[robodale]

A great question. I'm partially-grizzled (only 20 years experience) and looking for the same thing. Some sort of Principle Software Engineer with technical focus and no direct people management responsibilities. Searching LinkedIn brings back plenty of job hits...but it's mostly MegaCorp jobs like you mention.

[robomartin]

Please don't take this personally, it isn't aimed at you at all. You simply provided the trigger for the thought, likely without intention.

It's not "principle", it's "principal".

Other examples of this exist, "your", "you are" or "you're", etc.

As someone who has hired many engineers, let me tell you (plural) why I think accuracy in written communications is important. It's quite simple, really:

Software development is about minute attention to detail. Syntax, spelling, formatting, data structures, algorithms, etc.

When someone makes one of these mistakes in emails or a resume, they risk raising a question in the mind of the person evaluating them for a position. As the saying goes, these things stick out like a sore thumb.

Of course, none of this matters in the context of writing comments on an online community. It is utterly irrelevant. Even worse, sometimes autocorrect will easily do us in while writing comments on a phone or tablet. Again, this is not criticism of the comment I am responding to. Not at all.

Since we are talking about how to find a job, I am using the opportunity to highlight a variable a number of people might not recognize as potentially important.

English not your first language? Fantastic! Nor is it mine. Nor is Python, JS, C, C++, Forth, APL or assembler my first language. If it is important, you take the time to learn and write it correctly.

Here's a simple example:

I've been coaching a good friend who has been trying to land a sales engineering job that required understanding HTML, CSS and JS. This would not be a developer job, yet being able to understand API's and generally work with customers requires comfort with these technologies.

I had him enroll in a few online courses. He made a huge effort, learned a lot and was able to go from virtually nothing to being comfortable with the technology within a few weeks. That was fantastic to watch.

The other thing that was very interesting was watching what problems he had along the way. We ran daily zoom meetings where I would coach him, ask questions, have him write and explain code, etc. When one has been coding for over 30 years you tend to forget that some of these concepts can be very strange to people coming up from nothing.

One of the most important things I tried to correct was consistency in the way he wrote code. It's about the proverbial sore thumb I mentioned above.

Some can have great comprehension of coding, and yet, if they write something like this they almost guarantee not getting the job:

    function doSomething (){
         let myvar1=23;
            let myVar2 = 56;
      let MYvar3= "1234";
      //...etc
    }
    
    
    function do_something_else(){
    if (some_condition)
    dothis();
    else{ do_Somethign_else() }
    // ...
    }

In other words, mostly code that will run just fine but looks absolutely terrible, is difficult to read, is filled with inconsistent formatting, inconsistent variable and function naming conventions, etc.

Fair or not, to me --and I am sure others-- lack of attention to detail in written language tells me I might need to be concerned about similar errors in coding that might lead to wasting time or, worse, potentially serious bugs and issues. Three years later this person leaves the company and you discover the code they wrote is a rotten stinking mess nobody wants to touch.

It is better to avoid raising that question in the first place.

I think anyone looking for a job, developer or not, needs to understand that every word they put down on an email, resume or letter is an opportunity to either make a good impression or cast doubts. Be sure to take the time to create a favorable image on paper and not create questions that might deny you being considered for the job.

[dave_sid]

It’s also about efficiency my friend. I don’t grammar check every message I send to a colleague during the day. I think you’re thinking of lawyers rather than software engineers.

[kleer001]

I'd concede your point if this were a formal forum where precise language is necssary. But it isn't.

[eecks]

Is this comment written by GPT-3 or sometime similar? It reads like it.

[watermelon59]

Speaking of details: your usernames. Lol. Awesome coincidence.

[speedgoose]

I know very good engineers who have dyslexia.