6 ms·

Developers should realise that when you come to an interview the interviewer isn't looking to dismiss you because you can't recite Knuth. For the vast majority

Developers should realise that when you come to an interview the interviewer isn't looking to dismiss you because you can't recite Knuth. For the vast majority of jobs they are desperate for you to be competent having just interviewed 5 incompetent people. I've worked as a programmer for 3 very good paying companies over 15 years and none of them could get enough good developers.

potatolicious 11y ago
Welllllll... Yes and no. Yes, companies are generally desperate for programmers right now, and companies definitely want you to succeed in your interviews. Interviewers on the other hand can be a fickle bunch. I have met many (in fact, maybe even most) who seem to treat it as some kind of hazing or initiation and act as if the candidate is an opponent to be outsmarted. It doesn't help that in literally none of the companies I've ever worked for do programmers receive any training on interviewing, so this kind of behavior goes uncorrected. The company definitely wants you to succeed and get hired, but there's still a pretty profound disconnect between the company's priorities and what happens in the room between candidate and interviewer.
- branchless 11y ago
  It's an interesting distinction and yes I have sympathy with it. However in general the "pissing contest" devs are a minority and in particular for the more senior/experienced devs it's most often the case that they want you to be good and will give you the chance to be good.
- mkozlows 11y ago
  Most hiring managers are hiring people because they have a definite need for a developer. Every day that they don't find one, they have work that's going undone, projects that are proceeding too slowly, bugs going unfixed. And if they're not finding people, after a while their directors start to question whether they're doing their job properly. There is nothing a hiring manager loves more than finding a hire-able candidate. That doesn't mean that the interview is going to be a cakewalk, though. The hiring manager wants someone who's going to be a success in the job, and they're going to try to filter for that. The only thing worse than not hiring a good developer is hiring a bad one, and the process is trying to stop that latter from happening, too.
- myderpyaccount 11y ago
  At a few companies I interviewed at, fairly established but not tech centered companies, the interviewers had literally just come out of the companies introductory training program. I don't know if that is really smart, or really dumb. But a lot of jobs I could have probably done really well, I was passed over, and I honestly have to say, inexperienced interviewers have smug attitudes. I got the sense that there was the background thought of "ugh, god, I have to deal with someone's brain that isn't mine". It's annoying to have to deal with those kinds of attitudes, because it perpetuates them, by causing the people who have bad experience from them to behave defensively next time around. I've had some okay experience with getting positive feedback leading to callbacks, but these were typically answers to questions that I could have found online verbatim by studying an interview manual. I try not to do that because I think that is dishonest in my actual value. The best interviews I've had are where it's clear that it is two people talking, and not two computers.
- DaveWalk 11y ago
  I'd say it goes deeper than this: there's a greater emphasis today on the candidate being productive from day one. I don't know what is causing it (too much exposure to efficient software?), but in many industries hiring managers would rather keep looking for an absolute perfect candidate while leaving behind several that have the skills but need the training. I have heard the stories about managers spending 100 extra hours looking for a perfect candidate instead of hiring the best available and dedicating even 50 hours to train them to speed.
  - vonmoltke 11y ago
    > I'd say it goes deeper than this: there's a greater emphasis today on the candidate being productive from day one. Which drives me crazy. Nobody can be truly productive on day one. You have processes to learn, even if it is just an informal "way we do things". You have existing code to become familiar with. You have team dynamics to work into. It takes time. Personally, I cringe whenever I read a job advert mentioning that the candidate will "push to production on day one". Neither company I have worked for would allow that, let alone expect it. Nor would any company I start in the future, should I ever manage to.
    - eropple 11y ago
      I agree that in the general case it's very unlikely for your average developer to be truly productive on day one, but I wouldn't say that nobody is. This is a large part of my value prop: I spend the first day or two getting infodumps to get up to speed, but even during that time I'm building up plans of attack to get done what I'm being paid to get done (and to me and to the people paying for me, that is productive). I'm a consultant/contractor (depending on the gig), though, so the social dynamic is different and it's less about integrating into a team and more about understanding the exact problem domain.
    - woah 11y ago
      I think that you don't get it about pushing to production on day one. These companies do that to because they have resilient systems, tests, and tooling, and they push to production all the time. Pushing to production on day one is a way to introduce new hires to the continuous deployment methodology. If you're afraid of pushing to production, there's a problem.
sharemywin 11y ago
I must be incompetent because I'm having a hard time finding a position and I have over 15 years of development experience most of it in .net and have worked on everything from my own mobile application for small businesses and worked and learned a new platform for a $20 million enterprise project.
- tracker1 11y ago
  Where are you at, and where is your expected pay compared to others in your area? (ex: via glassdoor, etc) Also, there's a difference between getting passed the recruiters and H.R. types and actual interviews. Also, what types of .Net development... how much front end (web specifically). Doing webforms with no JS for a decade and a half doesn't mean much. I'm not saying that's the case, only that it can make a difference in hiring.
ryandrake 11y ago
But the question is, as always, why could they never find enough good developers? It's not necessarily an under-supply. 1. Are they offering enough in salary to attract the good developers? 2. Is their knowledge/skills expectation of a "good developer" too high? 3. Is there something about their hiring process that is filtering out the good developers you see? 4. Is there something about their reputation (grueling interview process, salary reputation, ethical misbehavior, etc.) that is causing the good developers to not even apply? HN loves to just jump to the mythical "shortage of developers" conclusion, but it may be more complicated.

potatolicious 11y ago

Welllllll... Yes and no. Yes, companies are generally desperate for programmers right now, and companies definitely want you to succeed in your interviews. Interviewers on the other hand can be a fickle bunch. I have met many (in fact, maybe even most) who seem to treat it as some kind of hazing or initiation and act as if the candidate is an opponent to be outsmarted. It doesn't help that in literally none of the companies I've ever worked for do programmers receive any training on interviewing, so this kind of behavior goes uncorrected. The company definitely wants you to succeed and get hired, but there's still a pretty profound disconnect between the company's priorities and what happens in the room between candidate and interviewer.

branchless 11y ago
It's an interesting distinction and yes I have sympathy with it. However in general the "pissing contest" devs are a minority and in particular for the more senior/experienced devs it's most often the case that they want you to be good and will give you the chance to be good.
mkozlows 11y ago
Most hiring managers are hiring people because they have a definite need for a developer. Every day that they don't find one, they have work that's going undone, projects that are proceeding too slowly, bugs going unfixed. And if they're not finding people, after a while their directors start to question whether they're doing their job properly. There is nothing a hiring manager loves more than finding a hire-able candidate. That doesn't mean that the interview is going to be a cakewalk, though. The hiring manager wants someone who's going to be a success in the job, and they're going to try to filter for that. The only thing worse than not hiring a good developer is hiring a bad one, and the process is trying to stop that latter from happening, too.
myderpyaccount 11y ago
At a few companies I interviewed at, fairly established but not tech centered companies, the interviewers had literally just come out of the companies introductory training program. I don't know if that is really smart, or really dumb. But a lot of jobs I could have probably done really well, I was passed over, and I honestly have to say, inexperienced interviewers have smug attitudes. I got the sense that there was the background thought of "ugh, god, I have to deal with someone's brain that isn't mine". It's annoying to have to deal with those kinds of attitudes, because it perpetuates them, by causing the people who have bad experience from them to behave defensively next time around. I've had some okay experience with getting positive feedback leading to callbacks, but these were typically answers to questions that I could have found online verbatim by studying an interview manual. I try not to do that because I think that is dishonest in my actual value. The best interviews I've had are where it's clear that it is two people talking, and not two computers.
DaveWalk 11y ago
I'd say it goes deeper than this: there's a greater emphasis today on the candidate being productive from day one. I don't know what is causing it (too much exposure to efficient software?), but in many industries hiring managers would rather keep looking for an absolute perfect candidate while leaving behind several that have the skills but need the training. I have heard the stories about managers spending 100 extra hours looking for a perfect candidate instead of hiring the best available and dedicating even 50 hours to train them to speed.
- vonmoltke 11y ago
  > I'd say it goes deeper than this: there's a greater emphasis today on the candidate being productive from day one. Which drives me crazy. Nobody can be truly productive on day one. You have processes to learn, even if it is just an informal "way we do things". You have existing code to become familiar with. You have team dynamics to work into. It takes time. Personally, I cringe whenever I read a job advert mentioning that the candidate will "push to production on day one". Neither company I have worked for would allow that, let alone expect it. Nor would any company I start in the future, should I ever manage to.
  - eropple 11y ago
    I agree that in the general case it's very unlikely for your average developer to be truly productive on day one, but I wouldn't say that nobody is. This is a large part of my value prop: I spend the first day or two getting infodumps to get up to speed, but even during that time I'm building up plans of attack to get done what I'm being paid to get done (and to me and to the people paying for me, that is productive). I'm a consultant/contractor (depending on the gig), though, so the social dynamic is different and it's less about integrating into a team and more about understanding the exact problem domain.
  - woah 11y ago
    I think that you don't get it about pushing to production on day one. These companies do that to because they have resilient systems, tests, and tooling, and they push to production all the time. Pushing to production on day one is a way to introduce new hires to the continuous deployment methodology. If you're afraid of pushing to production, there's a problem.

sharemywin 11y ago

I must be incompetent because I'm having a hard time finding a position and I have over 15 years of development experience most of it in .net and have worked on everything from my own mobile application for small businesses and worked and learned a new platform for a $20 million enterprise project.

tracker1 11y ago
Where are you at, and where is your expected pay compared to others in your area? (ex: via glassdoor, etc) Also, there's a difference between getting passed the recruiters and H.R. types and actual interviews. Also, what types of .Net development... how much front end (web specifically). Doing webforms with no JS for a decade and a half doesn't mean much. I'm not saying that's the case, only that it can make a difference in hiring.

ryandrake 11y ago

But the question is, as always, why could they never find enough good developers? It's not necessarily an under-supply. 1. Are they offering enough in salary to attract the good developers? 2. Is their knowledge/skills expectation of a "good developer" too high? 3. Is there something about their hiring process that is filtering out the good developers you see? 4. Is there something about their reputation (grueling interview process, salary reputation, ethical misbehavior, etc.) that is causing the good developers to not even apply? HN loves to just jump to the mythical "shortage of developers" conclusion, but it may be more complicated.