# He's a professional. He'll figure it out.



## drhowarddrfine (Nov 26, 2019)

Many years ago, I was sitting in an office with my boss and another engineer I never worked with before. My boss wanted to assign a problem to me and the other engineer argued that this was something new, it shouldn't be given to me, and we should look to outside consultants from the same field I was in. My boss replied, "He's a professional. He'll figure it out."

I'm reminded of that as I scan all these jobs being advertised everywhere that ask for specific--even niche-- technologies. Many of these companies and positions are advertised for months, making me wonder if they have high turnover and just can't find that one perfect person with that one specific skill. As an electronic engineer, some of the differences might be between working on controllers for mechanical products versus working on computer systems. They are different animals. But the difference between working on Intel processors versus Motorola was less so. If you were a professional, you could figure it out.

Nowadays it seems you are either a React programmer or you are not. And if you are not then shouldn't apply for the job. They want people who will walk in the door and start working on their problems right away. They don't want to give you time to learn. Part of that issue is what I compare to the "Hollywood mentality". What I mean by that is, in Hollywood filmmaking, a company is created to produce a film. That company, and the work needed for it, will only exist for a relatively short period of time. Set designers are only needed till the sets are done. Same with cinematographers, lighting crews, editors, actors, and so on. Once their work is completed, everyone is cut loose and off they go looking for the next gig.

I was on a set one time and talking to a guy who was also Drew Barrymore's "dresser". He's the one guy she trusts to take care of her "costume" when she's doing a film. He told me that the sequel to a film might be happening and I told him that I hoped not because the first was such a bad film. He got irritated with me because it meant work for him. It didn't matter that the film might be bad.

I don't feel this Hollywood mentality works for software development. Sure, if you need a web site created, that site may only need maintenance done for years to come but what I'm seeing is  companies plug in a person in to a particular function for a few months and, then, off they go. They're done and released. It seems to be the same about a lot of such development nowadays. A company will use a software plugin to solve an issue without trying to fix the issue themselves. Of course, fixing the issue themselves requires understanding of how it all works and that requires long term employees and a corporate culture of long term understanding of how things work. Always a mentor somewhere with plenty of students.

But with all this switching out of people, there is never any mentor. And does anyone ever hang around long enough to even care about the product or the company? I see ads wanting people to take ownership of the project but then go on to say it's a contract position. I'm the kind of guy who always takes pride in things I work on but what is the attitude of the guy who knows he'll be gone tomorrow?

A very large company in my town loved my background but wouldn't hire me because I don't know React. I told they I could figure it out but they didn't want to wait. This company made an app for a large, regional grocery store chain. It works OK but it's missing pieces. Some things don't work together. Over the weekend it didn't work at all. And they're still advertising for people who know React--months after turning me down for the job.

Note: Sometimes I wake up waaaay too early with nothing to do and start writing. No, I am not hard up for a job. Nor am I asking for career or employment advice. I just felt like applying for this particular one.


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## SKull (Nov 26, 2019)

As a programmer that just scored a new job, here's what i suggest:
Dabble around with react on a rainy weekend and put it in your resume.
Also insert random technologies (buzzwords) that you have used.
Your proficiency level doesn't matter to get picked by whatever HR goon is handling it.


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## Crivens (Nov 26, 2019)

Maybe   this answers your question...


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## SirDice (Nov 26, 2019)

SKull said:


> As a programmer that just scored a new job, here's what i suggest:
> Dabble around with react on a rainy weekend and put it in your resume.
> Also insert random technologies (buzzwords) that you have used.
> Your proficiency level doesn't matter to get picked by whatever HR goon is handling it.


Don't lie about skills you don't have. While HR might fall for it your team lead/manager will not, you will get burned or worse and cause outages or destroy data. Better be safe than sorry.

Be honest, if you've never heard of product X, tell them. If you do have skills in a comparable product Y be sure to mention this. I much rather hire someone that's honest about not knowing something and eager to learn then some moron that claims to know and screws everything up because they have no idea what they're doing.


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## VladiBG (Nov 26, 2019)

This remind me for this short comedy:





_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=19&v=BKorP55Aqvg&feature=emb_title_


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## SKull (Nov 26, 2019)

SirDice said:


> Don't lie about skills you don't have. While HR might fall for it your team lead/manager will not, you will get burned or worse and cause outages or destroy data. Better be safe than sorry.
> 
> Be honest, if you've never heard of product X, tell them. If you do have skills in a comparable product Y be sure to mention this. I much rather hire someone that's honest about not knowing something and eager to learn then some moron that claims to know and screws everything up because they have no idea what they're doing.


That's why I said:

```
that you have used.
```

of course one has to be honest when specifics are discussed with the actual teamleaders. In my experience, they don't expect you to be an expert in everything you've mentioned. They're mostly glad you did something with $technology.

But if you don't mention all these things to begin with, you won't get the opportunity to talk about it with a teamlead in the first place.


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## drhowarddrfine (Nov 26, 2019)

I was not asking for employment or career advice. Nor was I asking any questions. It's an observation only.


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## rigoletto@ (Nov 26, 2019)

This is like that almost everywhere people are working on/to disposable products, not only in the computer market.

If you look at business developing serious things (like defense, medical devices, etc.), not companies in the toy market (aka Google/Facebook-like), you will see a different attitude; however those are not so many (in relation to the whole) and they don't advertise too much in the wild because they usually already know where to get high quality professionals for their niche and keep on that.

Eg. nobody talks about MirageOS, this is something seen like some hobby project by the toy market, but was heavy funded by CERN and is actively supported by IBM.


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## Crivens (Nov 26, 2019)

rigoletto@ said:


> .If you look at business developing serious things (like defense, ...


Been there, done that, had to laugh.

Shitty development creeps up everywhere these days. We see research kneecapped by money when the whole LHC costs less than 3 Warplanes. But there is short money for science.


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## ralphbsz (Nov 27, 2019)

drhowarddrfine said:


> ...
> They want people who will walk in the door and start working on their problems right away. They don't want to give you time to learn. ...


I actually disagree with this part. I've worked in Silicon Valley for the last ~30 years, for some of the big names in the industry. And at every stage, for full-time long-term employees we've tried to hire generalists, smart people who can be trained. Specific skills are much less important, since those (a) can be learned, and (b) will change over time, and when looking for employees, we hope that they will stay a decade or two.

The situation is very different for contractors or consultants. If you need somebody for a 3-month job for "Java object-oriented database with CORBA integration", you will not hire a generalist who will learn those skills on the job, instead you get an expert who can hit the ground running. That's one of the reasons why contractors and consultants will often make 2x or 3x more than regular employees, but then don't have the job for long: once they are done with the task, they are gone.



> ...But with all this switching out of people, there is never any mentor. And does anyone ever hang around long enough to even care about the product or the company?


I've been in meetings where I'm the only person in the room who has been at the company less than 25 years (at that employer, people get a special mark on the badge at 25 years). People having a tenure measured in many years or decades is not uncommon. Sure, there is a lot of job-hopping. But the real reason is actually different: companies grow fast. In Silicon Valley, many companies double in size every year, and that means that no more than half of the employees can have been there for longer than a year (duh).


rigoletto@ said:


> If you look at business developing serious things (like defense, medical devices, etc.), not companies in the toy market (aka Google/Facebook-like), you will see a different attitude; however those are not so many (in relation to the whole) and they don't advertise too much in the wild because they usually already know where to get high quality professionals for their niche and keep on that.


Honestly, I also have worked for the "Google/Facebook-like" companies, and they also hire for long-term, not for short-term. Furthermore, the reason that you don't see the defense, medical, ... companies advertising much is that they are (a) smaller, a very large fraction of the software engineering industry is now doing "toy", and (b) tend to not grow fast because they are older, so there is no need to recruit a huge number of people.


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## forquare (Nov 27, 2019)

I've been told by recruiters (some of which are friends) that you should aim not for 100% parity of possessed skills to requested skills, but closer to 60%.

The reasons given to me have been:

The 40% will give you room to grow
An amount of the requested skills may be superfluous
To add to the second point, I've seen job specs being put together.  One that I recall requested that candidates have MySQL administration experience, why did it have this?  Because the guy who had left the role occasionally logged into a MySQL server and restarted the service...This requirement was either not well captured, or not well understood by HR who formed the final spec.
I've seen similar other requirements in other job specs.

Not personal experience, but I've seen developers hired for "now", but with the intent that they will be transferred into other projects as and when the company sees fit, e.g. an iOS developer moved to JavaScript/web development, and later moved to Java/backend development.  The original job spec didn't state that they wanted someone that would move throughout the company, they just advertised what what they needed at the time.


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## drhowarddrfine (Nov 27, 2019)

ralphbsz said:


> And at every stage, for full-time long-term employees we've tried to hire generalists, smart people who can be trained. Specific skills are much less important, since those (a) can be learned, and (b) will change over time, and when looking for employees, we hope that they will stay a decade or two.


This is true for some industries I know. In my town, there is Boeing and Edward Jones and Spectrum and many others. Those aren't companies that fit for me as one who prefers small to mid-size companies and internet/web development. Almost every job ad I see, and every phone call/email I get, is from a headhunter who wants specific background with specific technologies. Yesterday, I got a call from one who wanted to know if I knew Adobe products. I said I've used almost all of them at one time. She asked if I was proficient in one particular one. I said I only used it once or twice briefly and that was the end of the conversation. What made that worse was it was for a programming position that had little to do with what that product would be used for.

I've gotten phone calls and emails from headhunters for decades and have never gone on any interview with any of them. My wife keeps saying I should keep talking to them because you never know who will call but--it's been decades--and I've risen the ranks without them. 

In fact, now it's decided. I'm pulling my resume out of everything out there and not answering any related phone calls or email anymore. I will be on a "don't call me, I'll call you" basis.


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## Crivens (Nov 27, 2019)

forquare I have seen announcements asking for skills in BOFH and LART. Wonder how those came to pass...


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## ralphbsz (Nov 27, 2019)

Crivens said:


> forquare I have seen announcements asking for skills in BOFH and LART. Wonder how those came to pass...


Someone in HR has a sense of humor. That does actually happen. It even happens in the legal profession. For example, when a patent attorney and a patent examiner got together and decided it would be a good idea to patent the wheel. So they did.


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## Deleted member 9563 (Nov 28, 2019)

drhowarddrfine said:


> "He's a professional. He'll figure it out."


Love that line.  And yes, that's exactly what a professional does.

A friend of mine was working on a rather expensive oboe. I watched him over my shoulder for a couple of hours (I was padding flutes at another desk) and listened to his quiet swearing. Finally, he figured it out. Due to the random organic nature of cork, (even this very expensive stuff) there was a microscopic air channel out the side of the pad. He remarked that he lost money on that job, but next time it would only take a few minutes. The customer doesn't need to know what all goes into a repair. All they need to see is a clean, first class, professional job at a standard charge. You can't charge triple because it took you longer. However, years of expensive learning is what the customer is really paying for.


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## Crivens (Nov 28, 2019)

The wheel was patented (among others) by big blue. That is the trouble with the patent system. You don't even need to provide working examples.


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## CraigHB (Nov 28, 2019)

Crivens said:


> forquare I have seen announcements asking for skills in BOFH and LART. Wonder how those came to pass...



Now that's funny.  I had a short stint in my career where I was managing a cluster and I used to read BOFH when things were slow for some quality amusement.  So yeah, I have those skills.


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## xavi (Nov 29, 2019)

Crivens said:


> I have seen announcements asking for skills in BOFH and LART. Wonder how those came to pass...



For those who don't get the BOFH reference, click the link. Not sure what LART refers to. Anybody?


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## Crivens (Nov 29, 2019)

The Looser Attitude Readjustment Tool?


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## SirDice (Nov 29, 2019)

Yep. Also PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair) or PICNIC (Problem In Chair, Not In Computer). Most of these are old school admin acronyms popularized on Usenet. You can find most of them in the infamous "Jargon file": http://www.dict.org/bin/Dict?Form=Dict3&Database=jargon


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## Crivens (Nov 29, 2019)

And don't forget the layer 8 problems...


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## xavi (Dec 1, 2019)

Crivens said:


> The Looser Attitude Readjustment Tool?



TIL! More info here


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