Ask HN: How do you *really* get a good Software Engineering job?
It seems like anything I do is never good enough. I can know how to code in multiple languages and provide decent coding examples. But, there is always one little thing that I didn't have in order to get the job. It feels like job postings are not very honest at what they are looking for either. An example would be of a 'Frontend Engineer' job posting that I got an email response back from the hiring manager for, and he asked for a link to a fully functioning and non-trivial web app that I had built before. Wtf? I have not built that as of now (even though I am confident I could). And it would not have been in the companies preferred stack anyways. I just want to know one thing: WTF do hiring managers actually want? And why do they almost never seem know themselves? Sorry for the rant but it just seems like this industry is a load of bullshit.
22 comments
[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 64.1 ms ] threadSo, make friends with people who have jobs in the industry and convince them that you have the necessary skills.
get a good past job that they will recognize the employer name
and you will have an easy time.
i guess this would help to some extent
My current position I found through a connection, and that doubtless helped, but I've gotten jobs before through responding to university postings and craigslist ads. I've also been turned down at plenty of places that I've found both ways - for any given position, most of the time you won't get it (of course, since there are going to be multiple candidates).
+1
Being employed is side effect of that.
I hear you. Many times, it is not even you. Like you said, the hiring manager is probably too hung up on one specific item that they really think will hit the home run. Now, that depends on the situation. If they need an expert in a very specific niche for a 1 month contract, they probably care about that one thing. If they are looking to hire someone fulltime who can grow in the company, being hung up on that one thing is plain stupid.
"WTF do hiring managers actually want? "
I have been interviewed by tons of managers being a consultant. I would say majority of them are not always sure what exactly they want. It can change. For example, I interviewed once for a role which required a very specific vendor system experience in finance. Apparently, that system was so niche and new that they could not find anyone unless they poached from the vendor directly. So the manager decided to look at other "relevant" candidates. The problem: He had no clue what to look for. True story.
So don't get too upset about this. I say move on and keep looking. There are many great hiring mangers out there who not only understand what they want/need, they also know how to interview and find the right person without being too hung up on one thing or other.
If you are new in the industry, you don't have people to vouch for you. That's why you get requests to see your actual work, rather than own cherry-picked code examples.
"I could do it easily if I just got the chance" won't fly if you are in a location where there are more developers than jobs. You'll have to make yourself stand out. The easiest way to do that is to build stuff. Doesn't have to be groundbreaking stuff, but it should work and be within your "specialty" language(s).
Then next time someone asks you for a non-trivial example, you can just send them a couple of your projects, rather than a couple of clever code snippets.
Hiring, often times has biases. There could be any number of reasons: either technical or personal. Hiring decisions are often subjective, despite the fact that they try to be somewhat objective. And it's especially hard for people with less than 5 years of experience. Keep trying, you'll get it eventually.
If you haven't written a full app in a language, can you really claim proficiency in it?
"Programmers", "developers" and "software engineers" are essentially liabilities. These are the first to let go when things gets uncertain.
A lot of good advice given so far.
Perhaps I can add another perspective to it.
Relocate to where demand outstrips supply by a big amount. Relocation is tough, but if you pick the right spot, you will get a job by applying some of those networking principles others have mentioned.
Cities/Areas I'd consider (where you will find it easier to get a job and do interesting stuff) in no particular order: Silicon Valley, San Francisco, New York, London, Berlin, [insert city name here], etc.
I can't think of anymore right now, but those are great places to look at (unless you have enterprise-knowledge, in the form of C#, .NET - which changes things).
It's ironic that programmers use technology everyday to eliminate inefficiencies, yet nepotism in hiring is something even programmers face. Based on this, consider your CV dead for a little while and hustle till you find something.
Good luck!
In DC, the custom at tech Meetups is to have a 10-minute "who's hiring" litany before the talks start. I'm pretty sure it's that way in most other cities, too. For mid-to-senior level devs lately, I hire pretty much exclusively from the pool of people I see as regular attendees at deep-language meetups. They are spending their free time getting better at their craft: best 1st-line filter ever.