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Sure you would. It's all the same thing, just different details. You'd do the same thing you do with whatever stack you're currently using: you'd read a lot, do

Sure you would. It's all the same thing, just different details. You'd do the same thing you do with whatever stack you're currently using: you'd read a lot, do a lot of proofs of concept and prototypes, make a bunch of mistakes, but figure it out and do just fine. Sure, you wouldn't be as fast as someone who has worked with these tools a million times, and sure, that would matter if you're being hired on a three-month contract to build something and part ways. But if you're being hired to be a valuable contributor and leader at a company, this learning period is going to come out in the wash. Let me give you an example: At my current company, by my estimation our MVP employee on the engineering side spent most of his career making video games, largely within the Microsoft stack. We do python, go, and React. If we hadn't hired this person because he had never used any of those technologies, that would have been, by a very long shot, the stupidest decision we ever made. This stuff just. doesn't. matter.

scarface_74 3y ago
And why would you waste money on waiting for me to come up to speed when there are literally thousands of people who know react and can hit the ground running? And at this point in my career I’m looking for lead positions. Would you hire me to lead your front end efforts? (my area of expertise is enterprise app architecture/dev + AWS. As a developer I spent most of the modern era of my career working with Node, C# and Python).
- sanderjd 3y ago
  I would not be wasting my money, I would be hiring you for all the other skills and experiences you have, which I would find far more compelling than whether or not you already know something you can learn in a few months. If I thought it was a waste to hire anybody who would take non-zero time to learn the stuff they need to know to be an effective employee at a specific company, it would be impossible to hire anybody (except people who already worked there and only left quite recently). Hiring full-time employees is an investment in their ability to contribute net positively to the company over their whole tenure, not in the first few months. You are right though that I wouldn't hire you to lead a dedicated front-end team. But I'd prefer not to have such a team to begin with. But I'd be happy to hire you[0] to lead a product team working on a product that requires a front-end to succeed. Either other members of your team will know how to make that part work well, and I would expect you to learn quickly from them, or I would expect you to figure it out and then teach the rest of the team. [0]: I'm using "you" as a stand-in for someone with your experience, who is otherwise a good fit for the organization. I may well not hire you in particular and suspect you would not take a job from me in particular, since we clearly have very different philosophies on specialization vs. generalization and investment in employee training, such that we may not enjoy working together :)

scarface_74 3y ago

And why would you waste money on waiting for me to come up to speed when there are literally thousands of people who know react and can hit the ground running? And at this point in my career I’m looking for lead positions. Would you hire me to lead your front end efforts? (my area of expertise is enterprise app architecture/dev + AWS. As a developer I spent most of the modern era of my career working with Node, C# and Python).

sanderjd 3y ago
I would not be wasting my money, I would be hiring you for all the other skills and experiences you have, which I would find far more compelling than whether or not you already know something you can learn in a few months. If I thought it was a waste to hire anybody who would take non-zero time to learn the stuff they need to know to be an effective employee at a specific company, it would be impossible to hire anybody (except people who already worked there and only left quite recently). Hiring full-time employees is an investment in their ability to contribute net positively to the company over their whole tenure, not in the first few months. You are right though that I wouldn't hire you to lead a dedicated front-end team. But I'd prefer not to have such a team to begin with. But I'd be happy to hire you[0] to lead a product team working on a product that requires a front-end to succeed. Either other members of your team will know how to make that part work well, and I would expect you to learn quickly from them, or I would expect you to figure it out and then teach the rest of the team. [0]: I'm using "you" as a stand-in for someone with your experience, who is otherwise a good fit for the organization. I may well not hire you in particular and suspect you would not take a job from me in particular, since we clearly have very different philosophies on specialization vs. generalization and investment in employee training, such that we may not enjoy working together :)