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#jobs-discuss
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2018-03-20
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tap03:03:54

Is it just me? But I don’t like people tagging job ads in #remote channel with the U.S. flag. It feels a bit of sarcasm to me.

seancorfield03:03:37

@tap You mean #remote-jobs right?

seancorfield03:03:46

Most remote jobs are remote-within-a-zone (and most remote US jobs are US-only because of tax/employment/benefits reasons).

tap03:03:47

Sorry. I mean #jobs channel.

seancorfield03:03:44

Ah, well @dottedmag tagged that post ... so maybe it was sarcasm?

tap03:03:39

When I see people tagging flag in job ads, it feel like they say “Oh, U.S. again and again”

tap03:03:33

There are more in the past month

tap03:03:04

We should be thankful that companies are hiring more and more Clojure positions, even though we are not in the place that we can apply.

seancorfield03:03:51

Good feedback. As an admin, I'll try to keep an eye on reactions to job postings.

dottedmag06:03:16

@tap A basic utility: #jobs are not remote, so it makes possible to skim through the channel and filter out everything that does not apply.

👍 4
dottedmag06:03:46

So instead of N people figuring out the location, one person does that and everyone else benefits.

dottedmag06:03:53

Especially because many postings are not clear about it: one has to read through the long text, or clarify with the original poster.

tap06:03:40

@dottedmag That makes sense. I’ve not thought in that angle before. I’m sorry for misunderstood your positive action.

nilrecurring08:03:47

@tap I personally appreciate the flag reactions, because as @dottedmag said it’s much easier to see where a posting comes from.

seancorfield17:03:48

I saw a whole bunch of 🇬🇧 reactions to the Gower Street post this morning from Brits, so I'm going to assume that's not sarcasm. Thanks for following up @dottedmag -- that makes a lot of sense, but I hadn't seen it happening much before so when @tap raised that issue, I did wonder whether it was from frustration or not.

the2bears18:03:12

Perhaps a "knee-jack" reaction 😉

chrismdp18:03:13

I actually added a :uk: to the post myself 🙂 I can see how it’s helpful for people.

scriptor19:03:22

you can see the same pattern of reactions in the older (non-US) job positions too. No reason to read too much into it

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tetriscodes19:03:38

What do people here think is the best source of remote Clojure jobs?

vemv19:03:41

there's a lot more demand than offer for that niche

vemv19:03:10

often with remarkably qualified competitors 🙂

vemv19:03:50

personally I tackle it as a "bizdev" problem which is a large topic per se

sam19:03:17

I live in eastern Europe and want to find a job as a Clojure dev, but there's nothing local, so I think my only option would be remote-work. I have ~5-6 years of professional experience as a (mostly) backend dev (Java, Node, PHP) with some front-end as well. However, none in Clojure. I have been learning Clojure over the years on my own with projects, books and 4clojure, etc. Are there companies that are willing to hire remote, and bring people up to speed in Clojure and the rest of their stack? How do I find them? Thanks for any advice.

aleksander16:03:25

or moving ...

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sam07:03:45

For me personally, moving is not a considerable option as I moved here from the US about 6 months ago... if I was single, maybe, but I have to take my whole family into consideration.

vemv19:03:38

finding the (rare) opportunities should be the easiest step. there are dozens of portals/channels dedicated to clojure or generic remote opportunities, directly or indirectly

vemv19:03:08

I heard of people doing short trips to SF and London for networking, as well

vemv19:03:09

one killer advice would be to have a strong non-individualistic github portfolio. a lots of FOSS clojure projects would benefit from PRs

vemv19:03:44

2-3 PRs per week to well-known projects could make one stand on top

vemv19:03:32

other than that I've found "years of experience" to not particularly help

nilrecurring19:03:54

@sammy.castaneda90 would you be willing to relocate?

sam20:03:46

@U0F7J3KED No, I just moved my family here from the US. We’re planning on staying here for a while

vemv20:03:56

one can convert US on-site jobs to remote ones if you perform well for N months

scriptor20:03:28

it'd be useful to have a system that matched up all the people eager for remote clojure experience with some open source clojure projects looking for contributions

vemv20:03:06

neat! on top of that, I doubt any project with a large issue backlog would refuse contributions

scriptor20:03:34

nice, I wonder if there's anything else that would be useful to have there

scriptor20:03:39

@sam what sorts of things would you like to see in order that you can start contributing to FOSS clojure projects?

sam20:03:00

Here's my first PR to an open source clojure repo: https://github.com/4clojure/4clojure/pull/301 🙂 I just need to find something that interests me.

scriptor20:03:09

I feel like for a lot of people the biggest blocker is time/energy

dottedmag20:03:55

So, amount of hurdles to contribute matters. That varies from project to project. Contribution barrier to Debian or V8 is high. To http://X.org, Linux or BusyBox is low.

dottedmag20:03:09

Github pull requests or patches to mailing list accepted + discoverable coding style guide and a design document + no CLA to sign => easy to contribute.

dottedmag20:03:05

It's not that I set out to send patches to Fontconfig or util-linux. It just happened because I needed a bug fixed or a feature implemented 😄

dottedmag20:03:51

So in my experience the best way to contribute is to start using things and watch for the bugs and missing stuff. Instead of working around them, fix them.

vemv20:03:06

yes, a personal project is a good driver for these PRs

vemv20:03:25

personally I'd find "personal project" alone to not be as attractive

vemv20:03:09

also you can sympathize with a few favorites e.g. figwheel and help them out

vemv20:03:44

btw @joelsanchez is an absolute beast and when he's done with the day job (Clojure), he codes even more Clojure at home!

joelsanchez20:03:04

oh shut up, you're making me blush

joelsanchez20:03:00

regarding this discussion, I have made PRs to some clj projects because there's always...something wrong

joelsanchez20:03:13

good examples of very small PRs!

seancorfield20:03:19

Heh, personal projects and "just using the stuff" is how I've ended up as maintainer on clj-time, congomongo, and several Contrib projects (`java.jdbc`, tools.cli, core.cache, and core.memoize) -- so be careful about being too enthusiastic about contributing 🙂

😂 4
sam20:03:30

I think it's great if you have time to contribute to open source projects. How about people with families? If you're working a full-time job and have kids, how often are you contributing?

vemv20:03:12

I think it sucks for all of us, but certainly there is more demand than offer, so the standard solution would be "be on top of the game, and set a well-aligned rate" as others say, there are more signals. but cover-letters and years-of-experience only can get one so far

joelsanchez20:03:58

by neglecting the kids

dottedmag20:03:11

The cynical answer is: if you have kids and a family and still being hired, not hiring other people yourself, then it's too late for you to do anything about it.

frenata20:03:40

Naturally the less free time you have, the harder it is to contribute. It's not the only possible signal.

sam20:03:43

@dottedmag I don't see any value in that statement. I'm still young (late 20s) and believe that there's plenty of opportunities for me to explore out there. Especially once the kids start attending school, etc. It's just harder. I honestly think that these opportunities are easier to grasp with connections rather than having contributions to Open Source Projects.

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dottedmag20:03:18

@sam That's why I said it's a cynical answer (and I personally don't believe in it).

fellshard20:03:52

Might be a multifaceted answer? Doesn't have to be all one strategy or all the other. 'Diversify'. Multiple approaches possible to get your foot in the door - some may work for a given person, some may not

dottedmag20:03:54

@sam There are several approaches to attack the problem. 1. Spend less time on stuff that does not matter (GTD; stop going to shop for buying groceries, order them; stop commuting, work from home; send clothes to laundry, don't do them yourself; buy more take-away food etc). 2. Use Clojure where you can on the daily job (e.g. throwaway scripts, personal tooling). 3. Get paid for Clojure (e.g. http://openbounty.status.im). 4. ?

sam20:03:27

alright, now here's something I can learn from. 👀

scriptor21:03:24

put yourself in the hiring manager's shoes. Let's say you worked at a java company and someone without any professional java experience wanted to work for you as a remote employee. What would you want/expect from that person so that they could start contributing quickly on your team?

sam21:03:52

@scriptor I think it's about motivation. Is this person willing and excited to learn this new technology? If so, start off by giving the person a small task, and provide feedback asap. Pair an experienced dev from your team up with her and see how it works out. I think this would allow both sides to evaluate how good of a match the new hire is, how well the new person fits into the team, how she handles feedback, how fast of a learner she is, etc. At my current company even though it was Java, it was almost a completely new stack for me, and I had to pick up and learn about 5 new technologies... Spring, Hibernate, Postgres, groovy... They gave me my first task and I learned a ton from my first PR and the discussions around it. At first, I obviously had to put more work into it and do a bunch of learning at home as well, but that only lasts a month or so. (learning continues, but once you overcome the first bump in the curve it gets much easier) If it doesn't work out, well that's what the probationary period is for. I remember at my last company we hired someone with no Java experience, but he knew C++. Obviously, it's not the same as comparing Java to Clojure, but we did the same thing. We tried it out by giving him some tasks and made sure to give him lots of feedback and made sure he felt comfortable to ask as many questions as he needed.

👏 4
scriptor21:03:20

I've found putting myself in the hirer's shoes helps a lot in general. Whether it's easing anxiety or trying to understand what they'd look for

scriptor21:03:34

it's a good way to humanize the other side of the job hunt

dottedmag21:03:00

@scriptor Any insights to share?

seancorfield21:03:46

My advice to hiring managers is: do not make OSS contribution a "requirement" when evaluating candidates -- there are all sorts of reasons why a candidate may not be able to contribute to such projects.

☝️ 8
dottedmag21:03:38

@seancorfield OSS contribution is a signal for ability to, uhm, contribute. Should not be the only way to test for that particular ability.

fellshard21:03:43

Especially as that may stand in direct odds to candidates that currently work and have all their experience in that environment. It's cutting out a good chunk of the pool of folks you may very well be interested in.

scriptor21:03:57

@dottedmag nothing specific, other than imaging yourself as the hirer puts you in the right frame of find. I find that a lot of younger/junior devs are more concerned about "impressing" companies as if they're being interviewed by a panel of objective, stoic judges who add up a list of "good things" and "bad things"

seancorfield21:03:03

I've posted this link before, but since we're discussing the issue again, I'll repost it: https://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-and-the-oss-community

seancorfield21:03:22

Breaking into new tech is certainly hard: if you have experience in X but no experience in Y, finding a job doing Y means finding a company that is willing to train you up (and can afford the onramping costs) or taking a cut in pay/role/status as a beginner. Some people can't do the latter (and some companies won't hire "experienced" developers into a junior role because they worry that the new hire will become unhappy doing that level of work -- "You're overqualified for that role!"). So it's really a chicken and egg situation.

seancorfield21:03:18

My recommendation in that case is to find a company hiring for X that you know just happens to also use Y. Then, once you're hired, look at ways to start using Y alongside X, or collaborating with the team(s) that use Y.

sam21:03:52

@scriptor I think it's about motivation. Is this person willing and excited to learn this new technology? If so, start off by giving the person a small task, and provide feedback asap. Pair an experienced dev from your team up with her and see how it works out. I think this would allow both sides to evaluate how good of a match the new hire is, how well the new person fits into the team, how she handles feedback, how fast of a learner she is, etc. At my current company even though it was Java, it was almost a completely new stack for me, and I had to pick up and learn about 5 new technologies... Spring, Hibernate, Postgres, groovy... They gave me my first task and I learned a ton from my first PR and the discussions around it. At first, I obviously had to put more work into it and do a bunch of learning at home as well, but that only lasts a month or so. (learning continues, but once you overcome the first bump in the curve it gets much easier) If it doesn't work out, well that's what the probationary period is for. I remember at my last company we hired someone with no Java experience, but he knew C++. Obviously, it's not the same as comparing Java to Clojure, but we did the same thing. We tried it out by giving him some tasks and made sure to give him lots of feedback and made sure he felt comfortable to ask as many questions as he needed.

👏 4
seancorfield23:03:24

@sammy.castaneda90 It's great that your company was set up to make that possible! A lot of companies don't seem to have the bandwidth to spend that much time supervising and mentoring new developers 😞

fellshard23:03:06

Our firm is supposed to be about that, but it doesn't do so great with dev mentorship because it immediately cuts over to push them into management and then sales ASAP instead

fellshard23:03:57

Whiiich usually means development experience is half-baked, which in turn hurts them all the way up the management and sales track