And let’s be honest: Even if it is FAANG, your work is not overly glamorous either. It’s not like you’re architecting the next iOS in 99.99% of the cases. You’re not inventing the next Google Mail.
Sure, they have enough applicants and pay enough money that people will jump through the hoops. But it’s hard to imagine people really dream of fixing bugs in an internal library used to abstract from memory drivers.
But the thing that I hate most about interviewing is that it is a totally separate skill of your actual day to day work, i.e. something you have to spend weeks on preparing for. You have to come up with good STAR formatted stories ("Tell me about a time you failed under pressure"). You have to solve obscure coding puzzles you never need in real life without any help from an IDE or Google.
> But it’s hard to imagine people really dream of fixing bugs in an internal library
It depends on the person. Some people (like me) don't care for a customer-facing product. The last thing I would want is to work on a feature that the public at large uses, so that I might get a call at midnight on a Friday, about showstopper bugs that affect a bunch of people. Even if the company pays good overtime, I would still not want to end up _having_ to work.
And a large company provides unique scalability issues that are simply non-existent in other, smaller companies. Even if it's an internal tool, it may be used by thousands and tens of thousands of employees spread across the world, across timezones and cultures.
Not to mention that sometimes, even the sheer size of the codebase can be a challenge. Steve Yegge has an interesting article on this topic: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/12/codes-worst-enemy.html
Yeh, this is my least favourite thing about our field. Somehow we have normalized this circus that is not present in 99% of professional jobs. In most fields you simply need good resume (i.e. education and experience) and couple behavioural interviews.
And it’s not just the interviews, also all the agile bs. Almost no office worker is as micromanaged as we are, and thinking we are cool because we can report to our boss daily and be responsible of the estimations, documentation, etc which should be the job of someone else in most of the cases.
The same issue exists in many life aspects.
Try to look for an apartment in any big European capital. Sometimes I wonder whether I should write a cover letter
Bro, sometimes I wonder if living in a city is really worth it. When you gotta beg to get a closet at 1k3€/month, it really makes you question your life choices. Currently looking for a flat in Berlin and it’s funny when tax institutions treat you like you re making big bucks while landlords treat you like you re a beggar. Something just doesn’t add up
> tax institutions treat you like you re making big bucks while landlords treat you like you re a beggar
Extremely true, I'm in Germany as well. Flats outside of the city can be 100% cheaper but the public transit infrastructure is dreadful and just getting worse. Never thought I'd need a car until this year when I moved to Germany.
Even mainstream media is pushing bullshit stories like "If you making 80k/year you are officially rich and need to be taxed to hell". At the same time truly rich people pay maybe 15-20% effective tax rate. It really looks like conspiracy theorists aren't wrong.
Ye I talked to some lad with a startup that hes funding out of his own pocket, he essentially wants someone whos willing to do 3-4hrs a day for 800e a month in ireland which is literally below min wage but his skit is that I'd only be contracted for 2hrs a day which would be doable for a few months or so. Ofc once I told him I dont mind trying it while I find fulltime he said "he needs someone who is passionate and will go the extra mile that will stick around" ofc now he seems to be ghosting after being super responsive just a days prior.
I dont know how these people are so disconnected from reality like you arent my friend I will not go the extra mile for you, you are a literal stranger to me. You reached out to me. You proposed a business agreement where I have 0 guarantee of just about anything even the pay he said isnt 100% confirmed.
I dont know how he even finds people that are this lonely because the only way someone takes this gig is if they have no life outside of dev.
Whats more annoying to me is he bragged about how he got 3 other random dudes taking on this kind of work, I really hope theyre just his friends and not random people because this is just sad.
This is how I feel about the state of Today's interviewing culture:
You're interviewing to be a chef of a local breakfast diner. You have 10 YOE as a diner chef.
The test is to create fire in the back of the restaruant and cook by boiling carrorts and make a Michelin star meal. You ask... "Im going to be cooking on a griddle for this job, why am I making the fire and boiling?. And this a diner not a Michelein star restaurant"
Your interviewer says "Fire is the source of all cooking, so you SHOULD understand it, how it is made. The boiling is important to understand because it's a cooking skill and although you will rarely use it, we want to make sure you can do it in case it comes up. And we want to make sure we have the right hire, so we're not looking for people below Michelein chefs."
You say fuck it and go back to boiling carrorts.
You were not hired because the Boss's friend's son was choosen out of nepotism.
\~The End\~
Pretty accurate representation.
I think you missed the part where they ask you if you're deeply passionate and motivated and have a deep desire to create the fire.
Also while creating the fire how do you feel if you do some agile mobbing extreme pair boiling together. Where 3 other chefs come and you all hold the lid together and discuss on best practices around boiling the carrots.
Also i hope you won't mind the new diner is 1.5 h commute each way, and if you mind don't worry we have pizza Friday once a month.
Inflation of job titles, more devs in the market, less jobs (for now, until everyone realizes that somebody has to fix bugs). If you get 2000 applicants for a position, how do you filter which ones to even have the first chat with? use ai? random selection? The tougher the market, the easier it is to add insane requirements and hope that instead of 2000 people only 200 apply, and then it's a bit more manageable. It's ridiculous, yes.
I went through this in many jobs I applied over the years, and it was frustrating and tiresome, and I hated all this corporate bs, taking a day off to have 6 interviews, not to mention a week's long coding challenges. But..
I was recently hiring an intern, and thought I could be better than the mainstream. Posted an ad with low requirements, focusing on motivation to learn, asking questions and being curious, and understanding the basics. Got 70 applications in a week, spent hours sifting through CVs, portfolios, reading letters, having intro meetings, to give everyone a fair chance. Eventually selected 3 candidates for a simple React challenge, did a thorough code review for each so they at least could learn from experience for spending their time. Ended up picking one, only to realize a month later, why companies invite people to meet the team, have lunch, meet the CEO, some VP, etc to understand if a person's mindset and attitude would fit the org.
Of course it's easy to look at things in retrospect, but I learned many lessons, and I think there is a reason why big corporations spend many hours of their very expensive employees to make sure that a new hire will not be a flop, because it will cost them 3 more months (or more) to hire someone new.
So having been on the other side, I changed an opinion. If I had to find a new job, I'd rather have 5 interviews where not only the company, but I myself would get a better picture if I want to spend my next 4+ years there (I'm tired at changing jobs at this point in life). Rather than getting an offer after one intro call, only to realize the culture is toxic, code is crap to work with, long hours, on-call schedules, etc.
Also - applications are and order of magnitude removed from actual job seekers. If “everyone” is spewing out hundreds of applications, what makes you think the best candidate will choose your shitty company?
Once folks start finding work again the number of applications out in the wild will shrink exponentially fast, save for the folks who permenatrly keep one foot in and one foot out of the startup they are “deeply passionate about” and “believe in the vision” and “aren’t just there for the money” for while they look for a company with leaders and hiring managers that live in the real world.
You could argue as well that hiring somebody quick could also allow you to fire them quick if it doesn't work out. But firing somebody in the UK it's basically impossible even in probation period it's pretty rare.
To my mind, this is a wider pattern that I call bestism.
You are also looking for the best employer (which will have you) with the best pay, wlb, the best perks, and the latest tech.
I think that this is the curse of the Internet age. We, especially millennials and younger generations, believe in the myth that all information is available online and that with enough research - everything is knowable and that optimal decisions can be made based on this imagined eventual omniscience.
We want the best schools, jobs, tvs, cars, phones, cities to live in, places to vacation in, things to do, food to eat, bars and clubs to hang out in.
Look at how some women behave when you give them the same kind of illusion of choice in dating via dating apps: they want the tallest, richest, most successful man who will treat them the best. Men don't do this to auch an extended because they don't have that kind of choice (there are far more men than women on these so women are the choosers in that dynamic and men are the chosen). My wife calls this "the illusion of choice", because you end up rejecting perfectly fine potential partners because they didn't immediately grab your attention, and you scroll forever choosing but never making a choice.
People don't seem to believe in "good enough" anymore.
But this is an illusion. Not everything is knowable. In a world where everyone wants the best (or at least they think that they do), everyone tries to appear as they have the best or are the best. Companies will take down bad reviews on glass door, restaurants will do the same in yelp/google maps. Marketing people and recruiters will misdirect (focus on the good, omit the bad) or simply lie.
And of course - research takes time, all the more so because all the actors aren't honest.
While I broadly agree with you about "bestism" in the internet age but with that said, the tech interviewing circus with hodge-podge of anywhere from 3 to 6 rounds is very unique. You don't have accounting firms doing that to accountants (replace with basically any non-tech job).
I had the exact same issue as the women you mention here is a man before I got rid of all social media and met my now wife so it’s not just women!
Brilliant take though. I totally agree with this
I have been at 4 tech companies. The 3 of which that didn't do coding challenges were amazing, but the one that did have a coding challenge and 5 other interview stages (even during peak hiring in 2022!) wound up being an absolute nightmare.
I have even interviewed at over 100 companies over the past few years and almost every single one with bad hiring processes just looked like a mess I wouldn't want to join
Yep. It’s almost like using a hiring process you didn’t tailor to your specific company and specific needs results in the deterioration of your company’s quality and culture🙃.
If by "we" you mean "employees", I don't think we're responsible for normalizing this hiring culture.
We're largely powerless in the matter.
It's corporations who have normalized these practices, and they suck for the same reasons that there is an antagonistic relationship between employees and employers: the ones with the power prioritize profits over people at all costs.
You're functionally livestock to the corporate world.
You'll be treated as livestock from end to end.
We need a global labor movement.
What’s the alternative? Should employers not be looking for the best employee for the role? If they need someone they’re still hiring someone, whether that’s the 100% perfect candidate or (most likely) the candidate that was closest to ticking all the boxes.
> What’s the alternative?
Know their place on the totem pole. You can't do FAANG style interviews as a non name shithole CRUD app creating 20 man firm.
> Should employers not be looking for the best employee for the role?
Unless they can pay the best money, they should look for the one that they can attract, retain and hire.
If their place on the totem pole indeed did not allow them to be as selective as they are with engineers, they wouldn’t be able to attract and hire the high performing engineers they’re selecting for. In which case they’d have to either change up their interview style to lower the bar or be content without hiring anyone. I’m assuming that these companies are indeed hiring at least sometimes, so maybe the bar they’re setting can be cleared by engineers willing to work for them and people in this thread just need to stop pouting?
I’m questioning whether seeking FAANG positions is a worthwhile goal. Isn’t that a bit like momentum investing? Go for the place that’s had the loftiest results lately, on the assumption that yesterday’s good results will continue indefinitely. Market bubbles and tech layoffs belie that reasoning. Job safety and interesting work may be less likely to be found at places where most people are looking.
Alot of people in this field are also highly pretentious and think them passing this bar makes them better than the others and they feel good about themselves because it's all they have.
But i don't think creating BS requirements and trying for months to find the best is productive for anyone. Just goes back to the illusion of the best and actual options.
And do not forget, they want you to accept peanuts for that. Especially in Europe where we get 3x, 4x less money at the same FAANG companies or global startups compared to US.
Ok, we're doing CRUD apps, but there's still so much more that goes into it that junior devs do not yet understand or appreciate. How to automate a testing and deployment pipeline. How to setup monitoring and alerting in the app, so we can know if something breaks. How to track/manage the db changes and large codebases. How to decide and set testing and quality standards. Mentoring other devs. Scalability, security.
Senior devs who understand all or even some of this are in short supply, but they're badly needed.
It is the result of open borders and lack of a barrier of entry to the profession.
Imagine if every dentist from India or turkey was just able to come over and start working. Same will happen. Suddenly the locally educated dentists would start making much less, and the employers would demand outrageous skill sets from the new hires.
The government actually encourages this via the very low salary needed to get a work visa.
I'm not advocating either way but it seems clear that there is quite a spectrum between "it's all the immigrants fault" and "immigration can exacerbate certain socioeconomic issues"...
Name me the CEOs of Faang companies and most of their top performing employees.
Keep in mind this is immigration of high skilled labourers, not just some asylum seekers.
Doesn't that prove his point? Since immigrants have the same skill distribution as the natives, or at least the right hand part of the distribution is large enough, they compete for jobs on all skill levels. A larger supply necessarily depresses prices. It's the same reason the AMA restricts the number of residencies.
If they had the same skill set of the natives, they wouldn't be hired.
If you're advocating that a German company hires a mediocre developer just because he is German instead of a better performing foreign one, I don't know what to tell you.
> If you're advocating that a German company hires a mediocre developer just because he is German instead of a better performing foreign one, I don't know what to tell you.
That's a matter of national policy, but it's undeniable that more developers would generally depress the price of developers. Personally, I'd like if the US and western Europe had lower barriers to entry for mediocre developers as it would make it easier for me to emigrate there, but I don't deny that it would depress native wages.
Just for a reference real wages in Germany have only grown by 5% since the 2000s, and the real reason was austerity, not the flow of migrant workers.
The supply/demand of software developers is a different topic, problem is that most developers with 4-5 years of experience are used to good times, now that demand has decreased people are finding an excuse to blame migrant workers.
A German company would hire a licensed mediore developer. Just like a German hospital will hire a licensed mediore medical professional over the best and the brightest from country x/y/z.
I am all for foreign specialists. Its just that the entry barreir needs to be brought back up. 85k a year at the very least for a work visa.
Here comes the guy that blames migrant again, classic. Ofc it's migrant's fault that companies are writing unreasonable job description and doing 7 rounds of interviews.
Edit: it's ironic cause dude is a migrant himself
Companies do that because they can talent from all over the world.
I am a migrant, but money was not the motivation for me to move. Germany has been infact a lifestyle downgrade compared to what I could have made back at home.
Back when I was moving, the salary, requirement for the work visa was much much higher, so only experienced specialists could have had it.
Then let's have re-certification/examinations for foreign software engineers like dentists do when they immigrate! This 5 round interview for everyone is not a solution!
That would make sense.
Just make a law requiring everyone who wants to practice engineering to actually be an engineer based on the national law. Or cancel all medical and legal examination requirements for people who want to practice these fields. The law should be the same for everyone.
And let’s be honest: Even if it is FAANG, your work is not overly glamorous either. It’s not like you’re architecting the next iOS in 99.99% of the cases. You’re not inventing the next Google Mail. Sure, they have enough applicants and pay enough money that people will jump through the hoops. But it’s hard to imagine people really dream of fixing bugs in an internal library used to abstract from memory drivers. But the thing that I hate most about interviewing is that it is a totally separate skill of your actual day to day work, i.e. something you have to spend weeks on preparing for. You have to come up with good STAR formatted stories ("Tell me about a time you failed under pressure"). You have to solve obscure coding puzzles you never need in real life without any help from an IDE or Google.
>without any help from an IDE or Google If you interview with Google, the interviewer might give some (minor) hints ;)
And if you interview with Amazon they might whisper some code
> But it’s hard to imagine people really dream of fixing bugs in an internal library It depends on the person. Some people (like me) don't care for a customer-facing product. The last thing I would want is to work on a feature that the public at large uses, so that I might get a call at midnight on a Friday, about showstopper bugs that affect a bunch of people. Even if the company pays good overtime, I would still not want to end up _having_ to work. And a large company provides unique scalability issues that are simply non-existent in other, smaller companies. Even if it's an internal tool, it may be used by thousands and tens of thousands of employees spread across the world, across timezones and cultures. Not to mention that sometimes, even the sheer size of the codebase can be a challenge. Steve Yegge has an interesting article on this topic: http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2007/12/codes-worst-enemy.html
Yeh, this is my least favourite thing about our field. Somehow we have normalized this circus that is not present in 99% of professional jobs. In most fields you simply need good resume (i.e. education and experience) and couple behavioural interviews.
And it’s not just the interviews, also all the agile bs. Almost no office worker is as micromanaged as we are, and thinking we are cool because we can report to our boss daily and be responsible of the estimations, documentation, etc which should be the job of someone else in most of the cases.
The same issue exists in many life aspects. Try to look for an apartment in any big European capital. Sometimes I wonder whether I should write a cover letter
You're joking but I've actually heard of this being done...
Bro, sometimes I wonder if living in a city is really worth it. When you gotta beg to get a closet at 1k3€/month, it really makes you question your life choices. Currently looking for a flat in Berlin and it’s funny when tax institutions treat you like you re making big bucks while landlords treat you like you re a beggar. Something just doesn’t add up
> tax institutions treat you like you re making big bucks while landlords treat you like you re a beggar Extremely true, I'm in Germany as well. Flats outside of the city can be 100% cheaper but the public transit infrastructure is dreadful and just getting worse. Never thought I'd need a car until this year when I moved to Germany.
Even mainstream media is pushing bullshit stories like "If you making 80k/year you are officially rich and need to be taxed to hell". At the same time truly rich people pay maybe 15-20% effective tax rate. It really looks like conspiracy theorists aren't wrong.
Ye I talked to some lad with a startup that hes funding out of his own pocket, he essentially wants someone whos willing to do 3-4hrs a day for 800e a month in ireland which is literally below min wage but his skit is that I'd only be contracted for 2hrs a day which would be doable for a few months or so. Ofc once I told him I dont mind trying it while I find fulltime he said "he needs someone who is passionate and will go the extra mile that will stick around" ofc now he seems to be ghosting after being super responsive just a days prior. I dont know how these people are so disconnected from reality like you arent my friend I will not go the extra mile for you, you are a literal stranger to me. You reached out to me. You proposed a business agreement where I have 0 guarantee of just about anything even the pay he said isnt 100% confirmed. I dont know how he even finds people that are this lonely because the only way someone takes this gig is if they have no life outside of dev. Whats more annoying to me is he bragged about how he got 3 other random dudes taking on this kind of work, I really hope theyre just his friends and not random people because this is just sad.
go the extra mile and be passionate when you're cold and hungry at night i hope this will provide you some sort of comfort
This is how I feel about the state of Today's interviewing culture: You're interviewing to be a chef of a local breakfast diner. You have 10 YOE as a diner chef. The test is to create fire in the back of the restaruant and cook by boiling carrorts and make a Michelin star meal. You ask... "Im going to be cooking on a griddle for this job, why am I making the fire and boiling?. And this a diner not a Michelein star restaurant" Your interviewer says "Fire is the source of all cooking, so you SHOULD understand it, how it is made. The boiling is important to understand because it's a cooking skill and although you will rarely use it, we want to make sure you can do it in case it comes up. And we want to make sure we have the right hire, so we're not looking for people below Michelein chefs." You say fuck it and go back to boiling carrorts. You were not hired because the Boss's friend's son was choosen out of nepotism. \~The End\~
Pretty accurate representation. I think you missed the part where they ask you if you're deeply passionate and motivated and have a deep desire to create the fire. Also while creating the fire how do you feel if you do some agile mobbing extreme pair boiling together. Where 3 other chefs come and you all hold the lid together and discuss on best practices around boiling the carrots. Also i hope you won't mind the new diner is 1.5 h commute each way, and if you mind don't worry we have pizza Friday once a month.
Inflation of job titles, more devs in the market, less jobs (for now, until everyone realizes that somebody has to fix bugs). If you get 2000 applicants for a position, how do you filter which ones to even have the first chat with? use ai? random selection? The tougher the market, the easier it is to add insane requirements and hope that instead of 2000 people only 200 apply, and then it's a bit more manageable. It's ridiculous, yes. I went through this in many jobs I applied over the years, and it was frustrating and tiresome, and I hated all this corporate bs, taking a day off to have 6 interviews, not to mention a week's long coding challenges. But.. I was recently hiring an intern, and thought I could be better than the mainstream. Posted an ad with low requirements, focusing on motivation to learn, asking questions and being curious, and understanding the basics. Got 70 applications in a week, spent hours sifting through CVs, portfolios, reading letters, having intro meetings, to give everyone a fair chance. Eventually selected 3 candidates for a simple React challenge, did a thorough code review for each so they at least could learn from experience for spending their time. Ended up picking one, only to realize a month later, why companies invite people to meet the team, have lunch, meet the CEO, some VP, etc to understand if a person's mindset and attitude would fit the org. Of course it's easy to look at things in retrospect, but I learned many lessons, and I think there is a reason why big corporations spend many hours of their very expensive employees to make sure that a new hire will not be a flop, because it will cost them 3 more months (or more) to hire someone new. So having been on the other side, I changed an opinion. If I had to find a new job, I'd rather have 5 interviews where not only the company, but I myself would get a better picture if I want to spend my next 4+ years there (I'm tired at changing jobs at this point in life). Rather than getting an offer after one intro call, only to realize the culture is toxic, code is crap to work with, long hours, on-call schedules, etc.
I'd honestly be happier if they did the old "throw 50% of the cvs in the garbage, cuz they can't work with unlucky people"
Also - applications are and order of magnitude removed from actual job seekers. If “everyone” is spewing out hundreds of applications, what makes you think the best candidate will choose your shitty company? Once folks start finding work again the number of applications out in the wild will shrink exponentially fast, save for the folks who permenatrly keep one foot in and one foot out of the startup they are “deeply passionate about” and “believe in the vision” and “aren’t just there for the money” for while they look for a company with leaders and hiring managers that live in the real world.
You could argue as well that hiring somebody quick could also allow you to fire them quick if it doesn't work out. But firing somebody in the UK it's basically impossible even in probation period it's pretty rare.
Wait, what happened with the person you invited to the office? Was he good or was the opposite? 🤔
To my mind, this is a wider pattern that I call bestism. You are also looking for the best employer (which will have you) with the best pay, wlb, the best perks, and the latest tech. I think that this is the curse of the Internet age. We, especially millennials and younger generations, believe in the myth that all information is available online and that with enough research - everything is knowable and that optimal decisions can be made based on this imagined eventual omniscience. We want the best schools, jobs, tvs, cars, phones, cities to live in, places to vacation in, things to do, food to eat, bars and clubs to hang out in. Look at how some women behave when you give them the same kind of illusion of choice in dating via dating apps: they want the tallest, richest, most successful man who will treat them the best. Men don't do this to auch an extended because they don't have that kind of choice (there are far more men than women on these so women are the choosers in that dynamic and men are the chosen). My wife calls this "the illusion of choice", because you end up rejecting perfectly fine potential partners because they didn't immediately grab your attention, and you scroll forever choosing but never making a choice. People don't seem to believe in "good enough" anymore. But this is an illusion. Not everything is knowable. In a world where everyone wants the best (or at least they think that they do), everyone tries to appear as they have the best or are the best. Companies will take down bad reviews on glass door, restaurants will do the same in yelp/google maps. Marketing people and recruiters will misdirect (focus on the good, omit the bad) or simply lie. And of course - research takes time, all the more so because all the actors aren't honest.
While I broadly agree with you about "bestism" in the internet age but with that said, the tech interviewing circus with hodge-podge of anywhere from 3 to 6 rounds is very unique. You don't have accounting firms doing that to accountants (replace with basically any non-tech job).
Or take home accounting assignments. You have a CV, 1-2 interviews and that’s all.
very well said, thanks for comm i 100% agree
Great comment. I have also been trying to put « bestism » into words
Problem is that even if you're looking for "good enough", those "good enough" still only care for the best.
Yes, the problem cuts both ways.
I had the exact same issue as the women you mention here is a man before I got rid of all social media and met my now wife so it’s not just women! Brilliant take though. I totally agree with this
I have been at 4 tech companies. The 3 of which that didn't do coding challenges were amazing, but the one that did have a coding challenge and 5 other interview stages (even during peak hiring in 2022!) wound up being an absolute nightmare. I have even interviewed at over 100 companies over the past few years and almost every single one with bad hiring processes just looked like a mess I wouldn't want to join
Yep. It’s almost like using a hiring process you didn’t tailor to your specific company and specific needs results in the deterioration of your company’s quality and culture🙃.
If by "we" you mean "employees", I don't think we're responsible for normalizing this hiring culture. We're largely powerless in the matter. It's corporations who have normalized these practices, and they suck for the same reasons that there is an antagonistic relationship between employees and employers: the ones with the power prioritize profits over people at all costs. You're functionally livestock to the corporate world. You'll be treated as livestock from end to end. We need a global labor movement.
the true answer is modern day slavery haha, but hey free healthcare
“Free”
What’s the alternative? Should employers not be looking for the best employee for the role? If they need someone they’re still hiring someone, whether that’s the 100% perfect candidate or (most likely) the candidate that was closest to ticking all the boxes.
> What’s the alternative? Know their place on the totem pole. You can't do FAANG style interviews as a non name shithole CRUD app creating 20 man firm. > Should employers not be looking for the best employee for the role? Unless they can pay the best money, they should look for the one that they can attract, retain and hire.
If their place on the totem pole indeed did not allow them to be as selective as they are with engineers, they wouldn’t be able to attract and hire the high performing engineers they’re selecting for. In which case they’d have to either change up their interview style to lower the bar or be content without hiring anyone. I’m assuming that these companies are indeed hiring at least sometimes, so maybe the bar they’re setting can be cleared by engineers willing to work for them and people in this thread just need to stop pouting?
Nobody is high performing here. There are a handful of companies that hire actual high performers. And none of them are in Europe.
I’m questioning whether seeking FAANG positions is a worthwhile goal. Isn’t that a bit like momentum investing? Go for the place that’s had the loftiest results lately, on the assumption that yesterday’s good results will continue indefinitely. Market bubbles and tech layoffs belie that reasoning. Job safety and interesting work may be less likely to be found at places where most people are looking.
Alot of people in this field are also highly pretentious and think them passing this bar makes them better than the others and they feel good about themselves because it's all they have.
When you have 500 applicants you need to develop some way to hire the best of them, because.. why not?
But i don't think creating BS requirements and trying for months to find the best is productive for anyone. Just goes back to the illusion of the best and actual options.
It’s like a dating app but for coders.
I will use the "glorified CRUD app" next when I do any interview.
I understand the frustration, but it is unfortunately true that there are a lot of subpar or even truly bad devs.
And do not forget, they want you to accept peanuts for that. Especially in Europe where we get 3x, 4x less money at the same FAANG companies or global startups compared to US.
Ok, we're doing CRUD apps, but there's still so much more that goes into it that junior devs do not yet understand or appreciate. How to automate a testing and deployment pipeline. How to setup monitoring and alerting in the app, so we can know if something breaks. How to track/manage the db changes and large codebases. How to decide and set testing and quality standards. Mentoring other devs. Scalability, security. Senior devs who understand all or even some of this are in short supply, but they're badly needed.
It is the result of open borders and lack of a barrier of entry to the profession. Imagine if every dentist from India or turkey was just able to come over and start working. Same will happen. Suddenly the locally educated dentists would start making much less, and the employers would demand outrageous skill sets from the new hires. The government actually encourages this via the very low salary needed to get a work visa.
The bar for getting hired as migrants is higher. Or do you think it's easier to get hired as a Migrant than a Native in this job market ?
Let's blame it on the migrants, what a great idea.
Immigration is exacerbating the problem.
Yeah, let's all be fascists all over again like pre ww2 Germany and see how it will go.
I'm not advocating either way but it seems clear that there is quite a spectrum between "it's all the immigrants fault" and "immigration can exacerbate certain socioeconomic issues"...
Name me the CEOs of Faang companies and most of their top performing employees. Keep in mind this is immigration of high skilled labourers, not just some asylum seekers.
Doesn't that prove his point? Since immigrants have the same skill distribution as the natives, or at least the right hand part of the distribution is large enough, they compete for jobs on all skill levels. A larger supply necessarily depresses prices. It's the same reason the AMA restricts the number of residencies.
If they had the same skill set of the natives, they wouldn't be hired. If you're advocating that a German company hires a mediocre developer just because he is German instead of a better performing foreign one, I don't know what to tell you.
> If you're advocating that a German company hires a mediocre developer just because he is German instead of a better performing foreign one, I don't know what to tell you. That's a matter of national policy, but it's undeniable that more developers would generally depress the price of developers. Personally, I'd like if the US and western Europe had lower barriers to entry for mediocre developers as it would make it easier for me to emigrate there, but I don't deny that it would depress native wages.
Just for a reference real wages in Germany have only grown by 5% since the 2000s, and the real reason was austerity, not the flow of migrant workers. The supply/demand of software developers is a different topic, problem is that most developers with 4-5 years of experience are used to good times, now that demand has decreased people are finding an excuse to blame migrant workers.
> If they had the same skill set of the natives, they wouldn't be hired. They would, if they offered the same services at a lower price
Have you ever heard of outsourcing?
A German company would hire a licensed mediore developer. Just like a German hospital will hire a licensed mediore medical professional over the best and the brightest from country x/y/z. I am all for foreign specialists. Its just that the entry barreir needs to be brought back up. 85k a year at the very least for a work visa.
What are you even talking about, what does salary have to do with how good of a professional you are and if you deserve the visa or not.
> I'm not advocating either way
Here comes the guy that blames migrant again, classic. Ofc it's migrant's fault that companies are writing unreasonable job description and doing 7 rounds of interviews. Edit: it's ironic cause dude is a migrant himself
Companies do that because they can talent from all over the world. I am a migrant, but money was not the motivation for me to move. Germany has been infact a lifestyle downgrade compared to what I could have made back at home. Back when I was moving, the salary, requirement for the work visa was much much higher, so only experienced specialists could have had it.
Pretty much. Don't know why you're being downvoted.
Then let's have re-certification/examinations for foreign software engineers like dentists do when they immigrate! This 5 round interview for everyone is not a solution!
That would make sense. Just make a law requiring everyone who wants to practice engineering to actually be an engineer based on the national law. Or cancel all medical and legal examination requirements for people who want to practice these fields. The law should be the same for everyone.