Why have Java Posse members changed jobs?

[abnormative]

The Java Posse seem to have worked at some great places. I'd love to
hear them discuss why they have made the job moves that they have in
the course of their careers. (But only if they feel that they can be
reasonably open about it.) Anyone else curious?

[Christian Catchpole]

Perhaps open the question to everyone. I've left good jobs for
various reasons. Geography, family.. redundancy? :). I interviewed
with a "premium employer" who i wont name. Their attitude was,
everyone wants to work here, so we reserve the right to not pay you
very much. The industry is fast moving so I think the expectation
that you would just stick with a 'premium employer' is not so clear
cut. The choice of employer comes down to many personal reasons, not
just salary and working conditions. Grass is greener. etc.

[Steven Herod]

I have left jobs for:

1. Lied to. (First job, stayed two days, apparent these people were
high order liars)
2. No future (Strongly believed that some 10 years later, I'd still be
doing the same thing)
3. Company has no future (Slow dive to death, you could smell it)
4. Redundancy (They closed the company down, (I could smell it, but I
loved the job))
5. Burn out (No, not one more production outage, I can't take it any
more...)
6. Boredom (Not. another. word. document. please)

I'm still searching for 'perfection'. Offers via email please :)

The premium employer/lower pay thing is interesting, personally I
think that's a form of exploitation, but hey, maybe I'm just odd.

On Dec 5, 4:46 pm, Christian Catchpole <christ...@catchpole.net>
wrote:

[Michael Neale]

other reasons:

* Great alternative offer/compromising photographs
* Lifestyle (or location)
* The feeling that "my work here is done" and you probably need a
change to get mojo back?

plenty of reasons.

Also, having certain names on your resume does help moving around a
bit, as well as living in a tech hub like SF/bay area where the job
market is fairly liquid at times.

Sounds like a topic for a future roundup session.

[Robert Casto]

Speaking of a liquid job market, how often is too often to be changing jobs?

If there is a problem, jumping ship is the right thing to do. But at what point do you look like you're not going to be happy anywhere and employers get that message from your resume?

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[Josh McDonald]

IMO If potential employers figure that out before you realise that you need to be working for yourself or switch careers, you're probably not much of a hacker ;-)

-Josh

2009/12/7 Robert Casto <casto....@gmail.com>

--
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Josh 'G-Funk' McDonald
  -  jo...@joshmcdonald.info
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[Robert Casto]

I guess I should have expected an answer that would assume I had a problem.

I would still like a good answer though, or at least some insight. To be clear, I have left jobs for many of the same reasons others have listed. I know of a couple friends though who have done  a lot of contract work and most of the jobs have been 3-6 months. They keep getting feedback from recruiters that potential employers think they are job hoppers. How do they fight this so they can get back to work?

[Michael Neale]

depends on the employer. Some of them invest in staff (in theory) and
thus expect some longevity so the training/experience can pay off. For
those cases, just having some stints that are more then a year or two
on your resume could help. I know if I saw a resume with lots of small
things on it, and I was a big co I probably would ask questions.

I think if there is feedback that they are "job hoppers" then it is
probably just an early discriminator in eliminating resumes from a
large pool of more attractive ones perhaps?

On Dec 7, 2:50 pm, Robert Casto <casto.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I guess I should have expected an answer that would assume I had a problem.
>
> I would still like a good answer though, or at least some insight. To be
> clear, I have left jobs for many of the same reasons others have listed. I
> know of a couple friends though who have done  a lot of contract work and
> most of the jobs have been 3-6 months. They keep getting feedback from
> recruiters that potential employers think they are job hoppers. How do they
> fight this so they can get back to work?
>

> On Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 10:02 PM, Josh McDonald <j...@joshmcdonald.info>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > IMO If potential employers figure that out before you realise that you need
> > to be working for yourself or switch careers, you're probably not much of a
> > hacker ;-)
>
> > -Josh
>

> > 2009/12/7 Robert Casto <casto.rob...@gmail.com>

>
> > Speaking of a liquid job market, how often is too often to be changing
> >> jobs?
>
> >> If there is a problem, jumping ship is the right thing to do. But at what
> >> point do you look like you're not going to be happy anywhere and employers
> >> get that message from your resume?
>

> >>> javaposse+...@googlegroups.com<javaposse%2Bunsubscribe@googlegroups .com>
> >>> .

> >>> For more options, visit this group at
> >>>http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
>
> >> --
> >> Robert Casto
> >>www.robertcasto.com
>
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> > --
> > "Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee."
>
> > Josh 'G-Funk' McDonald

> >   -  j...@joshmcdonald.info

> >   -  http://twitter.com/sophistifunk
> >   -  http://flex.joshmcdonald.info/
>
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[Christian Catchpole]

I think some amount of job hopping has to be expected in this game.
And I would see it as an advantage to a degree. It shows you have
broader experience and haven't settled into some kind of rut. But at
the same time a department director i respect once told me "good
people don't move around". Job changes every 3 months over 10 years
probably isn't a good look. Unless you are some kind of specialist
contractor. But 15 years working in a "protected" job doing no-
brainer work isn't so cool either. 15 Years at Google on the other
hand (yes, they've only been around for 10 years).

I sometimes drop short insignificant contracts from my resume. If
nothing else for paper real-estate and brain-space.

I'm hunting quality work in Brisbane (and Australia in general) at the
moment, so I'm painfully aware of all these issues. :)

Christian
http://catchpole.net/

[Robert Casto]

I appreciate the response. He has done contract work for the last 8 years because getting a full time job has always turned into a layoff. The economy has been pretty rough. Dropping items from the resume and just calling it contracting for a few years with a list of various projects is a great idea. I'll work with him on revamping the resume. Hopefully 2010 will be a much better year WRT employment.

Best of luck with your search. It is a tough time everywhere unfortunately.

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[Christian Catchpole]

Thanks Robert.

My hope is that the downturn put a lot of projects on hold and that
after Christmas the flood gates will be opened again. The Australian
economy has been very strong. (They are jacking up our interest
rates). I keep getting job offers in Sydney. But I'm in Brisbane and
it's a smaller market.

[Robert Casto]

Most jobs in the States are along the coasts. Pretty slim pickings in Ohio were I live.

I hope you are right about the flood gates. It feels like 2010 will be a good year, except in a few areas of the economy of course. I just hope it comes true and lowers the jobless rate. 10% is quite high though nothing like the 30% during the Great Depression.

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[Steven Herod]

18 months is a generally accepted industry average that gets thrown
around in Australia.

I would say a series of 3 month contracts over a period of a year to
18 months would be a bad idea. There are few projects that are 3
months duration and to have several orgs with that kind of project
length I would question.

4-5 years in one org would be odd, I guess if it ware a big IT company
(IBM/Google) then one might have expected varying roles/projects.

But 11 years at the same insurance company would not enthuse me,.

I strongly believe you pick up alot from seeing how different
organisations work, the question is, does your new role allow you to
practise what you've learned, or are you just finding out another way
not to do things :)

On Dec 7, 1:42 pm, Robert Casto <casto.rob...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Speaking of a liquid job market, how often is too often to be changing jobs?
>
> If there is a problem, jumping ship is the right thing to do. But at what
> point do you look like you're not going to be happy anywhere and employers
> get that message from your resume?
>

> > javaposse+...@googlegroups.com<javaposse%2Bunsubscribe@googlegroups .com>
> > .

[ScottMelton]

I do not think we should ask. That is highly personal information for
anyone, much less a person in the public light to answer. If they
wanted us to know, they would tell us. Yes, I am curious, but it is
none of my business.

[Vince O'Sullivan]

On Dec 6, 10:30 pm, Steven Herod <steven.he...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The premium employer/lower pay thing is interesting, personally I
> think that's a form of exploitation, but hey, maybe I'm just odd.

Not odd. Just ask this question: "Are the premium owners of this
company also
making corresponding returns for the honour of owning said company?".

[Christian Catchpole]

The company I'm talking about is probably the exception, not the
rule. And I didn't work there. :)

[MassH]

To agree with the OP, I would love to hear more career talk from the
Posse. But, IMO, this isn't the place to go for that.

This group is a neat place to hear some of the most brilliant minds on
the issues of library design, language features, and IDEs and software
tools...

But this group is largely out of touch with the opportunities and
demands of the industry. Where is there money to be made? Where are
the best jobs of today and tomorrow? What are the most important
skills to learn?

[Kevin Wright]

But this group is largely out of touch with the opportunities and
demands of the industry. Where is there money to be made? Where are
the best jobs of today and tomorrow? What are the most important
skills to learn?

Scala...?  Please be Scala! 

[Viktor Klang]

Plz
 

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[MassH]

That's exactly the kind of "out of touch" I was thinking about.

“I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be
statisticians,” said Hal Varian, chief economist at Google.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/technology/06stats.html)

That sounds a lot more plausible and that's the type of discussion
that isn't happening over here.

Scala is an abstract, computer geek, research toy.

You need a hot market, a hot product, and a revenue stream or a
realistic chance of getting one first, and then toolset and
implementation issues like choice of programming language follow.

[Steven Herod]

> Not odd.  Just ask this question: "Are the premium owners of this
> company also making corresponding returns for the honour of owning said company?".

Well, I already know the answer to *that* question don't I: Of course
they aren't.

[Kevin Wright]

So we take the proven reliability of Functional Programming, as demonstrated by Erlang

And deploy it on a near-ubiquitous corporate JVM ecosystem with about as much pain as adding a dependency to commons bean-utils.

As an incidental benefit, the developers are spared 2/3 of their code, which was just boilerplate anyway - thus making the thing easier to maintain.

I don't think any of this is "too abstract and geeky", or just a research toy, there are some definite high-visibility benefits to be had here.  Unless you believe that concepts like "time to market" or "system downtime" are just inconsequential academic trivialities.

I'm in total agreement though that a "hot product", such as twitter, would do wonders for the adoption of Scala

[MassH]

I'm sure Scala has plenty of tangible benfits, but you can make
similar cases for most other programming languages and it is all
firmly in the realm of developer preference.

If you're looking for the hot jobs/sklls of tomorrow, finding new
applications of technology is far more relevant than any specific
programming language or tool.

On Dec 8, 4:34 pm, Kevin Wright <kev.lee.wri...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> So we take the proven reliability of Functional Programming, as demonstrated
> by Erlang
> And deploy it on a near-ubiquitous corporate JVM ecosystem with about as
> much pain as adding a dependency to commons bean-utils.
> As an incidental benefit, the developers are spared 2/3 of their code, which
> was just boilerplate anyway - thus making the thing easier to maintain.
>
> I don't think any of this is "too abstract and geeky", or just a research
> toy, there are some definite high-visibility benefits to be had here.
>  Unless you believe that concepts like "time to market" or "system downtime"
> are just inconsequential academic trivialities.
>
> I'm in total agreement though that a "hot product", such as twitter, would
> do wonders for the adoption of Scala
>

> On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 9:45 PM, MassH <massimohei...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > That's exactly the kind of "out of touch" I was thinking about.
>
> > “I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be
> > statisticians,” said Hal Varian, chief economist at Google.
> > (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/technology/06stats.html)
>
> > That sounds a lot more plausible and that's the type of discussion
> > that isn't happening over here.
>
> > Scala is an abstract, computer geek, research toy.
>
> > You need a hot market, a hot product, and a revenue stream or a
> > realistic chance of getting one first, and then toolset and
> > implementation issues like choice of programming language follow.
>
> > On Dec 8, 1:14 pm, Kevin Wright <kev.lee.wri...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > > > But this group is largely out of touch with the opportunities and
> > > > demands of the industry. Where is there money to be made? Where are
> > > > the best jobs of today and tomorrow? What are the most important
> > > > skills to learn?
>
> > > Scala...?  Please be Scala!
>
> > --
>
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> > "The Java Posse" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to java...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to

> > javaposse+...@googlegroups.com<javaposse%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>
> > .

[Michael Neale]

short contracts are fine if they are short term consulting - generally
< 3 months, or varied lengths. A series of 3 month engagements would
indicate a not well liked contractor (consulting would be different).

In many cases once you have been around for a while then much of it
happens word of mouth/personal referral/who you know (obviously if you
move somewhere and start anew then its different). That is the ideal
position to be in for finding jobs. Networking/being involved helps.

As does having incriminating photographs like I have of Steven should
I ever need a favour.

[Steven Herod]

> As does having incriminating photographs like I have of Steven should
> I ever need a favour.

They were a gift damn it.

[Michael Neale]

On Dec 9, 11:03 am, MassH <massimohei...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm sure Scala has plenty of tangible benfits, but you can make
> similar cases for most other programming languages and it is all
> firmly in the realm of developer preference.
>
> If you're looking for the hot jobs/sklls of tomorrow, finding new
> applications of technology is far more relevant than any specific
> programming language or tool.

That last paragraph is golden. great advice !

> > > javaposse+...@googlegroups.com<javaposse%2Bunsubscribe@googlegroups .com>

[Christian Catchpole]

I'm glad you can't make out my face. But my serpent tattoo is a give
away.

[Joe Nuxoll (Java Posse)]

I'll see if the boys want to get into this on the next recording...

For me, it's pretty simple really. Better opportunities come along,
and sometimes you gamble and take them.

- Joe

[Spencer Uresk]

Interesting topic.

I changed jobs a lot at the start of my career, and didn't really
think much of it until I was interviewing for a job and one the the
interviewers said "You've changed jobs a lot. How do we know we know
you won't quit in 6 months if we hire you?" I was a little surprised
by that and it really caused me to think about how that sort of thing
looked to potential employers. I've been at that job for almost 4
years now, which is kind of a long time for me.

As for why I bounced around a little at first, there are a few
reasons:

- Salary. I love to write code, but I don't particularly enjoy having
to go to work every day :) So, even though I enjoy what I do, I'm not
going to lie and say pay doesn't matter (although it matters to me
less now than it did 5 years ago). I found that early on, there are
substantial incentives to change jobs - the amount of value a
developer has changes quite a bit between 6 months and 2 years of
experience, but no so much between 6 years and 8 years. Pay kind of
follows that trend - I nearly tripled my salary the first 5 years of
working, but now my potential increases are much smaller.

- Startups can be incredibly stressful and demoralizing, especially if
you join at the time between being a tiny startup and successful
company. It seems like a lot of startups have growing pains during
that time and don't really know how to hire or manage people very
well. The hours are still usually crazy, but you also don't have as
much upside from stock. It is even worse when you aren't really on the
same page as management - trying to get the website up at 4 am on
Monday morning when you've been there since 8 am on Friday is bad
enough, but when it is for totally ridiculous reasons it is enough to
make you quit.

- Wanting new challenges. Interestingly, for how much people seem to
disdain working for big companies, there are some really good things
about them. The IT organization I work for now is quite large, so if
you are getting bored or burned out by what you are doing, you can
usually move to another project without the difficulties of getting an
entirely new job. Of course, people still get reputations as project
hoppers, and it isn't instantaneous to move somewhere else -
especially if you are valuable to your current project - but at least
there is always something to look forward to if you aren't thrilled
with what you are currently doing.

I, too, have wondered about what the "right" amount of time to spend
at any one job is. I don't know that I'd knock anyone I was
interviewing for spending 10+ years at the same place, but for me at
least, it would probably be difficult to adjust to everything new
after being at the same place for so long. As for too short - I think
anything under 2 years on average might cause me to at least ask
questions. It isn't so much a matter of not wanting them to leave too
soon, but rather people who bounce around a lot and get bored easily
often seem to have problems with the mundane tasks required to get a
project done and out the door. I know a lot of guys who are up on the
latest technologies and seem to have a new job every time I talk to
them. I also know guys who aren't as flashy and always seem to get
stuck with the last (and worst) 10% of a project and slog through it
to get stuff finished. I'd rather have the latter in most cases,
although I realize it is never as black-and-white as I just made it
sound.

- Spencer

On Dec 4, 10:46 pm, Christian Catchpole <christ...@catchpole.net>

wrote:
> Perhaps open the question to everyone.  I've left good jobs for
> various reasons.  Geography, family.. redundancy? :).  I interviewed
> with a "premium employer" who i wont name.  Their attitude was,
> everyone wants to work here, so we reserve the right to not pay you
> very much.  The industry is fast moving so I think the expectation
> that you would just stick with a 'premium employer' is not so clear
> cut.  The choice of employer comes down to many personal reasons, not
> just salary and working conditions.  Grass is greener. etc.
>

[Frederic Simon]

Reminds me that I really liked the blog:

"The 10 Tech Commandments for Employment After Age 40" 

http://java.dzone.com/articles/techie-you-might-want-follow

Disclosure: It's my CEO :D

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