Ask HN: Am I the only “unlucky” software engineer?

[nordicengineer]

I'm a pretty senior IT individual in Scandinavia.

I've been looking for a job that suits me, a meaningful and/or interesting job, in what many call a "hot" market, and I'm at a stage where I wonder if it's raining only on me. Many would say I have unmatchable standards. When in fact, I believe my ask is fairly basic.

For starters, many recruiters/employers seem to get stuck on a keyword in my profile, or lack of a keyword, and want someone to help out with said keyword. It's enough to ask a simple question as "why <keyword>?" that they freeze. "What do you mean why should we X? Because that's what everyone does, because otherwise our employers will not find it cool here and leave, etc"

I get that teams want to redo their tech stack at times, but if they don't specifically ask for it, nor does the product/company have plans to expand/grow, then why create unnecessary work? Hire for boring maintenance. Many are happy to do just that. But more work will not make your people happier. It's just maniac managers creating work for them to manage with tech they don't understand.

Sometimes you like the hiring manager (which is important!) and go to the next interview only to find out that the hiring manager is actually about to leave soon, or that the manager is 100% misaligned with the team/product.

Sometimes you go through the entire process, get a really good offer, and they ghost you.

Sometimes they throw at you some shitty challenge, exactly like a school exam where they test your memory and obedience, but not your abilities.

Sometimes they talk so much about fit fit fit, but they don't even bother with a personality or IQ test (which as a former hiring manager, I find very valuable because it allows you to balance the team, not because you see how high/low people score).

Sometimes you rephrase your entire pitch to highlight what you want to do next, but nobody reads that, their eyes still fall on stupid keywords.

Sometimes they think you're a good match, but they dig and dig only to find something that doesn't fit, and then you catch them red-handed: actually a former employer left and now they hire for a replacement, and they are looking for the exact set of skills. A clone. Because a clone will be so happy to replace the quitter... That's some fine logic right there! Not.

Sometimes you get the job and when you start rolling questions and ideas, you get a "talk to the hand" followed by "that's now what you're here for". Why hire a senior person as a poster, if you're not willing to be challenged and listen to different ideas? Nobody is asking you to agree, just play ball with convincing arguments. Too much of an ask, I guess.

I have worked and hired at times some of the nicest, most loyal, most engaged people I'll ever know - almost none of them checked all the boxes. I hired for potential. One of them even confessed years later "I'm baffled why did you take me in without a test, knowing that I don't know the tech stack, etc". Because you had mega potential, and you exceeded everyone's expectations in the end!

Almost nobody seems to hire for potential these days! Everyone wants to be different, by doing the exact same thing as everyone else, and then complain that they can't find good people.

Am I the only one in this dark movie? Am I the only "unlucky" software engineer?

[defaultname]

Often in situations like this -- where everything seems to be wrong with everyone else -- I remember that old Dysfunction Inc. post that had a tagline something along the lines of "The consistent feature of all of your dysfunctional relationships is you". It's a nod to the fact that often we need to stop and self-reflect instead of constantly enumerating the failures of everyone else.

I have limited insight into who you are, which is a post that was likely made in an irritated state and probably is a bit over the top, but various phrases in it are red flags. Having hired and managed for two decades, they sound irritatingly high maintenance.

Questioning why someone uses something is completely valid, for instance, and should never be met with resistance. Questioning in a derogatory or dismissive way (which if you're going to go on about "maniac managers creating work for them to manage with tech they don't understand" seems likely), on the other hand, is going to yield eye rolls and a complete lack of interest in humouring your question. Angling to be "smarter than thou" in a discussion or interview by trying to prove the existing team or group dumb in their choices will never, ever succeed.

We've all been there with the guy who sneeringly questions everything being done. It's incredibly boring.

I'm playing devil's advocate here, and it isn't personal. I'm just going on the limited bit posted.

[nordicengineer]

Thanks! FWIW it's not a knee-jerk reaction post, though choice of words can always be better, especially for someone who doesn't have English as their native language.

I'm not irritated. I'm more lost for words. And I honestly wanted to ask others what's their experience. In 2021. In Scandinavia or worldwide. In a so-called "hot market". Post Corona etc.

My examples come from tenS of interviews, maybe even hundreds. It's not 10 interviews. Obviously many have been totally fine, regardless it still ends in a "no, thanks" on any side. But a good chunk of them are light years away from "we have a problem to solve, this is us, this is you, can we work together?"

I truly respect even snarky comments pointing out how rude and infatuated I come out, but my experience is exactly the opposite: everyone seems to be doing things perfectly, except they can't find replacements or more people, and when someone gets interested in joining, they become defensive.

As you point out, one needs to ask the question: is it me the problem? And nobody is perfect, not even close. Not me at least. But that thing is that I am expected to be perfect. Like a comment says: I should learn to lie and pass the polygraph test. Well, I will never do that, so now we know what that will get me (from the same comment).

[bellyfullofbac]

I have the same thought as grandparent commenter, and your last paragraph isn't making my perception any better.

IMO, go to a career coach, or psychiatrist, and get a neutral perspective of whether they see you as having a difficult personality. I've read that most people decide on hiring on the idea of whether they'd want to have a beer with that person. Yeah it's not fair, but well, they're paying for those beers (being metaphoric here), and how badly do you need one?

[aeortiz]

This strikes a chord because I struggle with social anxiety...I wouldn't want to go out for a beer with any coworker, only with friends I've vetted over months/years. I hope I am in any other way capable of being a good engineer. Should I not be hired because of it?

[15kingben]

I think "wanting to go for a beer" is a pretty bad metric for many reasons, not the least of which is that I don't like drinking beer. A better metric might be: "If I need help would I regret asking this person?" or "If I had a disagreement would it be an overall positive experience?" I have worked with people who excel technically but that skill is largely offset by the negative effect they have on social interactions.

[zcw100]

I don't think it's a bad metric (it really isn't a metric at all) but it's a bad example. It doesn't have anything to do with going out or drinking beer. I think there's a negative connotation because people interpret it as, "Less talented developers who can schmooze and socialize will get ahead". I don't think that's what this means at all. It's that writing software is a team sport and thinking that you can go it alone and that interacting with teammates isn't important is a flag right there. Your skills generally only effect yourself. If you're on a team of 10 your own personal skills are only 1/10 of the contribution. Worst case is you aren't that good but the damage is limited to 1/10th. If you've got problems interacting with people you can take out the entire team. Am I going to come in on Monday and have 5 developers at my door telling me about all the crap you pulled? Larry says you told him that you're just being honest but his code sucks. Susan says you revered her code and then made a monster commit touching nearly everything without telling anyone. Apparently you spent the entire weekend reworking the entire build system to some new system because according to you it's way better than what we are using and now no one can get any work done until they figure out what you've done nor did you get permission to even make the changes. Then to top it off insulted the entire team by implying they were too stupid to see how awesome what you have done is and they should be thanking you.

How are you going to fix this? If you were a weak developer there are things you can do to about that. Fixing a persons inability to get along with others is more difficult. So now they're in the position of firing you. You'd have to be really bad not to make it an unpleasant business and afterward it's going to take weeks to shake off the bad feelings.

As a hiring manager I'm never going be given a hard time for passing on what might have been a good candidate but I'm definitely going to hear it about hiring someone who makes their lives miserable on a daily basis.

See the problem now? That isn't a description of you but they don't know that but they've probably had experiences like that so they're simply playing the numbers at risk mitigation and when you give them reason to think that might be the way things are going to go they pass.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

I think you're taking the statement too literally. All it means is "would I want to work with this person on a daily basis and not claw my eyes out?"

[nordicengineer]

Thanks for writing this! We're all so different, socially, stage in life (kids for instance), ways of working, etc. not to mention thinking of how this applies to hiring women. "What? You don't want to grab a drink with me?" Lost for words.

[bellyfullofbac]

Well, ignore the last bit then, but I hope you don't ignore the first part, I'm genuinely curious if you didn't like my suggestion and would use that beer thing to dismiss me as another "who doesn't get it".

If I had a physical discomfort and asked online for ideas what it could be, and someone said e.g. "it could be that you're lacking magnesium, you should confirm that with a professional.", I would do so. I already asked for advice, to dismiss people giving them would be, well what's the point of me asking?

[bellyfullofbac]

No, you should not be.

/s

It's a rule of thumb, not an absolute. This part I'm not being sarcastic abour: sorry if your social anxiety problems also include not being able to get nuance.

[pseudalopex]

> sorry if your

No good sentence ever started this way.

Did you consider their culture could not have the idiom? Or they could be young and inexperienced?

[rbinv]

That's Despair, Inc.: https://despair.com/products/dysfunction

[dusted]

I think I've read a few posts on this type on HN, and it seems to me like they are similar in a few ways, there might not be anything wrong with that, but I am still somewhat inclined to believe these things are why the job hunt is not going well for them.

Almost always asking for "meaningful" jobs. What even is that? I'll challenge the notion and call it "An inability to find meaning in the available work."

Feeling attacked about their profile, but not changing them to accommodate.

Supposedly seniors relying on recruiters and job offers instead of using their network, if they've worked with people in the past, and can't draw on that, I wonder how that is, is it that everybody they worked with are not nice people and don't like them ?

Sense of entitlement, _YOU_ liking the hiring manager? It's your job to get the hiring manager to like you, not the other way around.

Sense of pride, interview went well, got offer, got ghosted ? Well, what did you do to fix it? I'd have walked into office, hardcopy of offer in hand and told the first person I meet: "Hi, I got this offer, I'm glad to accept! Who can I talk to ?"

Not knowing your place: You were supposedly not hired into some leadership position to change the world from day 1, you have opinions, they are based on previous experiences, made elsewhere. Shut up, listen, learn, observe and do your best to do what they ask of you, at least the first half year or more, and then start gently providing input and resistance, show that you can do it their way before trying to get them to do it yours.

You don't sound unlucky, you sound hard to get along with to be rudely honest.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

I disagree with this. You sound like a manager I'd never want to work for because you seem to believe this relationship is all about you and I'm some kind of servant.

> Almost always asking for "meaningful" jobs. What even is that?

A lot of people like to feel like they're contributing positively to the world. If you can't explain how their job does that then maybe your company isn't a positive in the world.

> Sense of entitlement, _YOU_ liking the hiring manager? It's your job to get the hiring manager to like you, not the other way around.

It's a two-way street. Why would I want to work for a jackass? That's a recipe for unhappiness. I want a manager I can work with, not one I have to suck it up and work for.

> Not knowing your place: You were supposedly not hired into some leadership position to change the world from day 1, you have opinions, they are based on previous experiences, made elsewhere. Shut up, listen, learn, observe and do your best to do what they ask of you, at least the first half year or more, and then start gently providing input and resistance, show that you can do it their way before trying to get them to do it yours.

Ok, this at least is decent advice even if I don't care for the 'know your place' framing.

[dusted]

I'm a swdev who knows this relationship is all about my company wanting to make a profit off of me, and me wanting to earn money by providing my company with the service that they need in order to do that. Yes, that includes pushing back and resisting stupidity, but it does not consist entirely of me getting my way in every little detail because I'm oh-so uniquely blessed with the magic and rare ability to program a computer.

I'm totally not buying into the silicon valley "we're changing the world!!1one" hype, get real, we sit in comfy offices, playing with computers all day.

You're not working for the hiring manager, don't screw it up before you've at least come inside to have a look around, and have had a shot at making a nice environment for yourself in your position, which won't happen when you get offended so easily.

Places change around with experience, respect is something you earn, and you start from scratch every time, even within new teams in the same corp.

[Sohcahtoa82]

> I'm totally not buying into the silicon valley "we're changing the world!!1one" hype

I always loved how the show Silicon Valley poked fun at that. Pretty sure the words "making the world a better place" were sprinkled around many places.

Most companies exist for a single purpose: Profit. Sure, maybe some start as "Hey, this would be a cool thing to have", but eventually the focus is switched to extracting as much money from the population as possible.

I know a guy who is obsessed with this idea of finding fulfilling work. He's an artist who has despised every job he's had because he expects fulfillment, like his job should give him heart-felt purpose. He actually had a job once where he got to use his artistic skills, but he hated it because it didn't allow him to draw the things he wanted.

I'm just like...you're not going to find a job drawing fan art of video game characters. -_- Get over it.

You don't expect any job to provide meaningful, fulfilling, satisfying work. It's all done so someone can profit. Find a non-profit organization that helps the poor if you want fulfilling work.

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

> Yes, that includes pushing back and resisting stupidity, but it does not consist entirely of me getting my way in every little detail because I'm oh-so uniquely blessed with the magic and rare ability to program a computer.

Ok, that I can agree with. I think I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't push back on ideas I thought were bad, but at the end of the day it is my manager's responsibility so it is their decision.

[arenaninja]

Not OP but there's one point of yours I take issue with:

> Supposedly seniors relying on recruiters and job offers instead of using their network, if they've worked with people in the past, and can't draw on that, I wonder how that is, is it that everybody they worked with are not nice people and don't like them ?

I'm good at my job, senior and even led teams (tech lead) a couple of times at large public companies by now and when changing jobs I couldn't use my network. I don't live in a tech hub (also sounds like OP's situation) and most of my former coworkers/managers lack ambition/drive to get to companies/teams I aim to get hired at. The reason being that most of the companies I worked for were not tech and this is a severe handicap - to put it in perspective I make almost twice what my manager made 5 years ago

[dusted]

A thoughtful reply, thank you.

I'm not talking about necessarily getting a dream job, or even a good job through your network, especially if you're aiming high, but then rules are different then, you can't both be "perpetually rained-upon unlucky never getting a break unlucky dev" and be "well, I could get _THOSE_ jobs, but I'm so unlucky because I can't land absolute top-tier ones even though I definitely feel like I deserve it." at the same time.

[nordicengineer]

Would you say this math is reasonable?

- 3 companies/year (3y on average at a company) - 2 teams/company (1.5y on average in a team) - max 10 members/team - add a 5x factor meaning you will BOND!!! (closely enough to dream of working again with you) with 50 other people outside of your team, which is crazy if you ask me, but I'm playing along

3x2x60 = 360 people. That's your entire network in 10 years, pure acquaintances, not people that you bonded with.

My humble view is that maybe you bond with 2 team members and maybe another 5 people outside of the team. 3x2x7 = 42 people. Which is actually not far from Dunbar's number of 50 friends and 150 meaningful contacts.

42. That's how many people would actually vouch for you within a 10 year period.

My network is not my problem. Everyone is wonderful and supportive. But you know very well that recommending someone isn't everything. You make it sound like if someone recommends you, then you shortcircuit the interview process and the stars align and you should just say thanks for having a job, any job.

[kwertyoowiyop]

You won’t short-circuit the process but you’ll probably get a leg up. A colleague’s recommendation is another piece of data for the folks involved in the hiring process, and maybe it’ll tip the scales.

Your colleague may also let you know of upcoming jobs, or steer you towards a particular job that you’d be a great fit for.

[dusted]

I guess I kinda say that you shouldn't make the interview process about your needs but about theirs, when you've gotten inside and have proven yourself, it's time to change things, but not before.

[sascha_sl]

> Almost always asking for "meaningful" jobs. What even is that? I'll challenge the notion and call it "An inability to find meaning in the available work."

Having an impact. Right now, I'm stuck in a glue code + terraform + maintaining third party code job. 2 years ago I did platform engineering with high impact features for ~100 people across ~20 teams.

> Sense of entitlement, _YOU_ liking the hiring manager? It's your job to get the hiring manager to like you, not the other way around.

Particularly in tech, if you forego extreme salaries, you should pick who you want to work with. You spend more than half of your time awake with these people after all.

> Not knowing your place: You were supposedly not hired into some leadership position to change the world from day 1, you have opinions, they are based on previous experiences, made elsewhere. Shut up, listen, learn, observe and do your best to do what they ask of you, at least the first half year or more, and then start gently providing input and resistance, show that you can do it their way before trying to get them to do it yours.

This is the kicker. You can make things better, but you have to pick your fights, and even with those you need to be careful and have some diplomacy skills to seem helpful rather than a rude know-it-all. Remember, if you call something crap, you're probably doing it close to the person who is responsible for it being crap. They might even know it's not good but were restricted by time. Choose your words carefully.

[samhw]

> Remember, if you call something crap, you're probably doing it close to the person who is responsible for it being crap.

I got bitten by this once. It turns out there's a variable φ(crap) representing the amount of time you have to work at a company before – what I thought were – self-deprecating comments, about the app being a piece of shit, are regarded as self-deprecating, rather than an outsider trashing their work.

> if you forego extreme salaries

Just FWIW, to forego is to go before, whereas to forgo is to go without.

[bjourne]

What you're saying is that the app is crap, everyone knows it is crap, but it's a faux pas for the new person to say it? If so, it seems it is not really about the crappy app but more about the in-group pecking order. Wish adults would be mature enough to forgo things like that.

[samhw]

I think the other person got it spot-on in their reply. It's not about social pecking order - a long-time employee could well be at the bottom of the social pecking order - it's about whether it's perceived to be your own work that you're deprecating, rather than their and not your work. It doesn't matter if it's someone else's too, only that it's yours in part.

This is closely related to the ingroup vs outgroup distinction, but not quite the same: e.g. I could be a former employee, even someone who was disliked or who left in disgrace, and still be under the aegis of the 'us' in this context.

Edit: On reflection, I kinda ignored the rest of your message and got stuck on the answer to your clarifying question. I do totally agree with your point about maturity. I suppose my only caveat is that I was moaning/joking/joking-and-moaning at the time, rather than making a serious point that would have been relevant to our work, so I don't think it was immaturity in a sense that caused any actual problems.

[dusted]

Thing is, context means something to people, a new person coming in starting shitting all over everything has no context for saying that, they may be right, but the don't have any shared experiences of why it is so, and that makes a difference. Having suffered through things together, it makes a difference, it softens the words, or at least, it points them away from people, and into situations, situations of the past, that a newcomer cannot know, and so, cannot be referring to.

[bjourne]

Not having knowledge of the context should work in the new persons favor. They don't know how the app was developed, or what everyone else thinks about it, but can immediately recognize that it is crap and dares to say so. Bravery and honesty are traits to be cherished. And in your example, the app is crap is a true statement. So it still seem to me to be more about in-group/out-group psychology, the workplace's pecking order, and fragile bruised egos than anything else.

[samhw]

Thanks for the explanation! Like I said in my own reply (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29512035), this is spot-on and better than I could have expressed it – and, clearly, than I did express it – myself. It's about whether you're part of the 'we' whose work you're deprecating.

[plutonorm]

He sounds like a person high in creativity trying to get along with standard developers who, by and large, are not creative people.

Creativity is a one of the big 5 character traits and pretty immutable. If you are highly creative you #need# new experiences, it's not just a preference, it's necessary for your psychological well being.

Moving into and working with companies dominated by non creative types, who prefer order and structure and consistency, can be soul destroying. People of this type often find themselves pushing against huge structural resistance to change within organisations and it can seem inexplicable because they fail to appreciate how different others are to them.

It can be quite a revelation to appreciate that other people might actually be adverse to change, rather than energised by it.

Your response is a standard response from someone who isn't high in creativity, who is not particularly open minded. you do not appreciate the #need# for creative expression, just as he does not understand your strong preferences for order and consistency.

Both kinds of personality on this axis of the big 5 are useful to a company in their own ways. Low creativity is useful for maintaining systems, keeping things running in known environments. High creatives are best placed at the frontier of the new, where the land is not yet known.

There is also some merit to the farmer/hunter stereotype imho. Farmers like consistency and routine, hunters are open and distractible and creative.

My recommendation to the OP is to go work in startups. Big companies are usually heavily populated with farmer types low in creativity and high in other traits. The OP needs to go to the edge where he is needed, not in the middle where he is not.

But honestly in my career it has not been easy to find the right positions either and over time I have come to understand the problem as described above. Creatives need to be in a role where new ground is being broken, with freedom to express their creativity. This is not an easy position to find and won't really become available until later in a career. But this isn't unique to the developer career, it's a general problem for high creatives to find a place in a society that wants them to be a cog when they have a deep, powerful, unchangeable and fundamental need to be anything but a cog.

It's a hard challenge, and they should treat it as just that, a challenge requiring a creative solution.

[kwertyoowiyop]

This seems like good advice. Go to a small company (or team) where architecture is being created, not a large one where it’s being maintained.

Of course the other side of this is that you will HAVE to write a lot of code. Just be prepared for that responsibility.

[tempodox]

I don't get why your comment has been downvoted without an explanation. From my (admittedly ignorant) point of view it seems like a fair perspective.

[plutonorm]

The other guy probably took it as an insult that I was saying he wasn't creative. Being 'creative' is seen as 'good' when in fact it's often a huge pita.

[bluesnowmonkey]

You’re calling people uncreative farmers. Of course it’s insulting. But to someone who stays in one place for a long time, not because it feels good but because it’s what the world needs to keep turning, young job hopping engineers remind me of my kids, always wanting new legos.

It’s not about whether you’re a special creative snowflake, it’s about whether you have the disciple and emotional fortitude to keep working on something after the easy parts are done.

[obstacle1]

> after the easy parts are done

"Uncreative farmers" is insulting, and this isn't? The claim that your standard megacorp legacy maintainer is altruistically keeping the world spinning seems a little self-important, too.

[plutonorm]

But it feels good for you to help keep the world spinning, you gain pleasure from being a part of it. That is dedication to tradition and the love of what is. That is a character trait, a part of the character trait that I propose to call the 'farmer' mentality and its part of the low end of openness on the big 5. It is this emotion that I lack and may be a trait of others high in openness/creativity. It is not simply a conceit, it is not selfishness or a lack of a desire to give.

It is the result of not placing value in "what currently is" as a default position. The what 'is' and 'has been' has little value to many. "What we have now is not good. It is not worth my sacrifice.".

And thinking about it rationally there are many ways to justify this position: The world is heading towards ecological disaster. The world is a sickening mess of inequality, from the starving to the over fead. From the free to the stultifying world of North Korea.

Propping up the inner processes of facebook, is not worth my sacrifice. What 'is', is not worthwhile, what is important is what can be made, what can be created to better the lives of others. Continuing to do what we do is inadequate and counterproductive.

And while you may view this as childish and something to be grown out of, I contend this is an enduring personality trait. I also contend that it is a personality trait that has merit, it has utility to society as a whole. Who is it that is going to go out and change things for the better? The personality dynamic of the entrepreneurs and the artists (because they are very similar personalities) is one of dissatisfaction and it has to be, because the discomfort of being on the edge away from the herd has to be less than the discomfort induced by remaining in the herd, otherwise the creative behaviour would not be realised.

What you are saying in your response is simply that your emotional makeup allows you to function in a maintenance role without too much discomfort because while you would prefer more creative aspects to your job, you can find solace in contributing to society. And what I am saying is that there are some for whom their personality makeup does not permit this as a solution. For these people it is better to at least attempt to make something new. They will probably fail, but it is by evolutionary design that a certain proportion of people will be forced to try.

In the end there is value to maintenance and there is value to exploration. Some will be happy with a world dominated by maintenance, some will be mildly unhappy and learn to find value in it. But some will be so adverse to it that they will be forced to perform the role of exploration. All of these kinds of people contribute. I am making no value judgement here, what you hear in my voice is only resentment born of being in the minority.

[dusted]

Except I upvoted it, I am not offended by it, but didn't bother writing out a "defence" for my view, I have no desire to change those assumptions.

I do not consider myself particularly creative, no, if I was "highly creative" people would pay for my paintings and other artworks, as it stand, I'm lucky to even get invited to display them anywhere. I paint abstract acrylics, enjoy photography, program fun little projects and games, sculpt and print 3d models and build other inventions and electronics, pursue research that has no obvious practical application, the normal stuff that able people do, but I don't feel entitled to do so at my job, I work my job so I can afford to have my hobbies.

The vast, vast majority of jobs are, by their very definition, stuff that is hard or un-fun enough that you _HAVE_ to pay someone to do them.. They're the category of human endeavour that are needed (some more than others) and that people ALSO don't want to do anyway.. I'd pay money for the privilege to program _MY_ programs.. People will sing, dance, play music and write stories and pursue all these lovely, meaningful things, not because they are incentivised by money but because they WANT to, HAS to do them. And yes, there's some small fraction that get to find that their life calling coincide with their paid job, but setting the bar at that level, that is setting yourself up for failure and dissapointment.

I know, you're reading this as if I'm saying you should accept shitty jobs you hate, but read my other comments first.. I'm not saying that. I'm saying you should find an acceptable job, and find something to like about it. You need to at least give it a chance before getting offended that it's not everything you so rightly deserve.

OP asked a question, I gave an answer as best I could, it's not the one true answer, but it is my point of view, how I perceive what he has written through the lens of my own experiences and values. It is not a critique of him as a person, but of the way he comes across, and hopefully, he can use that, together with the other comments, to synthesize some kind of model that he can use to better understand his situation.

[plutonorm]

Beautifully written and reasoned. I disagree only in that I think more emphasis should be placed upon finding a niche that allows that range of expression. I also believe that society would be wealthier and happier if more such niches existed. But if you cannot find alignment, "working to live" is a reasonable compromise.

You clearly are creative, although you mock me by claiming that you are not. People who have worked hard to change an aspect of themselves are often especially harsh to those who have trouble with that same aspect.

For instance someone who is distractible may be a messy person by nature. But say they worked really hard and managed to stay neat and tidy by force of will and habit? They can often be more judgemental of untidiness than those to whom it comes naturally. "I have accepted this and overcome it, and it has cost me a lot.... Why have you not put forward the same effort?" Also, when you are confronted with an external image of the thing you have fought against, those emotions get transferred onto the thing. The emotional tone of that internal struggle with disorganisation becomes placed over the external world, over the top of the person who has not yet organised themselves.

And so it is with people who have struggled and sacrificed pieces of themselves to live in the world. When they see that part of themselves in others it can bring out the emotion of that internal struggle, which probably includes a little self loathing.

I think maybe that dynamic influenced the tone of your original message.

As my own dynamics influenced my reply. My anger with this world for being on average different to me led me to write something that had an undercurrent of resentment.

But it is only through the tension of our emotions that we find the will to act in the world. We may not always be the most reasoned beings, but it is this imbalance that gives us agency. It is through my anger and indignation that I act to change the world. To find myself at peace with the world is to find myself impotent, and I still suffer from the delusion that I have something of value to give.

[pseudalopex]

Creativity isn't a Big 5 trait.

[plutonorm]

You can substitute the word openness for creativity in my post, it doesn't really change the argument. The words are made up anyway, they did a factor analysis over lots of questionnaire responses and then found the largest contributing factors. Then they kind of eyeball the questions and tried to come up with a word that described the kinds of questions in that cluster. Openness is prob more accurate, but creativity is more readily understood and close enough to be used when trying to convey a message imo.

[pseudalopex]

I know how the Big 5 model was developed. Creativity is more complex than just openness. Needing new experiences everywhere is novelty seeking. It's more complex than openness too. And openness distributions for software developers and everyone else are about the same as far as I know.

Creative people can thrive in many companies. You're right startups tend to be good for novelty seekers.

[plutonorm]

Your condescending tone tells me that you are likely just the sort of person the OP is having trouble with. And they are everywhere in software development.

[gerbilly]

He's probably just thinking of openness to experience."

[dangerface]

> Almost always asking for "meaningful" jobs. What even is that?

There are lots of companies that are always "looking to higher" but they aren't actively highering, bullshit "job opportunities" are everywhere.

> Feeling attacked about their profile, but not changing them to accommodate.

Their profile should be an honest description of their abilities. Suggesting they change to "accommodate" sounds like you are suggesting they just bullshit to get the job like every one else?

> Supposedly seniors relying on recruiters and job offers

Unless your friends are recruiters they are probably too busy with their own work to find you a job. Looking for job offers and recruiters are two very well proven strategies to get a job, implying otherwise is odd.

> It's your job to get the hiring manager to like you, not the other way around.

Again sounds like your advice is just talk bullshit to get a job you have no real interest in. Bad advice.

To be rudely honest you come across as a bullshitter with no useful advice.

[dusted]

> There are lots of companies..

You can find meaning in anything if you look at it the right way, even if you're writing soulless fintech code to steal from the poor, there are probably interesting challenges in there.. How facebook manages to infer so much about their users based on the data they're stealing? Interesting problems even if they're distasteful.

> Their profile should be an honest description ...

They most certainly should ,what I mean by accommodate is not to bullshit, but to gain actual experience with [keyword] if that's really something that's a problem (I've NEVER encountered anyone saying that I miss [keyword], if asked about [keyword] I will answer honestly, ranging from 'heard of, not touching' through 'know well, not touching again' to 'no idea, can probably learn'.

> Unless your friends are recruiters they are probably too busy with their own work to find you a job...

Usually you can get a job by asking a friend to put in a word for you at their place, or just letting them know you're looking.

> Again sounds like your advice is just talk bullshit..

Making someone like in as socially-shallow a situation as a job-interview _IS_ bullshitting, it's called social norms, it's being polite and pleasant and well dressed and whatever else is typically expected. I'm not suggesting they lie or mislead, if they're genuinely an unlikable person and feel like they want to be, well, sorry, but that's probably a contributing factor to not getting a job.

> To be rudely honest you come across as a bullshitter with no useful advice.

I'm perfectly okay with that, it'd be rather a boring thread if every perspective was exactly the same, but OP feels like a typical overly spoiled primadonna to me. It's probably because I come from a somewhat less privileged background, having seen what cards other people are dealt, it seems incredibly bratty to come on HN, whining not that you can't find _ANY_JOB_AT_ALL_NOMATTER_WHAT_ but that you can't land your absolute dream job because you're basically intolerably picky and absolutely unable to adapt yourself. I'm sure OP has a lot of potential, but they seem to be so hard-set in their ways, wanting everything to be just-so in order to even give it a chance, that they cheat themselves out of it.

[dangerface]

I have a network that gets me work, they get me more work than I have time to do, this is why any serious developer needs to qualify work and turn down stuff they don't have the time for. Despite my network bring in more work than I can do I still look for more qualified work as my skills are highly valued I can find better paying work than what comes to me.

You'r advice is to depend only on your network? No serious developer with a network would do this.

You don't feel you can turn down jobs, in 2021? You have an abundance of work from your network but can't afford to turn down the shit jobs in place for higher paying jobs? I don't think so.

Your advice is laughable any senior would recognise you don't do what you say, you wouldn't follow your own advice. I think you are just trying to front on some one with no job to make yourself feel successful.

Your advice boils down to "If I was you people would just bring me work, LOL get gud" as advice this is obviously useless and arrogant the real point behind it is to make yourself feel better about your position as you put it "a somewhat less privileged background" you think you are the only one who has overcome adversity? I don't think you have faced real adversity. Your attitude of just be successful and people will bring you work is all the proof I need that you have not done a days work in your life.

[dusted]

> Your advice is to depend only on your network?

No, but read OP again, I'm replying to someone who tells they cannot get a job, that consider themselves unlucky, I have to assume they'd be willing to actually take a job, but they somehow manage to get themselves out of it.

> You don't feel you can turn down jobs, in 2021?

You can turn down all the jobs in the world when you're in a position to do so. Beggars can't be choosers, and when I'm reading OP, I'm seeing a privileged beggar, someone who feels they deserve better than they can manage to get.

> Your advice is laughable any senior would recognise you don't do what you say..

As you say yourself, if he has no job, he is not in a position to turn any job down. "Oh! But I was a senior in my previous job! I'm way too fancy to be a senior in this, slightly worse job!" -> "Well, no worries there mate, you're not getting it!" If I found myself out of a job, I'd get a new job, _ANY_ new job, preferrably one as a developer, sure, I can't have junior in my title, but I can easily enough go back to being "just" a developer, and work my way up from there, or keep looking for a new job, but I'd no longer be in a position of no job or unlucky.

> Your advice boils down to "If I was you people would just bring me work, LOL get gud" as advice

No idea how you get that from anything I write, is it because I hinted at OP maybe _feeling_ better than he could prove to be during an interview (as far as I read, he never got far enough into a position to actually prove himself?) then again, others have declared me lacking in creativity, maybe that's why I can't see where you get that idea from :-)

My attitude is not to be just successful, it's to do your best and be grateful for what you can get, instead of demanding the world right from the bat.

[dangerface]

Some one looking for work feels down on their luck and your advice is to stop looking for work and just get your mates to find you a job and leech off the reputation they have made.

Thats shitty advice, advice you admit wouldn't work for you but think is good enough for others.

[nordicengineer]

> Usually you can get a job by asking a friend to put in a word for you at their place, or just letting them know you're looking.

tl;dr

[dusted]

But seriously man, take a job, don't make demands, accept a non-senior position, go back to doing your thing, which I assume is developing, after you've been there long enough to show them that you got the stuff, tactfully negotiate new position and salary when you've done that, is well liked and trusted and the opportunity (yearly salary negotiation or whatnot) comes around.

[mvc]

> Supposedly seniors relying on recruiters and job offers instead of using their network, if they've worked with people in the past, and can't draw on that, I wonder how that is, is it that everybody they worked with are not nice people and don't like them ?

Half my network of previous managers has joined facebook/meta :-(

[pbalau]

Most of them have other friends, some of whom might be founders and looking to hire.

[foogazi]

Exactly- that should be a huge networking accelerator

Go out for lunch / coffee / beer

Or come to HN and compain

[codeddesign]

Agreed. If people aren’t chasing after you then you have done something wrong along the way. Learn and adapt. Ask yourself “what did I not convince them of that they didn’t hire me on the spot?”

[foogazi]

> Supposedly seniors relying on recruiters and job offers instead of using their network

This always stands out to me

I’ve had 6 jobs since college: only #5 was outside my network (which I leveraged into #6)

[beingflo]

I can't comment on the rest of the post but this bit stood out to me:

> Sometimes they talk so much about fit fit fit, but they don't even bother with a personality or IQ test (which as a former hiring manager, I find very valuable because it allows you to balance the team, not because you see how high/low people score).

Just for reference, if an employer ever asks me to perform an IQ test I'm definitely walking away.

[sascha_sl]

Or a personality test, which will likely be based on the MBTI - complete BS.

Just because there's an entire consulting industry behind convincing you that to build the perfect team you must have "complementary personality types", does not mean it's true.

Not like the IT industry has the luxury of choice based on such a lot of the time either.

[TheRealDunkirk]

I don't understand the hate towards MB. It does what any theory should do: predict behavior. And it does it pretty well, actually. I'm 52. I learned about it when I was 16, and my mother filled in some questionnaire in a computer program, and it nailed my internal thought processing to a T. Ever since, I've paid passive attention to it, and people seem to fit the archetypes pretty well, though I find the category division names to be utterly useless. Why do you say it's BS? What's the thinking behind the "anti" side?

[pseudalopex]

It's a recurring debate here.[1] Wikipedia has a summary of the criticisms.[2]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26288772

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...

[sascha_sl]

Aside from the link already posted, MBTI testing provides an interesting slight of hand where it abuses nonspecificity. I can read myself into about 3 of the 16 archeotypes pretty easily, and I bet if you read descriptions of adjacent types you can too. The test has to be like that if it aims to categorize humans into just 16 categories anyway. The results, especially on 16personalities, is more about stroking your ego than anything else.

It's a horoscope for smart people, with slightly more utility.

[TheRealDunkirk]

> It's a horoscope for smart people, with slightly more utility.

Well, I guess there's the issue. You think there's very little value in it. I think there's much more than you do, though I agree it's certainly a subjective measure. I say that any of the 3 archetypes that you might "test out" as would give a potential manager some measure of useful context in predicting how you will respond/react to various situations and people, despite criticism of the accuracy of the system.

[kthejoker2]

I think the main challenge with MBTI questioning is less the results (which openly talk about hhow people are on a spectrum between the 16 personalities) but that companies tend to talk out of both sides of their mouth when it comes to describing their own culture with regards to MBTI-style traits.

You can be data-driven or sentiment-driven, but not both.

You can favor disciplined structure, or you can favor creative chaos, but not both.

You can favor generalists, or specialists, but not both.

You can favor ambition or humility, but not both.

But companies will gladly tell you they have room for diverse personalities, and only after being there a number of weeks, months, or sometimes years, will the untruth of that scenario hit you.

[FpUser]

I've been in development for way too long (still am). Every time I've spoken to a potential client I would only talk about what I do, how I do it and how I can solve client's problem. Also present list of completed projects with the references. Anything beyond I consider as infringement of my private life / BS and flat out refuse to participate.

I might have lost few opportunities because of this but that was my choice.

[sn9]

Because it doesn't have any empirical backing, has poor predictability, poor reliability, poor reproducibility, etc. It's fundamentally not scientific and was made up by a pair of laypeople.

See this article for a summary of the criticisms: https://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-personali...

[Sohcahtoa82]

To be able to have a meaningful personality test, the subjects need strong introspection abilities.

And there are a LOT of people that are awful at introspection.

[delusional]

I can kinda respect a personality test. It doesn't really mean anything, but they do stress that there's no "good" personality. IQ tests are different, because a higher number means better. That leads to superiority complexes.

[smugglerFlynn]

MBTI (or other non-scientific test) stressing that there’s no “good” personality behave just like tobacco companies prior to regulations, trying to whitewash downsides of the product.

People rely on these things to make hiring decisions. I personally know people who hire based on reported personality that closely matches their own. I’ve seen people making biased opinions after being coached on these tests.

“No scientific backing, Makes people rely on confirmation bias” should be plastered all over these things, just the way we label cigarettes with photos of smoking consequences.

[ajuc]

There's a difference between personality test taken because you're curious, and one taken as a filter on the way to get a job. Usually you can guess where the authors of the test are going with the questions and which answers are "a better fit". And then it becomes a test of "how much you want this job" vs "how strongly you feel about being honest".

Also even if people answer honestly the science behind it is very shaky and when applied to real world situations it seems about as useful as astrology.

[gumby]

For IQ tests, a higher number is supposed to mean better. The accuracy of such tests is dubious.

[PokemonNoGo]

I had an interviewer use a test they printed from the internet. I had done that test before and knew all the answers. Came off as a full blown genius! Declined the position though, they didn't offer a genius salary.

[mensetmanusman]

Ahaha, you should have left saying you found a better job after staying in a Holiday Inn last night.

[elric]

Yup. IQ tests, personality tests, psychological profiles, not happening. It's a load of pseudoscientific hogwash which hiring managers use to justify their own biases.

[OJFord]

What bias would they have that would be reliably backed up by them?

('Scandanavians are the best employees' perhaps, based on this thread..! But that aside.)

[elric]

"Another INTP wouldn't fit in the team" is a great excuse for "I don't like this person". "This woman only has an IQ of 103" replaces "I don't want to hire her because she wants babies".

Hiring is hard. People are complicated. Trying to reduce them a couple of letters or a number is hogwash.

[OJFord]

To be clear I agree with 'hogwash', I just think it's such random unreliable nonsense that you couldn't rely on it to 'objectively' (so you might claim) show the same correct outcome as your beliefs. Because it would just be all over the place.

[locuscoeruleus]

A friend absolutely bombed his IQ test (mostly on purposes, because he couldn't be bothered). He was a few standard deviations under the average person. When they asked him how he felt about it he excitedly said he was happy with the result. He later got the job.

[robin_reala]

They’re the norm in Scandinavia, unfortunately.

[cushychicken]

This is one of the ickiest things I've ever read about Scandinavia

[randomNumber7]

Wtf. Would be good for me but i still find it pretty scary...

[JensRantil]

Hm, out of six interviews I've had in Sweden only a single one did that kind of test. Norm might be an overstatement.

[robin_reala]

Maybe it’s centred on bigger companies? But anecdotally with colleagues, and based on my experience, they’re the norm.

[drakonka]

I'm in Scandanavia and luckily have never run into any mention of any personality or IQ test at any interview process or recruiter discussion, both in the context of big and small companies. Never heard any friends bring them up, either. Hopefully if they ever were the norm they're less common now.

[me_me_me]

thats mad, you'd get better idea how 'smart' someone is by having 20min conversation.

I guess thats one of those local idiosyncrasies

[samhw]

Hmm, I don't think that's true. I score incredibly highly on the 'verbal IQ' segment of the test, and anecdotally I seem to give people the impression of intelligence, but in the mathematical segment of the test I score about as highly as a potted plant.

Unless you've ever independently (non-circularly) corroborated your 'idea of how smart someone is', my guess is that it just serves as a proxy for qualities like academic education (which != intelligence), social class, similarity to yourself, &c.

[johanneskanybal]

It's a small market with a few big very successful companies leading the way and then the smaller companies imitating as many of their practices as possible. In Sweden the biggest one of them would be Spotify and Klarna both have had IQ tests as part of standard hiring for some time, not so sure Spotify still do but definitely a few years back and there's a lag before the medium sized companies pick up on the changes.

For the record, hiring is hard, no company seems to have got it right. Think IQ tests probably says more than someone being forced to nervously scribble down bubble sort on blackboard or estimating how many water melons there are in pakistan. None of these obviously says anything compared to working with someone for a week.

edit: People are different, if it was as simple as evaluating a conversation it wouldn't be a very hard problem.

[radu_floricica]

Why? It's a pretty valuable piece of information.

[distracted_boy]

Why is it valuable if you can practice doing those type of tests and then get a good score on the real test? What's the purpose then? I mean if the job is writing code, wouldn't you be interested in finding out if the interviewee can code, instead of checking if the person can figure how a certain geometric form unfolds?

[radu_floricica]

If it can be cheating on, that's the problem of that particular test. IQ itself is still pretty useful for a programmer. Depending on position and career level, possibly more important than current knowledge.

[randomNumber7]

Would be even illegal in germany...

[nordicengineer]

I hope you'll understand I'm not arguing against you. I can totally understand the adversity, and by all means people can easily use it as a bias, but it merely gauges how good at "if X then Y" one is, which in turn reflects on how clear the job at hand should be. It's not about being smart/er than others, it should be just one datapoint in a sea of tens of datapoints in the search for "a good fit". And all you're looking for are red-flags, not as many checked checkboxes. Then again, any tool can be misused. Point taken.

[sascha_sl]

IQ in particular is a measure of very specific trainable skills. Particularly the harder part of IQ tests are extremely prone to cognitive bias by the authors though, where they start measuring neurotypicality rather than problem solving ability.

The problem is that these tests do not sell themselves as "just one data point", and even if they did, you'd have to do so many other things to compensate for the shortcomings of standardized IQ tests, they're really not worth doing in the first place.

IMO the best way to assess fit is to ask someone to handle a hypothetical, or to ask for previous experiences fitting a problem or situation.

[ponow]

Of course get to know the candidate as much as possible before hiring, but if you had to pick your candidate based on a single number, you truly don't think IQ isn't way up there as one of the more usefully discriminating ones?

[samhw]

I don't think anyone can doubt that it's likely to be predictive of success. There are sheafs of papers on that: e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4557354/, though that paper also discusses confounding factors. My bigger worry is that I can't imagine any of our candidates assenting to an IQ test (outside of Scandinavia where it sounds like it's the norm).

[sascha_sl]

Absolutely not.

(And I would refuse to pick a candidate based on one number. No good can come of this.)

[the__prestige]

You used the IQ test as an example of how your needs are fairly basic. Is it possible that your needs are not basic, and you may in fact expect high standards of your employer?

[nordicengineer]

I mentioned the IQ test because those employers couldn't stop talking about fitting in. Without tests, fitting in = we like you, we like you not, where WE can be very different today than tomorrow. Applying for the same position after knowing that the hiring manager was replaced is not unheard of.

I definitely do NOT want tests of ANY kind to be the norm, but if I'm forced to find a "fit", then I try to take myself out of the picture and balance the team instead. I respectfully reject the idea that this is similar to "measuring skulls" (a comment in the thread).

Thanks for pointing that out. Hopefully I made myself clearer now.

[toolz]

Bad data is worse than no data. I would suggest using those data points make ones decisions less reliable.

[bigdict]

> IQ test (which as a former hiring manager, I find very valuable because it allows you to balance the team […])

Have you tried measuring their skulls as well?

[jjgreen]

Primitive, you need to determine the bumps on the skull ...

[artembugara]

Why did I read it with Dwight Schrute's voice in my head?

[clusterhacks]

I think your experience is much more common that many people here admit (or maybe know) and you should not feel "unlucky." It may even be most normal outcome outside of Silicon Valley or FAANG.

In my area (middle eastern United States), once you hit the local salary average for software engineers, opportunities to take the next step up seem extremely rare. There is a never-ending set of jobs for people with 0-3 years of experience at below-average salaries. These aren't interesting at all - mostly legacy software support or quirky data analysis roles.

My last two job interview experiences were unproductive. I interviewed with a local but larger company. Very good experience with 3 of 4 interviewers but the hiring manager gave off negative vibes. I got an offer for 20% less than the minimum salary figure I gave them before starting the interview process. Declined. The other interview process was for a remote-only company. I made it through all their interviews and successfully handled their programming challenges. No offer - I had a friend there who told me I made it further than anybody who didn't get an offer but they were concerned I hadn't been building more complex software at my current job despite my performance during interviews. I was quite bummed about that.

I'm debating just doing leetcode for the next 3-4 months and taking a shot at FAANG. On the one hand, I have great work/life balance and probably job security for the next 10-15 years. But I make a below average salary and have started wondering if I'll regret not experiencing the FAANG interview gauntlet. Ego-driven if I'm honest with myself.

Alternatively, I may work for another 3-5 years and then go teach math and programming in a local middle school. I taught programming as an adjunct at the undergraduate level and mostly enjoyed that. Heck, I could even take a teaching assistant gig in the local school system and consider myself retired. I am a little worried about bureaucracy in that environment though.

[nordicengineer]

I can totally relate to your take. I've also considered a change out of IT into the educational sector. Problem is that if you'd want that, you'd have to put in quite a lot of years of formal education (I would call it certification). I think you need to set aside almost 2 years to become even a kindergarten educator. So forget the low pay once you become one, consider having a family on hold for 2 years.

[sharadov]

I also recommend interviewing for SV tech companies that are not FAANG. A bunch are not leetcode heavy and pay just as well and most offer completely remote roles.

[gerbilly]

I'm not going to tell you to 'learn your place' like other commenters, or even suggest you change your attitude.

Employment implies a power gradient between you and the employer.

The thing that sucks is that income is tied to employment for most of us, and it's OK to express the fact that this sucks.

How do we go beyond this? This is a problem I've found difficult to resolve myself.

For people who are creative, and good at what they do (as you seem to be) it's always going to be a struggle to fit into a structure like that.

Because I am a freelancer, I've worked at a lot of different companies.¹

What I've noticed is that sometimes they love you and praise you, and other times the hate you and blame you. In one situation you are a hero, in another a pain in the ass. Sometimes both even happened in the same company/team.

All the time I'm the exact same person. We all have a mix of personality traits that we bring to our work. Some traits the employer will like, some they won't. But what I've learned is that they all come together. They are a package deal.

So despite the posts below that encourage you to change who you are, I am suggesting you should just be more conscious of the interplay between the qualities you have in your 'bundle' and how to best deploy them in each situation.

I've also learned to take blame and even praise from employers with a grain of salt.² They are just trying to shape your behaviour, and will probably change their opinion of you next month.

So in the end it's a relationship. In some cultures they don't look for soulmates, they just marry a decent person and move on, saying to themselves, most [husbands|wives] are pretty much the same.

I think they are onto something. Find a 'good enough' employer, and stop looking for your 'soulmate job.' Do decent work, then go home. And find some hobbies!

1: Lots of short contracts, by mutual agreement. Also a handful of full time jobs.

2: A quote from the Buddha on this:

    Just as solid rock is not shaken by the wind,

    Even so the Wise are unmoved by blame or by praise.

[nordicengineer]

T H A N K S !

[gerbilly]

Glad you liked it.

Also just to add one point. When you are an employee you will never get to be more than a sharecropper, growing your crops on someone else's land.

I find it's best to always remain clear about this. Do good work sure, but remember it's never yours, really. Corollary: it's not worth investing too much ego in it.

If you want to work on something you love, then start a side project.

[giantg2]

"I'm at a stage where I wonder if it's raining only on me."

This describes me exactly. I'm basically a cartoon character with a rain cloud following me. I'm in the US, 10 years experience, a Masters degree, and I don't even make $100k. I've spent years working with obscure tech on the initial promise that the company doesn't outsource or lay off. Now the company is doing both and I basically have to start over. The company has repeatedly violated it's own policies to my detriment, and changed the promotion/pay structure to be less attractive.

[tomfanning]

For every engineer on six figures there will be many many of them on five figures. We read about six-figure engineer salaries because people write about them. $100k is well above the US median. I don't think there should be an absolute expectation that every engineer position earns $100k even at 10 years experience. Some will, but many won't.

[giantg2]

Actually, BLS says about $110k is the US median dev salary.

[yitchelle]

That figure must be for a particular niche, ie Software engineering based around SF.

[conro1108]

No, it isn't: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...

[yitchelle]

Thanks for the link. That link says it is a the median salary for "Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers".

I thought the OP meant the median salary for the entire American population.

[exportedm]

If you're in a position of privilege then there is zero reason to tolerate that behaviour from an employer. If you're in a minimum wage job scraping by then it's understandable that you would tolerate uncomfortable situations, because it's a question of survival, however if you're a software engineer... just walk. You're making a choice, every day, to be treated poorly. The moment an employer mistreats you is the moment you start applying to new jobs. Don't leave your career in their hands, if you want a promotion... go out and get one.

[giantg2]

Not so easy to walk when I've built skills in unmarketabke tech and have to support a family with multiple medical issues.

[nordicengineer]

Allow me to take a moment and just tell you how sorry I am to read this. I know it is worth nothing, but I feel for you. Kids, medical issues, expat families, etc or even a true accident can flip our lives upside down and many just don't take a moment. "Grow some balls" they say. "Grow some compassion" I say.

[foogazi]

It’s never easy - and it won’t get easier

You can’t change the past, or outsourcing - but you can change your circumstances

[exportedm]

I appreciate that you're likely struggling with self doubt and the sunk cost fallacy so you might need to suspend your disbelief for a few moments, but... forget technology, if you're a competent programmer, then you have a great deal of value to a lot of companies regardless of their technology choices. You're clouding your view of employment by applying feelings about your current situation to all employment which isn't rational: if the company is treating you poorly, they're almost certainly doing everything else poorly too.

A company will hire you when they have confidence that you can meet their needs, so your goal is to find roles that you're confident you can deliver value to and then help the hiring managers share in your confidence. That's it. You need confidence. A technology match might be a component of delivering confidence but it is not a fundamental. My most recent software engineering job hired me because... I was the candidate with a specific experience _outside_ of software engineering, as they valued that experience _more than they valued my experience with the technology they use_!

I don't know what motivates you, whether it's internal or external, but on the chance that you're motivated by external factors... I have a challenge for you to complete. First part is to be completed this week: explore job boards (e.g: linkedin, stackoverflow, workatastartup) and look at many different roles, but rather than focus on the requirements or technology, consider what the day to day is like for each role and decide if you think you'd be capable of it. Make notes of each role you look at, and keep track of the commonalities between roles you think you can do day to day and the commonalities between roles you think you can't do day to day. Then, next week, compile that information into a single document that represents things you're confident you can do, marrying up to the language used by hiring managers.

The goal is to get to a point where you can look at a job posting know whether or not you can give the hiring manager confidence that you are a good candidate. You don't need to be the best candidate, you don't need to be a genius or expert, you just need the hiring manager to think "Yes, giantg2 could do this job" ... and then it's a numbers game: find jobs you're confident about, apply with a bespoke application that emphasises why you're a candidate they can be confident in, and repeat.

There'll be hard days and I don't mean to downplay the hardship of the situation you're in, I absolutely appreciate that "just be optimistic" is unhelpful at best or offensive at worst... but that really is the key, and so anything you can do to bring yourself the optimism and energy to apply to new jobs will pay dividends. You deserve to be happy at work, you deserve to be treated with respect, and there are companies out there that will give you that, you've just got to find a way to get yourself into the right mindset.

[giantg2]

"if you're a competent programmer"

Apparently I'm not. I got a further development needed rating this year. Although I should say that will all the BS that happened this year I should be proud that I even was able to hold down a job.

I've already been looking for other jobs, applying, and even interviewing. Nothing is working out so far.

[penjelly]

you always work for yourself first. if the job doesn't develop actually useful skills that can be taken elsewhere then you're pigeonholing yourself, as youre now seeing.

Lesson learned

[nickd2001]

To get paid, you need to do something that others find useful, right? Isn't that pretty much it in a nutshell ? ;) Identify the problem they're trying to solve, demonstrate capability of doing it. Bingo. An offer will come. Or not due to internal politics or whatever, in which case forget it apply elsewhere. If their hiring process is broken, you can't pass IQ, Myers Briggs or other test, then maybe try to call them and explain politely how you can actually do that job well nevertheless, show your github etc. They won't ultimately turn down someone they know is useful and friendly, right? If a company's hiring process is s*show, but once you get in its fine, then, during the process if you're unfailingly polite and try to make it work, the people doing hiring, who know very well its a s*show, may notice your valiant attempts and give extra points for being pragmatic and trying to fit in. I'm sure in my experience , there's been times when interview process didn't go as planned, people unprepared, didn't read c.v, interviewed me fro wrong job, forgot the time/didn't show up, had to reschedule at last minute, but that's actually an opportunity to show you're laid-back, easy to work with and unfazed by stuff going awry, IMHO, which makes you stand out as good candidate. My (hopefully helpful) 2p anyway. :)

[thiago_fm]

I think you are also requiring a lot of things outside your control go according to what you expect, but not accepting on what they truly are. Almost all things you wrote sounds to me like those pesky #firstworldproblems and yeah, it makes sense that you question some things as you become more senior and have bigger leverage, but it sounds to me as if you want to question everything at the same time, why things aren't just in the best way for you, when you see that you clearly don't have leverage for that, as you can't find a position for you.

You don't have a right to work for certain companies. People hire you to work for them, if they need you. Maybe it isn't about luck, but actually accepting that it is a dreadful process and you need to focus on what is important in order to get that job. If you aren't willing to do those things, no job for you.

It might help if you would take some therapy. I see a lot of emotion on your sentences, like "shitty challenge", "fit fit fit", stupid keywords and so on. It reads mostly as a rant from a frustrated person that can't fit in not because the circumstance doesn't like you, but rather the opposite, you just dislike IT and all the processes involved in recruitment and is not willing to work on getting better and getting through that. Therapy can help you.

[desireco42]

Hey friend, please take this as a friendly suggestion. What others say seems to be true. But this is a good news. Look it seems that it is more about you than them. Which is fantastic as you can't change them and you can influence you.

What that recruiter wrote you is pretty much what I got from your post. Here is what I would do: pick some of the keywords you heard asked for and research them with genuine interest. Then apply to few jobs you don't even care about and show genuine interest (or give your best shot at this). And just pay attention how they are reacting. You are not going for a job, just a research. It should be fun.

As a colleague, I wish you find your groove and job you will genuinely enjoy.

[barrenko]

"Red flags" and all - the world is in a total state of disarray right now.

Companies are insular enviroments (reflected in another popular thread today) that operate by dogma and will happily march to their deaths while not achieving real change to how things are done internally.

Unfortunately plenty of companies have to die this way for things to change. We are individuals. We are capable of rapid course correction (usually prompted by severe internal pain and outward meandering and failure).

Best of luck to everyone and hopefully we ride it all out.

I sometimes feel like we are in a game of chess, but somewhere someone forgot to start the clock again.

[me_me_me]

A friend gave me advice, when looking for job ask for a lot more than you'd want to earn. Often refuse to waste time on stupid tests, act a bit like a diva. And apply for a lot of positions. Its a balancing act, as you don't want to over-do it - asking for 400k will get your CV a ticket to a shredder.

Acting like a 'yes man' will subconsciously put you in a certain bin in recruiters' head. Acting a bit fussy means you value yourself, you are confident so you know what you are doing. That naturally puts you above everyone else who follows the script and tries to please the recruiting side.

When interviewing you want to be relaxed, ask them questions. Make it a bit about them trying to sell you the position. Again its a subtle power dynamic.

Other one is not to give CVs to every single recruiting agency, as it often will result in burned CV. If two agencies forward your CV for same position, the company will often drop you automatically as they dont want to deal with litigation between agencies fighting over who got you the job.

Good luck

[PragmaticPulp]

As a hiring manager, the common theme I see in your post is a condescension toward everyone you interview with. You project an unwavering belief that you know how to run other people’s companies and hiring processes better than they do. If this is projected at all during your interview, the companies aren’t going to be eager to hire you. (And to be honest, they’d be right)

For example:

> Sometimes you get the job and when you start rolling questions and ideas, you get a "talk to the hand" followed by "that's now what you're here for". Why hire a senior person as a poster, if you're not willing to be challenged and listen to different ideas? Nobody is asking you to agree, just play ball with convincing arguments. Too much of an ask, I guess.

There’s nothing wrong with asking for clarification about reasoning, but when someone is constantly challenging every decision made by management then it becomes an impediment to getting things done. If you want to be the person calling the shots, you should probably be applying for management positions. If you want to take an IC engineer position but constantly argue with the work, the company will eventually need to isolate you with a patient manager or remove you from the team in order to keep everyone aligned.

> Sometimes they talk so much about fit fit fit, but they don't even bother with a personality or IQ test (which as a former hiring manager, I find very valuable because it allows you to balance the team, not because you see how high/low people score)

I’m kind of stunned that you think coding challenges and tech interviews are useless, but you insist that companies use IQ and personality tests to hire coders.

Personality and IQ tests have been widely panned by the tech industry because they have very little signal but very high noise. If you expect companies to give you IQ and personality tests, you’re going to be disappointed. More broadly: If you expect every manager to reflect exactly how you would choose to run things, you may be trying to act as a “backseat driver” manager without taking the responsibility of actual being a manager.

> It's just maniac managers creating work for them to manage with tech they don't understand.

It’s clear you have a strong lack of respect for everyone you’ve interviewed with, from your description of “shitty challenges” to “maniac managers” being disappointed that they aren’t giving you IQ tests. It may not be obvious, but this level of anger tends to show through during interviews even if you try to hide it. Experienced hiring managers are going to pick up on it and flag you as a likely difficult employee to manage.

To be blunt: If you find yourself interviewing at and working for a significant number of companies and finding intractable problems with all of them, it’s time to consider that maybe your own perspectives are the common denominator problem. Part of working a job is accepting that other people are making decisions and setting the direction. Providing constructive input and feedback is good, but you need to also have a good attitude about disagreeing and committing to go in the same direction as the team.

[plutonorm]

I agree there appears to be a mismatch here. But I disagree that it can be changed by a new perspective.

If we take it at face value that he is experienced then we can say he is running up against culture fit problems.

And honestly I can relate to him because I have found most companies to be overly structured and resistant to change. In my opinion it comes down to personality types. The OP is not the standard developer architype and has trouble operating in an environment others find comfortable.

Rather than dismissing this as a problem with the candidate we should consider that it can be a problem with the environment.

My contention: Large organisations are a horrible environment for individuals high in creativity (big 5 personality trait). They very strongly tend to be populated by people who are low in creativity.

Experienced people who are high in creativity need to find leadership positions in companies breaking new ground - startups. They either need to find a position where they call the shots in a startup, or they need to create a startup themselves.

A person very high in creativity is designed to be working at the edge and if they find themselves working in the middle, doing maintenance, then they are going to be unhappy and misunderstood by others who are fundamentally different from them.

My advice to the OP is to get out of large companies and to go as small as possible, go take some risks on some new technology and architectures.

[naavis]

> There’s nothing wrong with asking for clarification about reasoning, but when someone is constantly challenging every decision made by management then it becomes an impediment to getting things done. If you want to be the person calling the shots, you should probably be applying for management positions. If you want to take an IC engineer position but constantly argue with the work, the company will eventually need to isolate you with a patient manager or remove you from the team in order to keep everyone aligned.

> More broadly: If you expect every manager to reflect exactly how you would choose to run things, you may be trying to act as a “backseat driver” manager without taking the responsibility of actual being a manager.

These hit close to home. Need to do some introspection, since I think I kind of behave this way. Thanks for writing this!

[karmab]

Sometimes one doesn't see the problems unless one has encountered them himself and that is not to say the original poster is mistaken in his/her beliefs but perhaps their experience in management has been limited thus far.

To the original poster:

If you find yourself in a management position ever, you will understand the challenges at the management level are much different than what you would encounter in a tech-centric role.

The advice I would get the original poster is that of compassion!

[vmception]

Everyone is having these issues with tech recruiting and hiring.

When you want to get serious about this game, you learn how to interview. It is an unrelated skillset where you learn what to say and how to do the technical problems. You lie on the behavioral interview, there are books on it. Everyone is lying you could probably pass a polygraph test and guard the nations secrets with this skillset, fortunately you are only interested in making 5-10x (Scandinavia low end, US high end) what a public servant with a top secret clearance makes.

[happy_path]

European here (from Spain). I wouldn't worry about searching actively a new job. Last time I was looking for a job, I did like 20 interviews. No sigle offer. Am I a bad software engineer? I'm not the best for sure, but the worst? Don't think so. After getting the 20th rejection, a big company that I had submitted my CV years ago offerend me a position.

What I'm trying to say is that many times we don't want to see the "luck factor".

Assume in a job interview there is a 90% of probabilities to be rejected. Maybe because of your background, maybe they closed the process, maybe there is somebody that is not as good as you but earns waaaay less, etc. That's life, and that's hard.

My advice: accept it. It's happened to me and it's hard. But life goes on and we shouldn't worry about things out of our control.

However, IMHO, if you don't care for work-life balance, look for positions in startups. You'll learn many new skills and also you'll somewhat "restart/refresh" your career.

If you don't want to work in a startup (job insecurity, no work-life balance, etc) my advice for you would be start looking job at a medium-size company, and change jobs each 1.5-2 years. After several changes, your network would have increase and hence, the probability of having delivered some opportunities.

[mstaoru]

When I hire engineers, I look for basic familiarity with the stack, and then we talk in broad terms about technology, architecture, some interesting software problems. What I look for in these conversations is the enthusiasm for tech, the "spark", if you would. In my 25+ years software career I've seen people with enthusiasm conquer every possible technical issue, even if they didn't have deep knowledge about it beforehand. Sometimes it takes more time, yes. But you cannot replace the spark. So many engineers these days just view this as a cushy career that pays above the market. FWIW, I mostly hired mid- and senior-level, so maybe in junior-level it makes sense to use the whiteboard. Maybe my approach is similar to the "potential" you talk about. I've also never looked at the "fit", I enjoyed working with all sorts of people, my "authority" denied, there's nothing better than engineers asking business questions and arguing about things that come from above. Unfortunately, this is not how things are done in most companies, so I guess if you want a "career" you better train that "emotional intelligence" thing which may mean completely different things to different people.

[l0b0]

Some things which have worked for me (Scandinavian working elsewhere, senior dev):

- Re. keywords, trim the CV according to the job you want. I've worked with PHP, PL/SQL, VBA and other technologies I'd rather never touch again. I simply don't mention them in the CV, and if it ever comes up in the interview I clearly say "I don't want to work with that." If they press me on it, that's a big red flag.

- Rather than simply saying "no" to a rebuild, how about looking into the pain points and improving them, step by step? If it's slow, do a bit of profiling and fix the low-hanging fruit. If it's incomprehensible, run a formatter and a linter and fix everything which you can conceivably fix, then run a complexity checker and discombobulate a couple of the biggest clusters. If it's unreliable or ossified, add tests until it's stable and refactorable.

- Shitty hiring practices can be a sign of a disorganised or dysfunctional company. I'd simply take it as a red flag and be ready to drop the opportunity if it's too bad.

- Meaningful work is out there, but it's usually not paid the best. That said, do you really need the very best paid job you can find to have a comfortable life? You're already in a well-paid segment, even with the salary stagnation. I've found lots of meaning by working in research (really badly paid, but such stimulating colleagues & cameraderie) and currently in a place where I'm working almost full time on open source software, including third party dependencies.

[spion]

> Sometimes you get the job and when you start rolling questions and ideas, you get a "talk to the hand" followed by "that's now what you're here for". Why hire a senior person as a poster, if you're not willing to be challenged and listen to different ideas? Nobody is asking you to agree, just play ball with convincing arguments. Too much of an ask, I guess.

Convincing arguments can be hard. I know I've been asked about convincing arguments in the past and I've tried my best, but sometimes its really difficult to recall the exact details around why a particular approach didn't work. I'm working on this by using Obsidian (or better, the company's Wiki) as a knowledge graph that I can refer to in the future, but in most situations you are not able to reuse the knowledge graph from a previous job fully. Architectural decision records / design docs work well for this - perhaps ask if they have those?

I agree though, convincing argumentation is not really common in software engineering for some reason. The way we approach best practices is the most revealing IMO: instead of explaining the reasons for the practices in detail, most of the time we just list and cargo-cult them.

[burntoutfire]

From what I'm seeing, Scandinavian market may be not as hot as some others are. Salaries and contract rates are really high there, and just across the sea you have a vast market of skilled software people that can be hired for a fraction of the cost (I'm speaking of former Soviet Block countries). So, Scandinavian companies are "nearshoring" by the hundreds/thousands there and are sometimes firing instead of hiring at home.

[zoe4883]

Administration and taxes sucks, expenses are high. As self employed on East Europe I pay 15% with all compulsory insurances. Salaries are about same.

[valbaca]

Most of what you mention is exactly what the interview process should reveal: when they demonstrate what they care about, pay attention.

> where they test your memory and obedience, but not your abilities

Obedience is the only ability they care about.

> Sometimes they talk so much about fit fit fit, but they don't even bother with a personality or IQ test

If any interview process involved a personality or IQ test I would laugh in their face.

[drakonka]

I am also in Scanadinavia, and honestly from your post I am getting an "everything is wrong with everyone else" vibe - which is usually a sign that you may want to look closer at yourself.

Hiring processes are certainly not perfect, but I have not had the types of issues you describe in any sort of persistent way. Granted, I have not interviewed a lot since moving here (once in 2012, once in 2019, and once earlier this year but with a non-Scandinavian company). But I know none of my friends and acquaintances in the industry here have had the kinds of problems you describe on a persistent basis.

To be honest, your mention of personality and IQ tests was a bit of a red flag when reading the post that something isn't quite aligned with modern hiring practices when it comes to your mindset and expectations.

[Viliam1234]

Sounds like a part is you being disagreeable, and a part is the usual dysfunction of IT companies.

> It's enough to ask a simple question as "why <keyword>?" that they freeze.

At some moment "because I told you so" needs to be an answer, otherwise you will have 10 engineers with 10 completely different opinions on how things should be done, and you will never produce anything. They might be thinking "is every decision going to be a difficult fight with this guy?"

> Hire for boring maintenance.

Managers follow their selfish incentives just like the developers do. No manager wants "overseeing the boring maintenance" in their CV. That's why no one will hire you for such role, even if it is desperately needed.

> Sometimes they throw at you some shitty challenge, exactly like a school exam where they test your memory and obedience, but not your abilities

Something makes me guess you fail pretty hard at anything involving obedience...

> Sometimes they talk so much about fit fit fit, but they don't even bother with a personality or IQ test

Yes, it means that they are looking for someone they like.

> they are looking for the exact set of skills. A clone.

Yes. No one wants to spend their money on your learning.

> Why hire a senior person as a poster, if you're not willing to be challenged and listen to different ideas?

You hire the senior person to hopefully code faster, and fix bugs faster. If you want to challenge people, you need to start your own company.

> Almost nobody seems to hire for potential these days!

Companies want to extract value from their employers as soon as possible. Because the employers often quit, especially after they learn something new and notice that their market value increased. It sucks for both sides.

[invalidname]

Recruiting is just fundamentaly broken in most companies. I wish more people would use this practice when hiring https://talktotheduck.dev/debugging-the-technical-interview-...

[errcorrectcode]

Because hiring is a selling and hazing process, not a technical one. Get used to handling BS deftly or get used to under/unemployment.

What exactly would an IQ or personality test accomplish?

> Everyone wants to be different, by doing the exact same thing as everyone else

They're called "hipsters."

[forthedayrate]

"Why hire a senior person as a poster, if you're not willing to be challenged and listen to different ideas?"

Lots of people do this. I find the STARS framework a good way of assessing what's expected of me in a senior role: https://hbr.org/2009/01/picking-the-right-transition-strateg...

As senior people, we're usually pretty opinionated. There are different outcomes from sharing those opinions at different times, depending on the context (see the framework above).

If you are looking for a role that values strong opinions early on, then roles that require a start-up or turnaround approach, are the ones that will match this. They are also the roles where the org is most open to change.

Outside of these situations (I'm talking role types, not whether a company is a start-up or not), orgs are resistant to change, and unlikely to hire someone that challenges things before they are even through the door.

From what you've said, it sounds like these are not the roles you're looking for, in which case, the process is working. There are very few start-up or turnaround roles that go to unknown candidates. In my experience, these roles go to folks that have been personally recommended, as the price of failure is so high, and people want a known quantity. (Whether that is what they get is beyond the scope of this comment).

Network, get to know people and get known as someone who can bring these types of changes to an org, and one might come your way.

Of course, if this isn't the type of role you're looking it for, then you are simply rocking the boat way too early.While most places would benefit from some level of change, they will still resist it.

If you challenge things before you've started in a role, a hiring manager will probably speculate that if you are this much trouble before you've even started, you will be even more trouble once hired. And they will reach for the next candidate, because there's always the next candidate.

[codeddesign]

I’m sorry but this sounds more like dating and not being able to find your perfect match. If you want your perfect job, then fight for it. Put in the long hours and grind starting at an ok position while working your way up the ladder until you have the authority to create the environment you are seeking. Complaining about this right now where you are a low man on a totem pole gets you no farther than you were yesterday.

I wish you all the best. Pick your head up, find a position that suits your skills and has room for promotion..and begin grinding harder than the engineer next to you.

Good luck!

[edimoldovan]

I have done many interviews before with engineers, I always moved someone forward in the process based on the potential, on problem solving skills. I'm not really interested if they know a certain stack or not, that can be easily picked up in a good team with some great mentorship.

You are presenting interesting points. I also live in Scandinavia though not too active in interviews yet. Will be though, on the interviewing side. In case you are in Stockholm, wanna grab a coffee? I'd be happy to know more about what you are looking for.

[machiaweliczny]

It's hard to find good jobs unless you want to move to where faang hires. I did 50 interviews got about 40 offers, accepted 1. Wanted to accept only 3 of em after talks. Based in Poland.

[hoeppner]

Sounds like you're describing the German IT job market to a tee. It's keywords, keywords, keywords, lots of promises, and zero willingness to discuss anything.

[bjornlouser]

"Almost nobody seems to hire for potential these days!"

What is the average length of employment for mid to senior level developers these days? A few years? If it takes ~3 months to go from zero to competent with a new tech stack then that's ~15 weeks out of ~150 weeks -> 10%

Too simple a metric to capture the various qualities of a candidate that would compensate for the delay in significant contributions, but not completely irrational given the supply of qualified applicants.

[readonthegoapp]

i don't do dev anymore -- dev-adjacenet maybe -- like i might do some role at a big-ass company called 'app dev sr advisor' -- but it would be a little sql, etc.

point is, i get a shitton of interest, and i work to blast out my resume, and even send targeted resumes. but i haven't closed anything after a _lot_ of interviewing -- two solid months. actually, will be three months soon. i've made it to a few finals rounds. not sure why i'm dying at the final stage.

small company today i talked to were pretty much all assholes. i thought that was strange. i've been on calls where 1 of 3, or maybe 1 of 2, was an asshole, hated me from the jump, but not 4 of 5 -- that felt super-strange. it's kind of a run-of-the-mill sf area startup.

but my take-away after the call was....everyone is stressed because republicans are trying to kill us all, on top of covid adding this constant, immediate fear of suffering, bankruptcy, and death over our heads. so, most everyone in the coding class is making money hand over fist, way outpacing inflation * 100, but if you can die tomorrow, what's the point of it all? it puts you in a bad mood. you can't even go to the gd bar and watch a game without wondering if you're killing yourself and your family.

and, so, people are broken. civil society is breaking down. i don't know what it's like to live in another country during covid, but i suspect it could cause social breakdown even if one of the two political parties wasn't committed to mass death.

the odd part to me was they were asking me about my moving around to different jobs -- i was like, bros, y'all been here for a couple months, and you fired most of your C-level execs in the past two months, and said most of various departments had turned over because 'the company was at a different stage now'. tf?

hopefully another, different offer comes thru.

but i got that gd raincloud following me around, too.

not sure there is any solution for you, unfortunately.

[Nextgrid]

> What do you mean why should we X? Because that's what everyone does, because otherwise our employers will not find it cool here and leave, etc

Welcome to modern startups where the goal is to build an engineering playground and not to solve a business problem.

> Hire for boring maintenance

From a candidate's perspective, being stuck with a boring stack makes them less employable in the long run unless every company does this, which is not happening (see first point).

In addition, "boring" people typically cost more than those who chase the new shiny all the time and might settle for less money to work on "exciting" tech.

Finally, again as I said above, in a lot of cases especially in tech startups, IT has stopped being a solution to a business problem and started being a goal itself. Instead of doing the bare minimum to solve the business problem at hand, they build an overcomplicated engineering playground to justify hiring tons of people and being able to brag about solving their (self-inflicted) problems at the next AWS conference, which then helps hiring more suckers in who constantly chase the latest hype.

Furthermore, "boring maintenance" means there is a successful, profitable product that you merely need to maintain. That's not the case for most tech startups where the approach is "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks" and profit is nowhere to be seen, nor is it a true objective (the objective is to either get bought out or get that next round of VC money so you can prolong your status as a founder of an exciting an innovative startup). In this case, there is nothing to maintain, you always build and rebuild from scratch.

> Many are happy to do just that

Maybe, but I'd argue they would require more money to stay in place compared to hiring people who are happy to take lower pay to work on shiny stuff. I guess most software engineers' goal is to accumulate experience in all kinds of hyped up technologies and then capitalize on that at a FAANG or similar - merely solving business problems with boring tech doesn't give you that option, so you'd have to ask for more salary to compensate.

Whether an engineering playground costs more than a "boring" stack maintained by well-paid people is a different question, but so far most companies don't bother doing the math, especially when it's startups that play with VC money they don't particularly care about.

> Sometimes they throw at you some shitty challenge

They do so because they can get away with it. You can decline. They'll have to change once everyone declines and they can't hire anyone, but as above they won't change as long as they have enough suckers that are happy to go through this.

> nobody seems to hire for potential these days

These days in tech startups you don't need long-term potential. You want to extract the maximum value now so you can "grow" and get that next round of VC money or get bought out by a bigger fish. A lot of these are outright not viable and will fold as soon as the money runs out and no bigger fish comes along, so in this case trading future potential for current results makes sense, because the company may no longer be here to capitalize on that future potential.

[nordicengineer]

> being stuck with a boring stack makes them less employable in the long run > "boring" people typically cost more

This is where I know I have a big ask to think outside of the box, but companies don't need to pay extra and that boring environments shouldn't reflect negatively on employees.

Employers can pay the same salary and say 1 day a week, 2 days a week, you can do whatever, you still get paid. And you can get a certification, or you can try out exciting tech on a side project or for a company project even. There are still many ways to keep people happy, competitive etc without "extra" pay. Just thought it's important to highlight that money isn't the only thing.

[Nextgrid]

> boring environments shouldn't reflect negatively on employees

It's not that they reflect negatively, it's that in a world of hype, not having hype technologies on your resume puts you at a disadvantage for future opportunities as you just won't have the skills they are looking for, which means the company needs to offer a higher salary to compensate for that downside.

[kleer001]

What're the numbers on this? How many interviews? How many conversations? How many applications? How many cold calls?

[winterplace]

Do you have an email address? You can make a new one on proton. Will send an initial message there.

[dangerface]

Trying to find a job in December? good luck no one is seriously considering until January.

[kranke155]

IQ tests for employees? Like other people said, you need to look into yourself.

[ralphb]

Hey @nordicengineer, we have a bunch of open positions that might be relevant, and I think we're a pretty good place to work & pretty meaningful. If you're willing to relocate to Odense, Denmark send me an email at <myfirstname>[e-mail]. I am not the hiring manager.

[mobutu]

You do sound like a prick to be honest.