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Question of the Day: If you were buying a TV today, which brand would you choose?
Where are all the skilled developers?
- Thread starter roguemat
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^^vampire^^
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Where are all the skilled developers?
I'm here and looking for a new job from January 2014 so would be able to start mid to late February. (just need to have nice holiday first), place your orders now via PM.
I'm here and looking for a new job from January 2014 so would be able to start mid to late February. (just need to have nice holiday first), place your orders now via PM.
senyetse
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Add me too, time to move on...
sp4ceman
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i think some of these people claiming to be skilled are actually unskilled devs trying to infiltrate.
we need some way of publicly displaying skillz. a... skill off.. if you will.
we need some way of publicly displaying skillz. a... skill off.. if you will.
Well, I think that some developers with 5 years of working experience think that they have 5 years of coding experience which is not the case. They might have been working for 5 years but are projects in a specific language ongoing? Nope. When I complete my projects, my role automatically changes to administrator running excel commands for other teams. This is very bad as I am not gaining any knowledge in this time...
I went to an interview in stellies for a C# intermediate position, desktop applications (forms and stuff), and this guy is asking me about jQuery and fire something...obviously I flunked that 'cos my current job (where I develop in embedded C) does not allow me to explore those technologies and languages. But I cant blame my current situation at work, the onus is on us to skill ourselves up in the technologies right??? BUT how the hell do you keep up with these technologies if there are so many, and each company uses different ones? Interview time comes, they ask you stuff that was not on the job spec.
I guess you just have to BS your way through interviews, and during the probation period, you have to sponge as much as possible, as soon as possible.
I might be a bit inexperienced but I see an opportunity to gain a better understanding from the comments that follow.
I went to an interview in stellies for a C# intermediate position, desktop applications (forms and stuff), and this guy is asking me about jQuery and fire something...obviously I flunked that 'cos my current job (where I develop in embedded C) does not allow me to explore those technologies and languages. But I cant blame my current situation at work, the onus is on us to skill ourselves up in the technologies right??? BUT how the hell do you keep up with these technologies if there are so many, and each company uses different ones? Interview time comes, they ask you stuff that was not on the job spec.
I guess you just have to BS your way through interviews, and during the probation period, you have to sponge as much as possible, as soon as possible.
I might be a bit inexperienced but I see an opportunity to gain a better understanding from the comments that follow.
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Hamster
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I feel you. I have a couple of languages I develop in but the rest is design, admin, fixing, teaching etc. You don't get to explore all these languages in a way that makes you remember them (unless you do this for a hobby after hours but my social life is bad enough already).
Asking you something specific about jQuery based on your years experience is total BS though unless the job was for somebody with jQuery experience though.
I think that trying to understand a wide range of specific technologies is futile. Also, from an interviewer's perspective, asking about specific technologies is a really bad way to go about finding talent.
E.g., for the software developers I usually need to hire, I will usually ask questions on algorithms, complexity, system architecture, CPU architecture, multithreaded programming, math, stats, HPC, etc. I don't care what language they use to implement the algorithms in the interview, or what specific OS's internals they know, or if they can give me the division instruction latency on a Haswell CPU, etc. I just need to know what types of technologies they are knowledgeable in or have expertise in - the assumption is that learning the specifics can come later.
When posed with a question for a specific technology most interviewers would be happy with a solution in a similar technology (eg, "I don't know how to do that in Direct3D, but here's how I would do it in OpenGL").
So rather try identify groups of technology, and learn the associated concepts rather than focusing on specifics. It may sound obvious, but so many people out there focus on trying to learn a bunch of languages like C, C#, C++, Java, Go, Delphi, etc. Or a bunch of DBs or a bunch of Unix style OS's or whatever, that they lose sight of the abstractions and become overwhelmed by details.
I think that trying to understand a wide range of specific technologies is futile. Also, from an interviewer's perspective, asking about specific technologies is a really bad way to go about finding talent.
E.g., for the software developers I usually need to hire, I will usually ask questions on algorithms, complexity, system architecture, CPU architecture, multithreaded programming, math, stats, HPC, etc. I don't care what language they use to implement the algorithms in the interview, or what specific OS's internals they know, or if they can give me the division instruction latency on a Haswell CPU, etc. I just need to know what types of technologies they are knowledgeable in or have expertise in - the assumption is that learning the specifics can come later.
When posed with a question for a specific technology most interviewers would be happy with a solution in a similar technology (eg, "I don't know how to do that in Direct3D, but here's how I would do it in OpenGL").
So rather try identify groups of technology, and learn the associated concepts rather than focusing on specifics. It may sound obvious, but so many people out there focus on trying to learn a bunch of languages like C, C#, C++, Java, Go, Delphi, etc. Or a bunch of DBs or a bunch of Unix style OS's or whatever, that they lose sight of the abstractions and become overwhelmed by details.
kripstoe
Expert Member
What type of position is this?
These are the core skills for writing any massively distributed scientific computing software efficiently (usually simulation or machine learning). I probably should have added massively SIMD (GPUs and Phis) and high end networking to the list.
biometrics
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Haven't been for an interview since the late 90's ... 
mercurial
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Pho3nix
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Dude
I honestly wouldn't know what to say to your questions. Junior positions get asked the same questions?Dude
A junior guy wouldn't be expected to have the whole spectrum - algorithms, math and stats, yes. Usually a good junior candidate will also have expertise in one of the other items (GPU, Networking, Processor architecture, OS internals, Distributed computing, etc.), usually picked up via work experience or a relevant PhD. The important bit is that if we are looking for someone with GPU programming expertise, we won't ignore someone with Xeon Phi experience, or if our systems are all Intel based, we'll consider someone who knows the Power architecture as equivalent, maybe they use MPI and we use something else, etc. It's all about exposure to the right set of domains.
Interesting topic. Couldn't read everything in here though.
What makes a developer skilled? I believe it is understanding the basics and then using that to build and enhance other skills relevant to your domain.
In university, I knew more about hardware architecture, networking, algorithms and other programming constructs than I do now. Why? Simply because our industry moves so fast that every day there are more abstractions away from lower layers. Frameworks, along with libraries, have made most developers more productive in achieving their goals.
Also, your development domian guides the amount of abstraction. If you create device drivers, I'm pretty sure your level of abstraction is rather low. Or maybe even program the firmware on that router. So how about an interace "developer". How much abstaction does he/she need? I'd say a lot. Does he need to know about what instruction set the server cpu uses? I'd think not.
So how do you compare? Well I think that it boils down to implementing your solution in the best way possible. The firmware programmer would want to write code that would need to meet a specific set of conditions that is acceptable/good in his domain that his peers approve of. Same goes for the interface developer. He would need to ensure that his code uses to correct design patterns et al.
It all boils down to practice. The more you practice something, the better you become. You can't expect an interface developer to know how to write C/C++ code that doesn't leak memory all over the place. Nor should you expect a firmware programmer to ensure that he creates a UI that is fully-responsive, asynchronous and fluid.
What you can expect is that the interface developer and the firmware programmer to create reliable software that meets the needs of their users and provides a good foundation to maintain and enhance their code. There are a few devs out there that could excel in many domains. Though they are far and few...
What makes a developer skilled? I believe it is understanding the basics and then using that to build and enhance other skills relevant to your domain.
In university, I knew more about hardware architecture, networking, algorithms and other programming constructs than I do now. Why? Simply because our industry moves so fast that every day there are more abstractions away from lower layers. Frameworks, along with libraries, have made most developers more productive in achieving their goals.
Also, your development domian guides the amount of abstraction. If you create device drivers, I'm pretty sure your level of abstraction is rather low. Or maybe even program the firmware on that router. So how about an interace "developer". How much abstaction does he/she need? I'd say a lot. Does he need to know about what instruction set the server cpu uses? I'd think not.
So how do you compare? Well I think that it boils down to implementing your solution in the best way possible. The firmware programmer would want to write code that would need to meet a specific set of conditions that is acceptable/good in his domain that his peers approve of. Same goes for the interface developer. He would need to ensure that his code uses to correct design patterns et al.
It all boils down to practice. The more you practice something, the better you become. You can't expect an interface developer to know how to write C/C++ code that doesn't leak memory all over the place. Nor should you expect a firmware programmer to ensure that he creates a UI that is fully-responsive, asynchronous and fluid.
What you can expect is that the interface developer and the firmware programmer to create reliable software that meets the needs of their users and provides a good foundation to maintain and enhance their code. There are a few devs out there that could excel in many domains. Though they are far and few...
^^vampire^^
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Hamster
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Was just reading a web dev job spec from a big corporate. It was packed so full of "filler" requirements that I got physically angry 
70% of it is crap like "interpersonal skills, team player, self starter, fit into the environment blah blah blah". Why??
/rant over
If you are the guy writing up job specs, please take not of this template:
REQUIREMENTS:
1. .....
2. .....
DRESS CODE:
You will be allowed to wear whatever the hell you want when not facing clients
REMUNERATION:
1. ......
That's all we need. Thank you.
/second rant over
70% of it is crap like "interpersonal skills, team player, self starter, fit into the environment blah blah blah". Why??
/rant over
If you are the guy writing up job specs, please take not of this template:
REQUIREMENTS:
1. .....
2. .....
DRESS CODE:
You will be allowed to wear whatever the hell you want when not facing clients
REMUNERATION:
1. ......
That's all we need. Thank you.
/second rant over
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Was just reading a web dev job spec from a big corporate. It was packed so full of "filler" requirements that I got physically angry
70% of it is crap like "interpersonal skills, team player, self starter, fit into the environment blah blah blah". Why??
/rant over
If you are the guy writing up job specs, please take not of this template:
REQUIREMENTS:
1. .....
2. .....
DRESS CODE:
You will be allowed to wear whatever the hell you want when not facing clients
REMUNERATION:
1. ......
That's all we need. Thank you.
/second rant over
I think half the problem is that HR feels the need to "add value" by beefing up the CV. And I dont know why, but they seldom like listing salary figures.
Hamster
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They don't realise just how shallow [-]we are[/-] I am. If they don't list salary figures I give it a skip. No ways I'm going to waste my time with CV's and interviews etc. just to find out the pay is crap :/
I have never understood why they dont list salary figures - maybe it is is because they hope they can get you at a bargain. That is, if you are underpaid where you are, they just offer you 10% and you think its Christmas. Meanwhile, they might have been willing to pay someone up to 50% more than they gave you, but they dont want you to know that.