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Comment by PascLeRasc | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone made the switch between these two types of companies? I’m 2 years into my career but I’m one of those cog engineers working in IT and it’s really draining my soul. I don’t know how to talk about my job in interviews without giving off red flags.

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I haven't done it myself, but I've hired people who were stuck in IT.

Just don't talk negatively about your old job. "I'm looking to move because I want to have more impact". "The work I'm doing now is not core to company's success and I want to have more impact". Etc.

I never looked down on someone who was doing boring work if that is what they were supposed to be doing. I'm looking for people who can communicate well and have strong core fundamentals. If you can demonstrate those things then you're doing well.

What kind of red flags are you worried about?

I guess I’m worried about talking about how we have really poor development practices. It’s hard to describe what I do, they try to block people from learning about what their kanban card is for. I just write proprietary scripting language functions then fill out a Word document “unit test” about them. I guess I can editorialize and try to steer the conversation towards what I can bring to the company. Thanks for the advice!

If I was interviewing you and you told me "my current company has very bad development practices" and then gave me a list of all the things you think they are doing wrong and all the ways it could improve, I'd probably be really impressed. Then I'd ask you why you don't change those things, and I would hope you'd tell me a story about how you tried to change it but got blocked, or maybe small changes you are making to make things better.

This would tell me that you're really engaged, up to date on the latest methods, and motivated to make things around you better.

Good advice. Also: don't blame the people around you for why you couldn't fix something. Even if it's because your manager was a short-sighted idiot, or the senior engineer on your team was jealously guarding his territory, you don't have to say that in the interview. See if you can reframe it in a more blame-neutral way.

For example, if you couldn't remove a bad pattern because it was too deeply entrenched for you to handle it yourself, and you couldn't get anyone more senior interested: that's expected for a junior developer and probably wouldn't be held against you.

I've actually asked this question in an interview before to a candidate. "Is there anything about the process you work in now that you would change, and how would you do it differently?"

That sounds not great. Two years into your career you need a better experience and great mentors. Get any job that is writing code. What's great is that you're only two years in, I see people like this 10 years into their career. They get laid off and can't find a job because they don't have any skills others value;

I am sure this will just get buried, but you could consider searching for a company that appreciates honesty.

You can talk about wanting more ownership. That can include talking about working closely with end users and making long term design decisions.

I made the switch you are talking about. I did talk about my job in the interviews, and in retrospect that would have been a pretty clear signal than I didn't know how that type of company works. I think I got the job because my employer is primarily looking for competent problem solvers, and they are willing to teach the rest on the job. Not all companies may be like this, but the big ones probably will.

That’s good to know, thanks. Congrats on the move!

I guess the question to ask is, what do you talk about? When I talk about working in those types of companies I mention that I like to work in cross functional teams, interact with product and design, being part of the ideation process, wanting to understand the business and deliver value quicker.

What types of things do you say and why do you feel they may be red flags?

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