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> If you've learnt all that, you can learn to use more. From my experience, at least in Europe, companies are paying the most for people who can "hit the groun

by badpun 3y ago

> If you've learnt all that, you can learn to use more. From my experience, at least in Europe, companies are paying the most for people who can "hit the ground running", i.e. being able to contribute from day one - both in terms of code as well design/architecture decisions. That neccesitates knowing their exact tech stack.

rightbyte 3y ago
How does that even work though. "Hit the ground running"? It takes me months to get into a codebase and such a small thing as get it to build might be a multiple week hurdle if the guy you replace is gone.
- odshoifsdhfs 3y ago
  Is this a US/SV thing? I hear it here over and over but in 20+ years of professional development (Europe + US/Canada remote start ups) never I needed more than a week to start working on a system (usually is 1-2 days that are mixed with onboarding sessions as well). I may not be able to refactor the system to use micro services or whatnot, but to dig into the code and start fixing some bugs or even add a small feature has always been a week 1 goal for me (and one I set to the people I manage now).
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Dunno it is kinda strange. The variation between different companies has to be huge in how accessable their codebase and workflow are.
- mpeg 3y ago
  I think this might be a cultural difference, in Europe taking months to be able to contribute to a codebase would get you fired pretty quickly.
- golergka 3y ago
  What stack are you working with? With Node/React I (as a fullstack) could run most projects in 10 minutes, with about 4 hours for the worst offenders with local kubernetes and aws authentication. And I usually merge my first PR on the first day.
JonChesterfield 3y ago
Kind of funny given that a sanely factored system with minimal dev dependencies can have anyone writing code on the first day, and other systems involve reverse engineering insane build systems after waiting a couple of months for VPN access to be granted.
Philip-J-Fry 3y ago
It depends on the company and the tech stack. If it's an in demand stack with plenty of candidates then the most capable of hitting the ground running will win. If you have a less popular tech stack then you need to be more flexible. You aren't going to get a lot of developers that know everything and you will need to look at how adaptable they are. Where I work we don't particularly care about specific experience with our stack. A good developer is a good developer regardless of the stack. And we set aside time for people to get comfortable with the code base. It's not expected that even seniors come in and make contributions on day one. Obviously it's more generous to juniors and mid level developers. That's why I said list what's relevant to the job, but don't list your entire life story there. If you're an expert that can hit the ground running, then make it known. But if you're applying for a front end React role and you're listing PHP experience from 5 years ago, it's probably not relevant. You can use that space to detail more about what you're good at.

by badpun 3y ago

rightbyte 3y ago

How does that even work though. "Hit the ground running"? It takes me months to get into a codebase and such a small thing as get it to build might be a multiple week hurdle if the guy you replace is gone.

odshoifsdhfs 3y ago
Is this a US/SV thing? I hear it here over and over but in 20+ years of professional development (Europe + US/Canada remote start ups) never I needed more than a week to start working on a system (usually is 1-2 days that are mixed with onboarding sessions as well). I may not be able to refactor the system to use micro services or whatnot, but to dig into the code and start fixing some bugs or even add a small feature has always been a week 1 goal for me (and one I set to the people I manage now).
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Dunno it is kinda strange. The variation between different companies has to be huge in how accessable their codebase and workflow are.
mpeg 3y ago
I think this might be a cultural difference, in Europe taking months to be able to contribute to a codebase would get you fired pretty quickly.
golergka 3y ago
What stack are you working with? With Node/React I (as a fullstack) could run most projects in 10 minutes, with about 4 hours for the worst offenders with local kubernetes and aws authentication. And I usually merge my first PR on the first day.

JonChesterfield 3y ago

Kind of funny given that a sanely factored system with minimal dev dependencies can have anyone writing code on the first day, and other systems involve reverse engineering insane build systems after waiting a couple of months for VPN access to be granted.

Philip-J-Fry 3y ago

It depends on the company and the tech stack. If it's an in demand stack with plenty of candidates then the most capable of hitting the ground running will win. If you have a less popular tech stack then you need to be more flexible. You aren't going to get a lot of developers that know everything and you will need to look at how adaptable they are. Where I work we don't particularly care about specific experience with our stack. A good developer is a good developer regardless of the stack. And we set aside time for people to get comfortable with the code base. It's not expected that even seniors come in and make contributions on day one. Obviously it's more generous to juniors and mid level developers. That's why I said list what's relevant to the job, but don't list your entire life story there. If you're an expert that can hit the ground running, then make it known. But if you're applying for a front end React role and you're listing PHP experience from 5 years ago, it's probably not relevant. You can use that space to detail more about what you're good at.