Comment by justrudd
17 hours ago
I assume by industry you mean software development. And I’m not tired of that. Where else can you be integrally involved in different businesses? Communications, medical, education, e-commerce for anything/everything. We get to play in a lot of different playgrounds and potentially have a huge impact. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that.
I am tired of the interview process. Here’s a take home assignment that you’ll code in isolation without feedback or interaction from us. Completely opposite of how you’d do the job. You’ll have to justify any assumptions you make. And if we don’t like your justification, pass.
Took 2 days on the assignment - this is kind of simplistic, not what we’d expect from a senior dev. Pass.
Take 4 days on the assignment - what took so long? We’d expect a senior dev to knock this out in 2 or 3 days. Pass.
Maybe we’ll tell you’re out. Or we’ll just ghost you. Depends on how our recruiting team is feeling that day.
Behavioral is generally where I “blow” it. I won’t lie and answer the “so tell me a time about xyz”. Sometimes xyz was terrible, and I didn’t handle it well. I know how I’d handle it now and can articulate that. Sorry. We’re looking for someone that handled this exactly right already.
Personally I screwed myself over the years by not chasing titles. I’ve done Staff and Principal level stuff. For years. But I didn’t fight for the title. So I generally get screened out of those pretty quickly because past titles don’t match what recruiting team has been told to look for.
But this is the price that must be paid. So I can work/play in a lot of different playgrounds. Keep applying. Keep trying. Eventually I’ll find something.
To my eye you seem to be extolling the virtues of the work. Which I still love.
For sure. I love my side projects and my jobs. I love writing code and designing systems. I’m burned out on the game I must play (and be good at) to be afforded the chance to write code, design systems, and be paid.
Isn't that part "the industry" being what it is?
1 reply →
I just say no to take home assignments. Just no.
You can think of it in terms of time commitments. I could have applied to 30 places. I don't have four hours or 16 hours or whatever, times 30 different places. Ain't nobody got time for that.
Or you can think of it in terms of, they can waste hours of my time at the price of maybe 5 minutes of their own. This leaves them less incentive to be efficient.
Net result: They're not respecting my time. They're probably not going to respect me in other ways. So, no. Just no. I'll look somewhere else.