[huhtenberg]

> I'm an experienced dev (3+ years ...

This is still "barely out of school, hardly knows what he's doing" stage :)

Edit - downvote me all you want, but if you are to show up on the interview and declare that you are in an "experienced dev (with 3+ years)", the interview will conclude quickly. It's not that you have just three years of experience, it's the fact that you think it's a lot. It's not. This makes you cocky and cockiness can be costly, especially in an otherwise coherent team.

[lolwutf]

Sure, whatever. Have it.

...but that still doesn't negate the fact that expecting anyone worth their salt to give up a current level of security for a 45 day gamble with Buffer is a smart hiring strategy.

[potatolicious]

Experience is relative. Compared to a 15+ year veteran sure, this guy's but a baby in the crib.

But he's still a baby in the crib with recruiters beating down his door left, right, and center, none of whom are expecting him to quit his job for a vague, conditional offer of employment.

This isn't about who deserves what, this is about the market conditions. Right now the market conditions are such that even devs with ~3 years of experience are highly sought after, with likely multiple recruiter contacts per day if they are even half decent at advertising their abilities.

This isn't about whether or not what Buffer expects is "wrong" (for whatever ephemeral notion of right and wrong), it's about what Buffer can get away with. In the current market they most certainly cannot get away with it.

[vonmoltke]

Define "half decent at advertising their abilities". I am going on 12 years hardware and software experience, and aside from shitty spam recruiters I have never had anyone beatig down my door.

[potatolicious]

If you don't have a LinkedIn profile, get one.

Make sure your summary is well written and keyworded with words that recruiters are looking for (and that apply to you) - Rails, C++, graphics, what have you.

Flesh out your past jobs section. Keyword these descriptions too as relevant (technologies used, major popular frameworks, libraries, etc).

Basically reverse engineer the recruiter's practices - they're using a search tool, searching for keywords relevant to the position they're fielding. This is not very different from SEO. Increase the likelihood of being in a search result and watch the recruiters pile in.

While you're at it, make sure your resume is always up to date and available on your own website (if you don't have a website, get one). Make sure you are high up in Google results for your own name. Keyword your resume the same way you'd do your LinkedIn profile - maybe ~5% of the recruiters that show up end up coming directly via my website through some kind of search.

[vonmoltke]

Well, that goes much further than I would go in defining "half decent". To me, that comes off as a real Type A, game the system type approach. If the market was really as hot as is often claimed, that would not be remotely necessary in order to be noticed.

What I think is going on, having observed from outside for many years, is that a certain subset of companies are fighting over the same small subset of engineers (self confident, type A shameless marketeers who happen to already be located in SV, NYC, or Seattle) and complaining that they can't find people because this subset is too small to satisfy them all.

I have had a LinkedIn profile for almost as long as LinkedIn has been around. I have had a website with my own domain name since 1999. I do not have personal or professional experience in $FLAVOR_OF_THE_WEEK. Despite all the talk here and elsewhere about how its fundamentals that matter and anyone competent can pick up $LANGUAGE or $FRAMEWORK in the time it takes to become familiar with the codebase, everyone still seems to hire based on the buzzwords.

No one ever taught me that I should be treating my resume like an SEO problem. In fact, I have received so much contradictory advice about how to structure my resume over the years that I am almost ready to throw up my hands in disgust. Plus, the idea of keyword-loading my resume and LinkedIn profile makes me feel dirty; hell, SEO in general makes me feel dirty.

[rezistik]

You're not using the technologies that are in demand, you're not writing detailed work histories, and you're not putting key words into your resume, please tell me you do not wonder why you're not being head hunted.

You belittle developers who are trying to advance themselves, their knowledge and make a good living with your Type A thing.

Everything starts off as a flavor of the week, Ruby on Rails was just a flavor of the week type deal and then it became huge. Same with Node now and with other stacks before that.

I've done recruiting, and am just finishing up a round for my company and lazy developers who half ass their resumes are frustrating. Trying to search for someone is a pain in the ass and not everyone is a professional developer, some of us are just developers at small companies trying to expand. If more people had well written LinkedIn profiles it would make our lives easier. If not a LinkedIn than you need to find some way to make yourself visible if you want to be headhunted.

That's not to say it's a bad thing, you can be a very well paid very comfortable developer without ever being head hunted, but having a well made portfolio will make your life easier certainly.

[vonmoltke]

First off, I apologize for my tone. I was tired and cranky last night when I wrote that and should not have posted it. I did not intend to belittle anyone, though it came out that way.

> You're not using the technologies that are in demand, you're not writing detailed work histories, and you're not putting key words into your resume, please tell me you do not wonder why you're not being head hunted.

I'm not sure if you are saying this with or without having looked at my information, so I will write the response assuming you have not.

I use what my employers require me to use, plus whatever else I can get away with that is appropriate for the task at hand. I also experiment with new languages in my free time, though I stopped listing those on my resume and LinkedIn profile on the advice that I should only be listing items I was willing to be tested on. If I find something that is better for a task that needs doing, I use it. As for my work history, I have a detailed history, but I tried to control the amount of detail in each entry to avoid making it too long.

> Everything starts off as a flavor of the week, Ruby on Rails was just a flavor of the week type deal and then it became huge. Same with Node now and with other stacks before that.

Absolutely, though most fade away into relative obscurity at some point. The point I was trying to make there is that I frequently see statements about fundamentals being important and specific technologies not being important because technologies can be learned quickly by a competent developer. Yet the laundry lists of technology requirements seems to grow monthly. I'm going to learn new stacks because they are interesting and potentially useful to me, not to pad my resume.

Overall, maybe it was a good thing I shoved my foot in my mouth above. It drove me to think critically about my overall presentation to the outside world. I usually approach it with too much emotional attachment.

[WWLink]

I wonder this too! I don't know anyone complaining about their doors being beat down by recruiters lol.

[nymph]

Just because (some) recruiters may be "beating down his door" doesn't mean he's qualified for those jobs. Recruiters routinely overfit, just to cram as many resumes and profiles into their hiring funnels as possible. Throw it at the wall, see if it sticks.

Being as 90% of them can't tell the wheat from the chaff to save their skins, they have no other choice, really.

[wyclif]

Absolutely true. Especially the bit about recruiters.

[thoughtpalette]

I'd say 3 years at a certain company can gain you loads of experience rather than 8 years at a different one. Context is key here as well.

[joeldidit]

Yea, 3 years can be very little. But 3 years of real experience (plus intelligence) and the ability to actually come up with new and relevant solutions to problems probably trumps 15+ years of doing the same year's worth of work over and over again (not that uncommon), 20+ years working on technology that's no longer relevant, 10+ years of only doing what you're told while not being able to think for yourself, or any other number of things.

Filter out cockiness/arrogance that gets in the way of productivity/progress, etc: yes. Tell someone who's simply confident in their abilities that they don't know what they are doing because they only have 3 years of experience: no.

I understand that the prevalence of the so-called "entitled youth" has everyone ruffled these days, but there's a difference between being arrogant and feeling entitled (I'm sure these people exist, but don't they always), and not accepting the old world BS of bowing your head, taking everyone's shit, doing what you're told, then settling for the scraps that get thrown your way (something you should feel so lucky to have happen). In the case of the latter, that world needs to die, and I'm all about progress and moving past such suffocating, stagnating, backward nonsense.

Also, when it comes to programming, after about 5 years everyone evens out (with regards to gains unique/specific to years of experience) and there isn't really much difference. Everything past that is mostly inside knowledge or factual knowledge that you get from happening to work at one company or another (or with some person that happens to know said things). And since the technological landscape (past whatever the latest buzzwords or fads are) changes at least every 5 years, all that specific knowledge loses relevance with time.

[baddox]

And yet even this lowly peon of an engineer, who appears to be contently employed and presumably has great employment prospects if he wants a new job, is offput by this policy. If anything, that intensifies his point.

[bertil]

I can’t judge (not being exactly a developer) but I was repeatedly told in the last weeks that anything above five years of experience was not meaningful. I’m not sure I was too happy about that. More importantly I have worked with people with three years on the job that are juniors, and with people whose three years of experience let them run circles around my stories.

My point is: being cocky is always bad. There isn’t any real standards otherwise, but… you need to be aware that using absolutes makes you redeemable to a lot of things.

[dinkumthinkum]

I agree with you and I think the salaries are quite low. I'm just being honest.