It costs $1,800 to get an engineering job offer | Hacker News Reader

It costs $1,800 to get an engineering job offer

beamjobs.com

23 pointsjustingreet12 comments

"Based on some rough calculations (which are detailed below) it costs the average software engineer $1,814 and 1.7 vacation days to get one job offer."

That is, unless you're currently unemployed.

Fair enough. In that case, it still takes time but I imagine the opportunity cost isn't quite as high.

Calculating opportunity cost for time spent based on wages is pretty meaningless for salaried jobs. I might make $X/hr at my day job, but I don't actually have the ability to work an extra hour and get an extra X dollars.

These are funny thoughts actually. I have full-time job and also do freelancing. The last part is pretty flexible. I can always do more work and later bill it. This makes everything I do in life computable in monetary terms. I watch TV for an hour? It costs me 100usd - example, not my actual hourly rate. And I do not really get tired of work or coding, I just really want to watch that TV show. But it is weird to think that it costs me 100usd. This aspect actually made me hire a cleaning service and always order food in, because I can spend the time working instead of cooking, shopping and cleaning. Which I of course enjoy more as well. Not only is it temporary financial gain, but any extra time spent coding will be an investment towards mu future to make me a better coder. Of course it is a double edged sword. Hanging out with my girlfriend? 500usd. I also spent my last vacation fully freelancing. Of course I have goals to achieve financial indepence asap though.

1800 dollars for a 5+% salary bump, a new work you're interested in, and perhaps a shorter commute. Seems worth it.

Wow: "An average developer will need to do 12 phone screens (the first stage of the interview process) to get one job offer"

That means a lot of companies are leaving a whole lot of talent on the table.

Couldn't agree more. The first interview is usually with a non-technical person (like HR), so at the first round candidates are often rejected for things that have no real bearing on job performance.

I've had multiple calls where the interviewer obviously didn't look at my resume beforehand and rejected me for not having enough years of work history or previous experience of a specific technology. Both are fair reasons but it's insulting and representative of how little they respect engineers' time.

We do the same, first non-technical interview, and we reject most candidates due to the cultural fit issues. It’s too expensive to involve dev resources into the process first. In our process: if you are friendly, sound smart and enthusiastic, you get the tech challenge as the next step.

Ah! The joys of a labour system where everything is about money!

It costs me nothing to get a new job and if I have to move for an interview I could even ask a refund for the expenses...

That’s probably a low figure but yeah

that's a bargain

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