anonSrEng202309

Recruiters submit my resume often. I haven't been getting called for interviews. See my profile for my previous Ask HN on this topic.

Frontend positions: "too much backend"

Backend positions: "too much frontend"

Random requirement in the job req (e.g. mongo, mqtt, etc): "not enough experience with $REQUIREMENT", "we don't have time to train you", "we need someone who can hit the ground running"

You don't need to train me. You're paying me to know it or learn about it. Certainly there are things in your project that your team didn't know but learned along the way. I have never met anyone who knows everything about what they'll come across in a given software project. But you'd rather spend three months rifling through resumes than allow me to spend ten days getting up to speed on $REQUIREMENT.

No one is hitting the ground running. No one knows the intimate details of how your team works together, how you have structured your projects, how you like to do things. All that takes time.

I've been told I'm "tactical, not strategic" - your interview style causes this. First, I can't find anyone who agrees on what these terms even mean in a software engineering context (and no, they wouldn't explain their comment.) If I understand correctly ... Do you want a more strategic solution in this interview? Then don't present it like a puzzle that needs solving in sixty seconds.

I grew along with the hardware industry starting with the personal computers of the 1980s. I have decades of experience building software. Why are these hiring managers so focused on the precise list in the job req? These aren't HR drones, these are technical managers and team leads who are interviewing and hiring for their teams. Honestly it's starting to feel a lot like age discrimination.

Recruiters have reached out about junior positions. Sure, no problem. Then the hiring manager responds with "too senior."

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I'm doing some help desk work for an IT service company. It pays around what the delivery stuff does, so that's not great. But it's mostly remote, and I can use the downtime to work on some projects. Their coverage area is not near where I live so I'm considering bootstrapping a similar business in my area.

I've been in the industry almost 30yrs. I'm a polyglot and pick up new stuff pretty fast because it's about understanding more than diving deep and memorizing.

In May, I was let go without warning and without reason (not a downsizing, they had just hired half a dozen people and still had open reqs.) I've been on the job market since and still haven't had an offer.

While I continue the search, I've built and deployed some pet projects (nothing I can turn into a business) and gained a bit of experience in some new things like game dev (Godot, Unity ... even Play Date.) I'm double apping with Door Dash and Uber Eats to keep some cash flowing, but it's not tenable long term.

Maybe I just don't know what the market wants. I'm fluid and flexible, I can build systems that are long-term stable and maintainable, I can get to know that bespoke stack in short order. What should I be doing to land some work?