Why developers are allergic to job opportunities

by bitsweet • 14 years ago

106 99 14 years ago

beghbali• 14 years ago

There are a few issues with jobs, one is we want to focus on building great things and don't want to spend time exploring opportunities in parallel. Two, it's hard to narrow down available opportunities to a few we would actually be interested in. Three, we don't want to invest too much time interviewing and writing resumes to only find out the position is not exciting after all. This thing while it's not perfect it's the right direction. Ps I wanna know salary!

ironchef• 14 years ago

As to salary, i just ask up front during opening discussions (before interviews). I ask them to give me a ballpark of salary range so we're not wasting each others' time.

dadkins2• 14 years ago

And when they respond back, "That depends on experience. Why don't you tell us what you're expecting so we're not wasting each others' time."?

anonymouz3• 14 years ago

How come this page is completely screwed up without JavaScript (tiny font, no paragraph breaks)?

Wilya• 14 years ago

The post seems rendered from markdown client-side.

I fail to see how this even remotely makes sense, though.

Evbn• 14 years ago

So its like XML+XSLT, but hipsterized?

bitsweet3• 14 years ago

We invested a lot of time in the preview capabilities when creating a protip. We hit a small issue recently rendering the same markdown from both the client side during content creation and server side during rendering. While we fix it we just opted to temporarily do it client-side for now. It's not perfect but worked as a stop-gap measure for most.

donretag3• 14 years ago

What a great idea, let's put all our tech team members all on one page so that recruiters can have one-stop shopping for people to spam.

I am half joking, but also half serious. I minimize my profile online to cut down on recruiting spam. Coderwall is a step in the wrong direction in this regard.

bitsweet3• 14 years ago

The reality is this information is easily accessible on LinkedIn. Even if someone hides their current place of employment, LinkedIn's recruiting tools actually let recruiters see that information (one of the reasons we receive so much recruiter spam).

Companies that want to build great teams need to start thinking more offensively than defensively. If you have a great culture and solving interesting problems, recruiters wont pose a threat.

dpritchett• 14 years ago

Yep. Security through obscurity is no security at all.

k3n2• 14 years ago

I'm like donretag in the sense that I also seek to minimize my online profile as much as possible; thus, I don't use LinkedIn.

So no, the reality is not that it's easily accessible -- unless you're already making it so on sites that are liberal with sharing your info like LinkedIn.

mratzloff4• 14 years ago

You assume recruiters go to sites besides LinkedIn in order to recruit people. They don't.

dasil003• 14 years ago

Why worry about recruiting spam? You can also avoid it by having no online presence too, but that will not serve your long-term career interests.

It's not like you're under obligation to respond, and every once in a while a recruiter may even have a pitch that merits a response.

svachalek2• 14 years ago

Exactly. 1999 was a lot like now. In 2001, I was calling recruiters and they literally had nothing. It's nice to think you'll never want for work and you can run out and find a great gig whenever you feel like it, but in reality you never know when the polarity is going to reverse so it doesn't hurt to keep an eye open at all times.

threepipeproblm• 14 years ago

Why do developers love to use tiny fonts, even though people are known to flee at the sight of them?

btilly• 14 years ago

I personally use small fonts in my editor so that I can see more code at once. So I don't notice how big the font is.

But as my eyes get worse, I may be forced to adjust. :-(

jebblue• 14 years ago

They will and you can, getting old sucks.

dclusin2• 14 years ago

It's not so much the small size of the font it's whether or not it is a fixed-width font. A font is considered fixed-width if every character that can be represented in the font set has the same width and height for each character. As an engineer this is extremely important because it makes the text easier to read. This is because in programming a single semicolon among thousands and thousands of lines of code can literally make or break a program.

columbo• 14 years ago

This is off-topic but I couldn't read the article past a few lines. The blurry background kept getting my eyes unfocused. Maybe it is time I see an eye dr.

mratzloff4• 14 years ago

You're not alone. I had to shrink the window to get past the first couple of paragraphs. A truly terrible background for a blog.

dpeck2• 14 years ago

Developers are allergic to career advancement for a few reasons. They tend to be a fairly risk averse lot, with many unwilling to trade the devil they know for the devil they don't.

They also tend to have a low bullshit tolerance and get worn down quickly with the hassle that recruiting/employment has become. Multiple phone interviews, HR people, code tests, and then the "used car salesman" process of salary negotiation. Its draining, especially when you're an introvert by nature.

I went through this once with a semi-established startup when I was looking for my 2nd job. 3 interviews in they wouldn't discuss salary over the phone, wanted me to come in to meet with the CTO again to discuss. I burned the bridge at that point, and became fairly jaded to the whole process. Get salary info up from, if what you want is near the top of any range they give drop it and move on theres no oppertunity for advancement. If they won't give salary range, drop it and move on. More than 2 interviews after the inital HR screening, move on. And realistically if you're a somewhat proven commodity you should be able to hammer out all the details off-site over coffee/beer and finish up the formalities in a few hours at the office.

We're fortunate enough to have a high demand skillset at the moment, and thankfully most of us can approach these situations from a position of "power", but sadly most of us don't.

mratzloff4• 14 years ago

I think this hits the nail on the head.

Stop putting up with bullshit, guys.

dclusin2• 14 years ago

Also for me it's the threat of potential downtime. Switching organizations is a hugely expensive process and to create anything of consequence (e.g. not some stupid rails crud app) takes a lot of domain knowledge and experience with the existing code base. When I think about switching organizations I dread the inevitable "setting up the enviornment" slog as it's required but not useful to anybody. At my current job I have my pick of hugely complex and difficult problems ready and waiting. And of course there is also tons of open source projects a click away

pasbesoin2• 14 years ago

And sometimes, acquiring some of the knowledge can be like pulling teeth (very difficult and perhaps political).

pasbesoin2• 14 years ago

I want to see the work environment. First hand, during the day. If you're going to insist on interviewing me elsewhere (even in meeting rooms in the "guests" part of the building), this doesn't cut it.

I've endured enough crap physical environments (loud, no privacy, etc.) that I'm not interested in "rolling the dice" with respect to where physically I'll be working.

Zelphyr2• 14 years ago

While I think nobody should take less than they're worth, basing your decision simply on what the job pays is doing yourself a disservice.

dpeck2• 14 years ago

Agreed, and not saying that at all, but to me thats the biggest tip off that its a bad fit. If they're secretive with salary, or try to hard sell me on the position, or they're unwilling to make a decision and be confident in it without many many meetings then those same things are likely to be reflected in day to day situations after coming onboard.

Interviewing should give you a fairly clear picture of how functional or disfuntional an organization is. You just have to be sure that its a function/disfunction mix that you can thrive in.

moocow012• 14 years ago

"with many unwilling to trade the devil they know for the devil they don't"

This is a big reason for me - I will only work in jobs where Im working for someone or with someone (whos already with the employer) that I already have a previous relationship with. (This would obviously change if I found myself on street.) The problem is that Ive found that it is extremely rare to find an employer that isn't a schyster ready to milk you, "the resource", for all your worth while paying as little as they can (which these days is admittedly pretty high). In fact in tech this is the normal "good business" practice behind the curtain - get as much as you can out of your employees for as little as you can. And its an extremely small minded perspective that usually over the long term leads to high turnover and horrifying codebases and half assed products that impact the bottom line.

If you find a pretty good employer that your happy with it will cause you to pause when the next opportunity comes along because you might be expected to work 50% more time on CRUD stuff for that extra 20% raise. Its usually somewhat hard to tell from the exterior what your really stepping into.

nazgulnarsil• 14 years ago

Agreed. The variance in work conditions as a developer is higher than most jobs. And these differences are often quite opaque from the outside.

indiecore• 14 years ago

>extremely rare to find an employer that isn't a schyster ready to milk you, "the resource", for all your worth while paying as little as they can

Isn't that the definition of business? Get as much as you can for as little as you can?

anon987• 14 years ago

I'm looking for something right now, I have a very strong resume, and am willing to relocate anywhere so I'm getting 15-20 e-mails a day. This is part rant part so you might want to stop reading:

- I send a recruiter my resume, they call me 20 seconds later and want to discuss it. I took hours to write a damn good resume. Read it, contact me with questions that ARE NOT answered by what I just sent you. It's all laid out in front of you, stop wasting my time.

- How many years of experience do you have with product X? Again, you can read the resume and add it up, not hard.

- Don't ask me to put other opportunities on hold or somehow make your opportunity exclusive. If this was a perfect world where companies and recruiters got back to me with a yes/no in a day I would be fine with that, but expecting me to ignore 20 other e-mails when you never get back to me or take two weeks to schedule an interview is laughable. If you want me, step up or step off.

- You contacted me about a position that's W2 and offers NO benefits? Seriously?

- If you only send a location and job title it's going in the trash.

- If I don't respond to the initial or 2nd e-mail, I won't respond the 5th time you spam at me.

- I can tell that some recruiters are using me to simply fill their daily quota of sending e-mails. All of my past job titles are related to Linux / UNIX and I mention EMC once so you're going to send me storage admin jobs? Stop it.

- No need to tell me positions are "urgent" or have an "immediate need". When it comes to hiring the need is always immediate, and when I see the word "urgent" it means OH GOD I HOPE I GET TO HIM FIRST I NEED MY COMMISSION.

- Oh, working with Product X is required and you only mention that after I send you the exact same resume you saw on a job site? If it's not on my resume I haven't worked it it, stop wasting my time to fill your daily e-mail quotas.

- Stop creating hoops. Bob gets my resume who sends it to his account manager Jane who sends it to Bill in HR who sends it to the supervisor John who sends it to the hiring manager Rick. By the time my resume gets to Rick it's been 3 weeks and someone has already scooped me up.

- Stop with this subcontractor -> subcontractor -> outsourcing company -> outsourcing company -> actual client bullshit. After all of these worthless middlemen get their cut the actual company ends up paying way way more than they would hiring directly. My former (and very good natured) boss and I had a good laugh when we realized the company was paying almost twice as much for me as he made.

- Just because you have a branch office near me doesn't mean I want to drive down, fill out a bunch of paperwork, and waste an afternoon.

- Stop leaving me in the dark if you don't want me. I can tell some contract houses are doing this intentionally because they don't want to submit me but also don't want me to try again with a competing contract house that WILL submit me. Naughty, naughty.

- You expect me to spend a few hundred dollars to travel to your location for the 2nd, in-person interview? Riiiiight.

- I've only talked with three recruiters that I actually like as people. I resent the other 95% because they might be getting $10-20 for each hour I work just because they are keyword monkeys.

- Inefficient recruiting practices are driving away potential talent, period. Your company needs talent? Start by getting talented HR and in-house recruiters.

Ahh, I feel a bit better. What a shitty day.

dpeck is completely right about the hassle it's become. I'm only on week #2, I'm already fucking sick of it, and will take almost anything just to make it all stop.

codex_irl3• 14 years ago

Rails developer here, I am thinking of changing jobs right now but am put off by the thoughts of going to bullshit technical interviews where I need to implement / modify some obscure algorithms or concepts which I last saw 12+ years ago in a computer science class.

I would be much happier if the interviewer gave me a small app to create from home (which was relevant to the work they actually do) & then discuss my implementation choices in person with them.

What is the point of having me spend most of an interview doing things with dijkstra's algorithm if never, in the history of your company has this been used nor do you plan to use it & then spend the last 5 minutes asking a few vague questions about what I like about Ruby / hate about Rails.

Technical tests, in my experience, are mostly (90%+ of the time) composed of challenges which have no relevancy to the work I would be doing for that company, its pointless ceremony over common sense.

damncabbage• 14 years ago

- Stop creating hoops. ... By the time my resume gets to Rick it's been 3 weeks and someone has already scooped me up.

I agree completely. My current place is a large bureaucracy, and they've had more than one candidate slip through their fingers just because they couldn't get the guys through the Process before they were picked off by other companies.

flatline3• 14 years ago

All of your problems can be solved with one simple step:

Stop using recruiters. They provide you with net negative value.

uladzislau• 14 years ago

Why not apply directly to the top 3 companies you'd like to work for and where your expertise will be a good match? This might save you a lot of time and efforts.

calinet63• 14 years ago

1. Stop using recruiters.

2. Network. The best jobs I've found have been through people I meet and recommendations of friends and other entrepreneurs. Bypass the entire system and everyone is happier.

bokonist• 14 years ago

If you are in the Boston area or interested in relocating to Cambridge, my company, HubSpot, is hiring. We're a late stage startup building an all-in-one marketing platform. You can watch our recruiting video here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXOtTvb5OFE (yeah it's a bit corny, but it really is a cool place to work). Shoot me an email with your resume if you are interested (address in my profile). I'm one of engineering team leads, not a recruiter, so I will look at it directly, no hoops to jump through.

Flenser• 14 years ago

All of my past job titles are related to Linux / UNIX and I mention EMC once so you're going to send me storage admin jobs? Stop it.

This is why I started putting zero width spaces (U+200B, press Alt+8203 to type one) in my CV in the middle of words I want people to read but not computers searching for keywords to spam me.

jdavid• 14 years ago

Here is the problem with the job market in SF Tech.

As a developer we get plenty of emails, and when we finally go through the work of finding a good job we probably put more on the table than most business dev people do. We are asked to work late when the project was miss planned or miss communicated to customers, when the thing breaks for some random reason, we are there to fix it. So at some point we feel like it's a part of us.

On the flipside while companies are trying to recruit they don't want to talk about the details of the app and what they really need done because they don't want to scare you off. So you go through this dance, and it kinda starts like this.

Some recruiter sees in their linkedin network that a job posts. If they are whiley they might find the job listing on a particular site. They don't have any relationship with the company or with you but they want to broker the deal and get %25 of your yearly salary so they are willing to work for it. All the while the recruiter is trying to get information out of both sides without a contract and with out all of the information. They don't know how much the job will offer until they have a few good candidates to show, and to start a dialog with the company. On the other side of the table they are trying to figure out what it will take for you to leave what you are doing so they ask weird questions that have hardly anything to do with what you care about, but are solely related to things they understand.

Once you get far enough along in that dance, you'll go for an onsite where the interviewer is either an engineer or a hiring manager. In SF, no one has any time, so the interviewee is just not that important until they are actually hired. This is the first thing I look for.

  Does the hiring company actually care about me?

In many cases you are just someone else to interview. Some companies like to interview a whole lot of people and then select the best. This is a long drawn out process and usually involves some metrics on the back end. Positions that are open longer are more likely to hire.

Once you get past the personality screen then they give you a technical task/ interview. Some companies ask tough computer science questions that have long been lost by people who actually do the work. Others ask tech gotchas that you would normally look up on google if you were stuck. And some actually get you to work on something related to the actual position you are interviewing for.

Now once you get through all of that, now they need to close you. At this point they need to work a number. Back in the old days companies would work out a number and then do something nice just to make you feel really welcome. In SV this is much less so the case. Many people are very analytical and hardly have social skills so it becomes all about the numbers.

At this point as an engineer you would like to know how well the company is doing, but you can't quite ask the hard questions without seeming skeptical as this might affect your offer. On the flip side the company making the offer wants to get you as affordably as they can and they don't want you to take some other offer.

At the end of the day, the offering company will make an offer and put a time limit on it. ( as for some reason why they would rather have you make a brash decision about the next 3 years of your life, i don't get ) And then you look at the numbers and you either counter or don't. Many companies out here have been hard pressed to negotiate for the following reasons.

  * the cap table is already set
  * the salary is fair, and we are a startup and that's what we can offer
  * we don't offer bonuses

It's odd, because they are willing to pay a recruiter $20,000 to find you, but they don't want to actually give a little extra to the engineering staff.

Some companies wont even accept resumes from recruiters, but then you are missing out on all of the talent that get's talked into submitting a resume and has not had the time to search on their own.

I just wish companies talked more about the real issues and were more open and honest about things. I think that if you start with honesty, and expect honesty you have a much better chance of getting it back from your future employee and confident.

I forgot to mention that each of these dances might take an engineer 10-20 hours per company to full evaluate them. It's not a small amount of work to interview.

niggler2• 14 years ago

"It's odd, because they are willing to pay a recruiter $20,000 to find you, but they don't want to actually give a little extra to the engineering staff."

You have to ask the question: if they didn't pay $20,000 would they have found you in the first place? And if the answer is no, then it's $20,000 well spent.

"I just wish companies talked more about the real issues and were more open and honest about things. I think that if you start with honesty, and expect honesty you have a much better chance of getting it back from your future employee and confident."

There's dishonesty on both sides of the table and it's hard to discern, until after the fact, whether the other side was being true to their word and intent.

svachalek2• 14 years ago

The odd part is not that they're willing to pay the recruiter, it's that they're not willing to pay the candidate.

autarch• 14 years ago

I think one of the biggest barriers to finding a new job that's better than your current one is lack of telecommuting options.

Unless you live in NYC or the Bay Area or a few other big cities it's not like there's dozens of great companies to choose from for programming jobs.

Younger people might find it easy to move, but once you're in a relationship or have kids you can't just pick up and move every few years.

loeschg2• 14 years ago

Even as a young guy I can relate. I want to stay in the DC area, and I'm having trouble finding anything other than government consultant work. Not exactly the most exciting realm. Working to meet some people that might be able to point me in the right direction. As much as I hate to say it, "networking" pays.

armored_mammal2• 14 years ago

I hate the whole 'networking' thing, too, because I associate it with people who replace functional skills with schmoozing skills, and I also hate how concentrated in California and New York things are, because I'd really rather not move, too. Plus moving to San Fran or NY, a huge chunk of any salary increase just goes straight to rent. Blah.

sreyaNotfilc• 14 years ago

I need to work on networking as well. I'm a young (28) developer here in DC as well, but I don't know many devs let alone those my age.

I wish I knew some guys. I'm a Senior Developer working for the government. We're working on a web application that pathologists use for their case work. Although the system was made along time ago its far from complete. I was a mess when I inherited it, but I'm planning on revamping the entire site.

We just hired one guy and are looking at hiring someone else. I wish I knew some guys to build a team around. Perhaps, I could put a word in for you if you are interested.

Zelphyr2• 14 years ago

Because the job descriptions are always "fast-paced" and "cutting-edge" and "changing the way X does Y" perhaps?

jetti• 14 years ago

Speaking as somebody very early in my career, the "having your pick of places to work" isn't that apt to me. Sure I could quit today and have a job next week doing development, however, I would for sure be worse off because while there is need for developers there companies that are doing awesome things already attract awesome developers, where the need seems to be the strongest is at companies that are doing boring work and paying shit wages.

Also, what some see as "allergic to career advacement" could also be seen as long term career planning. For instance, I worked a terrible dev job for 7 months. I hated the place and they paid terrible salary for the skills they wanted and area they were. I quit after finding my current job. Now this is a nice place to work but there is still limitations to advancing as it is a smaller company. That being said, I'm planning to stick around for a few years because I'm working on my MS in CS and working on achieving my goal of working on compilers for a living. I don't need to hop to whatever job seems cooler than where I'm at currently because in the long run, it doesn't help me. Does it raise my income a bit? Sure, but after a certain point the money doesn't matter.

pnathan• 14 years ago

I'm not allergic to career opportunities. I am, however, slightly picky in regards to the company ethics & business plan, technology used, viability to be operating in a year, and also- I don't want to live in SF or NYC.

If you want to hire someone, make a concerted effort not to drag out the process, get the decision maker involved early, and cut the crap. Your OODA cycle will be lowered, the candidate will have a better impression, and you'll see more people.

I've been on both sides of the table, and a conscious decision not to look like Dilbert ( or worse, Ratbert/Dogbert ) in your process makes a huge difference.

ig1• 14 years ago

The premise is false. Developers change jobs roughly every three years, that's actually high compared to most other professions.

drumdance• 14 years ago

tl;dr - currently Supply < Demand.

Back after the dot com burst a whole lot of developers would have loved for recruiters to bug them.

zackmorris• 14 years ago

I have the training to build a computer from scratch (computer engineering degree). Anymore, I find it absolutely exhausting to talk to anyone about technology. Nobody seems to understand that all I need are living expenses. Please, just leave me alone, give me a place to live and food, and I will make whatever you need.

Anymore though, the gap between earning room and board and signing your life away to a soul sucking corporate atmosphere is so vast that I've opted to just go it alone and live as a starving artist.

I wish there was an in-between, but I've become disillusioned with the startup culture that is devolving towards 90s era bubble think. I think of it as, hackers have not yet declared independence from the power elite. Until that happens, I fear that we'll suffer indefinitely.

calinet63• 14 years ago

There are some very down-to-earth companies doing real good work out there, things you can believe in with people that won't suck your soul away. Don't give up hope.

Best of luck to you.

calinet63• 14 years ago

He's out of the loop—also a member of the "job noise" he speaks of. This is a case of being on the inside looking in.

From the outside looking in, I don't want to go anywhere near it.

Most of the jobs I've had (and all the recent ones) have been through friends and connections, completely bypassing the system and the job noise. If I need a job, I talk to people—any people, and lots of them. My last job I found while at a party with random friends-of-friends I mostly didn't even know, and before that was through a coworker at a consulting gig. Prior to that I started a company after having a great discussion at a bar.

I haven't updated my resume in 8 years—it's pointless, I've never found a good job using it anyway. In my opinion, if they're looking at your resume, you've already lost. You have already become a number in a pile. If they're looking at you personally and evaluating your fit for the company, then you start way ahead of the game.

This is how job searching today has to go; if you're going to recruiters or job boards, you're already in a death spiral. Escape it by networking and reaching out to your true human connections. Treat your resume as obsolete, and let your true work and your recommendations stand in its place. It will be much more effective, I promise.

mooreds• 14 years ago

Resumes are for chumps. Don't do it, spend the time getting to know the company you want to work for, or people you'd like to work with.

Frankly, I don't want to compete on the basis of my resume! Keywords and biz speak are hard to avoid on these documents. And now that everyone can spray their resume at hiring managers without licking a stamp, sending in a resume really is a waste of time. It almost always has been that way, read 'What Color is Your Parachute' for a taste of job hunting over the past few decades.

Get to know someone at the company, do a contract to hire, do a gig, volunteer with someone, even read and comment on a blog or twitter feed of someone in the company.

All these are far more likely to lead to conversations that will let you know if you actually want to work there, and if you'll be a good fit.

orangethirty• 14 years ago

I'm not allergic to job opportunities. In fact, I'm always interested in knowing abou them. But, don't expect me to wait by my inbox. I just pushed out 3 MVPs last month, and I'm on my way to push 3 more this month. I have code to ship. If you want me to ship your code then be aware of some things. First, I understand where you are coming from. I do. But don't expect me to give into your proposal just because you have some investor interested in your "app." Two, if you offer me equity, then you are out right telling me that my time is worth more than your whole business. That is not a good deal for either side. You wouldnt be giving away equity if you had money in the bank. Three, don't lowball be. It's a waste of time for us both, because I will decline, and you will waste a lot of time finding someone who ships.

armored_mammal2• 14 years ago

I want to find a new job that's more interesting, but every time I try it's impossible to wade through the piles uselessness obfuscating everything.

Then I think about how much trouble it'd be to market myself and how much of my private life and interests I'd have to make public just get someone interested enough to get me a detour around said piles.

Then I go back to my current job where I'm woefully underpaid and build mountains of Rube Goldberg-esque trash to satisfy the idiotic short term thinking justified by the fake jingoism of the business and marketing types that run the company.

Remember folks, if you can build something wrong to reduce the cost of developer time, it's always worth it!

abuiles• 14 years ago

I wonder at which point did you ended up going on this direction, did the launch of recent businesses like http://developerauction.com/ influenced some how this decision? Would you still describe as the "online reputation system for developers" or are you going to turn around and head into a new "job market" where companies can show off their profile? what do I gain following a company? The profiles look really nice :D.

bbwharris• 14 years ago

I think we should all sit back and be happy that we are in this position. It's a great place to be, much better than desperate to find anyone who's hiring. We have our pick and we complain about recruiters? If only everyone was so lucky.

EricDeb2• 14 years ago

I see a lot of jobs requiring 3-5 years of experience in an odd combination of technologies that I seriously doubt many, even experienced coders have. I imagine a lot of companies could attract more applicants or find talent easier by allowing a developer time to ramp up with a new technology or language.

etherael• 14 years ago

I think the incentives need to be re-aligned. https://www.sofee.com.au/ is new and maybe a step in the right direction, though only for Australia at the moment.

Does anyone know of anything similar internationally?

Why developers are allergic to job opportunities

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