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Ask HN: Any other self taught devs terrified of interviewing these days?

• cowvin 4y ago
  If you feel a degree is that important to your confidence level, you could go get one. I will say that when we interview people, for senior positions, we hardly look at their education. You have 10 years of experience, so your interview would most likely depend on that.
• llaolleh 4y ago
  It's especially hard for people who like me who choke during interviews and freeze like a deer. :(.
• nunez 4y ago
  I also joined the industry (over) ten years ago, and I'm pretty sure people were saying similar things. if you're good, you're good. no need to be terrified.
• mindcrime 4y ago
  Considering how many candidates are out there who have B.S., M.S., or even Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science, but can't even manage to write FizzBuzz, I think your fears are a bit overstated IF you are actually reasonably competent and are capable of showing it. Anyway, in my experience degrees are more about simply getting past the first-level HR filter than anything, and don't get you hire per-se. And with 10+ years of experience, you'll get past the first-level HR filter just as easily, so really it comes down to demonstrated competence. Can you show/convince (an) interviewer(s) that you are competent? If you can, you'll be fine.
  • afr0ck 4y ago
    I am doing PhD in CS. I solved and designed algorithms to solve very tricky and hard concurrency problems (mostly in the Linux kernel). I ported the Linux kernel to a research CPU architecture. I wrote complex system software to deal with memory models, heterogeneity and cross-ISA migration, modfying glibc, llvm, linux.ld and tens of other system software. I worked on KVM, kernel network stack, networked filesystems and implemented distributed systems levraging all of them. However, I have no single idea what is FizzBuzz, and if someone asks me to do it an interview, I would fail miserably. I also only code in C and lots of LeetCode type of questions are a nightmare for me.
    • filoleg 4y ago
      > I have no single idea what is FizzBuzz, and if someone asks me to do it an interview, I would fail miserably. If you know what you are doing even in the slightest, you won't fail. No one will put you next to the whiteboard and say "do FizzBuzz", expecting you to know exactly what it is and what to do. They will say "write a function that takes in a positive integer as an argument, and then counts from 0 up to that integer. Every time a count is divisible by 3, print out 'Fizz'. Every time a count is divisible by 5, print 'Buzz'. If a count is divisible by both 3 and 5, print 'FizzBuzz'". I cannot imagine someone who wrote all the complex things you did, but is not able to write a toy counter function like that.
      • afr0ck 4y ago
        To be honest, that's the first time ever in my life to read the description of FizzBuzz, which is ridiculous. But I was just answering the parent and providing a data point that proves the correctness of his statement. But in general, I find LeetCode style interviewing very boring and dry. Like all of those "Given a string, find a substring that satisfies bla bla condition", or "given a matrix as csv input, read it then calculate some BS and find the best estimation for some other BS, etc". When I was very young and naive, that might be fine, but at this point in my life, I just get super super bored and annoyed by such questions. Instead, I prefer contextual questions. Like if you're hiring for a low-level network programmer, let me do some socket stuff in C or Go, implement a backoff mechanism in a given code template, discuss some TCP/IP congestion stuff, discuss some code, add a small feature, put a bunch of system calls and watch how I care about performance (blocking vs non-blocking, epoll vs select, shared-memory vs message-passing, context switching, etc) and how I handle errors, and also observe my workflow, how I check the documentation, the man pages, debugging, etc. I think this is a much more reliable and less frustrating way of interviewing and I believe it attracts very highly skilled and motivated people.
• aaronrobinson 4y ago
  Why do you think it’s hopeless? Having a CS degree is just one attribute a candidate brings. I’d personally value 10 years without that 5 with but there are so many other factors to consider in candidates.
• EddieDante 4y ago
  I'm not terrified of interviewing. I just think it's an even bigger pain in the ass than dating. The older I get the less patience I have for people who need me to sell myself to them as if I were a commodity and not a human being. I don't think you need to be a feminist to say "WE ARE NOT THINGS". I am not a resource. I am not "human capital". I'm a man who happens to need to work for a living. Deal with me as such or not at all.
  • the_only_law 4y ago
    > I just think it's an even bigger pain in the ass than dating. It’s even worse compared with modern dating apps. Like dating apps, I can’t even trust that job applications are real and actually interested in finding someone. And just as with dating no one I seem to like likes me and vice versa.
    • rgblambda 4y ago
      >I can’t even trust that job applications are real and actually interested in finding someone. I got burned by this recently. A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn about a job opening at a company I had previously been interested in joining. One phone screening and one Teams call with two different external recruiters later I was informed that the company wasn't even hiring for that role. Of course this was partially on me. If I had looked at the careers section of their website I would have seen that the role I was applying for wasn't listed.
    • alphanumeric0 4y ago
      Yeah I had the same thought. I get the feeling there are more than a few places out there posting jobs just to gather massive amounts of resumes with no intent to contact anyone.
      • m3047 4y ago
        My meat grinder has about 500 companies, 200+ I touch every three months. There are a lot of companies with same / similar ads for extended periods. Some of them I've applied to, and discovered after they'd been in the meat grinder for a while. Wish I could do something with that info. A deadpool where the posting that's been up the longest wins the daily pool?
• mikkergp 4y ago
  Can you dig further into the specifics of your worry? I find that most interviews focus on my knowledge or experience, I’ve never really had the degree come up. You are somewhat alluding to two problems though, interviewing with 10 years of experience and the path you took to get there. Starting out may be harder(although it’s an employees market out there right now so it may be a great time to start) But it’s funny you say 10 years ago. I started 20 years ago and don’t feel like 10 years ago is that much different from today(though would say it seemed easier to start out 20 years ago)
• treis 4y ago
  I'm pretty sure 85% of the people I interviewed with didn't read my resume and my education never came up.
  • 7speter 4y ago
    My resume is a list of projects I made myself. I had an interview where the interviewer obviously didn’t bother looking at my resume until he got on camera with me, and he asked, “can you tell me about your time at 5 day weather app?” Needless to say I didn’t get the job.
• pjerem 4y ago
  I’m not in the US but from France. I know two things for sure : - Hiring is stupidly hard. There is basically nobody applying. - For any non junior position, we dont even care about the degree. Personally, I don’t even read this part of the CV. Experience matters way more. For me, as long as you are doing decent work, nobody will avan care about what degree you have. Furthermore, I’d say that companies filtering you on this is a good thing : you really don’t want to work for a company that recruit people based on a piece of paper they got decades ago.
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • cheeze 4y ago
    I'm at a FAANG and I'm in the same boat. I don't care at all if you have a degree, the resume is just to get your foot in the door. Interviewing sucks, but it's mainly because the people doing it are poorly trained, at least in my experience.
    • throwaway2016a 4y ago
      I almost interviewed for a FAANG company recently (they put a hiring freeze in before I could get in the interview) and they literally told me to grind "Leetcode Hard" problems to prepare. I have 20 years experience but the kind of problems that are "hard" on leetcode are a very different than what I have done day to day during that time. I wish my degree and experience would speak for itself. But in reality it seems like exactly that... the degree doesn't matter. Edit: Last time I mentioned it I got hammered by people in HN essentially telling me I must not be good enough. But having done a lot of interviews on the interviewer side, I can say pretty certainly that Leetcode skill is not directly correlated with Software Engineering skills.
      • hnfong 4y ago
        I dabbled in competitive programming a bit (~20 years ago) and can confirm this. Since everyone was talking about leetcode recently, I went and did a couple questions there. Smart people with some CS background but without specific training can reasonably expect to find medium challenging but not impossible. Hard usually requires some specific knowledge of the tricks to do those types of questions -- and these tricks are rarely used outside of specific niches. Solving leetcode type problems are generally kind of fun for me (might be considered an "acquired taste"), but I don't believe all programmers/software engineers need to grind them to become good... I've personally never really applied those competitive programming skills in my 10+ years career (outside of interviewing...) Those who have done so are probably in the minority (and I suspect, probably over-engineered the solution a bit).
• barrkel 4y ago
  No. I learned algorithm complexity in secondary school and started early enough that coding my own hash table was a normal exercise because the standard library didn't come with one (Turbo Pascal). I also discovered competitive coding via the International Olympiad in Informatics (also a school thing, pre-college), and the kinds of problems in those turn out to be almost identical in form to today's style of coding interview. I only had to learn recursion and I could start hacking away at problems. Fancy techniques like "dynamic programming" are normally amenable to memoized (i.e. cached) recursion implementations, but in practice most interview problems aren't even that hard. Now, I went to college, but it was a mixed degree with business and it didn't teach things like hash table implementation, let alone pointers. Algo analysis material was weak. I was the best student only because I knew it already. The degree is mostly useful for visa qualification. I also got very good at pool.
• logbiscuitswave 4y ago
  I feel this. I’ve done pretty well for myself — I have decades of practical experience and have risen to be a principal engineer at my work. I can write what I feel is pretty solid, robust, performant, and well-architected code in many different languages across all ends of the stack from high-level UI to low-level system-level components. I don’t have a CS degree and am largely self-taught. I tend to struggle a lot with theory and I stink at algorithms. (I can generally understand them, but coding one from scratch would be a struggle since these fundamentals aren’t committed to memory and in the real world are rarely necessary to recall at the drop of a hat.) Given my non-traditional background and keen awareness of my blind-spots, I really struggle with impostor syndrome. I also fear the interview process because I don’t want to look stupid and come to realize my past success was driven by chance rather than smarts. I also know how much of a grind the entire process can be and how it seems like many interviewers are more interested in making themselves look smart rather than honestly assess a candidate. All of these things are probably more of a function of projection and insecurity rather than reality, but they all feel real to me.
• mikebenfield 4y ago
  I don't know if I can relate. Was the industry really "almost entirely" autodidacts 10 years ago? Were CS graduates "nerds" in a way that autodidacts weren't? It's still very possible to get into tech without a traditional CS education, and it's not clear why it seems hopeless to you to compete against someone with a degree -- ACAICT most interviewers don't even look at candidates' resumes.
  • bluefirebrand 4y ago
    10 years ago? I sincerely doubt it.
  • tharkun__ 4y ago
    Completely agree. 10 years ago is 2012. That really isn't a very long time ago. I studied computer science well before that and even then it wasn't true that the industry was "almost entirely autodidacts". That's my dad's generation, where a computer science degree wasn't even a thing you could get. You'd have studied math or electrical engineering or some such and you kinda got into the computer side of things, e.g. through the computer lab usage at university. I can also tell you that for someone with 10 years of experience, I don't look for a degree at all when I hire. Sure, I will read your whole CV and will see whether or not you have a formal degree, but I won't throw out your CV just because I don't see a computer science degree. Whether you have a degree or not, I will check whether you know how to code, talk about software, design a system etc.
  • Gigachad 4y ago
    Also don't relate. Got my first job in tech about 6 years ago, last interview was 6 months ago. Found the interviewing process very easy and got an offer I was happy with after 1 week of searching. I'm not applying at big tech where you need to do 20 hours of real time leet coding. Just a regular B2B product where they quizzed me on ruby/rails for 30 minutes and another general vibe interview and that was it. Reading the responses to this thread, it seems clear most of this is a lack of social skills rather than any change in the industry.
  • throwaway675309 4y ago
    I mean I can only speak purely anecdotally, but I graduated with a CS degree nearly 20 years ago and in my ensuing career, 90% of my colleagues had either electrical engineering or computer science backgrounds, so I honestly have no idea what he's referring to. If anything, I'd actually argue that there are more non-traditional routes to working as a software dev today.
• kusha 4y ago
  Not at all -- I have no degree with ~8 YOE. Recruiters and hiring managers don't even inquire about my education anymore. I assume your worries come from the leetcode trend in interviews. Personally, I let recruiters that are knocking down my door via LinkedIn or email my expectations up front. Salary & no leetcode (algorithmic problems), I have found a lot of success. There are many companies willing to give sane interviews with real world SWE problems. Experience is highly valued in this field. Someone with 10 YOE isn't really competing with someone with 5 YOE. If you talk to anyone involved in hiring nowadays it's extremely difficult to find experienced devs. Experience will always trump education.
  • mtoddsmith 4y ago
    Someone with 10 YOE of desktop experience can't compete with someone with 5 YOE of cloud based experience for a saas opportunity.
• gdfgjhs 4y ago
  I graduated in early 2000s, and I heard same things from CS students/graduates and self-taught developers. They all said the golden age of computer science was 60s, 70s, 80s, or early 90s when people got into computers for love of it not money. Now everyone is computers for money. Sadly though I did meet a lot of students in my CS program who were in it for money and openly admitted they hate programming, logic, etc and cannot wait until they get a job and then move into management.
  • xtracto 4y ago
    I graduated in 2003 form a Software Engineering programme. From the 100 people that started the 1st semester, only 15 of us got out. Of those 15, 4 of us had a Software Development specialization, around 5 specialized in Networking and the rest chose "Administrative IT" specialization. Most students didn't like programming, but knew that there was money to be made in computer technology (we started in 1999, the internet was booming before the 2000 bubble burst).
• ravenstine 4y ago
  With the demand for software, I don't think it matters that much how many devs are churned out. Most of them are going to be mediocre and have poor interviewing skills. Boot camp grads really don't pose serious competition to anyone besides other junior developers. With a resume that has good formatting and spelling, people skills, networking, and maybe a few personal projects, it's entirely possible to get hired today. With 10 years of experience, I'd be surprised if anyone gave a f--- about whether you have a degree in most cases.
  • YeGoblynQueenne 4y ago
    With 10 years of experience your biggest problem is likely to be that the person reviewing you doesn't have half your experience.
    • kabdib 4y ago
      I once told a manager that I'd been using C longer than he'd been alive. He took it the right way. :-)
  • fendy3002 4y ago
    And one tip for junior who is first time job seeking: fake your confidence, and learn to fake your confidence while keep improving your skills. Second, interview is a number game, though it's against you (..r time). Send as many applications (even though you barely or almost meet the requirements) and have as many interview as you can.
• take_it_not 4y ago
  you have ten years of exp, you shouldn’t be worried about having no degree at all… unless you are not in US?
• stefanos82 4y ago
  I'm not only terrified, but petrified...literally! After getting rejected for years, I have decided to stop from even trying. It has cost me a lot of pain, physical and psychological, not to mention the emotional damage. You know, panic attacks, stomach ulcer, colitis...the whole package! I have been telling this for years, but people think I lost my mind :/ I'm fortunate enough that more and more friends that are around my age (40+) or even younger have noticed the same thing and don't know what to do. I have no idea how to interview anymore; whatever I say it's either wrong or not enough. * If I speak more than they want, I'm wrong. * If I say near nothing, again I'm wrong. * If I say EXACTLY what they want to hear, they go "meh". * If I show my skills, I'm considered a smart ass. * If I don't show my actual skills, again I'm considered an asshole for hiding my knowledge from them, therefore I'm considered untrustworthy. ...I could go on and on and on and on, but this is your "Ask HN", not mine LOL! Feel free to check my submissions and my comments on related topics and you will find you are not alone in this. Virtual hugs my friend, we are together in this. Update: I forgot to mention that I have a CS diploma which is basically worthless...trust me, the toilet paper you use has higher value than my degree, HA!
  • hellohowareu 4y ago
    You have a web portfolio, a github account with a few open source projects, and an active linkedin presence? That's what lands me jobs. no tech degree. just a couple classes in statistcs & databases under my belt. other than that, self-taught via online resources (videos, ebooks, forums, chatrooms)
    • 7speter 4y ago
      I recently went to a virtual meetup for help on a project and the organizer got mad at me for using a tutorial to scaffold my project and called me out on the call. I was so frustrated by the ridiculousness that I just immediately signed off and left the meetup group and discord.
      • stefanos82 4y ago
        Oh I have a better story! :D An HR called me after a 1 and a half years I originally applied for a C++ position at a FinTech company to ask me whether I'm still interested in it. I replied "of course I am!" and she asked me to send her my resume, updated. As soon as she received it, she immediately replied back "but here says you are an Assistant Systems Administrator; how about to arrange you another position that is closer to what you are currently doing?". I was like "WOMAN! Read the darn line after what you read that says 'Teaching assistant (C++) during office hours', I have the necessary experience! Are you playing with me now, why did you even call me in the first place?!". I nearly exploded from my nerves and she didn't like it. She started shouting at me and closed the phone. I checked her name online; lo and behold, the very first result Google returned was her (age 23) thanking an Anger Management Center for talking courses how to handle her wrath(!) with annoying customers. I was speechless! You let a young, fresh graduate without previous experience to handle the most difficult department of your work...at a freaking FinTech company that deals with billions of dollars at a global scale? Things have gone very wrong at so many levels...GLOBALLY!
• x99x 4y ago
  Change your mindset. With 10 years of experience, in my last two job searches I felt incredibly well positioned to interview for senior roles, and ended up with dream jobs in both cases. I have no degree. I've noticed a trend in the last 3 years where companies require a degree OR equivalent experience. Which is awesome. If you're a great engineer and you're friendly, be confident in yourself! I did struggle initially with the "coding challenge" nonsense used as a candidate filter these days, then realized I'd never paid attention to data structures and algorithms (which is covered heavily in computer science degree), so I spent time learning this and I was fine. I still wish these would go away. TLDR: Don't worry about competition. Worry about yourself.
  • kabdib 4y ago
    The "... or equivalent experience" has been in job descriptions for as long as I can remember. Since the 80s, for sure. I have only seen one instance of a software engineer not being hired because they lacked a degree, and the three or four of us in the org who also did not have degrees were pretty upset at a certain idiot manager. I wish I'd kept track of that candidate, because they were on fire and going places.
• killingtime74 4y ago
  If it bothers you so much why not do a degree? It’s like 2 years
  • yCombLinks 4y ago
    A standard university computer science degree is 4 years full time. Generally past that age it's not possible to put your life on hold to go to school full time, so even 4 years can be pushing it.
    • killingtime74 4y ago
      I did a two year masters to become a programmer. My brother went to law school part time. It’s not easy but if it solves the problem should OP not even consider it?
      • yCombLinks 4y ago
        Not sure where you're at, but in the US a masters is generally only available to someone that already has a bachelor's. I'm not saying it isn't worth it, but the traditional bachelor's path is 4 years of full time work.
• sparker72678 4y ago
  Have you (did you) consider hiring an interview coach? Often the first few layers of interview are the most difficult, then it eases up as you get to just talk to real human beings. Having someone help you play the game to get to the next step could be helpful. (None of this is to say I condone the asinine hiring paths so many companies have adopted.)
• hcrean 4y ago
  I had been programming for over ten years when I first ran into FizzBuzz, suffice to say I failed the exercise and wasn't offered the job. So I just moved onto the next interview and passed that one. Sure, you can't prove that finding subcycles in a directed-graph is an NP-Hard problem on a whiteboard, or implement a linked-list or invert a binary tree by hand: But what you have is hard-earned common sense and a meaningful understanding of how software evolves over time. This is valuable to any company and many have identified that they are in desperate need of it.
  • Leherenn 4y ago
    Why did you fail Fizzbuzz if I may ask? I have heard a lot about people with 10 yoe but who can't write 3 lines of code in an interview, and I have always wondered what was the cause. It can't be that all those people just got lucky and never did anything for 10 years. I'm sure you realised after the fact this was absolutely trivial and you could have finished that in a few minutes. Also, what changed that you passed the next interview? What didn't you also (I assume) freeze in that one?
    • zo1 4y ago
      Not OP. But my worst fear with fizzbuzz would be that I'd forget the damn modulus operator. In python % is used for string formatting and I would have to quickly Google it to be 100% sure of any gotchas. Doing that in an interview the people would think "wow, 15 years of exp and doesn't know the modulus operator!!".
      • Leherenn 4y ago
        When I interview people, I wouldn't dock any points for saying what you just wrote. I care more about the way you think than if you perfectly know the language's syntax. If anything, that's a positive for me. The modulus operator can be tricky and do not behave the same in every language, the fact you're aware of that and you would have a quick sanity check is a great sign in my opinion. It can be the start of some further conversation.
  • 4y ago
• B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
  Sheesh, most jobs just want a warm body that can type so many lines of compiler-ok code per day. "Show up on time" is not just for Hollywood.
• sys_64738 4y ago
  The thing about Computer Science nowadays is that the machines are stupidly fast so that a lot of the algorithm stuff is redundant. Bubble sort can be good enough or isn't even required for implementation as the higher order primitives are already implemented. In a lot of ways it's why SW development nowadays is nauseatingly awful. Sprints and all that web baggage have killed the enjoyment and challenge. The only challenging SW roles I see nowadays are close to the HW.
  • deathanatos 4y ago
    > The thing about Computer Science nowadays is that the machines are stupidly fast so that a lot of the algorithm stuff is redundant. Accidentally quadratic is such a thing there's a blog[1], and it's regularly the source of problems of a certain blogger who debugs problems in Windows that are usually causing his "stupidly fast" hardware to run bog slow[2]. Just this week, I hit what seems to be an accidentally-quadratic bug in macOS's tail — tail! I'm not even sure how you write an accidental O(n²) in implementing tail, but yet macOS tail takes 7 minutes to process a log file on my system that GNU tail can process in 80 milliseconds. Regex regularly lead to oops-O(n²) due to devs not grokking the greedy nature of the star character, and for a while last year it felt like every week some NPM package was getting a security vuln. for a DoS vuln. due to quadratic regexes. Understanding how B-Trees work — and more importantly, when they don't — in database queries is a perennial source of bugs in every company I've worked at where queries get written that won't hit an index, and don't get noticed until they're hitting production levels of rows. Dev confusion entails — "but the index has the columns I'm querying!" … yes, but that's not how a B-Tree works. And it's not just the order-notation. I've seen, numerous times, people re-discover topological sort, or worse, hack a solution onto a problem where the problem is a DAG, and the solution is topo-sort, but instead you get something that isn't topo-sort, and just performs worse. Gitlab's CI failed to model CI jobs as a DAG[3], and as a result, will not launch jobs in some cases that can be run when they can be run. > Sprints Yeah, these destroy dev's souls. [1]: https://accidentallyquadratic.tumblr.com/ https://accidentallyquadratic.tumblr.com/ [2]: https://randomascii.wordpress.com/ https://randomascii.wordpress.com/ [3]: I hear it has been fixed, but I've since left it so I've not had an opportunity. Regardless, the point is that the solution was obvious … if you know the theory. Or even contemporaries, like Make.
• pudgy 4y ago
  I can't agree. I find most interviewers are very utilitarian here--they want proof you know your stuff, not proof of formal education. A CS degree is great, and I wish I had one (for the knowledge more than the sheepskin), but talented developers with some soft skills should not have a problem finding work in this industry.
• adamredwoods 4y ago
  >> When I got into this industry 10 years ago, the world was a completely different place. 10 years is a lifetime in the tech industry. >> The thought of competing against someone credentialed with 5 years experience vs. myself with 10 years and no degree, feels hopeless. This is a vague comparison. Someone with 5 years of stack-specific experience vs. someone with 10 years of general experience? Personally, I am very bad at interviewing. I need lots of practice before any interview. Don't be afraid to ask others for help for interviewing prep.
• nullc 4y ago
  Why be scared? Worst case is they don't hire you and there were good odds of that regardless. Take an interview-- if it doesn't go well, you'll know what to beef up for later. if you learned it for the joy and have 10 years work experience on top of that you've got some massive advantages that many new graduates will lack.
• zw123456 4y ago
  I am an old timer, back in 1978 after getting my PhD, I interviewed with a bunch of companies. One was Bell Labs. I remember the recruiter, did not make me take a test on programming or anything. He just asked me to explain the most interesting project that I had worked on. I told him about a music synthesizer chip I had designed... after about 20 minutes of going on about it, I stopped and said sorry, I went on too long. He just said, nope, you are exactly the type of person we are looking for and hired me on the spot. I think there is a piece missing now days, I could just be an old fart that does not know what I am talking about (probably), but it's the idea of finding someone with passion, even if they are not the slickest programmer in town.
  • stefanos82 4y ago
    You said the magic word: passion! For some reason they confuse passion with puppy-love or enthusiasm and they become either sarcastic with you or lose interest immediately, they interrupt the interview, and let you go without any warning. Nowadays you need to go through SWAT and military training to be considered a candidate to get an email reply. To me this is a clear indication that the market is extremely saturated and something big is about to happen...there's no other logical explanation behind this madness at all levels and categories of jobs.
    • mattferderer 4y ago
      As a long time dev with "passion", it's often my passion that has got me in trouble on projects. Having people on my team who are doing it just as a job for the money have helped prevent me from making mistakes. There is a long history of devs choosing a tech because they want to learn a new tech or expand their skills instead of the right tool for the business needs. I'm guilty of this. At the same time, a passionate employee put on the right task & managed well is a great asset. Like everything in software, "it depends", "trade-offs"...
  • 7speter 4y ago
    I talked about a fullstack node project I was working on during an interview last summer. I went on for 20 minutes maybe explaining why I used the tech that I used and what I planned to do with the project. It took up the scheduled time and he said, thank you, Mr. 7speter. I got a timid little email from the recruiter saying they were pursuing other candidates. This was for a customer service position.
• scrapcode 4y ago
  I'm more-so terrified of taking the risks that would be required to break "back into" that part of the industry. I have been developing since I was a kid in some capacity. Life took me down a different path career wise that put me in just enough of a comfortable spot to make me nervous about switching it up. I feel like I have a lot of intuition and experience throughout the years - it's just not enterprise-level nor something that someone in a senior dev role could attest to. I finished my BSCS recently because it was paid for (GI Bill), and I kind of feel the opposite about it than you do. The amount of "shotgun" messages from recruiters from LinkedIn, etc have certainly increased, but I don't feel any closer to breaking into a dev role high enough up the food-chain to make it worth the risk of leaving my cush fringe-industry position. I have been asked internally if I'd like to help out more with dev-related things, so I guess that's a start. I'd look first at the contacts you've amassed throughout your decade in the field. I'd be willing to bet that's where your best opportunities will come from. Good luck and stay confident!
• markus_zhang 4y ago
  I'll probably never be able to go through whiteboard leetcode questions :/
• victor9000 4y ago
  It's important to keep in mind that the vast majority of people who are currently employed had to work through rejections before landing their current role. Meaning that rejections are nothing to fear, they are simply part of the process. So it's important to not internalize a rejection as some deficit in yourself, just understand that it comes with the territory and move on to the next evaluation. The more zen you are about each rejection, the more motivation you will have for the next opportunity, and the quicker you will complete the process.
• bitexploder 4y ago
  Been this way since there was a tech industry. I felt the same way 23 years ago with no degree. Just keep learning and be more motivated than the competition.
• pixiemaster 4y ago
  as someone who is responsible for hiring in this space: i miss the autodidacts. I see too much buzzword-hype-cycle candidates, and not enough people who have really built something, including real world stuff like badly performing apis, broken edge cases, etc.
  • 7speter 4y ago
    I get the feeling that everything has to be perfectly polished and 100% working as I apply for jobs. I’d like to learn more backend stuff, but I’m judged on if I can get into the minutiae of bootstrap grids or why my react drumkit isn’t 1000% responsive. Its rather exhausting.
  • nathanaldensr 4y ago
    You may miss us (I am one, for example) but everything in your HR-written job posts screams "conform!" Not picking on you, just using your comment to generalize.
• kabdib 4y ago
  Interviewing is absolutely terrifying. I've been a software engineer for over 40 years and I still get the shakes. And freeze. It sucks hard. Don't worry about the degree. After ten years (even after five) it doesn't matter. If it does matter to the company in question, you probably don't want to work there anyway. Seriously. Lean heavily on your contacts. After ten years you almost certainly know good people at other companies, and you may be surprised how well they regard you. Most of my jobs have been through such connections, and they have been the ones I've enjoyed the most. Reach out. During interviews, I find it helpful to communicate a little of my emotional state as well. "Let's see, I'm pretty nervous, just so you know, and I'll probably make a few mistakes here until I get it right. Now, the obvious thing is N-squared and clearly terrible, but let's do it anyway and see if we can get some insight and improve it..." And once you decide to have fun with a problem and can stop pretending that you're a giant, perfect brain, I've found things go a lot better. If your interviewer is an emotionless robot, you probably don't want to work with that person. My own lack of a degree has never been a problem. You're fine, man. As long as you keep up some kind of continuing self-education (doesn't need to be fancy, just read interesting conference proceedings, maybe learn a new language every few years) you're going to do great.
  • sage76 4y ago
    You contacts can refer you and get you an interview. After that, it's still 6-8 rounds of grilling. That's my experience anyways.
    • DawsonBruce 4y ago
      Yeah, same. A referral can get you a phone/zoom call with the right person, and somewhat skip the intro nonsense. After that it’s still back-to-back grilling. I do like a referral however. I often get cold emails from recruiters that are interested in hiring me, but still want me to fill out an application and do some intro async coding screen. It feels silly. I’d think I’d they’re reaching out, then why do I need to fill out an application? Let’s have a convo with the hiring manager, see if our goals align, and do the on-site grilling thing, if so.
  • omegalulw 4y ago
• Thorentis 4y ago
  I think that if the tech bubble collapses, the hiring market will once again swing in the favour of those with CS degrees. When the best tech jobs going are at banks, government departments, etc. hiring managers will probably look less favourably on those that worked at some over valued startup that produced nothing of value, vs somebody with an actual CS degree from a good college and with some work experience. The days of the "went to bootcamp for 4 weeks and got a 200k job at a startup making CRUD APIs to solve world hunger" Dev are nearly over.
• phibz 4y ago
  I'm self taught first programming 36 years ago. I have some college experience in a computer engineering program but I did not graduate. My experience has been that once someone is a few years in to the industry, their degree or lack of one is largely unimportant. Schools and especially boot camps simply cannot compare with hard earned experience. I'm never dishonest about my school experience although I do not mention it unless I'm asked about it or someone assumes I have a degree. Interviews are largely about connecting with the interviewer and getting them to like you, consider you as someone they would want to work with. Focus on what you have done, how you solve problems, how you work with others. Are you up front when you don't know something? Can you consider another's viewpoint and even change your mind? What is your reaction to making a mistake? Confidence and security in one's self go a long way here. Let your curiosity be infectious. Interviews are an inexact science and there are plenty of bad or even abusive companies out there. Take your time and try not to take rejection personally. Try to keep in eye out for what your next move will be. You'll likely learn more and earn more through some job hopping every 2 to 3 years. That's okay. Practice, practice, practice! Code in your free time. Work on an open source project. Find an itch, scratch it and share the results.
  • kabdib 4y ago
    Read, read, read. It's okay to read Knuth, and even do the problems. Just don't tell anyone. :-)
• jtaft 4y ago
  If your Interested in switch jobs, just try :). Are you interested working in a particular domain? If you have experience , that will be helpful. Also, you’re generally hired to provide value. If you’re able to enable your team to solve challenges the company is interested in, you’ll be fine.
• neilv 4y ago
  Once you're past the interview Leetcode rituals gatekeeping, and the undisguised ageism many places, remember that there's no substitute for experience. An entire product or company can hinge to a large degree on an engineering team doing wise things, to avert problems, and occasionally to solve them. Experience helps you be much more wise than when you had no experience -- and were just going on what you heard from professors, read in blog posts, or imagined with the confidence that comes from not yet knowing any better. :) Just stay enthusiastic and curious, keep learning, and get past the interviews.
• hugozap 4y ago
  I've learnt to enjoy them and trying to connect with people. Especially after the pandemic, I think everyone is currently struggling or did struggle with life stuff so in some ways we can all relate more easily to each other. Some companies culture just suck and you can tell it really quickly, trying to pursue those positions is a waste of valuable energy. I think the worst interviewers are developers that are not senior yet and will try to favor cleverness over what's actually valuable. They tend to ask the questions you can easily google.
• bitwize 4y ago
  Two words, my friend: Grind leetcode. In fact, solve leetcode problems with a friend. Write down the solution in a notebook (pencil and paper) and read it to your friend, see if they can evaluate your solution. Because apparently this is a valid way to phone screen. One more word: network! Make friends in high places in the industry. If you come in as a nobody, and nobody will vouch for you, why will companies choose to take a risk on you? It's not the 80s and 90s anymore, when only nerds touched computers and companies were willing to work through an employee's issues to develop them and get access to that rare programming talent. Programming is now more like acting: it's on you now to make the right connections and prove that you are perfect for the role. Not perfect = no hire. No social proof from people on the inside = no hire. This is what the market looks like now. Adapt or perish. One more thing: if you are cishet, AMAB, and white, you will have to work harder for that job now. Many tech companies have policies to prefer people of color and marginalized communities including LGBTQ over privileged candidates.
• prot 4y ago
  I'm reading this post and replies and how people are terrified of interviews... and they are right in that all that's going on is wrong. But I don't understand what's there to be afraid of. I have 20+ years of experience and I can do a lot of things, yet as of right now I have maybe 500 bucks left, but I finally decided I'm not taking any more jobs. I'm not exactly sure how I'm about to survive the next month, but, I suppose, being worried, or let alone afraid of it, isn't going to help it. I must say, I had a lot of money a few years ago, but I was also running a company that I didn't want anything to do with. Hiring and employing people seemed very much like just the other side of the coin. And having money doesn't change much about you - it only changes the behavior of people around you, that's for sure. To all the folks who are frustrated with the interviews - quit doing them. You already know they don't want you. They want the mindless code monkeys and submission. But what you had always probably felt is that you are an artist. It's time to be one. No one gets it easy. And the actual choice you might have is famine vs oppression. Which one do you choose?
• DanielVZ 4y ago
  I'm a self taught with 5YOE and I'm having a screening interview at a FAANG in a few weeks. I'm afraid I'm nowhere near the knowledge I should have to perform well in those interviews. DS&A is huge and although I read a book about it when I started learning to code, there's a ton of stuff that I'll need to learn in depth that I'll use scarcely during real life work and I've never used so far in my professional experience.
• tompark 4y ago
  It's normal to feel fear of rejection and failure. I'm interviewing again now for the first time in several years, and I can totally empathize. Your lack of a degree is not as much as an issue as the coding screen test. If you can ace those tests then you'll be able to get a job. I hate the idea of these coding tests -- I have decades of coding experience and even I must practice these coding test problems. It's the reality we must face, and we must deal with it. For those of us who enjoy coding for the joy of it, we can self-study data structures, algorithms, and system design for the joy of it too. I know from previous job searches that I'll fail some coding tests at first, but as I get more practice then I'll start passing the interviews. Like everything else, it takes iteration. Luckily there are lots of open job positions to apply for. You just need to believe that you can will get better with practice, and you can keep interviewing over and over until you beat the tests. You taught yourself to code; you can teach yourself to pass these interviews. P.S.: These tech interview coding tests have been around for a long time. I remember going through some tough ones back in the 90's, even before Joel Spolsky promoted writing code during interviews in The Joel Test.
• zkldi 4y ago
  I've found it very difficult to find places that give a damn about personal projects or anything a self-taught developer can do. If you're hiring and care about these things hit me up :)
• stormbrew 4y ago
  > When I got into this industry 10 years ago, the world was a completely different place. Bootcamps weren't a thing. Computer Science programs were still something just for the nerds. And the industry was almost entirely autodidacts like myself who grew up immersed in technology and did it for the joy of it. I don't think any of these things are really much more true now than they were ten years ago. Computer science programs have been booming since the first dot com boom, and the industry has been mostly people with degrees since I've been in it (I started in the aforementioned boom, also with no degree). I've worked at brand new startups, post-VC startups, and two letters of FAANG. In my experience, both as a person involved in hiring and as a person looking for work over those 20+ years, once you're proven with a couple jobs under your belt no one gives much of a shit about your educational background. This is a "need credit to get credit" kind of situation, where a person with no experience and no degree will have the hardest time getting a job, but someone with 10 years experience? Yeah I'd be shocked if you get dinged for no degree on an interview unless you're trying to do degree-heavy work like ML or something.
• throwout876543 4y ago
  I'm a senior software engineer at a FAANG making 7 figures and meaningful contributions. There's zero chance I would pass an interview at the same company now.
• fbrncci 4y ago
  I used to be, but I have maintained the habit of sending out a handful of resumes every week, and interviewing once at the very least (3 times this week). Even while I am in a job that I am currently not planning on leaving in the next year. It has made things easy, articulating who I am, what I am working on and how I got there. Must have had a few dozen interviews in the past year, and while I still get a rush of anxiety every time, I've been enjoying getting better at them. I do get the usual interviews where I very well know that I am either over my head. Or where I get the feeling that they must have interviewed some very skilled people before me. But it doesn't really matter. As I see it, with 5 years of experience (self-taught), I am a good dev in my own right. And I am very sure that my experience and drive has a job ready for me at enough places not having to worry about job security (for now, in this buyers economy).
  • pragmatic 4y ago
    One interview a week? Where do you get the time? There’s often the HR/recruiter call, a screen, a tech interview or project or whatever and then the meet the team, architects whatever. That’s 2-3 hours minimum a week.
    • fbrncci 4y ago
      The interviews are all HR screens (I no longer respond to recruiters) with the goal of getting the technical take home, technical interview or team chat. Its more or less 3-5 hours a week if I advance past the first interview. This week for example I had a follow up and review from a take-home I did last week, which ended in a declined offer; but a good future networking opportunity at that company. Some technical take homes take me the entire weekend. Where do I get the time? I am just getting better at managing my time and focusing on the projects. After you do quite a few, it just becomes a challenge, and things don't feel as stressful anymore. Admittedly, I do spend too much time on software next to working in software; its not your usual situation.
• Hermitian909 4y ago
  I have no degree and less experience than you, big companies are knocking down my door to hire to me. I don't think you're in trouble. Something perhaps worth mentioning: The fast growth of the industry means that there are a lot of junior engineers who need wrangling, those of us who can wrangle them are valuable!
• bradlys 4y ago
  The only way I found to get over this is to interview more and get successes. Interviewing without success is draining but interviewing with success is draining and rewarding. I’ve done over 500 technical interviews. I only started interviewing more seriously in 2015. (I had done less than 10 before then) It took me years to get more comfortable with interviewing. It’s all about knowing the gauntlet and what you’re getting into. The mental warfare of interviewing is almost all in prep and once you’re in the interview - it should practically be autopilot. This takes hundreds of hours of prep (usually outside of work hours) and a lot of dedication. This is the industry now for many of the more competitive positions. (FAANG-etc, more known startups, anything in SFBA) Get on leetcode. Solve 20-30 easy problems to get your confidence up and familiar with it. Start doing the problem sets that are targeted at special types of problems (binary search, dfs, graph traversal, dp, backtracking, etc.) Do mock interviews once you’ve solved 40 mediums without looking at the solution and at least 15 hards. (Might be helpful to just look at solutions of a lot of hards to get some pattern recognition going) Use whatever service you want for that - they’re usually free. Interview with companies you don’t care about. Get offers. Figure out what you’re doing wrong. Practice more. Start interviews with companies you want to work at and some others that will give an offer you can leverage in talks. Schedule onsites - get offers. Don’t schedule more than 3 onsites a week unless you have endurance. I’ve done 6-7 in a week - wouldn’t recommend. This was when they were in person too. Driving from one office immediately to another to grind was intense. Wouldn’t recommend - tbh. Get your target offers. Get them to compete for another. Maybe pay for advice as to get salary band info and what you can do. Accept whichever you want - don’t burn any bridges here. Let them know you’ll keep in touch if things don’t work out - if things at new place suck - go to other places. Repeat until you’re FI. Probably RE because this toxic grind set is unbelievably taxing.
  • he_is_legend 4y ago
    > I’ve done over 500 technical interviews ... > This takes hundreds of hours of prep (usually outside of work hours) ... > Don’t schedule more than 3 onsites a week unless you have endurance. I’ve done 6-7 in a week - wouldn’t recommend. Where do you find the time? I stopped doing practice interviews because I kept doing badly and also lost a day of annual leave each time.
• Froedlich 4y ago
  There have been so many interview fads it's hard to remember them all, but a particularly disagreeable fad was the "surprise question." You're being questioned about some programming-related thing, and then in the middle of it they want to know how many monkeys you can stuff in a milk crate, or how to develop an optimal strategy for playing roulette. I suspect a lot of interviewing fads are because interviewing is a long and boring process, so changing things up brightens their workday. But I never had any reason to believe any of them had any connection with discovering the optimal candidate.
• drakonka 4y ago
  I haven't been scared about interviews nearly as much as when I started. When I was getting started, I was a newbie with no degree. Now, I've got over a decade of experience with no degree. Granted, I haven't interviewed a lot: two processes in the last few years. Both times, the interviews felt like much more of a two way street and conversations between peers as opposed to me feeling like I have to prove myself to some way more senior decision maker. Don't get me wrong, I still get nervous for interviews and want to make sure that I come off as a competent person. I still have doubts about what kinds of questions I'll be asked right beforehand. I also tend to apply for roles that are different from what I've done before, so I already know I probably won't know everything about the immediate subject matter. The process as a whole just seems less nerve-wracking now, though. Regardless of how nervous I might be right before an interview, at the end of the day I feel much more at peace with my own abilities. I think there's a high chance this would change if I was more actively looking for different positions and interviewing a lot. Some caveats that make this easier for me: * I don't bother with processes that do Leetcode-style whiteboarding interviews. I prefer take-home tests. Pretty sure if I was going for the former, I'd be much less "zen" about it. * Both times I already had a good job and was just exploring other opportunities that came up. If I had a sense of urgency without stable employment, I'd surely be much more nervous.
• aristofun 4y ago
  One thing I know for sure - if you go to an interview terrified, you most probably will be terrified. People feel your mind set and attitude even through zoom, through your "interview face". In my experience the less i care about a specific interview (after some reasonable preparation from my side of course), the better it usually goes.
• blablabla123 4y ago
  Same for me. I'm also astonished about the amount of time that is often expected to be put into an interview process especially speaking about take home tasks. But apart from interviews, I think self-taught engineers are still in high regard at most places because solving blocking problems and building things that last is not something that can be learned easily.
• nickjj 4y ago
  Nope. I'm self taught in the sense I never went to university but I like to think of it more as self guided. I've read thousands of blog posts and learned a ton from other people. If you asked me to whiteboard a red-black tree on the spot I'd insta-fail but if you asked me to Google an implementation of it I'd find it and have it running in a few minutes with a few languages. I don't worry about algorithm grinding because if their interview process expects that then I won't apply. There's lots of options out there where folks will hire you based on skill sets more in line with solving problems directly related to their business. I tend to gravitate towards those which are focused on building and deploying web apps. Of course not all apps are created equal. If you plan to be operating at a super low level for critically important / number crunchy domains like a custom high frequency trading platform or you're writing Mars rover code then sure having a strong CS background seems reasonable, but you don't need to know shit about time-scale calculus or pulse-coupled neural networks to create a CI / CD pipeline to help a 100 million dollar a year business deploy their apps faster and more dependably which in turn helps them become a 110 million dollar a year business. The same goes for planning out, building and deploying a huge variety of SAAS apps.
• Blackstrat 4y ago
  As a retired software development manager (among other roles throughout the years), the problem is that industry, collectively, has no idea what determines success. The infatuation with boot camps, certifications, specific frameworks/libraries, even languages is detrimental to identifying real talent. Worse is CIO lust for a new technology regardless of its applicability to the particular domain, e.g., cloud and cypto. Consequently, interviewing and hiring an experienced software developer, who may be extremely talented, can be an uphill battle if they don't check all the right boxes. Up until the last two years prior to retirement, I worked for a very large, well known insurance company. The HR staff wouldn't even pass along resumes that didn't check the boxes or pass the automated review by the application software. The problem is further exacerbated by the ready availability of "certified", cheap resources from companies like Cognizant, et al. I went to the HR department and insisted that I see all the resumes which caused a bit of firestorm but fortunately the CIO supported my request. I was looking for talent, degreed or otherwise, for which I was willing to pay more, regardless of their specific technical backgrounds. All they had to do was be confident, frequent readers/learners, and convince me that they could learn our environment and deliver. In the end, my team had a higher average salary but a lower head count than competing teams (around 45 persons, mostly cheap Cognizant contractors vs. my 15, all employees) and we tended to hit our project targets with greater frequency. And never forget, particularly in technical interviews, the interviewers will often be out to show their peers and managers that they are smarter than the candidate. For example, around 2010, I interviewed for a VP position at a company that required nine phone interviews with different peer and subordinate managers prior to the in person interview. I scored well on 8 of the 9 but the last was with a potential subordinate who wanted to focus on optimizing Java/Oracle on a server. Every question was some technical minutia about Java, which fortunately, I had never had to learn. He, of course, voted against me. I withdrew my candidacy because the last interview suggested a culture I didn't want to be part of or fight to change. I explained the reasons but I doubt anything changed. So interviewing, if not terrifying, is at least intimidating and a royal PIA. Just be confident of your talents, continue to read and learn, and if it doesn't go well, F it, and keep looking.
• nickx720 4y ago
  For me personally it ranges from random successful highs to very depressing lows. I have a degree, but I feel I am more self taught (I barely took my degree seriously). With 9 years of experience under my belt, most times interviews are hit/miss for me. I spent time on Leetcode, but sometimes the interviews go well and I pattern match because I have seen that sort of problem. Other days I look like I have no idea what is going on. It is exhausting, but everywhere I look people say this is the best way so far. I prefer freelancing now because I still love coding, I do it on my downtime, I do it on the weekends. It energises me. Unfortunately I am not good at solving puzzles/IQ tests under 30-60 mins.
• deleted 4y ago
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• toastercat 4y ago
  Kinda, although I am a CS grad (graduated in 2014), I practically self-taught myself engineering. I have always been an OK interviewer, but it's gotten worse with time as the market's expanded. I regularly freeze up during whiteboarding or my stomach acts up and I can't concentrate. Nearly 8 years later, and I've noticed bootcamp grads with half my experience are surpassing me on the corporate ladder and getting better paying jobs. The way I see it is that the market + colleges saw a demand for a certain type of programmer, and created programs to form newcomers into that mold. More importantly, I find that these younger engineers that are surpassing me are typically not anymore knowledgeable or skilled than I am, but they are much more confident. I try not to let that bother me, so long as my current position can support me financially, gives me the means to enjoy time with my family, and support my hobbies (of which my favorite is programming & open-source), I am happy.
• peace4all 4y ago
  Back in 2007-2008 I, an economics graduate, was snubbed by developers, even though I showed a working prototype and examples of works since 1998! DB developers also snubbed, even though I asked to show a working database app made at analyst position. I showed a hand-made website with Javascript and PHP backend, and they snubbed that I didn't use frameworks. Finally, in 2009 I got a web dev position with humiliating remarks. Only at the next company, a small web studio, the chief dev said "great, because if you did it by hand, it means you know the internal gears better than the framework guys", hired me and taught me some frameworks, which I learned quickly. I understand that people are afraid they'd have to babysit the new developer, but I showed them lots of things, and it still didn't matter. Maybe they were afraid I'd leave their shitty job, IDK. So, some standard framework used in the industry is a must. Plus, if a company is bigger than 20 people, snobs start running the hiring process. Nowadays, well, if you want to slightly change the field of work, you're given a huge task to build a whole app, and then are nitpicked at insufficient comments, not clear code, not making useless classes, not using useless async, and so on. Nobody looks at your github project where you have those features. I guess, a single child-less guy could do this in 3 nights on RedBull, but I don't think I could. I'm quite discouraged.
• tomjuggler 4y ago
  Good luck, in the same boat here and yeah it's tough. The problem I think for me may stem from the fact that I actually enjoy the work. I always feel gutted when I'm rejected from a job that I know I could do well.
• illwrks 4y ago
  Remember, you're self taught. You didn't go to school you had a goal, you sat and stared at a screen, problem after problem and worked through them until it clicked. You have drive, tenacity, and the ability to problem solve, no one held your hand. For these reasons you are an ideal candidate to someone. Learn to explain the problems and how you overcame them and you'll do well!
  • ramesh31 4y ago
    Thank you. This hit hard.
• monsterofcookie 4y ago
  Did a web dev bootcamp in 2004. ASP and VB Script. Got many jobs. Finally took data structures and algorithms class in 2020. Am better programmer now.
• sircastor 4y ago
  I’m self taught, worked in my career for 15 years, went back and finished my degree. My interviewing skills are not substantially different. I still probably can’t invert a binary tree, and I get hung up on the abstract CS problems. The revelation I had after finishing my degree was that I was the same person with just a little more knowledge, and that if I didn’t check it, I’d be chasing after the “now I’m qualified” label indefinitely. The interviews I do very well in are the ones where I’m asked to take something home and produce something real. If a company is really important to me and I know it’s coming, I know how to practice leetcode. If a company is rejecting you for not having the degree, then you’re not even getting to the phone screen.
• ozzythecat 4y ago
  I was at Amazon over 10 years and did several hundred interviews. I tried my best not to contribute to the problem, but here’s my experience: First, the interviewing culture optimized for fresh computer science college grads, and specifically Indian nationals who excel (from my experience) at memorizing specific patterns and applying them decently in interviews. It doesn’t mean they’re better employees or better engineers, but it does mean you can hire someone as an H1B. And they’ll work pretty damn hard and out in more hours, because otherwise they fear getting managed out and with their visa situation, they have to leave the country. Secondly, we’ll hire H1Bs from other companies. They often times don’t pass our hiring bar and fall significantly short. But as an Indian national, there are plenty of other Indian SDMs, Senior SDMs, and directors who will still give you an offer and bring you on board. It’s sort of a nepotism, and there are ways you can extend an offer without even going through an interview loop. So… a culture of engineering talent who look great on paper, but you end up building a lot of mediocre products and services, or simply using this “talent” to keep existing, well designed services up and operationally sane. Mostly ticket loads. And that’s really just it. The system is designed that way to extract a certain amount of labor. The skill doesn’t matter. Certain nationality brings in more of its own people. We talked a lot about diversity, but we hired practically zero Hispanic, black, women, or other (tech) minority groups. Our damn HR didn’t even bring them into interview loops. If you worked at Amazon, you’d think that only Indian people graduate with CS degrees. If you get rejected by Amazon, trust me as a 10 year veteran who finally abandoned ship late last year - you’re better off not being there. I regret the 10 years of my life I gave to that company. I regret the relationships I abandoned, the toll it took on my physical and mental health.
• shetill 4y ago
  I think it comes down to supply and demand as with everything else. There are tougher filters (interviews) now because there way more people applying for jobs than ever. Even for people with CS degrees the competition is fierce. To most companies especially Big Tech experience matters little they just care that you can pass an interview which includes leetcode and system design, and if you really put the effort you can learn both from scratch without even having any experience. Unfortunately such is the current market.
• StephenTL22 4y ago
  Everyone has value to someone. Most people talk about 'what they know'. The people who get hired (and get hired at a better rate) know how to explain the 'value' of what they know. The ability to communicate your value is a skill that most people don't learn and work on. Getting better at this will make you stand out from the crowd.