[W0lf]

I happen to have read her book on Cracking the Coding Interview which I found was a nice refresher for interview-type like questions. She writes:

> And for all of this I still blunder my way through an exercise to write a function which returns a boolean in response to the question of whether sequence A is a sub-sequence of sequence B. I still draw a blank when asked what the magnitude of complexity is for the guests function I just wrote

which I have a hard time believing as she covers this in a whole chapter of her own book. Clearly she knows how to do this stuff, given that she wrote the book herself.

My guess is that either the (US) market is currently facing a recession which has hit the dev market as well by now or she is somewhat of a generalist with no deep knowledge of a specific area and the companies she were interviewing for are searching for a specialized person rather.

[aliqot]

My take is that this is probably a reader-submitted article, but also, as a testament to the wider phenomenon:

Businesses say they can't get enough knowledgeworkers

Knowledgeworkers say they can't get enough business

These are mutually exclusive and cannot both be true. The reality is nerds have a sales problem. You can't just hoodie and flipflop your way through a job interview because the majority of us have roughly similar skillsets, so the person with a tucked in shirt and punctual habits will get the job every time.

Nobody buys a broken banana. Stop being that banana. The modern devs making the money know how to sell their strengths. If you don't believe in you, don't expect someone to pay you for that.

[gjm11]

Those are not mutually exclusive and could perfectly well be true, if you bear in mind that it's some businesses and some knowledge workers.

If your proposed explanation is broadly right, then you can describe it in two equally valid ways. (1) Some very good developers (etc.) present themselves in ways that lead to not getting job offers. (2) Some employers, when looking developers, are put off by presentation in ways that lead to not extending offers to good developers.

"Present yourself in ways that employers will like" is probably good advice for would-be employees. But so is "Look past presentation and slick self-selling" for would-be employers.

That might not be true if there were a glut of suitable employees, so that an employer only willing to employ people who tuck their shirts in nicely isn't short of good employees on that account. But, as you put it yourself: "Businesses say they can't get enough knowledgeworkers". Some employers, at least, don't find it easy to get the people they want. Maybe they would find it easier if they put lower priority on shirt-tucking.

The last paragraph seems to be made entirely of slogans rather than actual thinking. Someone who is good at their job but wears a hoodie is not a "broken banana". (Maybe they're a banana with slightly more or less curvature than the average, or something.)

Also, I don't say anything in the original piece suggesting that the person who wrote it isn't getting job offers because of ... well, let's be frank about what you're saying, because of not looking sufficiently upper-middle-class. They claim that the problem is that in an interview situation they aren't quick and smooth enough at solving programming-interview problems. Changing what clothes they wear and how they wear them isn't going to change that.

[TAForObvReasons]

It is absolutely possible for both to be true. Businesses want knowledge workers who are competent and can address problems but also willing to accept the compensation they are offering. Knowledge workers want to be compensated fairly without knowing whether they can address the actual problems they are being hired to solve. This situation of information asymmetry is referred to as a "market for lemons"

[gaylemcd]

Hi, this substack is an impersonation. It is not mine. (But glad you enjoyed the book! :))

[furyofantares]

It's a guest post, looks like there is a note about that at the top now, though it still seems easy to miss.