

So you want to be a developer? - SeptimusPrime
http://www.blonde.net/blog/2015/04/16/so-you-want-be-developer

======
aakilfernandes
> If I see someone list HTML, DHTML, XHTML and HTML 5, alarm bells start
> ringing

I understand where this is coming from, but I think the author should realize
that lots of companies have non-technical people (or robots) screening resumes
and they're looking for exact matches. You're a Phonegap expert? Sorry we need
someone who knows Cordova. Its better to overlist than underlist.

~~~
copsarebastards
Non-technical people screening resumes is a major dysfunction. If a company
screens out my resume because I didn't include DHTML, they've screened
themselves out--I wouldn't want to work at a place where the other members of
my team are determined by someone unqualified.

Remember that there are more development jobs than there are developers. As
such, don't act desperate. Companies want to control the job market by setting
the expectation that they are interviewing you--don't fall for it. They need
you more than you need them: you should be interviewing them.

~~~
TheAnimus
> I wouldn't want to work at a place where the other members of my team are
> determined by someone unqualified.

But it's a big firm, they've got to comply with both UK employment law and the
German rules too.

They get 1000s of applications, so they need to filter them, it's time that's
far to important to spend on a developer, I mean they are short of them too.

So I'll stick it on, probably in a format that makes it obvious to a technical
person, I consider this an expansion of the bullet point technology.

~~~
copsarebastards
> But it's a big firm, they've got to comply with both UK employment law and
> the German rules too.

I don't know why this would be relevant. Excuses for why they are
dysfunctional don't change the fact that they are dysfunctional.

> They get 1000s of applications, so they need to filter them, it's time
> that's far to important to spend on a developer, I mean they are short of
> them too.

It doesn't matter how many applications a big company receives as a whole. If
you've posted a job posting for a specific job, you're lucky to receive 10s of
applications, let alone 1000s. And given that a hire will affect the
productivity of the team every second of every day for years, spending an hour
filtering applications is absolutely a worthwhile investment of developer
time.

And if applications are handled at the corporate level for a large
corporation, the hiring process is fundamentally broken. That doesn't mean
it's okay to have unqualified people filtering applications, it means that you
should be posting jobs for specific teams rather than for the whole company.

I've worked at large companies where applications were filtered by a central
office and it showed in the quality of applications we received. I ended up
drawing from my local community instead and this was a big part of why our
team outperformed others at the company.

> So I'll stick it on, probably in a format that makes it obvious to a
> technical person, I consider this an expansion of the bullet point
> technology.

You're only doing yourself a disservice by catering to organizations with
crappy hiring practices. Good luck!

~~~
TheAnimus
> You're only doing yourself a disservice by catering to organizations with
> crappy hiring practices. Good luck!

I'm a CTO of a multi million pound firm now. But it did work for me very well
when I was just a developer. I wouldn't be so quick to write it off.

Some of the big firms I've worked for absolutely did get hundreds of
applications each day for jobs, especially ones aimed at graduates. They can
afford to take the risk of missing a good candidate because they had T-SQL,
but not SQL.

~~~
copsarebastards
> But it did work for me very well when I was just a developer.

I'm not sure how you arrived at this conclusion. I'm sure you had no problem
finding jobs, but that doesn't mean they were the best jobs or that it was due
to your applying strategy. Casting a wider net won't necessarily ultimately
lead to you having worse jobs, but it will at least cause you to waste more
time on interviews.

> Some of the big firms I've worked for absolutely did get hundreds of
> applications each day for jobs, especially ones aimed at graduates.

I'll venture that _every_ big firm gets hundreds of applications. This is
completely irrelevant to my point, which is that handling applications at the
corporate level is the wrong way to handle applications.

> They can afford to take the risk of missing a good candidate because they
> had T-SQL, but not SQL.

And I can afford to be missed by such companies. I am _happy_ to be missed by
such companies. I want to work with talented, motivated programmers, not
people who made it through a non-technical HR screen.

~~~
TheAnimus
> I want to work with talented, motivated programmers, not people who made it
> through a non-technical HR screen.

The problem is, this sounds good, but in reality the world doesn't work like
this. Hiring is complex, there are many legal implications of the interview
process, I had to correct one of my employees just yesterday because he said
the word "young", this is a big no no in the UK, we can't look for a "young
person". I had to clarify and expand that he meant this is an entry level
position designed for people looking to get exposure to certain technologies
in an environment that will foster their ambitions and provide opportunities
for growth as we expand. Fun this stuff isn't it, few developers want to learn
these rules.

This is why in large firms you end up having to let HR handle things. No one
is going to ask us, why out of our 12 employees, we've no one who is
transgender, but if we had 1000 people, we would need to demonstrate that it's
entirely because we haven't had anyone apply, not because we have turned them
all down.

As firms get larger, responsibilities get divided into lines that are more
immutable, sadly this will mean the person doing the first stage of the hiring
probably knows nothing about computer science, but may well have an excellent
understanding of team psychology and HR laws.

When I read a comment like your last one, I find it slightly saddening, it
reminds me of being in Hong Kong last month, a friend of mine wouldn't even
try the pickled ducks tongue, I've no idea why, he eats pate, but outright
refused to even take a bite. I fear you are talking out of complete ignorance.

There are some teams in the big corporate firms that I'd rather quit (and have
done!) than join, but there are also ones where I've worked with some of the
best developers, mathematicians and scientists I've ever met, that's a fairly
high bar. One in particular had a 'cap' of £250k per year for a developer, to
give you an idea the average price is £60k. This big finance firm realised the
value the right developers have, the money was symbolic, we had budget for
anything we could remotely justify (PCIe SSDs when they were unheard of etc)
we had very good levels of autonomy too, with a relaxed working environment,
even if other people on other floors were wearing suits. I've also worked for
a 'brogrammer startup' that I ended up quitting swiftly as they were breaking
the law. I wouldn't project my experiences out to the whole set, only keep in
mind that there are interesting opportunities everywhere, understand their
barriers and obviously tailor my CV to fit each application.

It is foolish to write them all off, and frankly portrays that element of
dismissing something you don't understand, which I find to be very poor trait
for an engineer.

~~~
copsarebastards
> The problem is, this sounds good, but in reality the world doesn't work like
> this.

"The world" is quite a large thing to make claims about. It certainly works
like I describe at some companies.

> Hiring is complex, there are many legal implications of the interview
> process, I had to correct one of my employees just yesterday because he said
> the word "young", this is a big no no in the UK, we can't look for a "young
> person". I had to clarify and expand that he meant this is an entry level
> position designed for people looking to get exposure to certain technologies
> in an environment that will foster their ambitions and provide opportunities
> for growth as we expand. Fun this stuff isn't it, few developers want to
> learn these rules.

So your dev said something ageist and you taught them how to rebrand it? I'm
really not seeing how this supports your point. If HR screening is just a way
to cover your ass because your staff are bigots, I'm even more happy to be
screened out by your HR department.

> As firms get larger, responsibilities get divided into lines that are more
> immutable, sadly this will mean the person doing the first stage of the
> hiring probably knows nothing about computer science, but may well have an
> excellent understanding of team psychology and HR laws.

What this boils down to is "this is the way it's done, so this is the way it
should be done".

If you hired developers that embraced diversity in practice rather than in
appearance, you wouldn't have to have such an understanding of HR laws. It
sounds like you're so caught up in solving this legal problem that you don't
realize you have an _actual_ problem.

To address your concern about demonstrating that you didn't receive any
transpeople's applications: I'm not saying you shouldn't keep records of who
applies. I'm sure you can figure out a way to keep records of who applies
without having HR decide which applicants are considered.

> When I read a comment like your last one, I find it slightly saddening, it
> reminds me of being in Hong Kong last month, a friend of mine wouldn't even
> try the pickled ducks tongue, I've no idea why, he eats pate, but outright
> refused to even take a bite. I fear you are talking out of complete
> ignorance.

On the contrary, I've worked at firms like the ones you've described, and
that's exactly why I despise your way of thinking. I've experienced plenty of
it and it's toxic.

> There are some teams in the big corporate firms that I'd rather quit (and
> have done!) than join, but there are also ones where I've worked with some
> of the best developers, mathematicians and scientists I've ever met, that's
> a fairly high bar. One in particular had a 'cap' of £250k per year for a
> developer, to give you an idea the average price is £60k. This big finance
> firm realised the value the right developers have, the money was symbolic,
> we had budget for anything we could remotely justify (PCIe SSDs when they
> were unheard of etc) we had very good levels of autonomy too, with a relaxed
> working environment, even if other people on other floors were wearing
> suits. I've also worked for a 'brogrammer startup' that I ended up quitting
> swiftly as they were breaking the law. I wouldn't project my experiences out
> to the whole set, only keep in mind that there are interesting opportunities
> everywhere, understand their barriers and obviously tailor my CV to fit each
> application.

I don't disagree that there are great devs on dysfunctional teams. There are
even non-dysfunctional teams at large firms (

> It is foolish to write them all off, and frankly portrays that element of
> dismissing something you don't understand, which I find to be very poor
> trait for an engineer.

Why is it that you assume I don't understand it? Could you consider that maybe
I do understand it but I value different things than you? It sounds to me like
we've got differences of values, not different levels of experience.

------
vonmoltke
I think a more accurate title would be "So you want to be a _web_ developer".
I'm not sure much of that is accurate for other software disciplines.

~~~
pluma
There's other kinds of developers left? /s

~~~
geogra4
Hi, I'm the enterprise over here!

~~~
pluma
Lies. Everybody knows there are no enterprise developers any more. /s

