At the risk of sounding shallow, the salary (and NOT "competitive rates" or "DOE"). I don't want to waste my time or a potential employer's if expectations won't line up.
It's not, of course, the only thing I care about, but far too few postings offer this level of transparency. Love the other ideas of work week length and problem to be solved as well.
I have recently spent a long time (i.e. months) and an unholy amount of energy in an interview process that ended up offering a firm number (because of a ladder similar to the one at Google) that was significantly lower than what I was making at that time.
In the same time I talked to that company, I had had enough time to talk to 5 others and get 5 more offers that were all offering at least as much as I was making or significantly more.
Since I was really interested in company #1, I declined really good offers along the way, hoping I'd get an offer from that company.
You can imagine my elation and subsequent horrors when they told me that they had picked me for the job and showed me their salary ranges. I would never ever in my life want to go through such an experience again and I actively avoid companies that are hiding or avoiding that topic somewhat early in the process.
I agree. I have a lot of respect for companies that post a clear range (it has to be better than just "80000-150000 depending on experience"). It's also nice if they describe what they actually work on and not just some buzzwords.
After suffering a cube farm for the last years I also like companies who have offices or are remote.
"California employers can no longer ask job applicants about their prior salary and — if applicants ask — must give them a pay range for the job they are seeking, under a new state law that takes effect Jan. 1."
There's one filter that every single human has: ethics.
Not everyone's philosophy is the same; there are missions that I might find detestable and you might not.
But for goodness sake, please don't make me go through the process of filling out a long form, writing a cover-letter, and jumping on a 60 minute phone call before you tell me that you're building something to help the government kill people. Like, seriously, put that right at the top and save everybody's time.
Beyond the usual things, that you and others mention, like technical interest and what the company's goal is and so on: does the company provide a sane workweek?
Sometimes they very clearly don't ("70-hour weeks" in particularly awful case).
Other times they definitely do.
Most of the time it's very hard to tell, though, which is a shame. There are lots of other programmers who care about this besides me (my rant about 70-hour workweek got 120,000 page views - https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/09/18/when-startups-pay-le...).
If your company is hiring, provides a sane workweek, and you'd like some ideas on how to promote your hiring effots - ping me: [email protected].
Just to weigh in on the flip side of this from a hiring perspective, if it's clear to me that someone has done zero research on my particular company, has no knowledge about what it is we do, and has no articulate explanation of why this particular job is a good fit for them, then I pass on the candidate instantly. I don't know if the shotgun a resume with a cut-and-paste cover letter approach works to some degree, but it at least doesn't work for me.
I know that applying to jobs is a pain in the ass, and that there are far too many bad actors on the hiring side (ie not giving a clear no and just ghosting applicants). But if you enter the application process making it clear you have done your research, you know what the company does, what the specific role is, and even better if you know something about the people on my side, who you want to work with and why, etc. then you are guaranteed an interview and you're starting a mile ahead of anyone just shotgunning in a resume. Yes, that takes a LOT longer than 2 minutes. But with that approach maybe you won't need to send in hundreds of applications.
>> If it takes me more than 2 minutes to apply for your position, I’m going to skip the whole thing
This is such a pain, it’s 2017 and I have job sites who want a Word document resume, plain text resume, then in the middle of filling out a web form with my work history I just closed the browser window because I don’t think I really wanted to work at a place like that anyway.
I completely agree with you, these companies are not showing enough interest to make the life of applicants better, it is highly probably the same with their employees
And I skip when they ask for a cover letter (or send a blank pdf page)
1. What problem is the company/team trying to solve?
2. What are the special challenges? For example, ultra low latency or scalability or porting a monolith to microservices
3. Technology stack (does it match with my experience? what can I learn? hotter and newer not always better imho)
4. The language used in the post
After this, I usually try to find out as much as I can about the company. It helps a lot if the company has an engineering/team blog.
In the job post, I want to know what is expected of me. What am I going to be doing? What languages/technologies am I supposed to know?
When I'm interested in a post, I'll look at the company website to get a feel for it. In the job posting they always describe how open and informal the culture is, how great the atmosphere is, etc. etc. The website often tells me what kind of company it really is. If that's alright I'll apply and expect further explanation about both the company and my position in interviews (since interviews are two-way), while I also fill them in on my qualifications.
When i am spending 8 - 10 hours of time everyday at one place, the most i care is that the organization/team builds an environment that feels comfortable. A place where everyone cares genuinely about each other and is ready to help. I maybe crazy, but something i look for in a job role is trust within the team.
I'm chronically ill so I value most of all flexible work hours and an understanding that there will be periods of time ranging from days to weeks to months where I'm derelict as an engineer.
Maybe not "most", but very important (and seldom described): Environment.
Done wasting my time on noise and distraction. "Interaction" is just fine with me, and I can even context-switch pretty rapidly. Unholy levels of stress and requirements to "tune out" a bunch of irrelevant and noisy stuff going on around me? Forgetaboutit.
I'm happier shuffling papers in a quiet, peaceful environment, than coding "the solution to the universe" in open space with "George who shouts everything across the aisles" and the very nice Melissa who nonetheless has multiple cube (really, "cubette") meetings everyday while Tayna pounds her (shared) desk constantly in emphasis while on sometimes hours long phone calls.
I think a lot of people can be happy doing more and a far wider range of things than they imagine, if the environment is simply right.
P.S. Which is by way of saying to employers, if you really want to hire that 10x/rockstar/gets-stuff-done/innovates person, hook them with an assurance they'll have an optimal working environment. And for many, that means a quiet physical environment. And if you're endlessly questioning just where the line is, and how little accommodation you can get away with? You've already lost that person -- sooner, even if they initially take the position.
How many 10x ego people work there, how blame-oriented the company and the team I'd be working on is, how much pressure there is to always go faster and how much time is spent prototyping and researching things, will my manager actually manage as necessary, is there a lot of clearly defined work to be done and/or a clear mission or are they pivoting constantly, is compensation/benefits reasonable and standard, etc.
I'm not sure where you are based, but there are some remote-friendly and all-remote teams listed on Key Values (keyvalues.io).
Many people define work/life balance as a 40-hour work work, but I would be willing to negotiate tens of thousands of dollars and more hours/week if I had the flexibility to work when and where I wanted to.
I wish job descriptions said more about the team, culture, and engineering values. Sure, salary is important too, but there's a wide range I'd be open to if everything else was aligned.
If you look at https://www.keyvalues.io, you'll see what dozens of engineers said they cared about most when evaluating a new job. I used their responses to create engineering team profiles that would directly address these things.
Not surprisingly, I see many of the same values described in the comments in this post: "Work/Life Balance," "High Quality Code Base," "Flexible Work Arrangements," "Safe Environment to Fail," "Committed to Personal Growth," "Team is Diverse," "Remote-OK," "Thoughtful Office Layout," and questions around how "Product-Driven" the team is.
This would save me so much time. I can't count the number of postings I've seen on "StackOverflow Careers" that brag about their Joel Test score (quiet working conditions, check!), but when I dig deeper I find a photo of a giant open floor plan.
I've even seen hiring videos where someone bragged about what a great place it was to get work done, and right behind the interviewee is a foosball/ping-pong table, and just on the other side you can see some poor programmer with headphones trying to block it all out.
The words "quiet working conditions" must mean something else to hiring teams these days, but no matter. Show a picture of my desk, and there's no ambiguity.
I look for 100% remote positions, with no daily meetings and no culture of video conferencing, and where I can work on free software to benefit the public good!
When possible, I prefer to apply by email or a simple form; but recognize this is ever less realistic. Do not make me setup an account unless it is government work like the National Labs.
I spent a lot of time curating my resume, this includes formatting. Let me submit a pdf.
I would like to know the positions funding model upfront.
Its nice to know what tech is used, and weather the software stack is monolithic or diverse across the organization.
PTO is important, and should be clearly stated.
If the team has presented at a technology conference recently this is a huge plus.
salary range is helpful (no need to be super narrow).
What do i need to know? What am I expected to learn? What are nice things to know?
I would love for postings to include the company's expected response time! Also satisfactory "We may not respond if you aren't what we're looking for at this time."
Treat your audience like adults.
Don't use 'ninja' or 'rockstar' as a positive descriptor.
Don't use statements like "We at FreshSqeezed.io provide a service like Twitter but for Farmer's Markets!".
I'm freelancer and not really looking for a steady job. What I look for in projects is a mix:
* Location; I love to cycle to work
* Pay rate; if it's too low, they're probably not looking for me, and if it's too high, same. Though I'm willing to take a pay cut when other aspects are good
* Technology; stuff that I know of course, but even more stuff that I want to learn
* Interesting problem space; will I just be moving data between DB and browser, or is there something more interesting about it?
I couldn't say which of these is more important; they all count. Money is nice of course, but I'm willing to work for a lower rate if it's close to home and I get to learn something I want to learn but don't know very well yet. The experience is valuable to me, and my lack of experience makes me less valuable to the client, so it makes sense for everybody. And no amount of money is going to make me stick with a job I absolutely hate. Well, maybe some amount of money, but few would pay that much.
Mission and working environment have already been mentioned plenty of times, and are certainly important.
One that doesn't show up a huge amount at the moment, but which holds huge weight for me (potentially trumping salary) is autonomy: to what extent am I going to have leverage to build useful things as an individual rather than a mostly-fungible "team member".
I'm wondering whether some people have actually been a little scared off from advertising this because of the risk of being dinged for {bad,lack of} process.
Don't say "fast paced". I take this as an indication that the work will be a "move fast and break things" type of culture. Many engineers want to build solid infrastructure and/or cutting edge tech which takes time and thought to develop. Many engineers do want a challenge - we can tell if it's a challenging job post from the rest of the ad.
Take this with a grain of salt, some people do actually like "fast paced" of course.
[+] [-] ljoshua|8 years ago|reply
It's not, of course, the only thing I care about, but far too few postings offer this level of transparency. Love the other ideas of work week length and problem to be solved as well.
[+] [-] dotdi|8 years ago|reply
In the same time I talked to that company, I had had enough time to talk to 5 others and get 5 more offers that were all offering at least as much as I was making or significantly more.
Since I was really interested in company #1, I declined really good offers along the way, hoping I'd get an offer from that company.
You can imagine my elation and subsequent horrors when they told me that they had picked me for the job and showed me their salary ranges. I would never ever in my life want to go through such an experience again and I actively avoid companies that are hiding or avoiding that topic somewhat early in the process.
[+] [-] maxxxxx|8 years ago|reply
After suffering a cube farm for the last years I also like companies who have offices or are remote.
Decent vacation is also appreciated.
[+] [-] jcrben|8 years ago|reply
"California employers can no longer ask job applicants about their prior salary and — if applicants ask — must give them a pay range for the job they are seeking, under a new state law that takes effect Jan. 1."
http://www.calpeculiarities.com/2017/10/12/third-times-the-c...
[+] [-] YPCrumble|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] BurningFrog|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jMyles|8 years ago|reply
Not everyone's philosophy is the same; there are missions that I might find detestable and you might not.
But for goodness sake, please don't make me go through the process of filling out a long form, writing a cover-letter, and jumping on a 60 minute phone call before you tell me that you're building something to help the government kill people. Like, seriously, put that right at the top and save everybody's time.
[+] [-] taway_1212|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itamarst|8 years ago|reply
Sometimes they very clearly don't ("70-hour weeks" in particularly awful case).
Other times they definitely do.
Most of the time it's very hard to tell, though, which is a shame. There are lots of other programmers who care about this besides me (my rant about 70-hour workweek got 120,000 page views - https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/09/18/when-startups-pay-le...).
If your company is hiring, provides a sane workweek, and you'd like some ideas on how to promote your hiring effots - ping me: [email protected].
[+] [-] mrburton|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cgb223|8 years ago|reply
If it takes me more than 2 minutes to apply for your position, I’m going to skip the whole thing
If you make me retype everything that’s on my resume, I’m going to pass
My ideal application is attach resume, put basic info like Email and name if not automatically scraped and submit
[+] [-] dougmccune|8 years ago|reply
I know that applying to jobs is a pain in the ass, and that there are far too many bad actors on the hiring side (ie not giving a clear no and just ghosting applicants). But if you enter the application process making it clear you have done your research, you know what the company does, what the specific role is, and even better if you know something about the people on my side, who you want to work with and why, etc. then you are guaranteed an interview and you're starting a mile ahead of anyone just shotgunning in a resume. Yes, that takes a LOT longer than 2 minutes. But with that approach maybe you won't need to send in hundreds of applications.
[+] [-] bluedino|8 years ago|reply
This is such a pain, it’s 2017 and I have job sites who want a Word document resume, plain text resume, then in the middle of filling out a web form with my work history I just closed the browser window because I don’t think I really wanted to work at a place like that anyway.
[+] [-] polote|8 years ago|reply
And I skip when they ask for a cover letter (or send a blank pdf page)
[+] [-] Winterflow3r|8 years ago|reply
After this, I usually try to find out as much as I can about the company. It helps a lot if the company has an engineering/team blog.
[+] [-] lucb1e|8 years ago|reply
When I'm interested in a post, I'll look at the company website to get a feel for it. In the job posting they always describe how open and informal the culture is, how great the atmosphere is, etc. etc. The website often tells me what kind of company it really is. If that's alright I'll apply and expect further explanation about both the company and my position in interviews (since interviews are two-way), while I also fill them in on my qualifications.
[+] [-] apexkid|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danharaj|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjroot|8 years ago|reply
Months? I don’t know anything about your situation, but how could you expect an employer to think that this is worth their resources?
[+] [-] pasbesoin|8 years ago|reply
Done wasting my time on noise and distraction. "Interaction" is just fine with me, and I can even context-switch pretty rapidly. Unholy levels of stress and requirements to "tune out" a bunch of irrelevant and noisy stuff going on around me? Forgetaboutit.
I'm happier shuffling papers in a quiet, peaceful environment, than coding "the solution to the universe" in open space with "George who shouts everything across the aisles" and the very nice Melissa who nonetheless has multiple cube (really, "cubette") meetings everyday while Tayna pounds her (shared) desk constantly in emphasis while on sometimes hours long phone calls.
I think a lot of people can be happy doing more and a far wider range of things than they imagine, if the environment is simply right.
P.S. Which is by way of saying to employers, if you really want to hire that 10x/rockstar/gets-stuff-done/innovates person, hook them with an assurance they'll have an optimal working environment. And for many, that means a quiet physical environment. And if you're endlessly questioning just where the line is, and how little accommodation you can get away with? You've already lost that person -- sooner, even if they initially take the position.
[+] [-] 35bge57dtjku|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Xeoncross|8 years ago|reply
- Remote / Location
- Flexible hours?
- Technology I will be using
- Ethics concerns? (Weapons, Spam, Porn, etc..)
- Team or solo (if team, can I meet them?)
- Architecture vs Coding (Do I have any say in projects?)
----
I am willing to negotiate tens of thousands of dollars for flexible hours and remote. Commute time and costs add up.
[+] [-] lynnetye|8 years ago|reply
Many people define work/life balance as a 40-hour work work, but I would be willing to negotiate tens of thousands of dollars and more hours/week if I had the flexibility to work when and where I wanted to.
[+] [-] lynnetye|8 years ago|reply
If you look at https://www.keyvalues.io, you'll see what dozens of engineers said they cared about most when evaluating a new job. I used their responses to create engineering team profiles that would directly address these things.
Not surprisingly, I see many of the same values described in the comments in this post: "Work/Life Balance," "High Quality Code Base," "Flexible Work Arrangements," "Safe Environment to Fail," "Committed to Personal Growth," "Team is Diverse," "Remote-OK," "Thoughtful Office Layout," and questions around how "Product-Driven" the team is.
[+] [-] GoToRO|8 years ago|reply
Picture with my desk, chair and station.
Salary range.
All the rest.
[+] [-] ken|8 years ago|reply
This would save me so much time. I can't count the number of postings I've seen on "StackOverflow Careers" that brag about their Joel Test score (quiet working conditions, check!), but when I dig deeper I find a photo of a giant open floor plan.
I've even seen hiring videos where someone bragged about what a great place it was to get work done, and right behind the interviewee is a foosball/ping-pong table, and just on the other side you can see some poor programmer with headphones trying to block it all out.
The words "quiet working conditions" must mean something else to hiring teams these days, but no matter. Show a picture of my desk, and there's no ambiguity.
[+] [-] mbrock|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lynnetye|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dasmoth|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] probinso|8 years ago|reply
I spent a lot of time curating my resume, this includes formatting. Let me submit a pdf.
I would like to know the positions funding model upfront.
Its nice to know what tech is used, and weather the software stack is monolithic or diverse across the organization.
PTO is important, and should be clearly stated.
If the team has presented at a technology conference recently this is a huge plus.
salary range is helpful (no need to be super narrow).
What do i need to know? What am I expected to learn? What are nice things to know?
I would love for postings to include the company's expected response time! Also satisfactory "We may not respond if you aren't what we're looking for at this time."
Treat your audience like adults.
Don't use 'ninja' or 'rockstar' as a positive descriptor.
Don't use statements like "We at FreshSqeezed.io provide a service like Twitter but for Farmer's Markets!".
[+] [-] mcv|8 years ago|reply
* Location; I love to cycle to work
* Pay rate; if it's too low, they're probably not looking for me, and if it's too high, same. Though I'm willing to take a pay cut when other aspects are good
* Technology; stuff that I know of course, but even more stuff that I want to learn
* Interesting problem space; will I just be moving data between DB and browser, or is there something more interesting about it?
I couldn't say which of these is more important; they all count. Money is nice of course, but I'm willing to work for a lower rate if it's close to home and I get to learn something I want to learn but don't know very well yet. The experience is valuable to me, and my lack of experience makes me less valuable to the client, so it makes sense for everybody. And no amount of money is going to make me stick with a job I absolutely hate. Well, maybe some amount of money, but few would pay that much.
[+] [-] alex_duf|8 years ago|reply
- technology used
- ethics of the company (not making weapons, not spying etc.)
[+] [-] dasmoth|8 years ago|reply
One that doesn't show up a huge amount at the moment, but which holds huge weight for me (potentially trumping salary) is autonomy: to what extent am I going to have leverage to build useful things as an individual rather than a mostly-fungible "team member".
I'm wondering whether some people have actually been a little scared off from advertising this because of the risk of being dinged for {bad,lack of} process.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] HD134606c|8 years ago|reply
Take this with a grain of salt, some people do actually like "fast paced" of course.