[imechura]

> Top developers in banks and startups dont have time for that

Sorry to disagree but I have spent my whole 15 year career as a developer at banks and many fortune 50/100 companies and I can tell you for certain that most developers in these extremely high paying corporate jobs, including the developers do rarely do any software development or practice outside of the office.

Keep in mind that most of these jobs require a decade or more of experience so most of these folks have wives, children, 4k sq. ft. homes with swimming pools and all of the collective responsibilities that go along with those things. Consequently, their managers are in the same position so it almost never expected that anyone regularly sacrifices their family life for work related activities outside of times when it's absolutely necessary.

Successful, established and non-software companies rarely ever implement bleeding edge technology. In fact most of these companies have EA departments that forbid the use of anything outside of the approved, vetted technology stack without a specific approved exception.

What I've seen in these teams is that there is little emphasis on learning new technology like what I see as the standard requirements in HN lately. Developers instead set themselves apart by (and are interviewed/hired for) consistently demonstrating exceptional/outstanding: -problem solving -critical thinking -customer focused behavior -core enginerring skills -business domain/political accumen -leadership and mentorship

Only a couple times have I reviewed an employee performance appraisal that contained management directives related to lack of software skills and I have reviewed thousands of them to date.

I have personally interviewed and hired hundreds of elite software engineers for salaries of well over six figures and I can guaranty you that the question of emerging technologies is only discussed if the candidate brings it up or specifically has it on their resume.

The recent stories about complex technical algorithmic interviews that I hear about on HN are nothing like most big corporations interviews. The good corporations hire good people knowing that skills change and can be trained.

As a mater of fact, I know several elite level software engineers at top US companies that if presented with the startup style interview process would either fail miserably or would be so completely insulted by the process and hubris that they would decline to proceed with the interview(then go across the street to a fortune 50 and easily collect 225k with benefits).

TL;DR: The majority of elite U.S. software development jobs are nothing like the working conditions often described on HN.

[cpprototypes]

What are some of these companies? A common advice I've seen here and other sites is that the best workplace for developers will be at companies where the software is the main revenue product. It's assumed that if software dev is seen as just a pure cost and not the main revenue generator, then workplace for dev will be horrible due to lack of influence and status in the company.

The reasoning for this seems intuitive and correct. But I'm wondering if there's evidence it's wrong. What are these great companies for developers and are they software revenue companies? If not, what are the forces that maintain a good workplace for developers when software is not the main revenue?

[coldtea]

>The reasoning for this seems intuitive and correct.

On the contrary. On those jobs the developer will be a milk cow, plus under constant pressure and stress.

[lr4444lr]

I'm curious then, on what basis are new hires considered qualified? Not the ones moving horizontally from a similar company where employment itself in the prior company would denote ability, but those who are moving up in their career or from a different tech subspecialty? If a lot of the work is proprietary, you're not expecting FOSS contributions, and algorithmic tests are out, what metric do you use? Do you just match years experience with the stack? Educational attainment?

[xyzzy_plugh]

This comment puzzles me.

How do you think anyone got hired 10, 20, 30+ years ago in tech? How do you think candidates are evaluated in other fields that do not have some equivalent to FOSS?

I have a friend interviewing for a high-level marketing position. They look at your resume, ask you about your past work, give you some short tests or scenarios, and make a decision based on all the feedback the collect. It's not a perfect system but it's how the world works, basically.

Also, it helps to have friend in high places. It's often a matter of who you know.

[mto]

Agree, 10 years ago they asked you about your projects, how you solved problems, what you think about the decisions that were made, to reason about the technologies and architecture etc.

I still think, you can learn much more from that than from trivia questions or text book examples. If a person can argue about choice of technology/algorithm/architecture/method, can tell you how they approach a given problem etc...

My feeling is that the "shortage" is a lie. Back then there were no thousand competitors for every boring job out there. Weeding out so much wasn't necessary for 5 applications :)

[lr4444lr]

> How do you think anyone got hired 10, 20, 30+ years ago in tech?

I wasn't active in the profession back then; I have no idea, and that's why I asked. My question was not rhetorical.

[maxxxxx]

Talk to the person. Let them describe what they have done previously. Ask how and why decisions have been made. What they would do better. If you know your stuff yourself it's not that hard to figure out if the applicant knows his or her stuff.