bravo. this describes a very real trend in the job market. the term "super job" is a useful handle.
i guess the post-2008 "super recession" emboldened all these companies to demand "self-starting, high energy, ninja rock stars who thrive on chaos and multitasking with no supervision" to fill all their "super jobs"
but now these same companies need to adjust to the tighter labor market.
Compliments are free and it seems to me that people who accept compliments as currency don’t have the deep skill set and/or network to command high rates.
This job posting seems more like a small biz who wants a little bit of a bunch of stuff and would bore 8 people. I used to love these jobs as they let me develop new skills and test stuff out before finding a niche. It could be that some maniac actually wants 80 hours/week. But more likely that they have a bunch of it/dev stuff that together warrants a budget, but otherwise would be outsourced to a BI monthly services firm or a SharePoint monthly services firm.
I bet it was a small business where someone ("Todd Packer") did all that stuff once, when it was 3-8 people, a garage, and a bunch of leased equipment.
Now they're 50-100 people, Todd burned out, and they're trying to find another Todd.
(Maybe Todd explicitly burnt out and everyone knew it, maybe Todd implicitly burnt out, went job hunting and surprised everyone... I don't know! But that's what it smells like to me).
Or maybe the CEO is trying to carve off their non-CEO duties. Okkkkkkkkkk.... but owning a company makes you motivated to work unsustainable hours, and... it's unlikely you'll find a $40/hour contractor willing to give 40 hours/week + 40-50 hours "gotta get this done at all costs" free labor. Eventually that contractor is going to run those numbers...
But, yes, disregarding all that stuff, superjobs are becoming a problem...
The cherry on the top about these job descriptions is usually at the end when they're basically throwing a few peanuts in your general direction and suggesting 'here, feed yourself and your family you bitch'. The only way they're filling these positions is using desperate people, there is no other way. If they actually paid 500,000 - 1 million some people might actually do this for a set period of time, say 4-5 years and then at least be able to quit with a house or something, but to do with for years on end living paycheck to paycheck, that's almost hell.
Clearly you don't understand supply and demand. No way is anyone going to pay that much, especially when there are people that have no choice to take it at <1/4 of what you are suggesting. This isn't orthopedic surgery - if the individual is expert on 1-2 items and can do the rest even mediocre, they will be hired.
If management is this bad at estimating the work involved, they’ll probably underestimate retraining and just take the next sucker who comes along instead.
yes. seen it happen. when management just doesn't get it, they think the "super person" who just quit is easily replaceable.
and what happens next is: the remaining workers at the company compensate for the inexperience of the newly hired person until such time as that new hire truly is a "super person."
that is, in effect, the remaining employees enable management to remain clueless about this stuff until all of the wheels fall off the entire operation.
Desperate or naive people take these jobs, these people only exist where there are more job seekers than jobs. It is a chance for the desperate to finally gain that experience. Being indispensable is not possible in those conditions.
The job posting exists because the previous person left without being able to renegotiate salary and the business doesn't deem anyone in the role indispensable.
I think the most important point to take from these super jobs is that if they don’t value the individual responsibilities enough to hire a dedicated employee to handle them, then they won’t value you, even if you manage to do the job of two or three people almost perfectly.
I worked a place like this. These kinds of job descriptions betray unrealistic expectations from management. In all likelihood what you'll find there is an undocumented clusterfuck of a codebase with some serious design flaws. Limited or non-existent access to your predecessor for questions about where key elements like passwords, etc. are located. And by the time the 2 months it takes to get your mind around it (if you're really good) expires, they'll be ready to fire you for not meeting productivity expectations.
Ever been 'promoted' into a new role with only a small salary bump, and an inability to hand off your old role to someone else?
Or perhaps you are a driven/smart person. Which management rewards by increasingly spending your attention on various areas of the business that need to be rescued, organized, straightened out. Yet management drags their feet on any permanent changes which would prevent the fires from starting in the first place. What begins as a rescue operation gradually becomes normal practice. Over time agglomerating your responsibilities across various critical areas.
Job postings like these are what happens after you leave.
That’s what I’ve been telling myself. They just let my boss go, so I’m tentatively waiting to see what happens. If the change doesn’t go in the right direction, I’m getting out.
That they've included this in their bullet points for a role intended to cover enterprisey Microsoft-ish business application server admin and reporting is a red flag.
That, and no indication that so many tasks shall be delegated to a team of loyal underlings and minions. (hint: the minion is you)
These kinds of jobs often point to an unhealthy co-dependency between non-technical management and (usually) younger engineers.
Everyone wants to play the hero. The manager reporting to his boss about how hard his team is working and how they will all pull together to solve the problems, and the engineer feeding off the praise that he has saved the day and that without his efforts all would have been lost.
It's just papering over a lack of planning on everyone's part, and it never ends well.
The big salary bump is always just a quarter or two away. The engineer eventually burns out and is replaced by a more naive individual, and the vicious cycle begins again.
Sorry if I seem a bit pessimistic, yesterday I had lunch with a friend of mine who is a programmer in exactly this situation. I was telling him to get out and find another job, but he was convinced that once he proves himself and solves all these problems, he'll get a big raise and a large option grant. His boss won't put that in writing of course, but he just really believes that he'll be rewarded.
"Have you finished developing the new feature yet ? Oh and here's my laptop, it needs reinstalling. Do you know why my WebMail is showing my folders in a different order than my Outlook ? You need to fix it."
It can start small: project A is predicted to not be full time, so you are also assigned to project B. But at the first obstacle (or the first wishful-thinking based estimate or plan) you don't get enough done on either project, overtime is needed, and it's your fault. Then project C takes the sales team by surprise, and who's going to deliver it?
28 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 71.3 ms ] threadi guess the post-2008 "super recession" emboldened all these companies to demand "self-starting, high energy, ninja rock stars who thrive on chaos and multitasking with no supervision" to fill all their "super jobs"
but now these same companies need to adjust to the tighter labor market.
This job posting seems more like a small biz who wants a little bit of a bunch of stuff and would bore 8 people. I used to love these jobs as they let me develop new skills and test stuff out before finding a niche. It could be that some maniac actually wants 80 hours/week. But more likely that they have a bunch of it/dev stuff that together warrants a budget, but otherwise would be outsourced to a BI monthly services firm or a SharePoint monthly services firm.
Now they're 50-100 people, Todd burned out, and they're trying to find another Todd.
(Maybe Todd explicitly burnt out and everyone knew it, maybe Todd implicitly burnt out, went job hunting and surprised everyone... I don't know! But that's what it smells like to me).
Or maybe the CEO is trying to carve off their non-CEO duties. Okkkkkkkkkk.... but owning a company makes you motivated to work unsustainable hours, and... it's unlikely you'll find a $40/hour contractor willing to give 40 hours/week + 40-50 hours "gotta get this done at all costs" free labor. Eventually that contractor is going to run those numbers...
But, yes, disregarding all that stuff, superjobs are becoming a problem...
Yes, it is exhausting, but your future self will thank you.
and what happens next is: the remaining workers at the company compensate for the inexperience of the newly hired person until such time as that new hire truly is a "super person."
that is, in effect, the remaining employees enable management to remain clueless about this stuff until all of the wheels fall off the entire operation.
Or perhaps you are a driven/smart person. Which management rewards by increasingly spending your attention on various areas of the business that need to be rescued, organized, straightened out. Yet management drags their feet on any permanent changes which would prevent the fires from starting in the first place. What begins as a rescue operation gradually becomes normal practice. Over time agglomerating your responsibilities across various critical areas.
Job postings like these are what happens after you leave.
I got the promise of more wages in the future, all I got was more responsibility.
That, and no indication that so many tasks shall be delegated to a team of loyal underlings and minions. (hint: the minion is you)
Also, "Excel spreadsheet" expertise.
Everyone wants to play the hero. The manager reporting to his boss about how hard his team is working and how they will all pull together to solve the problems, and the engineer feeding off the praise that he has saved the day and that without his efforts all would have been lost.
It's just papering over a lack of planning on everyone's part, and it never ends well.
The big salary bump is always just a quarter or two away. The engineer eventually burns out and is replaced by a more naive individual, and the vicious cycle begins again.
Sorry if I seem a bit pessimistic, yesterday I had lunch with a friend of mine who is a programmer in exactly this situation. I was telling him to get out and find another job, but he was convinced that once he proves himself and solves all these problems, he'll get a big raise and a large option grant. His boss won't put that in writing of course, but he just really believes that he'll be rewarded.
It breaks my heart.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
Do that and competition drives a race to the bottom with all the benefits flowing upwards to owners.
Can't be fixed until politics gets strong enough and brave enough to take on corporatism.
https://denver.craigslist.org/sad/d/linux-network-admin-jr/6...