A programmer's personal story about finding a job in this economy | Hacker News Reader

A programmer's personal story about finding a job in this economy

shadowcoding.blogspot.com

59 pointsrayvega51 comments

I also went for a job with a military contractor a couple of months ago. The first thing that the interviewer asked was "what are your views on the Afghan war?". I gave him my views, but stopped myself after a few sentences as he looked increasingly horrified. Needless to say, I didn't get the job, but I wasn't disappointed because a job which required me to become closely involved in a cause that I didn't believe in wouldn't have suited me.

I'm surprised this question would get asked--first because of possible legal problems with asking questions political in nature, second because in my experience the employer doesn't really care what you think as long as you do the work. Also, there are quite a lot of left-leaning folks working for military contractors that may or may not support a particular action but are professional enough not to let that get in the way of their job.

A few years back I interviewed with a company that manufactured potentiometers. They had a bunch of government contracts and the like.

At one point my technical interviewer (and soon-to-be supervisor), Jerry, looked me square in the eye and said, "You realize you'll be making parts that kill people, right?"

To this day it still bothers me that I took the job, but I really needed it at the time so I justified it out: someone else would make them anyway, and besides, I wasn't the guy giving the orders.

There was a news report a while back that a Hellfire missile had been used to kill some number of people in Afghanistan. It's likely, given the timeframes involved, that I made sure that at least one of the parts on that particular missile functioned correctly.

Good. Personally, I'm glad a competent engineer was responsible for making a weapon of war function successfully (even if it was being misused -- let's not forget that it is actually important to have a technologically-advanced arsenal, regardless of our personal political views about how that arsenal should be used).

There's no legal problem that I know of. Outside of D.C. a private employer could hire only Democrats if they want, or only 9/11 truthers.

Here's a awkward chart of protected classes by state: http://www.cga.ct.gov/2003/olrdata/jud/rpt/2003-R-0641.htm

I think your reference is only a survey of state laws. Additionally to those, federal law prohibits different kinds of discrimination as well. For example, Title IX [1] protects discrimination on sex in all states. Although political discrimination doesn't seem to fall under any federal law. An interesting discussion of religious versus political discrimination is here: http://lists.ucla.edu/pipermail/religionlaw/1998-August/0129...

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_IX

You don't think they're asking to see if you're simply trying to sabotage the war efforts? Like a pre-security interview before they pass your file on to the Secret Service team.

You may well be right, but a background check would make more sense for this. If one was planning on sabotage one would almost certainly pretend to be a fan of the war.

My guess is that they perhaps previously employed someone who subsequently had a fundamental ethical objection to what they were doing, or maybe got deployed into a war zone. If you're doing something which might be politically sensitive it does make sense to have some idea of your employees views.

I'm not sure exactly what the rules are on this (in the UK). I know that officially you're not allowed to discriminate on grounds of sex, race and age but I'm not sure about political views.

The rest of the interview, which was about the technical details, was quite congenial but I knew from the initial question that I wasn't going to get the job. If I had known that the job was primarily military and involved with the Afghan war I wouldn't even have bothered to apply, but the company's web site didn't make this clear and showed only civilian/industrial applications. In this case a phone based rather than face to face initial interview would have saved time and expense for all those concerned.

As professional as one could be, it would just gradually eat away at anyone knowing they were contributing work to something that they are at aims with.

I recently went through this (not military related) - working on something I had conflicts with. I did it for a few months and then, for the first time in my career, one morning I really did not want to go to work. I sat and stared at the wall for 10 minutes wondering if I should go or not.

This is probably the reason they ask.

Did you go?

Yes but I talked with them and fortunately, they were pretty accommodating. I now work from home (which is something I wanted) and don't have to work on that project.

I think it's good to ask the question. I think it's an important indication of fit.

But, why is it considered professional to work towards something you're against? I'm not saying throw a tantrum or shout at people about your views, but you certainly shouldn't be applauded with professionalism for going against your own political views to make a buck.

I certainly understand that many of us have to suck it up at times in order to pay the rent. But I don't consider that a positive thing.

Should have answered this in my earlier post, as it's the natural question to ask.

Life is complicated. I don't say that to somehow absolve me of responsibility, but rather because I feel that hardline extreme stances are generally counterproductive and don't really reflect the complex nature of issues.

For example, a military contractor could have a personal view of not supporting, say, the Iraq war. This does not mean that said person thinks that all military spending is bad.

I view it as akin to police protecting a perpetrator from others. They may hate the guy, hate what he's done, but it's still their duty to protect him.

Of course I agree. Should the positives outweigh the negatives and you want the position because of that then I guess it could be called professional to accept those negatives stoically and not whine about it. It would definitely be unprofessional to take such a position and then moan about it all day.

I just wasn't fond of the wording. Seemed to say that under the guise of professionalism we're all justified in going against our morals. It's that contradictory mentality you see in business where you run a tobacco company by day and go home to hug your kids at night. To pay the bills? Those would have to be some pretty serious bills... Probably not the way you meant the statement, and just the way I read it ;)

No offense taken; I appreciate the opportunity for reflection. While composing the above, I noticed that the theoretical scenarios I was constructing were becoming harder to justify, so I admit I cherry-picked a more clear cut one. It seems like justification is a bit of a slippery slope.

There's so much interconnectedness that you sort of have to essentially pick how close you're willing to get to something you don't agree with. It's pretty difficult to have nothing to do with X for most values of X.

I've been getting a fairly steady flow of recruiters emails for the last 3 months looking for people. Even a few .Net jobs, and the recruiters know I'm not a .Net person. Since my last job search I've started helping the recruiters connect with people even if I'm not interested at the time. If they send me a job post I try and send it around to my network of people. If I hear of someone looking I forward them the posts I get.

I see it two ways one I'm helping people get jobs which I think is very important, and two it keeps me in the loop for when I'm looking. The recruiters remember me and help me out.

I wish this guy was in my contact list. He wouldn't have gotten so desperate. But, if you're a programmer get to know some recruiters make sure you know them and they know you. Don't wait until you're looking.

Ok, a question from an (almost finished) student: how do you get to know recruiters? In my experience, recruiters are generally temps that come and go. In the last couple internships I've had, I changed recruiters at least once in each hiring process. Even if I wanted to keep in touch with a recruiter, I wouldn't know how, since they seem to move on in a matter of months.

Is there a different class of recruiters you're referring to? Or am I just unlucky?

Starting out is always tough. Your experience has been somewhat unlucky and somewhat true. Recruiters your age are going to have a high turn over. Lots of people get out of school and go into high tech recruiting. There's no barrier to entry, but it takes a lot of hard work to stay one. They bop around for 3-6 months, and if they don't show some aptitude they get cycled out. See if you can get to know people a little older and have been out there a couple of years. Don't just work with one recruiter. Have several from different companies looking for you.

Go to your local user group meetings. Java, Ruby, Php, Python, .Net, Flex, whatever. (If you get too niche chances are you'll strike out). Typically there are always someone there handing out business cards, or job postings. Take it and send them a nice email introducing yourself the next day along with your resume.

If you have friends that have been out of school for a while try and connect with them. They might know of good people to put you in contact with.

LinkedIn is like crack for recruiters. Make sure you're on there and have some of your experience on there. Connect with people. You'll start to see who is a recruiter very quickly (500+ connections) chances are they're a recruiter. LinkedIn helps you keep in contact with recruiters if they move companies too.

Put your resume on Dice. It can take a month before that pays off because it takes a while for your resume to make the rounds.

The economy sucks, but IT is bouncing back quicker than other sectors.

Thank you. I'm a sophomore CS student who's recently been going through huge amounts of "I'm never going to be qualified or find a job" moments and this post is the single most helpful thing I've seen.

I think right now my biggest weakness is that while I've done bits of work in a variety of languages, I don't have one that I'm really fluent in and thus could try to get recruited for. But the ideas you have here and the information in this whole thread will definitely be helpful as I try to orient myself towards the market.

Primarily, make sure you're on LinkedIn and one or more specialized job-hunting networks like WorkingWithRails. Put up some code samples on SourceForge or GitHub or RubyForge or similar, and link them from your various social sites.

Put up a resume online, and link it from at least the social sites. A blog is optional, and will help less with recruiters, but is worth considering. It's a good habit in any case, but lower effort-to-results ratio than the other things I'm suggesting. A portfolio, like a blog, is more effort but will pay off in the long run. Don't do it first, but do it eventually.

Recruiters do a lot of "networking" -- scraping the web for resumes and addresses, sending messages on LinkedIn, et cetera. Usually that's annoying, but in your case it can be a way to meet recruiters quickly.

All the above, in addition to attracting recruiters, gives you something to show them and gives them something to show potential employers. So you'll also be somebody they want to show off, because you make them look good. You're looking for recruiters, but you're also competing with other candidates for their attention, and to be suggested to potential employers.

It's also interesting, apropos of the recent interest in StackOverflow Careers and the discussions on HN, that this guy has a pretty spectacular StackOverflow rep and still was having trouble finding a job. I wonder if he knew of the Careers/jobs portion of StackOverflow and if he used it at all. Of course it's anecdotal but seems odd if Joel's theory stands up that this fellow had such a hard time getting a job.

Not to drag this way off topic, but 6k isn't really very spectacular; I'm neither a great programmer nor a prolific contributor, and I have a much higher rep than that, just by answering about one question per day for 11 months.

If he had 50k, in my opinion, then it might be a commentary on the meaning of the reputation, but not so much as is.

Based on the users currently on StackOverflow, he ranks 747th by my count. Assuming there are 100K+ users on StackOverflow, I think that makes it a pretty spectacular reputation statistically speaking. Answering a question every day for 11 months is also pretty spectacular if you ask me.

He may not be a Jon Skeet but he's clearly head and shoulders above the great majority of StackOverflow users. He's exactly the type of programmer that I think Joel would say would have a good use for the Careers portion. So I find it interesting that he had such a hard time finding a job ASSUMING he knew about and utilized the Careers section.

Hypothetically speaking, given his situation, do you think he would have ponied up the (soon-to-be) $100 to sign up for Stackoverflow Careers?

No, but it was $29 when he was looking which is almost negligible. If you're going to go broke, it will happen whether or not you have an extra $29.

On top of that, I have no doubt that if he emailed the team at StackOverflow and told them his situation, they would have gladly waived the fee. I just don't see the money as being a sticking point.

There are a vast number of people--hiring managers and developers alike, good and bad--who haven't heard of Stack Overflow, or Joel Spolsky.

Those developers must never google any programming questions then.

I know I Google almost every day for something programming related. I know someone else (who writes credit card processing software in Java in a large team) and apparently most off their coding questions are answered in-house. She tells me it's frowned upon to use outside solutions or non-standards coding.

I suppose that makes some sense in a large codebase where often it's hard to know what problems have already been solved, but I can't help but feel like using the open source world in this capacity means that I have a much larger pool of talent to draw from.

I think it depends on the nature of the query. Often, I don't get SO results on the first page of a Google search.

That wouldn't surprise me but I'm not sure it's germane to my point that he seems like a perfect candidate for Careers at StackOverflow. Yet he had one hell of a time finding a job. Yes it's new and yes not a lot of employers are on there yet but this guy was in a pretty decent area as far as tech talent and needs go. I'd think given his SO rep, he would have known about the Careers section and given it a go.

If he did and still couldn't find a job, I just find that interesting.

sounds like he had some free time without work for a while to work on the SO score.

... but he did have a pretty desirable skillset with stuff like C#, .NET ( I see ads for this kind of thing, anyway). And F# which means he's gotten into the FP stuff which means he's aware of current trends. So if it was tough for him to find work, well, then it's tough out there.

Oh, and nice to know that I'm not the only one who has trouble with nervousness during interviews.

Wow. Seattle, SF, NYC, etc. must be little islands of prosperity for programmers... Still seems pretty active. The OP went to Charlestown, SC ("home")... I wonder if he tried remote work? It seems like if he was willing to work retail/gas stations that he could find SOMEONE who would pay him $10/hr to do junior coding working from abroad AT VERY LEAST...

Never thought it would be that hard to find a job as a developer. I seem to never have enough developers.

Depends on a lot of things: where he is geographically sounds pretty good, but he also doesn't have a lot of team experience, and many (most?) places seem to discount most solo hobbyist experience, for a variety of good and bad reasons.

It's hard to find many kinds of developers, but other kinds (and experience levels!) are lucky if they have a job at all right now.

I'm in the enviable position of having about 11 years of full-time experience at coding, and ten or so more amateur/hobbyist/kid years before that, so I can still pretty much dictate terms to most employers. But a lot of people, especially people without as much education and experience, are having a tough time right now.

>> ...where he is geographically sounds pretty good...

His current post is misleading because it sounds like he is currently in Seattle where the tech job market is fairly good relative to other places.

However, he was in Seattle but then moved to Charleston, SC where his story begins. http://shadowcoding.blogspot.com/2009/07/moving.html

Given that bit of info it explains a lot about his struggles to find work.

It's nearly impossible to hire good developers. Just as you've noticed.

It's also really easy to find a job if you're a good developer and have the references and public-facing projects to prove it.

It's the other 90% of the guys who have all the trouble finding jobs and who contribute to this sense that "there are no jobs out there". That's not actually true, but it may as well be for them.

Shame too, since a lot of those 90%'ers are actually pretty good. They just don't have a ton of experience, enough good references, or a single big hit they've built that they can show off.

Pretty interesting story, and it's cool that he was able to bounce back. In some areas, programmers seem to have lots of opportunities, even while there are few jobs in other fields.

I think this guys problem is that he knows mostly .net, and that's it. He might be pretty good at it, but shoehorning yourself into one technology stack is not good.

Anyway, It might be a problem of the location also. I know that in Boston people are having trouble finding jobs too. It seems that in Sillicon Valley there is always demand for really good engineers.

If you are really good, you will find something for sure.

> shoehorning yourself into one technology stack is not good

on the contrary, specialization is how you get to be more than a trivially replaceable cog in the machine.

I beg to differ. Both in the past and now - where I've been on both ends of the recruiting stick for web developer, it is incredibly hard finding someone with enough breadth to tackle what you do.

Someone who speaks fluent HTML, CSS, JS, PHP, Perl, Python, MySQL, Oracle and god knows what else is a lot harder to hire than someone who knows C# and Oracle. I'm not talking about trivial "I've heard of it" knowledge, I mean working knowledge. These guys are rare and very hard to replace.

The other part of this is that by learning more technologies you get better at learning faster, which is a huge asset whenever starting a new project.

Of course it's hard. I think being fluent in all of those techs is unlikely.

I've seen too many back-end programmers who think they know js and css; they understand most of the syntax, but not the patterns in place, what wheels exist already, what libraries to use, or the quirks in the current implementations. Some don't really know the DOM, others don't really understand cascading. Sure they can make something that looks good in the latest Firefox, but when you open it in IE 6 or 7 you're screwed.

Example: Did you know you can't have a JavaScript variable that shares a name with a form element? Do you know why?

I mean working knowledge

Yeah, but what does Google not know? ;0þ

When to use those technologies.

You should specialize in domain knowledge, not a tech stack. That's where the money is.

As far as the tech is concerned, you need to balance depth and breadth. I think this is easier to do in the open source world. I shudder to think what my career would have been like if I had got stuck with MS tech early. Being a web developer helps as well, because there are so many layers there that swapping one out at a time never involves too much of a learning curve. If you are well-versed in HTTP, HTML, CSS and Javascript you will still run circles around someone who just knows one language and some framework.

That is true, but only as long as the machine continues to run.

It is like the genie (Robin Williams) in the animated film Aladdin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_(1992_film)

Quote from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103639/quotes

--------

Aladdin: You're a prisoner?

Genie: It's all part and parcel, the whole "genie gig":

[grows to a gigantic size]

Genie: Phenomenal cosmic powers!

[shrinks down inside the lamp]

Genie: Itty-bitty living space!

--------

As an irreplaceable cog, you may have "phenomenal" earning power, but you get trapped in a small (employment) space.

I think that location likely does have a lot to do with it. In Alabama, nearly every job listing is for .Net - with little exception. Even the majority of the web dev positions are MS based, with a rare LAMP posting from time to time.

His lack of team experience really would be a big downer for getting a job. Glad to see he found something.

I found my current job in a week, actually I wasn't even looking. I said hey what if I moved to Boston (was living in MN at the time) so i posted my resume on Dice, an hour later I got my first email.. a week later I was at an interview in Boston. Of course that was just after the stock market crashed, I don't think the full repercussions had hit.

But I can understand having difficulty if he prefers to be a lone wolf.

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