Candidates experience is not transferable If your company is only using homegrown frameworks and proprietary software, or if you have worked in the same company for many years without any fundamental changes in the development environment, this could be you. The interviewer in this case feels that you may be productive in your current environment, but when given a different set of tools, methodologies, and team members, the candidate may encounter too steep a learning curve. This is often a response on candidates that have worked within development groups at very large companies for many years.
Posted 6/21/2012 3:15 pm
This is why I'm looking for a new job after being at my current job for 3 years. Working on a proprietary CMS with no chance for recognition within the company or without is an obvious dead end.
Posted 6/21/2012 3:17 pm
Having run many projects staffed by Trevs, I'd have to say the worse thing is the fucking fear and pessimism and inertia I see in so many of them. Curious, inventive and hard working Trevs are the ones I want on my projects.
The petrified Trevs were the curious, inventive, and hard-working ones before they realized the futility of it all. I still have those traits and get an occasional pat on the back for it, but I work to make a living, not for a pat on the back.
Exactly. By the time you're 40, you should be either in management, consulting, or have a product of your own in the marketplace. Otherwise you've got a target on your back.
Posted 6/21/2012 3:24 pm
Here's a related problem. You're a hotshot programmer, knowledgeable in the latest languages and development environments. You're young and the salary you get seems enormous to you.
Fast forward 10 years. The language that was hot 10 years ago is considered outdated. The salary you thought was enormous when you were 25 is not enough for your wife and growing children.
Your company is moving to the web, or whatever the latest thing is. You try to be a part of it, but there's no one out there who knows the legacy system like you do. What's more, the company can't hire new programmers for you to train because, well, what kid wants to learn software that was hot when the kid was in 6th grade?
So, in a few more years your company finally replaces the legacy system. You're on the street, and you're a pariah.
I know plenty of post-40 Trevs who are spectacular and valuable programmers and architects. Most of them realize management has its own downsides and they just like producing code. But they are damned good at it and their employers value them.
As I said, I'm fleeing after 3 years on the job. It's difficult because I can't shop my ideas around outside the company. They claim IP rights for stuff they don't give two shits about out of fear a competitor might get ahold of it.
They don't just dismiss it. They yell and scream about it. They literally don't have a clue about what you do, but if you say anything they treat it as insubordination.
Once, for an hour, a boss kept demanding of me why he should upgrade 10 year old software.
