Tagged: software

How to Level Up

I regularly hear from and read about technologists in a career rut. Unless one is both lucky and adept at predicting the future, experiencing some temporary stall can happen to professionals at any career stage. It may be the feeling of being stuck in an unchallenging role, feeling burdened by an undesirable skill set, or trapped in a company that seems difficult to escape.

Career stagnation in technology could be defined as a prolonged period characterized by limited project variety, no advancement or even lateral movement, few tangible accomplishments, and little exposure to any emerging trends. Some managers are aware that workers in these situations generally leave, so the managers may proactively try to satisfy staff by shuffling teams and providing more interesting tasks. Many managers have to focus on deliverables and may give little thought to the career development of their charges, perhaps throwing money at retention problems instead of providing challenges.

levelup copy

To “level up” could mean a promotion into management or technical leadership, a new start at a firm with increased opportunity, a role with autonomy and decision-making responsibility, or the ability to make significant improvements to skills and marketability. People that think about the leveling up concept often know what they want (or sometimes what they don’t want), but don’t necessarily see the best paths to get there.

Leverage the skills you have to get the skills you want

Most professionals view their current skills as a means to getting new jobs, but it’s useful to also think about skills as the key to acquiring other new skills. This tactic is most relevant when a skill set is dated and a previously strong marketability level is now questionable. Some will attempt to make a clean and immediate break from their old technologies or responsibilities into the new, usually with mixed results.

As an example, many COBOL programmers tried to enter the stronger Java job market following Y2K. Some applied to jobs with no Java experience hoping their COBOL years would be deemed transferrable, while others pursued certifications and self-study to ideally be viewed as a somewhat “experienced” hire. One overlooked strategy was to approach companies that were using both COBOL and Java in some capacity, with the understanding that the candidate was willing to write COBOL if provided the ability to also work with Java.

Most job seeking technologists have at least one ability that will help them contribute immediately to any other team or organization. It could be an obscure technical skill, leadership experience, or domain knowledge. Even if the skill is not something the person wants to use forever, it could be a key component to getting hired. Try to identify companies that may be looking for some specific expertise you can provide, even if it isn’t the most attractive tool in your bag, and be transparent about your willingness to do that less desirable work in exchange for exposure to skills that are in demand.

DIY

For those in the most stagnant of technical environments, taking on independent projects or open source may be the best way to gain experience and increase marketability. It’s usually preferable to learn new things on the job (because money), but being proactive about your career and keeping abreast of current marketable technologies will also show initiative to potential employers. The level up from personal projects almost always comes from an employment change.

Sometimes to level up you need to take a step back – or sideways

Careers aren’t always linear, and the expectation that trajectory needs to follow a strict continuous and incremental level of responsibilities is perhaps naive and potentially dangerous. Job seekers are often prone to placing too much weight on a position’s salary or (gasp) title without fully considering the position’s potential opportunity as it relates to future marketability and career development. Somewhat frequent movement between jobs is accepted in our industry, so positions can be viewed as stepping stones to future opportunities.

When evaluating new roles, whether with a current employer or another firm, imagine what a three or four year tenure in that role at that company will look like on future résumés. Will the skills likely to be acquired or improved in that role be marketable and transferrable to other firms? Accepting positions that come with lateral responsibility and compensation is usually a wise long-term decision when provided a more favorable learning and growth environment.

Salary Negotiation For Geeks

negotiate2

Advice on salary negotiation is abundant, but material written for the general public may not always be applicable to a technology sector where demand is high and the most sought after talent is scarce. There is quite a bit of misinformation and the glorified mythology of negotiation is often mistaken for the much less interesting reality where little negotiation actually takes place.

Let’s start by going over a few “rules” that are often thrown around in these discussions.

Always negotiate

Using absolutes is never a good idea (see what I did there?), and there are definite situations when you should not negotiate an offer. For example, entry-level candidates who are considered replaceable with other entry-level candidates often do more harm than good by negotiating, particularly when the job being offered is among the most desirable. We will cover when you should and should not negotiate a bit later, but there are clearly some conditions when it’s not a great idea.

There’s no harm in asking for more/Doesn’t hurt to ask

Actually, sometimes it does. When you propose a counteroffer, there are only a few realistic outcomes.

Continue reading →

Alternative Jobs For Bored Web/App Developers

I’ve recently seen a spate of engineers declaring boredom and/or dissatisfaction with their current roles and responsibilities, which leads them to openly question what options are available.  Perhaps building accounting software products or maintaining the web presence of an insurance firm just isn’t inspiring you to get out of bed anymore.  This problem isn’t unique to the software industry (and based on a 2003 Joel On Software post, not necessarily new), but whenever a professional invests years of their life getting an education and honing their skills, it can be daunting to think that the time was somewhat wasted.

Thankfully, if you are losing your passion for typical web or software development, your training and experience have at least in part prepared you for several alternative roles that perhaps you have not considered.  It seems that frustrated developers tend to weigh their options as stay in development or leave the industry, without considering the fact that these other alternatives exist.  If the source of discontentment is tied to the role of app or web dev work (and not the overall tech industry), there are some relatively new roles that have become more in demand that may satisfy the itch you have.

This information may also be useful to new entrants into the market and grads that are wondering what they can do with their computer science degree other than just stereotypical development roles.

Here are some examples (some have crossover and similarity):

Performance Engineer – This role isn’t about building a product, but rather improving speed, scalability and reliability.  Performance engineers may be thinking about databases or monitoring tools one day and hardware or operating systems the next.  It is a highly technical and specialized role with increasing market demand.

QA Automation Engineer – QA is one discipline that seems to have gone through some significant changes over the course of my career (15 years).  In the late 90’s, QA meant large teams of manual testers and high demand mostly attributed to the Y2K scare (history lesson for the young).  At some point thereafter it became the norm to outsource QA overseas, making QA a lost art in the US and thus making QA talent significantly harder to find.  Over the past couple years, there seems to be some resurgence of demand for QA to be performed domestically, and hires typically will be expected to have some automation and scripting experience.

DevOps Engineer – This  is another role that has been growing due to the number of shops that like to deploy frequently.  As the trend in delivery will not be changing anytime soon, the ability to automate the process will continue to be in demand.

Configuration, Release, or Build Manager/Engineer – As the look of development teams has progressed from crowded shops to remote employees, combined with the popularity of cloud-based computing, the concept of configuration management is changing.  Demand for talent in these areas is relatively steady.

Embedded Systems and Firmware Engineer – Although the transition from your typical app or web developer position may be a bit more complex, one should expect growth in embedded systems to continue as the variety and sheer number of devices continues to increase.  The concepts of ubiquitous computing and the Internet of Things are getting one step closer to reality every day, and engineering talent with a unique set of skills will be required.

Project Manager, Technical Writer, Business Analyst – Having a coding background can make the move into any of these jobs a bit easier, and your appreciation for development should maximize your shot at being successful.

Before abandoning the years you have invested in learning how to code, consider whether or not you may be happy in a different role that enables you to reuse many of the skills you have already developed.

My ebook Job Tips For Geeks: The Job Search has been released and is now available in most formats.  See the book page for details.

How to (Partially) Control Your Technical Interview

JTFG book cover

ebook now available

Generally speaking, when you walk into an interview you are at the mercy of the interviewers. Although you may be given some general information regarding the interview format and probably have an idea about the questions or exercises you may encounter, there are endless possibilities on the topics you may be asked about over a two or three hour session.

As was stated before, any item on your résumé is fair game, so one way to potentially avoid queries on unfamiliar topics is to keep those words off your résumé. Regardless of what is or isn’t on your résumé, it is quite likely that you will be asked questions pertaining to subjects that are not within your areas of expertise. Trying to fully eliminate the exposure of certain vulnerabilities is an exercise in futility, but there is one rather effective method to at least attempt to mitigate the risks.

There is an increasing trend in the technical hiring world for employers to request firm evidence of a candidate’s abilities that go beyond what a traditional résumé includes. For programmers, this typically can be achieved through a code sample. Front-end designers and developers may be expected to show off some UI or website that they built, and architects may be asked to share documents. Mobile developers may hear this more than any other group, and are routinely asked “Do you have any apps available?” as part of the vetting process.

One way to partially control the content and direction of your interview is to provide interviewers a work sample that will presumably become a point of discussion. This will turn what could be a technical interrogation into a version of show and tell. Even if the exchange about your sample only takes fifteen minutes, that is fifteen minutes of the interview where you hopefully will shine, and it is fifteen minutes less time for the interviewers to delve into other topics that are probably less familiar.

To employ this tactic, be sure to make it known at some point early in the process that you have samples of your work for review by request. A GitHub link at the top of your résumé, a URL to download your mobile app, or a link to sites that you developed are much more graceful than large file attachments. You can choose to extend an invitation to view these projects as early as your résumé submission, and when scheduling the interview you can express your willingness to discuss the projects in more detail and offer to bring a laptop with samples.

Independently volunteering to show representations of what you have produced will give an employer the impression that you are both willing and able to demonstrate the quality of your work. That act makes the applicant appear more open and trustworthy than someone who hesitates when asked for some samples. Recruiters and hiring managers alike will welcome résumé submissions that are accompanied by additional supporting evidence of a candidate’s abilities.

When you enter the interview, you can mention that you brought samples to show if the team is interested in seeing your work. This will typically be received quite positively and could lead to a deep dive into familiar territory.

This post is an excerpt from the recently released ebook Job Tips For GEEKS: The Job Search, available to purchase from Amazon. A sample from the iBook in PDF format can be found here.

The Engineer’s Engineer

Lately I’ve seen quite a few requests for advice from younger programmers, asking questions either directly to me or in public forums about a career decision they are being faced with that is causing some level of stress.  Reddit’s r/cscareerquestions is a hotbed for this type of activity, and you might see the occasional similar post on Hacker News.  After 15 years in business, I’m quite comfortabel providing insight on the potential benefits and drawbacks of say, taking a job doing mostly Python versus a position exclusively using a rarely seen proprietary language and platform, or accepting a pure technical management position versus staying more hands-on.

Generally, I want to tell all these people the same thing.  If you really enjoy the work and want to be successful in the business for a long time, you should try to make decisions, think like, and become an engineer’s engineer.

I know quite a few people I’d describe as an engineer’s engineer, and most of them have some gray hairs or are young but sound like a throwback to times past.  Fortunately, some less experienced developers are benefitting from being able to work alongside someone in this category, who are more often that not open to mentoring and showing the way.  As a recruiter I look at and treat these engineers like gold, as they are the types that any of my clients would want to hire – plus they tend to teach me new stuff in every conversation.

Who is the engineer’s engineer?

  • Utility player –  In baseball, it wasn’t uncommon in the early years for players to play several positions.  Specialization has happened in baseball to the point where there are now pitchers who only pitch in the 9th inning.  Similarly, software development shops are now often filled with segmented roles for build engineers, dev ops, QA, architects, performance engineers, database developers, etc.  The engineer’s engineer is a utility player that can jump in almost anywhere, and doesn’t see the demarcation as a boundary that cannot be crossed.  Little is considered beyond the scope, and they will not want to silo themselves into a singular function.  
  • Initiative – If they see something that is broken, they fix it.  Will automating a task make our lives easier?  If so, let’s do it, and only ask permission when absolutely necessary.  This requires some level of autonomy.
  • Technical integrity – By this I mean that an engineer’s engineer will have some opinions about decisions being made (if this person isn’t calling the shots) and will make that opinion known when there is disagreement.  Instead of just saying an idea is bad, an alternate solution will be given.  This is the desire to do things correctly over taking short cuts, which is likely to conflict with the business at times.
  • Can’t be bought with money or title – This group will never take a job purely based on salary or rate, and are driven by the ability to solve interesting problems and work with a strong team.  Job title means absolutely nothing.  In my experience, most engineers factor money heavily in job decisions and sacrifice a better career move or additional job satisfaction for what amounts to a difference of $2.00 an hour.  If you’ve chosen a job based on a 5K salary difference, this is you.
  • Sharing – The engineer’s engineer wants to share, whether it be information on how and why they arrived at a particular solution, their favorite tools, or anecdotes about past projects.  This is based on a combination of pride in their work and interest in teaching others.  Open source is often a part of this equation, where there is a desire to share your solution for the outside world to see and use.
  • No limitations – The engineer’s engineer doesn’t want to have the toolset options defined and thrives in an environment where they have autonomy over what will be on their machine.  Having a company mandated IDE or OS will be a turn-off, as will any roadmap listing few acceptable tech options.  Heavy bureaucracy, regulation, or barriers to being able to solve problems are an issue.  The shop ideally will be engineering-friendly.
  • No personality conflict, less ego – Of course, many strong programmers (and some weak ones) have quite a bit of ego about what they do.  The engineer’s engineer does not come across as overly self-important, and can be more humble than those much less-skilled.  This group isn’t alway the most friendly or popular person on the team, but is never the most hated.
  • Lack of zealotry – Even though they want to use the best tools, they understand that their weapon of choice might not be appropriate in all situations.  This group knows there are no silver bullets, and laugh when others get overly religious about the new hotness.  Technology and new products excite them, but they are unlikely to get a tattoo of the latest JavaScript library.
  • Movement – This group wants things to be progressively moving forward with few delays.  Low latency in their process and little downtime at work.
  • Has the back of team members – Solidarity among other engineers is their goal, and they tend to stay above or away from the drama of interoffice politics.  They are there to solve technical problems, and have no interest in gossip or attacks on others.
  • Know that they are not their code – These people can separate a technical criticism from a personal attack.
  • Doesn’t need to be a leader – They are often more happy when they are not in charge, and are not instinctively driven to tell others what to do.

Note:  In thinking about and doing some mid-article research for this piece, I came across Paul Graham’s 2004 piece Great Hackers which identifies some of the same traits listed here as being shared with hackers.  The hackers he describes should share the workplace desires and drive as the engineer’s engineer, but may not always have the same personality or behavioral traits.

If you found this post useful, you may find my ebook Job Tips For GEEKS: The Job Search even more helpful.  You can follow Job Tips For Geeks on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

The Dangers of Book Learnin’

Today’s software professional is under constant pressure to maintain a high skill level with an ever-changing palette of languages and tools, and the fear of potentially becoming somewhat irrelevant can be daunting.  Those that do not keep up with industry trends and movements are at some risk of losing marketability, but even those that do closely follow tech news need to make choices on which skills to pursue (time permitting), which to ignore, and what methods to use in the pursuit.

The first instinct to learn something new would naturally be to find some good resources online and perhaps acquire a couple books.  You can find presentation slides and videos, articles and blog posts, and even attend live meetups or conferences in addition to your reading.  Over the years I have seen hundreds of engineers (accomplished and junior) that invest an extraordinary amount of time to reading about different languages and tools, many of which they may never even get to use professionally.  Some even read with the goal of some certification, which they feel will demonstrate mastery of a new skill.

I have also come to know another group of technologists who are inclined to learning in a different manner.  This group starts off with some amount of reading as well, which might be limited to the product documentation and a quick tutorial, and then immediately transition into a more hands-on approach.  Once they have a basic understanding of a language or tool, they actually try to build something.

As a recruiter, I have had candidates do a quick study on a new language (used by the potential employer) and throw together some common interview coding problem or even a simple app in a GitHub repo.  As a Java user group leader, I have had presenters build small apps to help familiarize themselves with a framework they will be describing to others, and then demo the app live.  The offer to present could be “I think X looks pretty cool.  I’ve read about it but haven’t used it yet, but I’ll build something and present on my experience with X.  I can be ready in a month.”

It appears that many technologists are very comfortable with the reading portion of learning, but focus there too long and never get around to creating something.  This seems to be common for some college graduates, who obtain a wealth of classroom experience but very little time spent doing.  Even if what you build is entirely useless to the world, your creation has value.  Learning by doing is not a new concept, so the educational value is obvious.  What other value is there?

Marketability and interview advantage
I was prompted to write this post about book learning when I was reviewing my recruiting placements for the past year.  The developers I’ve helped into new jobs over the past year have (with few exceptions) had one thing in common – a portfolio of products and code.  This was rarely the case ten or even five years go, but today it has become the norm.  The Android and iOS developers I’ve placed had at least one app available for download.  Web developers were able to demonstrate sites with accompanying code samples.  Even the programmers who focused on back end had something to show in interviews.

The biggest example of the value of ‘learning by doing’ and a portfolio is probably exemplified by the mobile app space.  It’s hard to sell yourself as a mobile developer if you don’t have any mobile app to show, and “Do you have an app?” is probably the first question mobile devs will be asked.  Software developers in most other areas are usually not subject to or judged on this direct a question.  Put simply, mobile developers know that in most cases having an available app makes you more marketable.

Programmers who work in more secure environments, such as those who build defense systems or financial software, often find it impossible to produce a work sample when seeking new employment.  Without being able to show your past work and with no personal projects, these candidates are much more liable to be subjected to a language interrogation and the game show style of interviews that many job seekers dread.  Marketability may be more tied to experience and somewhat arbitrary measurements of skill instead of demonstrable accomplishment for these candidates.

Interview advantage
Having a portfolio gives an interviewee a distinct advantage, in that the interviewee has at least some control over the topics that will arise.  Walk into an interview empty-handed and the possibilities for question topics are endless, and chances are you won’t have endless answers.  If a candidate brings a work sample to an interview, it will almost certainly be included in the discussion, and one would hope that the code’s author should fare better on questions regarding that sample than on questions on random topics.  Even average developers should see performance improvement in interviews when the topic is their own code.

tl;dr
Read enough to get going, then build something.  Don’t worry about whether your something is going to change the world.  Save what you build, and occasionally look back and improve upon it.  Bring what you build to interviews, and practice talking about your creations.

If you found this post useful, you may find my ebook Job Tips For GEEKS: The Job Search even more helpful.  You can also follow Job Tips For Geeks on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

Indicators of Talent (and Heuristics) for Software Engineers

A recent Hacker News post by a man named Andrew was voted to the front page and received over 50 comments (as of my post).  The post was called Ask HN:  Would you hire me?, and Andrew specified that he was talking about a junior level position.

He provided the following details about himself:

  • 28 years old with a Finance Degree from a non-Ivy league school
  • Spent the last two years living overseas teaching English and learning to code
  • Fairly well versed in html, css, javascript, and PHP

He also included links to his:

  • GitHub – handful of repos, 7 months as a member, pretty active over the last quarter
  • Stack Overflow profile – 521 reputation, top 37% this quarter, 16 badges
  • Blog – Attractive UI, 7 overall posts (a few with some code), with the highlight being details of a Chrome extension he built and demonstrates in a video

Andrew received a fair amount of positive feedback, and not one single poster gave a ‘you are not hirable‘ response.  No CS degree, no professional experience, yet a highly technical audience were either mostly positive and at worst neutral on hiring (considering is more accurate) this potential applicant.  Only a couple responders mentioned looking at the one project he listed, and none referenced the quality of his code samples on his blog or GitHub, so we might assume that no one even bothered to look at his code.  Interesting.

Part of the explanation for the positive response is undoubtedly the makeup of the Hacker News crowd, which does not include a large contingent of HR reps from large companies who control a great deal of the hiring decisions.  Place this resume and story on Monster or Dice, and I expect that Andrew would receive responses from less than a quarter of his viewers.  Possibly less than a tenth.

I admit, if I were to see this candidate’s resume (assuming it reflected the details he put on HN), I would absolutely want to speak to him.  The clients I represent, which are mostly startup and early stage software companies, are more representative of the HN crowd (at least in terms of evaluating engineers) than most larger companies.  And even if I did not have a great opportunity for him today, I would think that a few years down the road he will be someone that I’d want to represent.

What is it about this candidate with no experience and no highly relevant education that gets our attention?  Of the details we have about Andrew, how many could have impacted my decision to speak to him?

When evaluating talent and the decision whether or not to interview a candidate for a software job, I must rely on several attributes that have historically been attached to quality talent that were successful in receiving job offers from my clients.

Let’s break it down.

28 years old with a Finance Degree from a non-Ivy league school – Most readers, including myself, probably didn’t give this any thought.  His degree in finance should indicate some math background, and if he had listed his specific school that would have had an impact.  Although most might be reluctant to mention it, the age demographic is probably a positive based on the industry, as he obviously has some life experience and maturity but will not fall prey to any old dog/new tricks bias.

Spent the last two years living overseas teaching English and learning to code – Teaching any subject to any students is valuable experience for almost any profession, and should indicate some level of communication skills.  The international aspect adds a bit more interesting background than if he were teaching domestically.  Some who chose to speak to Andrew may have been strongly influenced by the oversas aspect, as this could also show some willingness to face risk and change.

Fairly well versed in html, css, javascript, and PHP.  Just getting started with Ruby – His claim of being ‘well versed’ is only a self-assessment, but that could be at least somewhat validated (or invalidated) by anyone taking a look at his blog’s source or GitHub account.  This at least indicates that he is learning technologies that will give him some marketability based on demand for these skills.  We may question Andrew’s choices if he were learning a less popular skill.

GitHub, Stack Overflow, and Blog – For those that make decisions about technical talent, the fact that Andrew has both a GitHub and Stack Overflow account is probably more of an indicator of possible talent than what is actually in the accounts.  Most candidates in my experience don’t have a GitHub/Bitbucket or SO account, but those who do have accounts are historically more successful with my clients than those who don’t.  The attractive blog and few technical posts are yet another indicator, showing some passion as well as the ability to articulate his ideas in writing.

What other details may have led to the decision of HN readers or people like me who would at least want to speak to Andrew?

He reads Hacker News – Even if he isn’t a senior developer, he at least appears to have spent some time in one community where they frequent.

He comes across as modest and doesn’t appear to feel entitled – You don’t see anywhere in Andrew’s post a reference to how awesome he is or how he is ‘kicking CSS’s ass on a daily basis’.  His responses to feedback are very positive, grateful, and polite.  The choice of ‘well versed’ over some other terms that may be linked to overconfidence was wise.  Andrew also will not be accused of sounding entitled to a great dev job, and on the contrary he comes across as someone who knows he has to earn it.  Perhaps that is a function of his lack of a CS degree, but either way he appears to be taking the right approach.

He’s already creating product – Although he is only early on in his tech studies, Andrew has a product on the market that you can find in the Chrome Web Store that you can download.  There are developers with 20 years of experience that haven’t built any of their own tools or products yet, but this guy is two years in and has that mindset.  Some may question how great (or even good) a product someone at this level of experience could build, but the desire to produce and distribute a tool is something that perhaps can’t be taught.

Note:  Other indicators I use regularly include:

  • Past employers – Some companies frankly have a higher standard of hiring
  • Technical hobbies – Arduino, build robots, or create things at home
  • Speaking or writing – Presentations and publications are usually strong indicators
  • Tool choice – What blogging platform or operating system you run at home
  • User group and meetup – Shows interest and passion

Conclusion:  Hiring managers and recruiters are making quick decisions to interview and consider candidates, and as demonstrated by this HN post it seems that there are several recognized indicators of possible talent.  For job seekers, you may want to display links to your accounts prominently, and highlight details such as independent product development.

Of course, these indicators are not perfect.  I, too, have a GitHub and Stack Overflow account and a blog that covers technology (and I even run one of the best Java Users’ Groups in the world) – but I don’t write code.  Readers of HN should not hire me.

Discuss here or on Hacker News.

If you found this post useful, you may find my ebook Job Tips For GEEKS: The Job Search even more helpful.  You can also follow Job Tips For Geeks on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.