What percentage of people working in clojure were taught on job?

I've started to see clojure because of the company I work

But here in Brazil still very low

I guess

The original two engineers on my team learned on the job. I learned outside of work before bringing Clojure into work (I attended a one-day workshop and paid out of my own pocket, then practiced myself for quite a while).

(those engineers learned on the job because I introduced Clojure -- but we paid to send them to conferences and training courses as well)

I ask because I feel a significant gap in job postings for the language. It's either postings for seniors clojure devs or it doesn't matter if you have experience in the language at all. The take away for me seems to be that it's better to be good at one thing then many, which makes me curious how we all ended up here in the first place.

I think Clojure-using companies split into two broad camps: those that realize it's a small market and have committed to training up anyone they hire; and those who haven't -- and therefore need folks who are already experienced in Clojure. The market overall is still too small to have a lot of mid-range developers that companies are in a position to hire and grow.

Doesn't that make the optimal thing to not learn clojure on your own? I mean, self teaching yourself into become a senior Dev seems risky and low reward.

The companies that claim they'll hire you without Clojure experience will be more likely to hire a candidate that has learned Clojure to some level on their own over someone who has not.

(in general -- of course they may hire someone who has other FP experience over someone who has self-taught Clojure, depending on specifics)

The reality is that there an awful lot more people who want to write Clojure for a living than there are actual jobs writing Clojure for a living.

That's born out by a show of hands at meetups and conferences -- and what you see here on Slack and on the mailing list. The actual Clojure market is growing, but it's growing slower than the overall interest level in the language. In my opinion/experience.

@drewverlee What I’ve come to realize is that you should be willing to submit your application even if you don’t satisfy all of the requirements.

I also saw this initially, but was surprised at the amount of callbacks and the willingness to hire non-senior positions even though the listing preferred it.

As long as you can show competency, you’re fine

Yup. I have about 35 years in a dozen languages and all sorts of industries and I often see job reqs that I don't satisfy -- but when I talk to recruiters they're always "Oh, don't worry about the specifics -- your resume is really strong"... and sometimes when I've interviewed for a position that, on paper, I don't actually qualify for, I've been turned down for being too senior. 😵

But I think our entire industry's hiring process is completely broken anyway...

Is that on us?

US?

I think it's broken worldwide -- but worse in the US (my experience of UK hiring was better than the US but it was also 20 years ago and I think everything's gotten worse since then!).

20 years ago a US company flew me to Dallas for an interview. I walked out and went back to the airport early because of the way I was treated.

Where are you based @rcustodio? Also @drewverlee? And @aj?

As a job Hunter, I get the impression it's largely on you to direct the company towards finding out of your a good fit. I think it's because people have the impression there is a formula to follow, which is odd given how we seem to accept the unpredictable nature of our work.

Michigan currently but looking around, possible Chicago

I'm in Arizona

I get the impression there's not much Clojure in either AZ or MI but Chicago, IL ought to be better.

I'm in the Bay Area, CA and there's a lot of Clojure. I think NYC is pretty good for Clojure. Maybe also RDC (The Triangle in NC)?

I have been planting clojure in the back yard but it doesn't seem to take.

@seancorfield Yeah there is very little here, if any at all. I was willing to relocate to any location within the US which helped with the search.

Seemed like half were in Bay area and the other half were in NYC ha

Although I know there are many in other areas as well…

I’ve worked on a company doing both ClojureScript and Elixir. Half the team learned their target stack on job

(I live in Brazil, anyway)

Why is the one industry that isn't tied to a location so tied to one location. Or are there other examples of silicon valleys in other fields.

I've worked from home almost full-time for ten years now...

...I worked for a startup in the middle of that for about 18 months and they wanted me on-site four days a week (they were local, but they allowed 10-6 working to avoid rush hour).

There were some startups - I think Starfighter was the one I saw that was the most impressive - that were trying to invert the hiring process

Proof + matching of skills up front, basically, and then companies could reach out to devs who they were interested in

Most of them are now just gamified puzzle centers; Starfighter was impressive because it had you code against a living system, and slowly increase the complexity of your solution by having you accomplish more complex tasks. A much closer simulation of what skills you'd actually want to demonstrate on the job.

But it all requires buy-in from companies who believe the model leads to better talent coming their way.

I have a friend in New Jersey, she keeps saying that I have to move there

Michigan here also. Presently employed and happy, but not working with Clojure. There is not a ton of work here in West Michigan... @drewverlee, there is remote work out there, but those jobs are hard to get when you haven't had Clojure experience in production. I have interviewed for a couple of positions.

The companies there requires college?

@rcustodio college or equivalent experience, yes.

What equivalent experience would be?

I'm not a manager, but I imagine that around 5 years of mid-level development experience would qualify.

I see... That is different from Brazil... the companies always require college and experience, all together lol

I didnt finished my college, but I have 7 years experience (started college again last year)

Some companies here require college as well. In the past, nearly all software engineering jobs have required at least a 4 year degree, but now less and less do. Employers now care more about the ability to deliver a product and your experience than they do about schooling. School is an important factor though, since it takes discipline to get a degree in something.

Also, with a CS degree an employer can know that the interviewee knows at least some basic knowledge of math and algorithms

I see... Here in Brazil, at least the ppl I know, hate college

I dunno if the lessons are poor, the first one I did it was very poor, everything they were teaching I already knew, so I left

But that was in a small town

As a hiring manager, if I were hiring someone into their first job, I'd probably require a (technical) degree. Once you've had a programming job for a year or so, a degree is mostly irrelevant. Once you've been programming professionally for five years, a degree is completely irrelevant.

That said, a degree out of a US university is a very different beast to one out of a European university. Europe specializes early and goes very deep into a subject. The US encourages a broad education and doesn't go as deep.

In Brazil is like US then

They teach the basics

@jstew maybe not clojure work persay, but Atomic Object is out that way and they would have a lot of devs at least willing to explore Clojure for various projects.

Indeed they are. They're about a mile away from where I am currently working. Cool people.