Thank you all, for your replies, are really helpful and at the same time depressing lol. I also feel that the interview processes are broken. I once took and interview where I had a week to develop a real life app with the tech of my preference, and then a second interview to explain it and go through it. This approach felt more natural and the interviewers could actually see how a person works. Having to code in a strange setup with interviewers watching you or a big clock going down it’s really stressful and I failed when I had to do it. I guess we could “hack” the process practicing exercises constantly to be in touch with the language, but it’s really discouraging.
I like the idea of trying to make contact with people around me like @D4no0 said, but finding Elixir developers it’s not so easy here in Argentina, will try though.
And also I keep thinking how to level up my game professionally. If taking a more broad path about software engineering/design/architecture or trying to dive deep on advanced Elixir topics, but that is diverging for my original question.
pablito
pablito
I really like this as a concept, but you have to start somewhere right? I’m trying to structure this “molding” to actually carry it out
clsource
The situation is similar in Chile regarding the availability of Elixir jobs. But there are plenty of options if you look in the right place. I’m sure you could find something in some hot markets like USA, Germany and Japan.
ragamuf
Your experience is symptomatic of a larger problem with the interviewing practice in our industry. Our body of work does not count as we know it should. The level of dedication to build something and offer it to the public is severely undervalued. Do I have a solution? Nope! Just an observation. Hang in there and don’t give up. The right opportunity is on the way.
ragamuf
The approach you described here reflects my best interviewing experience to date. I even went as far as creating a video walkthrough to explain my solution.
adworse
unfortunately, I don’t have any advice. I would like to double your request and to rise it:
I (5 YoE in Elixir) would happily pay for assessment and career advice, if such a thing would be available.
egeersoz
Software engineer hiring process is absurdly broken in general across the whole sector. The upheaval that the industry is going through due to AI technology and tooling simply makes it worse. I don’t know what the solution is, but every time I see a company doing multiple rounds of coding interviews with arbitrary rules and making candidates jump through hoops and then rejecting them due to completely subjective and silly reasons, I get profoundly depressed. We all deserve better.
D4no0
This hype will most probably die out in a few years. Most of the companies that claim that they got a major increase in efficiency and can afford to cut staff, had broken processes to begin with, they think that they can shove all their technical debt and problems under a rug using these chatbots.
The actual negative that impacts hiring a lot are the generative models. I’ve observed about 2 years ago a explosion on applications for almost all development positions. From what I understood from a agency, most of those applications were fake, most likely some companies were testing out their models to see how well they are received.
I agree with this, but at the same time we, the developers, are partly at fault for it getting to this sad state. We should have said long ago no to these primitive practices created by big corporations that were only interested in hoarding talent back in the day.
I personally decline to proceed instantly any offers that include:
- unpaid home assignments that are longer than 2-3 hours;
- live coding sessions in any format;
- positions with no salary range and unclear responsibilities;
- more than 2-3 rounds of interviews.
If we are to kill these outdated interview practices, we have to say no time and time again to companies and recruiters that still blindly follow these practices, that is the only way this process will change. Instead of bragging about solving leetcode algorithms, we should talk about good workplace conditions and encourage good development practices.
dimitarvp
One of the biggest scams in the latest years. They are convenient scapegoat positions to deceive investors that the companies are (1) growing and (2) are with the times. It’s mostly PR.
Sure some art-creation companies do legitimately need GenAI. But comparing the several branches of the economy that might truly need GenAI with the actual job postings, the ratio is probably 1:100… in the best-case scenario. Could easily be 1:50000.
This is the tragedy of late-stage capitalism. Times get harder and harder and people compromise. Then the previous-bad becomes the new-normal. Really sad to watch it unfold in real time. Breaks my heart.