Does experience with other technologies make you less employable as a Java developer?

[Carl Jokl]

I am perhaps reactive after feeling a little spooked by a recruitment
experience. A company dealing in Java technology chose not to consider
me further. The feedback was that my C.V. (resume) was strong but they
did not want to consider me because I had worked with .Net as well as
Java.

I am left feeling worried as I hoped to keep skills in both Java
and .Net up to a good standard in hopes that I would have more career
options. I thought I should therefore be suitable to both Java
and .Net roles especially considering I have Sun Java certification
but not as yet any for .Net. I should not judge everything by the
reaction of one company but I am now worried that by trying to
straddle the gap I have unknowingly started to burn my bridges into
Java development.

As many here work for Java companies and might be involved in
recruitment I wondered about your thoughts. Would you or your company
dismiss candidate who had done both Java and .Net in favour of people
who have only worked with Java related technologies?

[Martijn Verburg]

To be blunt, you probably didn't want to work for them anyway. "There
is no silver bullet" - M

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[Robert Casto]

Ditto. If they are that naive, you wouldn't have been happy.

To take their side, they might want someone who is committed to one language, not spreading themselves out that thin. Or the rest of the team are .net haters?

--
Robert Casto
www.robertcasto.com
www.sellerstoolbox.com

[Carl Jokl]

They might be .net haters. I was a .net hater too before actually
trying it and wanting to find reasons to hate it on principle but
finding some nice features in there. In the end I found the culture
more of a differentiator than the technology. I still believe for
right or wrong that the kind of team / company you work with is a
bigger factor in happiness that the technology used. Maybe the Java
fanboy part of me is hurt to be rejected by a community I have openly
supported for some time even when being ridiculed for it by Java
haters.

On Oct 4, 6:01 pm, Robert Casto <casto.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ditto. If they are that naive, you wouldn't have been happy.
>
> To take their side, they might want someone who is committed to one
> language, not spreading themselves out that thin. Or the rest of the team
> are .net haters?
>
> On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 12:57 PM, Martijn Verburg

> <martijnverb...@gmail.com>wrote:

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > To be blunt, you probably didn't want to work for them anyway. "There
> > is no silver bullet" - M
>

[Juan Marín Otero]

I have seen this attitude where I currently work, mainly from "senior" developers and antiquated "architects". About a year ago I insisted on hiring a developer that was much stronger in .Net than in Java, but that had other skills that we were looking for (my team specializes in GIS development). He was productive pretty fast and no one is bringing that (non) issue anymore. Today I'm even introducing Scala (they don't know yet).

Like they said, you probably didn't want to work there anyway. On the other hand I've seen a couple of shops that had a lot of .Net that were just.....horrible, especially if their developers transitioned from VB to VB.Net, talk about spaghetti code. Of course, YMMV

Juan Marín Otero
GIS Consultant

-------Visita mi blog en---------------------
http://guachintoneando.blogspot.com
---------------------------------------------------

[ricky.c...@gmail.com]

Don't worry, that's a good thing. It means that a crappy company just filtered itself out of your job search.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

[Carl Jokl]

I did have one or two recruitment agencies that came to me with Jobs
involving VB .net. I gave a more tactful explanation to the agencies
that might have been summed up as "No thanks, I would rather be
unemployed than do VB". I have been very cautions when dealing
with .Net roles and really tried to test the quality of the developers
I am dealing with. There is nothing stopping individuals writing well
architected code in .Net but culturally unfortunately a lot of .Net
developers don't care as much about clean code as the typical Java
developers do.

[Ralph Goers]

Although we do far more Java than .Net development, having someone with both skill sets would make me consider them more, not less.

Ralph

[Fabrizio Giudici]

On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:11:38 +0200, <ricky.c...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Don't worry, that's a good thing. It means that a crappy company just
> filtered itself out of your job search.

Same thought for me.

--
Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect, Project Manager
Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We make Java work. Everywhere."
fabrizio...@tidalwave.it
http://tidalwave.it - http://fabriziogiudici.it

[Casper Bang]

I am dealing with. There is nothing stopping individuals writing well
architected code in .Net but culturally unfortunately a lot of .Net
developers don't care as much about clean code as the typical Java
developers do.

Traditionally you get fewer readily-available parts served in Java, so it's true that the .NET crowd doesn't cultivate quite the same... ingenuity. I.e. what seasoned Java developer hasn't rolled their own ORM, remoting and Web framework?!

I happen to be in full agreement with you, that VB is just not worth the job. VB(.NET) exists as a pseudo-link to the old established non-programmer VB6, but it remains a subset to C# (except for having XML literals). There's no reason to get into VB.NET, it's first and foremost in C# progress happen.

It is obviously beneficial to know both C# and Java, you can learn stuff from both. If some uptight Java-only shop considers other language skills harmful, then you probably won't find particular stimulating input there anyways. Unfortunately it's been seen before and while not as bad as in the past, you can still see demonization of alternatives (JavaZone) rather than actual objective comparisons.

[Cédric Beust ♔]

On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Carl Jokl <carl...@gmail.com> wrote:

Would you or your company
dismiss candidate who had done both Java and .Net in favour of people
who have only worked with Java related technologies?

Never. If anything, it makes you more eligible for a "Senior" title.

-- 

Cédric

[clay]

I disagree.

If a team lead wants to hire an expert with technology stack A, he/she
doesn't someone who's an expert with stack B, and merely dabbled with
A and thinks that's good enough. They don't want a half-assed fit,
they want to get exactly the candidate that they want.

The specialization among software devs isn't just limited to .NET/
Java. I know Ruby on Rails shops that only hire real Ruby on Rails
fanatics. They won't hire a .NET/Java developer who happens to know a
little RoR. I know embedded systems software teams who demand embedded
experience from new hires, and are used to getting inquiries from
developers with only application/server experience who are completely
convinced that they can do the job, but can't.

Secondly, I'd suggest that learning an additional programming language
is a weak choice for the typical software developer trying to build
their career.

If you are really interested in building your skill set and career
options, I'd suggest investing into more advanced academics. Take some
more advanced computer science coursework on machine learning or NLP
or learn more advanced statistics and engineering. It's easy to take a
master statistician or physicist or machine learning guru and teach
them a different programming language. The reverse is much harder.

[Fabrizio Giudici]

On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 20:54:38 +0200, clay <clayt...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I know Ruby on Rails shops that only hire real Ruby on Rails
> fanatics. They won't hire a .NET/Java developer who happens to know a
> little RoR.

We weren't talking of such a case, but about a professional who's
proficient in both languages.

[clay]

I suspect that the recruiter or hiring manager in the OP scenario
didn't agree with your assessment.

On Oct 5, 2:04 pm, "Fabrizio Giudici" <Fabrizio.Giud...@tidalwave.it>
wrote:

[Robert Casto]

Realistically if they are a Java shop, they are going to want a 100% Java developer. It is hard to make the case that you are strong in both languages. While it might be true, people will still think the developer has split their time between them and not have the depth they are looking for. This is probably not reality, but to hiring and projects managers, who make the decisions usually, they will see it another way. There are many reasons why people are turned down for a job. This is one reason where I would be happy that I didn't go a lot further in the process and have more invested in trying to get hired.

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[ricky.c...@gmail.com]

There's more to programming than career-building. You don't need to employ a team of experts in one technology, in fact you'll lose something in flexibility and knowledge if everyone's skillsets are identical.

I don't think I could disagree with you more completely.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

-----Original Message-----
From: clay <clayt...@gmail.com>
Sender: java...@googlegroups.com
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2011 11:54:38
To: The Java Posse<java...@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: java...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [The Java Posse] Re: Does experience with other technologies make you
less employable as a Java developer?