago
Incidentally, to your tips on what you guys are doing to hire, I would add 'posting insightful commentary on Hacker News', ha — likely this post alone has gotten you a couple new interested folks.
x0x0 5y ago
Do you mind sharing the (rough) area? It sounds awesome :)
- lb1lf 5y ago
  -Just a little north of the wall, at some 62N/6E.
  - x0x0 5y ago
    Thank you for sharing! Google returned these photos, which look both desolate and gorgeous: https://confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=62&lon=7 https://confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=62&lon=7 Particularly #5 here https://confluence.org/photo.php?visitid=6821&pic=5 https://confluence.org/photo.php?visitid=6821&pic=5 Though in photo #6 that looks mountain fed, and she looks tough.

by lb1lf 5y ago

e-pelaza 5y ago

Seeing your team from all over the world, are you guys still hiring? Taking apprentice?

lb1lf 5y ago
Oh, they all arrived here as flotsam some way or other - through love or war, basically. (The catch being that we currently do not have any remote employees and it is nigh on impossible to hire someone from outside the Schengen area unless they've already found another way to legally stay here. That usually means either being granted asylum or marrying someone, I'm afraid)
- e-pelaza 5y ago
  So, assuming I can get Schengen Visa from another country, is the process easier? I want to immigrate and Norway, Sweden, Finland are my top 3 destination. The thing is, getting visa there is harder. But if getting a Schengen visa would help (probably from France), I'm interested about the process to follow, can we have a chat?
  - flakron 5y ago
    At least for Sweden the process is pretty straightforward (at least at the moment). Once you have a job offer, the offering company usually hires some lawyer or company licensed (to fast track the visa within a week, a month at max). Drop me some contact info, I can refer you. At least you can go through the process and check it out.
    - e-pelaza 5y ago
      You can email me at ralinoro [at] outlook [dot] fr.
  - BurningFrog 5y ago
    They're talking about changing it, but AFAIK, you can still get a pretty automatic visa for Sweden if an employer wants to hire you.
    - e-pelaza 5y ago
      How is the view towards self taught in Sweden?
      - BurningFrog 5y ago
        Legally, you just need a job offer. There are no degree requirements.

celroid 5y ago

Do you not hire remotely from the entirety of the European Union? Would you consider hiring a web developer with 4 years of experience, of which 2.5 is backend and 1.5 is full stack (HTML, CSS, JS within a CMS)? I am asking because that reflects my situation and I am having a difficult time interviewing with most people expecting 3+ year exclusively in frontend. I have been trying to make a switch from backend to frontend development. I went from Backend Dev -> Fullstack Dev and I am currently trying to do the next step to -> Frontend Dev. Would be nice to know how to approach this.

lb1lf 5y ago
-We're at the other end of the stack, I'm afraid - Siemens S7 PLCs for the most part; whenever I code I basically write assembly code like it's 1979 - and it will never, ever be exposed to the web if I've got any say in the matter.
- peteradio 5y ago
  No github then?
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    He is talking about the running code. But since it is probably not open source, no GitHub either.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  Ah well, you can use (allmost) all the web technologies completely offline and even interfacing with low level hardware. So you could have javascript and html to power your devices, but you probably do not want to.
  - lb1lf 5y ago
    That we can, but we do not want to. :) We basically sold our soul to SIMATIC, Siemens' automation ecosystem long ago. While it does have its quirks (to put it charitably), it is utterly predictable; as a first-order approximation, the ridiculously underpowered, ridiculously overpriced hardware never fails. (Unless you exert undue influence with a blunt object or high voltage) I've (recently) patched code on Siemens PLCs being made in West Germany, that is, before October 1990. They still go about doing their thing. That kind of reliability makes me willing to suffer quite a lot of quirks. Hence, STL, Siemens' near-assembly experience, it is. Snippet below: A "InData".Joystick.WinchHoistCmd JCN lowr L "WinchDrumDb".SpeedExpCmd L "WinchDrumSetupDb".Winch.MaxJoystickSpeedCmd *R T "WinchDrumDb".SpeedCmd JU end2 At least it has mnemonics!

samvher 5y ago

That honestly sounds fantastic. I just accepted another job so I’m not looking now but I could easily imagine that this would be exactly the kind of thing (and place!) where I’d want to head a few years from now, and I think I would have a relevant profile (as an aerospace engineer with software skills and some exposure to embedded work and robotics). Would you mind dropping me an email (address in profile) with some more detail about the company?

pyb 5y ago

"Happy to work in a rather unstructured madhouse where the unofficial motto is 'We've never done that before, so we're probably quite good at it!'" OTOH, some of us are at their happiest in this kind of environment!

rolleiflex 5y ago

Incidentally, to your tips on what you guys are doing to hire, I would add 'posting insightful commentary on Hacker News', ha — likely this post alone has gotten you a couple new interested folks.

x0x0 5y ago

Do you mind sharing the (rough) area? It sounds awesome :)

lb1lf 5y ago
-Just a little north of the wall, at some 62N/6E.
- x0x0 5y ago
  Thank you for sharing! Google returned these photos, which look both desolate and gorgeous: https://confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=62&lon=7 https://confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=62&lon=7 Particularly #5 here https://confluence.org/photo.php?visitid=6821&pic=5 https://confluence.org/photo.php?visitid=6821&pic=5 Though in photo #6 that looks mountain fed, and she looks tough.