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Hiring Software Engineers/Programmers?

By On · 2 Comments

[Update]Just to add on. My point is not to say that EE students can be a replacement for (good)CS/IS peeps. My point is that companies should no longer think that SoC is the only place where they can get good programmers. They can get them from other faculties too. It does not take a degree from SoC to make one a good programmer. Similarly, a degree from SoC does not mean one can program either.[/Update]

Just a thought. A rather explosive one. One that will piss off many people, but a valid one nonetheless.

Since many companies in Singapore are complaining about the lack of good enough students to join the technology workforce from NUS School of Computing, especially jobs that are not Java related, maybe, just maybe, it would be better to hire the electrical engineers to code, even for web apps.

There are a few reasons for this.

  1. These guys code at the Assembly/C level
    If there anyone who has coded their entire life with a very clear understanding of performance, it is these guys. They understand why abstractions can be bad, and they are innately conscious of how bloated a program can be when they are coding. Because they think in Assembly/C.
  2. They know how other programming languages work
    With such a clear understanding of Assembly/C, and the fact that almost everything else is build on top of these 2, when they use the abstracted functions, in languages like Ruby/Python, they have an idea of how it works. Because they innately start thinking of how someone would implement it.
  3. They can learn damn fast
    And because they have worked at the lowest level their entire life, they will find it easier to understand the higher level language, by virtue of the fact that higher level languages are supposed to abstract out the hard parts in the lower level language

So, to those guys who have been complaining that SoC doesn’t produce real men(trust me, I agree with you on this, but that’s another post for another day), maybe it’s time to cast your nets somewhere else, and go hire EE students rather than CS/IS students.

Just a thought.

When you(the biz people) are looking for tech cofounders

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Just read this pretty good piece, Recruiting Penn Engineers: Getting intro emails right.

Seems like the biz ppl have no idea how to recruit the engineering ppl, aka, us the hackers.

A couple of good points from the post.

Be humble and straight-forward: I believe you; this is an awesome idea. Engineers are by and large friendly, no-bullshit people. Please don’t throw words like synergy and competitive advantage around: they absolutely make sense in the business context and it’s great that you’re thinking about this stuff. As far as Engineers are concerned, though, this doesn’t make you look impressive or competent; it makes you look like a suit who is too focused on business-y things to understand the technical challenges involved in the work. Nothing is more annoying than working for somebody who you feel doesn’t understand your job.

Get your (technical) facts straight: Don’t ask for somebody with at least 7 years of Ruby on Rails experience. If you’re not sure why that’s funny, look it up. There’s no simpler way to get your email ignored than to show that you have no idea what work actually needs to be done. If you haven’t invested the bare minimum of time required to do your research, that says something about your approach to technical work. Don’t be a pointy-haired boss.

Remember this:

They are not the code monkey. You are the biz monkey.

That’s just how it is.

And I think this is quite true. I do get some offers, and all the offers I’ve gotten so far are like this. I’ve been polite so far, except to the one guy who told me I should be happy with a $350 pay and no equity.

We are not the code monkeys, we are the guys who turn ideas great.