Tech companies think most senior developers who fail interviews lack problem-solving skills. About 99% of developers are in this category. Why don't these incompetent developers focus on improving their skills instead of blaming the entire system?

Tech companies think most senior developers who fail interviews lack problem-solving skills. About 99% of developers are in this category. Why don't these incompetent developers focus on improving their skills instead of blaming the entire system?

99% of developers—whose job is literally to solve problems—lack… problem solving skills?

Do you even listen yourself? How absurd that even sounds?

So why? Because tech companies don’t really think that. And everyone knows it. It’s not a secret. It’s just fiction we entertain because no one really wants to deal with.

They tend to prefer gullible, moldable new graduates. And larger companies freely and openly play the system. Take Google’s compensation package. The basic package. It’s large—for a new grad. But it’s not THAT large. And the average senior at Google (not all; just average) can earn less than comparable market salaries elsewhere. Which is why so many people jump ship from Google. And Google isn’t too concerned; they’re not out to develop and retain talent; Google highly prioritizes constant of new talent.

I remember in the late 90s/early 2000s, Microsoft was one of the bigger “offenders”. They would post jobs. Do a few interviews. Conclude that it was impossible to find candidates. And then, hire a foreign worker on an H1B visa.

I have absolutely nothing against H1B visas or foreign workers. But—let’s be frank—the “competent output” was often not there, in terms who they actually hired. (And language barriers often created more issues, but I’m not judging—it’s cost issue.) See, they weren’t really looking for “problem-solving skills.” They were looking for workers, who would demand less compensation.

Which is fine. They can do that. But they wouldn’t say that part out loud. Instead, they had to say, “No one is competent.”

Does that even sound not laughable on its face? C’mon. So why’d that do it?

Because the H1B certification legally requires it. Before you could hire them, you had to certify that you tried to find domestic workers and you couldn’t find qualified people. Even before mass recruiting was a thing, they’d get all kinds of resumes. Not really review them. Deem everyone unqualified, and then certify to the Department of Labor that they needed foreign workers. And then quite promptly hire many “qualified employees.”

It was never a competence issue. It was a cost issue.

Why don't these incompetent developers—

Notice how you had to drop the “senior” to make that even sound like it made sense. While it does happen, it’s pretty hard to be a senior developer and be incompetent.

The thing is, if you’ve been around the block for a few decades, you understand the games that are played. It’s been the same shit, over and over… for 30 years. I’d bet a good penny, people older would say, “Oh no. It’s always been like that.”

For most actual senior engineers, skills really aren’t the issue. Especially in larger tech companies, their age becomes an issue. Those same tech companies really, really, really intensely dislike hiring “older” workers—they want the young newbies that they can use.

And they’re very careful about avoiding any implication that they’re violating the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act. There is always some plausible deniability by HR about why people with more qualifications and experience are oddly not qualified.

(—Which is kinda silly, because in every other industry, what that means is, “We can’t afford you.” And it means the same thing.)