OCDProgrammer.com

At my current employer, I am the round One interview.  I don’t negotiate or care about salary.  I just talk about .NET.  I have 20 standard questions I ask each and every person, then I throw in a few question specific to their resume. 

Now keep in mind these aren’t hard questions to answer.

What is the difference between session state and viewstate? 

What is the life cycle of an ASP.NET page? 

I don’t go into these interviews looking for a person to know every one of the answers, but there are a few that I consider critical.  I just want to measure their depth and breadth of knowledge of the .NET framework.  What I’ve come to realize is finding talent is hard.  So when I browsed to FoxNews.com and saw this article, I know exactly what they are talking about.  You’d think with unemployment hovering around 10% that talented people would be available.

Then when you do find somebody worth hiring, its not a done deal.  Due to the extremely tight market when you find a developer you want, you are battling with other companies.  Even meeting salary expectations isn’t enough, because of the market the employee can pick and choose which company they want to work for, with little risk of letting a good opportunity pass them by. 

Now just so this post isn’t one big rant I want to throw my thoughts out on a few aspects of this topic.

What does this mean for companies?

1. It means you need to be willing to pay top dollar.  This isn’t a market where you can negotiate down a persons salary.  If they say it is going to take 80K to get them on board, then you need to be prepared to pay 80K.

2. It means you better pay the employees you have.  I’m new to my job, and while money was far from the primary or only factor, it was a factor.  Companies need to pay the employees they don’t want to lose top dollar.  This, surprisingly, isn’t a market where a 5% raise guarantees an employee sticking around.

3. The cost of development has gone up.  The out-sourcing movement has had its affect on the market and there is no India to turn to to drive cost down.  Talented workers are expensive workers.

What can be done about it?

1. Training must be encouraged.  As the previous article stated in another way, you aren’t going to take the factory worker and plug them into these jobs.  People like me have been constantly learning for years to get to where we are.  They need to understand that just because they were a lead worker on their factory line, they will have to be the follower in their new line of work.

2. Government incentives.  I think this is a place where a focused tax benefit could come in handy.  Give companies a significant tax break for hiring entry level workers for these positions.  It cost money to train them and their newbie mistakes cost money.  Give companies a reason to hire relatively new people.

3. College for all.  Yep, the small government Republican just said that.  We need to find a way to get more people into college.  We can’t compete if we don’t have the skills to compete.

What does this mean for the worker?

1. Don’t be afraid to look around.  One of the big causes of the tight job market is that people are afraid to switch jobs.  I’ve never been one to play into this fear much.  I know that with some risk comes reward. 

2. Don’t be afraid to ask for more money.  Lets be real here when I say, they don’t have much of a choice in the matter.

3. Stay up to date on your skills.  This is why there is an allusion of age discrimination in the IT field.  People get comfortable in what they are doing and when technology moves on, they can’t find a job when they need one. 

With all of that being said, my employer is still looking to hire several .NET developers.  If you are interested contact me and let me know.  Going through me, does offer some incentive as I do get a referral bonus.  Not that I’d take it any easier on you in the phone interview, but it sure does make me like you more :-).

[Referenced article in PDF form]

I forget where I found this:

Being new to my current company, one of the big differences I’ve had to adjust to is meetings.  For a while we had a daily 10AM meeting and then occasionally we’d have another meeting at some point in the day.  Paul Graham wrote a great article on the topic that hits the problem well. 

The basic concept is that makers work in 3 to 4 hour chunks.  When a maker gets into work, they really don’t like distractions for three to four hours.  From a programmer’s stand point, this is very true.  There isn’t much you can accomplish in 40 to 60 minute chunks.  Its about that time frame when you’ve fully identified the problem and are ready to start writing some final code to fix the issue at hand.  Then managers work in hour chunks.  Each hour starts fresh with what is on tap.  So a meeting doesn’t really hurt their day because it is just what they need to do that hour.

You can read the source article here.  If for some reason that is no longer available, here is a PDF of the same article.

Well after almost two years at Quality Gold, I’ll be starting a new job on the 29th.  Kind of came out of nowhere, I figured I’d be at QG for one more year before I considered a change, and I turned down a lot of interview request due to this thought process.  However the opportunity that presented itself was not something I felt I could pass up. 

Though I had to chuckle a bit as I put this blog on my resume, and what is the first thing they saw when they came to my blog?  An image about a pr0n star!!! 

This new job has several new challenges and opportunities for me that I look forward to tackling. 

Plus I’ll be working along side the only guy I know who has known my wife longer than I have!  He and I have known each other since the 7th grade, though we weren’t really friends until the 8th and 9th grade.  So while I hope this job change will actually give me a little more time to blog on this site, it very well could have the opposite affect.  Time will tell.

Being a pretty devout Christian man certain anti-social behaviors in the technical industry hit a nerve with me.  The two that stick out to me the most are pretty obvious, course language and something that I am having a hard time putting into words.  Sexism seems a bit to strong of a word, but it hits on the overall thought that I have. 

Let me also make this clear in that I am allowing for a separation from personal life actions and professional life actions.  If it is your personal time, then do what you want. Who am I to judge?  However when you are in a professional setting I don’t think it is to much to ask for a bit of professionalism.  I wish I could say this is a limited problem, but its not.  Far to many of those in the technical field will drop the F-bomb in a heart beat.  Yes, I didn’t use the word.  I don’t cuss (see the devout Christian man part…).  That word makes me cringe, but lets be honest in a professional setting there aren’t many curse words that make me comfortable. 

While I won’t call the presenter out publically here, there was one time I was at a presentation and before hand I heard the presenter lamenting about not being an MVP.  He didn’t know why.  Technically he was very sound and skilled.  However his language was pretty poor.  I even took the time to email him personally about it.  Never got a reply, but I hope he takes it into consideration.  Then you have the guys at DotNetRocks who have their twice-weekly podcast.  What we generally get is a cleaned up version.  Though they do drop the F-Bomb on occasion and one time they forgot to scrub the podcast before posting on the web.  It was loaded with the F-Bomb. For me a professional setting should remain professional.  Especially when you are in mixed company.  If you know all involved and know their comfort level, that is one thing.  But if you are presenting to a room of strangers, you should keep your mouth in check. 

Then we get to the second part, sexism.  We are the industry that took the porn industry to the next level.  This topic is usually brought up in very subtle comments, however recently a fellow by the name of Matt Aimonetti took it to the next level.  He recently gave a presentation on the Ruby technology titled,(WARNING… graphic images) CouchDB: Perform like a pr0n star.  Just an initial glance at his power point presentation would give most folks a very uneasy feeling.  I really don’t know how this ever seemed like a good idea to Mr. Aimonetti.  He did address the topic publically. 

What I think is the root of the issue is the makeup of the men in the technology sector.  We were/are the geeks in life.  We were the outcast and failed to really build great social interactions with people.  Most people grow out of that lack of relationship building at some point, but since we are around like minded folks we push this envelope without giving it a second thought.   Or as some of the commenter's put it, ‘still living in their mom’s basement at 35 years old’. 

Can’t we all just grow up a little?

As readers of my blog and friends know, my wife and I are certified foster parents.  In our county the foster care system has setup a non-profit, non-governmental institution to raise money and resources to support foster families and the children in the system. 

It is called Keeping Families Connected Committee (KFCC for short).  One of their big fundraisers each year is a charity walk.  This is my first year in this system and my first year in the walk. 

Can you support me?  Any amount would help, and with the way it is setup I won’t know who gave what.  So if you give, let me say thank you!  If you can’t give, that’s OK!  I fully understand. 

The donations can be given one of two ways.  Either by PayPal (so using your PayPal account or a credit card) or by mailing in a check.

You can get the information to donate here.  Please specify me when you are donating so they can tie it to me, this is a link during the process that says 'insert person or team donating for'.

Any developer knows the fun that IE 6 causes us.

Things will work on EVERY other browser, but once that is opened up in IE 6… you are hosed!

In my Google Reader, I saw the following post telling everybody to ‘Grow up already and throw IE6 Away!”.  Couldn’t agree more so I clicked on the link, read the article which led me to this solution.

So now my websites will show a warning for all IE 6 users. 

If you own a website, why don’t you join me?

I am a subscriber to CodingHorror.com.  A recent post from Jeff Atwood referenced a post from The Joel on Software.

Joel was responding to a comment from a person on his blog saying that they were going to leave the industry and move on.  They were just that unhappy.  Joel then went onto question it.  How the timing couldn’t be worse, pay was pretty darn good, and the overall coolness of being able to create new stuff for a living. 

Jeff Atwood responded by agreeing and then going on a bit of a side rant that I agree with.

If you’ve been in the industry for any length of time you come to see a bunch of people that shouldn’t be in the industry.  They just don’t have ‘it’.  They don’t have the analytical skills to program, but more importantly they don’t have the attitude it takes.  If you don’t love what you do in this industry, you need to move on.  Because if you don’t love what you do, you are not going to spend 8 hours fighting a bug that makes no sense.   If you don’t love what you do, you are not going to be up till 3 AM finishing a product that is needed ASAP. 

I love what Jeff says in closing:

So if a programmer ever hints, even in passing, that they might possibly want to exit the field -- they probably should. I'm not saying you should be a jerk about it, obviously. But if someone has any doubt at all about programming as a career choice, they should be encouraged to explore alternatives -- and make room for another programmer who unashamedly loves to code.

In my own closing:

I love it.  I’m staying.

Hat tip to Chris Blankenship for this one.

As a developer you get dumb questions from newbies (and experienced people as well) all the time.  Things that you know with about 60 seconds of effort could have been answered without bothering you.

In comes the best way ‘teach a person to fish’ rather than give them a fish.

Instead of giving the person the answer, you send them a link that shows them how to use Google!

Here is the deal, a friend had their house burn down.  Lots of stuff damaged unsure of whether or not it is repairable.  Can you help?

Girl - Age - 6:
Clothes Size 7/8 
Shoe size 1

Boy – Age - 4: 
Clothes Size 5
Shoe Size 11

Girl – Age 1 1/2:
Clothes Size 18 months
Shoe size 11 1/6

Mom
10 or 12 pants med or large shirts
Shoe Size 9

Dad
34/34 pants XL or L shirt
Shoe Size 11 1/5

Other needs requested:
People to call Walmart for donations.
People to call dry cleaners for donations
Pet supplies: Litter boxes, food for dogs, crates and beds for dogs.
Cash:  Will need a way to move into their next home…

Having been in a house fire when I was 3, losing my dad, I know the damage and setbacks one of these can do to a family.  If you can help, let me know via the contact form.