Hi Chris--I completely agree that an engineer's ability to learn is a huge part of their value. With that said, many companies are searching for engineers who are intimately familiar with particular languages or frameworks. Anyone can get comfortable with a new framework over a weekend--it takes much longer to be become an expert.
Your idea for a better Glassdoor is an interesting. In the future we're hoping to build a set of tools for engineers who are interested in getting a job--we'd like to cater to both sides of the market.
Alex and I do not want to increase the volume of recruiting spam in the world. Poorly-constructed, boilerplate emails are the mark of a bad technical recruiter--we're not building tools to help them. We want to give the great technical recruiters a tool to help them figure out if they should be sending an email to an engineer in the first place. Furthermore, we're encouraging our customers to have the C*O's and engineers construct and send the initial emails--an email from the person you'd be working with is much better than another piece of recruiting spam.
If you'd like to get in touch and chat more please feel to email on [email protected].
* broadcast my availability to a group of approved (company) recruiters
* let recruiters propose companies to me (and have me list companies I already have contacts at or was introduced at.)
* let me set up job interviews with the interesting opportunities
* and, most importantly, let the recruiters/companies place bids on me negotiate.
I've found that every time I'm on the market I'm essentially running this auction myself and it's a lot of work.
Given the massive impact it has on my earnings I'd love some tooling that would let me focus on the important parts of this process rather than the administrative minutiae.
I had the idea that it could be beneficial to freelancers/contractors as they do the same thing but usually in much more limited time scales to the x months I took. I'm one to share ideas because if someone makes it, I'll stop building it. As someone that wants to be a freelancer at some point, I don't look forward to the oDesks of the world (no offense to people that do great there) but having just something to keep all of these plates spinning more freely would help a lot of people I think.
Well, the main problem is that companies often don't know what skills they really need, and employees don't get a sense for the work culture from vague job descriptions.
Last, from what I heard was that most freelance jobs go via the personal network anyhow.
Just curious if there are others interested in discussing a better project platform for freelancers, and the way to meaningful work? Have a look at http://voki.me for a rough prototype.
When I made the switch from C# to Python it probably took me a year or two before I became as good at Python as I was at C#. This is also true for a lot of the developers I currently work with who are using Python for the first time.
There is something to be said about being a master of a language, libraries, and tooling around a certain platform and getting there isn't a quick 1-2 week crash course in the language. Sure you can figure out the syntax and make things work, but if you are truly an expert in 1 language, you wont be comparable in another for at least a year while you use the language and learn the ins-and-outs.
People never ask me language questions at work, "how do I do a for loop", but I get daily questions on how virtualenvs work, python packaging, and what libraries to use.
The problem is the tacit assumption that the engineer doesn't also need to pre-validate the company before an interview.
This statement is also myopic and bordering on cliche. While true, there are a lot of times want to hire for a specific skill set. For instance, if there's a problem that needs solving right now, or a team that needs a new lead (assuming you must bring on outside leads), or a whole number of scenarios.
> You should care about the delta of an engineer's career and knowledge
This is, often times, a great indication of how competent an engineer will be.
A myopic way to look at hiring.
Edit:
You should care about the delta of an engineer's career and knowledge. That says a lot more about how they'll perform now and in the future.
These days companies prove themselves to engineers. I'd rather see something like a more descriptive and meaningful glassdoor so that I can know what companies are worth my time.
Tags/attributes like:
"$company is in the 67% percentile for employee freedom in your job type [Software Engineer]"
"$company practices open allocation."
"$company is known for fast-firing. They are also known for paying XX% above average for your job type [Software Engineer]"
I don't want some bullshit tag-based skill endorsement clone of LinkedIn profiles. I hate LinkedIn for a reason. I definitely don't need to be even more discoverable by recruiters - my website is a fucking curse on that front as it is. I leave it up because I do get valuable conversations going because of it.
I'm more interested in sites that could further balance the lopsided information power dynamic between employers and employees.
I want to know if there's a chance of a fit between me and the company before I even email somebody.
A company is more likely to be able to recruit me the more substantive information I have about what it's like to work for them. Shut the fuck up about perks, tell me about how you empower your employees to perform their best and entrust them to do the job as it needs to be done.
Things like sourcing.io don't just hurt engineers, they hurt the companies that recruit like this (technology checklisting) too.
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Making it even easier for lazy recruiters to be shitty is a bullshit thing to do. May the spam of a thousand recruiters looking for "Senior Java developers" flood your inbox and decimate your sanity MacCaw.