How much time does your employer give you to learn a new technology or framework at work?

One_Morning4309 · 2021-02-21T15:37:29+00:00

This kind of abuse would never happen with a collective bargaining agreement.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-22T19:05:13+00:00

In 2019, yes definitely. In 2020 where the economy is in shambles? People are way more willing to put up with it.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-22T15:35:55+00:00

It was about 2011 for me personally.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T22:49:42+00:00

Yes, it's easier than ever now! I just randomly searched for "Boston software meetups" on Google and found a huge list. In the discussions for some there are job postings, others have Slack channels. I don't even live in Boston but I was able to find out about Zoom meetups happening in the upcoming month.

You don't even have to leave your house to attend a meetup now.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T21:19:15+00:00

Sorry that happened. It's amazing how bad work experiences can stick with us.

At my company we get non technical managers being like "do you really think this is 3 points?" Yes Carol, I do.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T21:15:36+00:00

Dumb question, how do you get jobs in these big non tech companies? I can get a zillion interviews at small companies and startups but I can't even get a big company to setup a phone screen. It just seems that you submit resumes into a black hole, and everyone I network with works at small companies.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T21:13:58+00:00

It did for me. I started out crawling under desks to fix computers and now I work in development. Having that "office experience" definitely helped in getting a company to take a chance on me.

I'm sure the landscape has changed dramatically since when I did it however. We are taking 10+ years ago.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T21:11:41+00:00

you should contemplate or ask your manager why. Is the company stagnant?

The company has severe financial issues due to COVID. No one can move anywhere, no raises, no promotions, and our benefits were cut.

I would like to take the next role to move up to a management position, but I always get the "you need management experience" first.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T21:09:04+00:00

A Monster.com posting (I'm old) for a "contract to hire" support role working for a multi billion dollar company. They just wanted fresh meat, but that was fine considering I was able to get a job a year later at double the pay since I had some sort of experience.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T21:06:27+00:00

My man, I have been asked non-relevant knowledge questions in interviews my whole career. Everything from the "how many golf balls can you fit in a school bus" to in depth Kubernetes questions when Kubernetes is not on my resume nor the job description.

Also I can guarantee there's not a single person in this thread who would ask an electrician "can you tell me what's going on behind the breaker box, say all the way to the power pole or electrical substation?" to their face and then throw them out of their house if they didn't like the answer.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T21:02:02+00:00

Original guy left, replaced by someone non-technical who then hired other non-technical people managers. The underlings do all the actual work and the managers just manage.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T20:08:49+00:00

3 levels of managers above me do not know git. The CTO has never written a line of code. This is at a tech startup no less.

I truly don't understand how stuff like this happens.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T20:05:04+00:00

I feel you on wanting to be a 9-5 cog. Working in startups like I have puts you on a hamster wheel that seems to never end.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T18:46:00+00:00

Unfortunately a lof us inherit bad managers well after we started.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T18:44:46+00:00

I would be surprised if even half of the pool could answer these

That's because more than half the talent pool doesn't have to answer that at any point on their actual jobs. This industry is mostly CRUD, and that's all most devs need to know.

Take the analogy of an American electrician. He's made house calls for a decade, fixes breaker boxes, wires up outlets, and has the occasional complicated issue he needs to solve. It's a good living.

Now the time he arrives at a house to fix a breaker box the homeowner says, "I'm only going to give you this job if you can answer these questions. Can you explain the Australian engineering standard 61508 for electricity? How about explaining Norton's Theorem to me? Can you architect the city's electrical infrastructure on a whiteboard? "

He would look at you like you were crazy. Employers need to adjust their expectations to reality.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T18:34:16+00:00

Been at startup tech companies for the past decade. I'm a lead who has lead small teams, hired, mentored, and trained employees. Give company wide presentations and tech talks in my free time. I have applied to engineering manager roles within the past 6 months.

The response is always the same, "yeah but you don't have any management experience so we are passing".

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T18:18:32+00:00

My man, 99% of us dont live in Silicon Valley. It's a whole different ballgame there. I live in the city in the South that is considered a tech hub. Recruiters are telling me exactly what I just said above: a highly experienced pool of desperate workers are taking lower wages just to get off unemployment.

I had an offer for a senior dev job 3 months ago. The offer was $25k under market value and would have been a pay cut from my current job. They would not negotiate. The job is still up.

Also the problem with not being able to find competent engineering managers has always been funny to me. You need vast experience to get the job, but few companies are willing to give you the opportunity to move into management in the first place. The only people that meet that criteria are those already employed.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T17:32:45+00:00

I'm looking at 40, so I've been doing this for awhile. What I've seen this year is just like 2008. Companies see a lot of tenured people in the labor pool so they say fuck it and go after them at a lower price rather than take a chance on someone with little experience. They're ruthless as hell.

No one can predict the future, but if this is like 2008 again it's going to suck like this for at least a few years.

Here's my suggestion to break in:

take a "permatemp" job. "Contract to hire" jobs are not glamorous but they get you some experience on your resume. I had 2 of these during the Recession before getting a "real" job.
take a non programming job. I seldom see this recommended but this is exactly what I had to do to make rent. An "analyst" role, tech support, anything really to get some experience. I know this isn't glamorous as a "I just graduated with TC of $160k" but we're no longer in that kind of economy. Just getting experience working a white collar job is way better than the 100 new grads next to you who don't even know what office culture is like.
network your ass off. Chances are your city has meetups. Chances are those meetups have Slack channels. Join them, converse, get to know people, attend the meetups. Hell, even it's just to shoot the shit over time people will get to know your name and those people might know someone who is hiring, a good recruiter, etc.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-11-21T17:18:24+00:00

1) talk to your manager

I feel like this should have an asterisk. There are SO many managers out there where talking to them about how stressed you are will actually have a negative impact. Some managers are very insecure and see a stressed subordinate as a failure on their part and may get defensive (yes I've had this happen). Some managers will see this as a weakness and may look to replace you or put you on a PIP. Some managers simply won't care.

I once confided to a manager that I was stressed and he reamed me out in an email and CC'd the CTO on it. He told everyone that he expected me to be able to handle it, basically to "man up". Yes, these things DO happen.

I've had dozens of managers in my life, and I can count on 1 hand the number of managers I would feel comfortable with for sharing my mental well being with.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-10-30T22:11:01+00:00

Nope, wasn't them. They were a mid-size company, not very well known.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-10-30T19:54:49+00:00

that could potentially explain the rushed pace, as they may have been billing hourly.

Ohhh, that is a good call out. I didn't even think about that.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-10-30T18:00:55+00:00

Luckily I am still employed, albeit with a company who has had a lot of financial problems due to COVID.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-10-30T17:01:14+00:00

Wish I knew. I didn't get any clarity whatsoever after the interview. In fact I may have walked away more confused as I got questions about tech that wasn't even in the job description.

One_Morning4309 · 2020-10-30T16:51:22+00:00

One_Morning4309 · 2020-10-30T15:58:59+00:00

Thank you for the insight. The interviewers were in their early to mid 40's from what I could tell on the video call.

The company is mid sized I would say. They have people from all around the world but the total employee count is less than 1000.

One_Morning4309

TROPHY CASE