Goodness, you and the OP have really hit the nail on the head.
I spent the last 5 years quite happy at a simple dev shop. Then they hired a bunch of people, paid them more than me, and allowed them complete free reign to write what ever kind of code on some brand new projects. After a year of this, one person quit mid-project, another died mysteriously (covid?), and then another just recently quit. My boss expected me to just pick up the slack on these three projects that were written in the most arcane and buffoon way possible. I basically just said no, and left. I had already been driven half insane over the year just trying to figure out the crap they were committing.
This was in the spring and I'm still unemployed. I'm mostly Java and some older languages, and was really looking forward to jumping onto python and django. But it's been a struggle really learning django good enough to interview for without any good experience behind me. I have a family and on top of covid issues and this year in general, sitting at home trying to learn a giant web framework is not very motivating when I could be spending it with my family (which were already severely affected by all my time I "wasted" going above and beyond at my last job for 5 years).
I just recently did an interview for a small django shop that didn't even test on django. Instead, I was given a half page of python code and asked to "fix" the problems. No requirements or tips. There was a syntax error, a bug, and a few cosmetic things.. I managed to find 8. All this while being stared at over Zoom. I was informed that "junior" devs can find 10-12 "problems", but they only hire those that "find" more than 18 (apparently 25 is the max).
I still got the code and look at it every now and then. Half a page of code that does nothing but take a list of "item" objects and print out an aggregate of a total price by item type. A loop over nothing but:
total[item.type] += item.cost
Of course there was some random data mangling above and below that, but that is the logic. Find the problems?! Should I raise errors or use a namedtuple or defaultdict? Half a page of code that could have just been a Select/Group by in SQL. No senor dev should be summing data like that. Sadly they said the code was from "production". They have "interviewed" over a hundred people in this year and hired only 1. All this for $45/hr 1099.
In the beginning, I briefly thought I could use my savings to start some kind of business, not sure what. But I've blown most of that just paying the bills while I "interview".
I used to love software and would dream and breath it. But I've never been so unmotivated over these last 6 months. I'm debating on just applying at a local small town municipal IT job for $30 an hour. Giving up basically. Just show up at 8am, answer the phone mindlessly for IT "problems" and tell people to try restarting their windows machine (at least 3 times minimum) and screw of playing solitaire the rest of the day. But it seems so pointless and waste of a life. But even that doesn't motivate me, but just makes me more depressed and even slower going.
Your comment highlights so many problems with our industry so poignantly, and at the same time is an extremely sad personal story...
I don’t actually know what to say as encouragement but I do feel for you :(
I was in a similar position to you on your last job, and after looking at every single company I could think of in my city (London) I ended up finding just one that seemed good in all possible counts...
Maybe there is a company out there that you’d like to work for? My approach was to filter by the product, and only look into working for companies whose end product I thought was good and interesting.
The Django shop test had nothing to do with your skills as a developer, and everything to do with language gatekeeping. It's just overcompensating for boring work and poor pay. It's no different to how the gaming industry exploits workers.
Don't give up. And for the love of all that is holy, don't work municipal IT, it would only demotivate you further. Keep at it, improve your skills and keep applying.
> Giving up basically. Just show up at 8am, answer the phone mindlessly for IT "problems" and tell people to try restarting their windows machine (at least 3 times minimum) and screw of playing solitaire the rest of the day.
You have a very holier-than-thou view of small scale IT work. There are a whole lot of problems to be solved at this level, many of them created by the people working the positions you're currently interviewing for.
Yeah, this echoes my experiences interviewing. Spent 6 months looking a few years back
It’s just incredibly demotivating to hear all the self-professed hot shots shit all over your past 10 years of delivering unambiguous value because you don’t know that [] === ‘’ is true in Javascript.
I finally found a position that’s financially great, but it’s more in spite of their dev process than thanks to it.
Is there anything you're passionate about? If so, why not spin up a website on that subject?
Django is pretty easy to learn. Model view Etc in Python instead of Ruby. Not rocket science.
Building something you care about will force you to dig into the details and become enough of an expert in a few weeks to get in the door somewhere where your skills will be appreciated.
That probably won't be Facebook, Google, or the next Silicon Valley unicorn. But there are a lot of other places and other Industries where interesting things are going on.
It's a numbers game, learn from mistakes and continue to the next interview. Eventually you have seen them all and you will pass the gatekeeping. Steel in forged in fire. After hundreds of bullshit interviews, nothing surprises me anymore and it's just all automatic process now.
I haven’t had anything quite that bad, but I’ve had an interview where I was being tested on SQL, but the interviewer didn’t actually know the SQL keywords I used.
It happens. It’s a strong sign you want to work elsewhere anyway. The problem is one of finding the right Elsewhere.
This sounds exactly like a job I interviewed for a couple of years ago, a Django shop. I'm skilled at Python but the questions were ridiculous. I feel like you probably dodged a bullet and don't want to work there anyway.
I spent the last 5 years quite happy at a simple dev shop. Then they hired a bunch of people, paid them more than me, and allowed them complete free reign to write what ever kind of code on some brand new projects. After a year of this, one person quit mid-project, another died mysteriously (covid?), and then another just recently quit. My boss expected me to just pick up the slack on these three projects that were written in the most arcane and buffoon way possible. I basically just said no, and left. I had already been driven half insane over the year just trying to figure out the crap they were committing.
This was in the spring and I'm still unemployed. I'm mostly Java and some older languages, and was really looking forward to jumping onto python and django. But it's been a struggle really learning django good enough to interview for without any good experience behind me. I have a family and on top of covid issues and this year in general, sitting at home trying to learn a giant web framework is not very motivating when I could be spending it with my family (which were already severely affected by all my time I "wasted" going above and beyond at my last job for 5 years).
I just recently did an interview for a small django shop that didn't even test on django. Instead, I was given a half page of python code and asked to "fix" the problems. No requirements or tips. There was a syntax error, a bug, and a few cosmetic things.. I managed to find 8. All this while being stared at over Zoom. I was informed that "junior" devs can find 10-12 "problems", but they only hire those that "find" more than 18 (apparently 25 is the max).
I still got the code and look at it every now and then. Half a page of code that does nothing but take a list of "item" objects and print out an aggregate of a total price by item type. A loop over nothing but:
Of course there was some random data mangling above and below that, but that is the logic. Find the problems?! Should I raise errors or use a namedtuple or defaultdict? Half a page of code that could have just been a Select/Group by in SQL. No senor dev should be summing data like that. Sadly they said the code was from "production". They have "interviewed" over a hundred people in this year and hired only 1. All this for $45/hr 1099.In the beginning, I briefly thought I could use my savings to start some kind of business, not sure what. But I've blown most of that just paying the bills while I "interview".
I used to love software and would dream and breath it. But I've never been so unmotivated over these last 6 months. I'm debating on just applying at a local small town municipal IT job for $30 an hour. Giving up basically. Just show up at 8am, answer the phone mindlessly for IT "problems" and tell people to try restarting their windows machine (at least 3 times minimum) and screw of playing solitaire the rest of the day. But it seems so pointless and waste of a life. But even that doesn't motivate me, but just makes me more depressed and even slower going.