Job Offer WTFs



  • So my company is going belly up (given some of my prior posts this year, you kind of had to see it coming) and I'm sorting through job offers, when I come upon these two different companies in two different worlds...

    1. Large "offshore" consulting company. They offer me $150K base + bonus, but the catch is that I have to be willing to go anywhere they say on a moment's notice. During multiple phone interviews and one lunch meeting, they repeatedly tell me that I'd be the only one, among thousands, that has anything near my qualifications for task x. As such, even though "I wouldn't need to travel", that whenever they needed it, I'd be sent all over from client to client in an attempt to build their business. I was unable to impress upon them that this was a contradiction.

    I have a wife and young kids, and it's more important to me to be home on a predictable schedule at this point in my life, so after the second phone conversation, I politely thank them and turn it down. They immediately bump the offer (without my even attempting to negotiate) to $200K base + bonus. Again, I point out that it's not the money, it's the traveling, and turn it down again. They up it to $205K (don't ask me why), as though that would make a difference. I turn it down a third time.

    I think that this time they finally got the message.

    1. Small slightly-older-than-startup company, growing at 400%/year (their claim). They want someone who is a whiz at very high performance real time threaded systems, an expert in building redundant (clustered) systems that scale to hundreds of millions of transactions per day, an expert in Java, an expert in Oracle, and expert in web UI design, an expert in ajax/php/asp/C#/.Net, a manager, and a few other things.

    After a month, the position is still unfilled; not even one qualified candidate. They wake up and make it into seven positions. My interview is for the real time multi-threading/Java guru slot. The guy tells me that he doesn't normally like candidates from my (business) background because they tend to throw money at problems.

    So he wants someone who can build a virtually infinitely scalable ultra high performance threaded clustered distributed system that encapsulates web traffic, program-generated traffic, servlets, hyper-threading and databases, all without any real costs. Needless to say I am not pursuing the position.

    I don't yet know if my new overlords will be requiring my services (I actually hope they do as the acquiring company has a good reputation)...

    Still, ya gotta love interviewing!



  • @snoofle said:

    Oracle..., all without any real costs.

     

    ORA-07851: Implicit contradiction detected.

    CAUSE: The request you issued is logically inconsistent.

    ACTION: Change one or more constraints to make the request logically sound. 



  •  Interesting how they always need someone that's a an expert in 10 different technologies. Do people like that even exist? Or am I an underachiever?



  • @DOA said:

     Interesting how they always need someone that's a an expert in 10 different technologies. Do people like that even exist?

     

    Yes, they exist. Unfortunately, they are not experts in the 11th technology, called "getting work done". 



  • @DOA said:

     Interesting how they always need someone that's a an expert in 10 different technologies. Do people like that even exist? Or am I an underachiever?

    Apparently not - the head hunter told me that the single position they had posted went unfilled for quite a while - and they finally acknowledged that their version of realilty and reality were never going to align. Another red flag.

     



  • @DOA said:

    Interesting how they always need someone that's a an expert in 10 different technologies. Do people like that even exist? Or am I an underachiever?

    I'm sure there are plenty of talented techies out there who've brushed with or used most, but it's almost impossible to remain current with that many at once.



  • @Xiphonex said:

    @DOA said:

    Interesting how they always need someone that's a an expert in 10 different technologies. Do people like that even exist? Or am I an underachiever?

    I'm sure there are plenty of talented techies out there who've brushed with or used most, but it's almost impossible to remain current with that many at once.

    ORLY?  I HAD NO IDEA


  • @snoofle said:

    . Large "offshore" consulting company. They offer me $150K base + bonus, but the catch is that I have to be willing to go anywhere they say on a moment's notice. During multiple phone interviews and one lunch meeting, they repeatedly tell me that I'd be the only one, among thousands, that has anything near my qualifications for task x. As such, even though "I wouldn't need to travel", that whenever they needed it, I'd be sent all over from client to client in an attempt to build their business. I was unable to impress upon them that this was a contradiction.
     

     Sounds a bit Dharma to me, let's hope you didn't say anything about your family getting hit by a bus.



  • @snoofle said:

    @DOA said:

     Interesting how they always need someone that's a an expert in 10 different technologies. Do people like that even exist? Or am I an underachiever?

    Apparently not - the head hunter told me that the single position they had posted went unfilled for quite a while - and they finally acknowledged that their version of realilty and reality were never going to align. Another red flag.

     

    Finding people who know 100 diff languages is not a problem. Finding someone who is REALLY good at using a few languages is pretty simple too. But you can't have both at once.

     

    Theres an OLD CCCP(thats the soviet for you non-russians) children's song that says "Just accept the fact that you can't know everything about everything". I think the communists did get at least one thing right.

    Also good luck on finding the budgeted oracle expert.



  • @snoofle said:

    (...)They want someone who is a whiz at very high performance real time threaded systems, an expert in building redundant (clustered) systems that scale to hundreds of millions of transactions per day, an expert in Java, an expert in Oracle, and expert in web UI design, an expert in ajax/php/asp/C#/.Net, a manager, and a few other things.(...)

    That kinda describes 90% of the job offers me and my pals get through our mailing list.


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