The Moments That Made Me Choose
Three stories about decisive moments I had while looking for a job
My grandfather, like many of his peers, worked for a single company for most of his life. Changing jobs wasn’t common in those days, and even when he had an internal job transfer (he moved to run a subsidiary), he heavily considered it before making a decision, as it was very unorthodox. Today, when the average software engineer stays at their job for 1–2 years, we can’t even imagine staying for so long in one place, even less working on the same tasks and being surrounded by the same people for even a tenth of the period my grandfather worked for his company. Our generation (millennials) has a constant need for change, and staying content is often hard without job-hopping.
But at that moment of truth — the moment of change, how do we decide which job offer to take? What positive indicators do we have for selecting one company over the others? In this post, I will share with you three stories about the moments during my hiring processes that helped me make a decision. Each story occurred in a different part of my life, and my motive for selecting that particular company was different. Or, in the spirit of Heraclitus’ philosophy (the doctrine of universal flux), alternative phrasing would be ‘three stories about three different men choosing a workplace’.
You Never Forget Your First (or, the Place That Felt Friendly)
Finding your first job as a computer science student is hard. Even writing a resume with no experience is a challenging task, and you desperately look for a way to stand out. For the sophomore me, taking a single major program was the way. I mentioned it in my resume but it went unnoticed for some time, until the day it didn’t.
But before I tell you about that interview, let me explain why I was so proud of being a single-major student. At the fine establishment I attended, single major students for a BSc CS are required to complete the most difficult and fearsome mathematics courses like calculus or linear algebra along with the BSc math students, in contrast to double majors and engineers. While we worked hard on proving theorems I can’t even pronounce, those lesser wannabes simply calculate integrals, or inverse matrices. In the first two or three semesters most of your courses are mathematical based so at that part of my studying career, the fact I was a single major was very significant (and depressing) for me.
So back to that unforgettable day, the day of that interview. I was interviewed by a team leader and her manager, and they went over my resume and asked some questions. All of a sudden, they asked “What do you mean by ‘special single major program’? I immediately and proudly explained in great detail about my single major program and my mathematician-level math courses, which are superior to the engineering program. The manager commented in a very serious tone about the fact that engineers are inferior and they both burst into laughter.
I was so inexperienced and lacked industry knowledge that I based my entire point of view on the narrow surroundings I had at the university. I didn’t even think of checking their `LinkedIn before the interview. If I only knew both of them were engineering majors, I could have prevented this embarrassment. But when I put aside the shame I felt at that moment, it was a pretty good moment. For just a few seconds, it felt more like three people laughing together in a weird situation, than a job interview. Don’t get me wrong — I don’t recommend any of you break the ice during a job interview by insulting the interviewers, at least not on purpose. There was something very naive and raw at that moment, and that pleasant pause of formality allowed me to see them both as just two friendly people that I would enjoy working with. I ended up with an offer which I accepted, and I learned a lot from them despite them being only engineers.
If you had a chance to read my previous blogs, you might have noticed that today I use the terms “software developer” and “software engineer” interchangeably. As a student, I leaned on very wrong assumptions to cope with the difficulty of the courses, but let me assure you that the degree you have (or don’t) doesn’t say anything about your abilities. Not a single task I had since graduation day forced me to prove the Bolzano–Weierstrass theorem.
Take a step up in uptown (or, passion over comfort)
My second story begins with a drive to Tel Aviv. Traffic was heavy and the drivers in the city were much more aggressive than the ones I knew from the suburbs. I got to the address only to find an old and outdated building that had unappealing stores on the ground floor and a few offices on the higher floors. I told myself: “What a mistake. No way am I taking this job. I am not replacing my three-mile drive to the office with those traffic jams. And surely not for this! It’s too late to cancel, you don’t want to look unprofessional. Just go upstairs, do your best (you need the practice anyway) and if you pass the interview just let them know you are unwilling to continue with the process”.
So I went up there, and to be honest — just like a tardis, it was much more impressive from the inside. As expected from a Telavivian startup, the office was small, well-designed, and dog-friendly, and the people seemed young and friendly. The guy that was supposed to interview me was not in the office so I was interviewed by one of the founders instead.
He was an impressive interviewer, but what impressed me the most was his technical question. He asked me to write programs in bytecode-like language, which was challenging and interesting. I later understood that working on the bytecode level was pretty common for them: they did bytecode manipulation, messed around with the JVM, and did all sorts of creative shenanigans for optimizing their Java agent.
After this interview I knew I wanted to work there. I didn’t care anymore about the distance or the traffic. I just wanted the opportunity to work on this product and do all those unique things that I never heard of. The work was hard and sometimes frustrating, but I learned a lot there and dealt with really special domains.
During the Plague (or, Trusting the Wisdom of the Crowd)
This story starts with a job offer. I was already told I have been accepted but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take this offer. The entire process has been done remotely and I haven’t met anyone from that company in person, so I figured I should talk with some employees before making a decision. I asked to visit the office, and the recruiter scheduled a tour for me with a senior manager. Unfortunately, due to personal reasons the manager I was supposed to meet with didn’t show up to the office that day, and the task to escort me was dropped on that morning into the lap of a guild master we’ll call Jacob.
It was pretty clear to me that Jacob hadn’t done any preparations. He just came to the office that day to do his ordinary daily tasks, with no pre-practiced speech in mind. Despite that, he didn’t seem too nervous about the fact he was expected to convince me to sign the contract. I got the impression that Jacob truly believed in the company and he felt that his honest words would be good enough to sell it.
Jacob showed me around several floors of the office (that was mostly empty because of COVID-19) and at the end of the tour, I asked him to find somewhere we could sit and talk. We sat in a conference room and to his surprise I pulled out a printer A4 paper from my bag, filled with pre-written questions. Some of them were somewhat difficult to answer, like “Why do you enjoy working here?”, “What would you change?” and “How would you describe the company culture?”. I don’t recall all the answers I got but I do recall he answered every question I had with great respect and effort (even the ones that forced him to say something negative about the company), and none of these answers ‘red-flagged’ me.
As Jacob walked me to the elevator at the end of my visit, he mentioned one last fact that sealed the deal: “You know, the average tenure here is much higher than the industry standard. People love working here”. He went on with numbers that were really impressive; He was getting close to his 6 year anniversary (and as I write these lines he exceeded 9) and many of his colleagues also had an impressive tenure. Mentioning employee retention was a really smart way for convincing me to take the offer. It’s like saying: “If you weren’t already convinced by now — know that you can also rely on many others that just like you had the same dilemma, and chose to join us, and they are very happy with their choice”. I ended up taking the job and never regretted it.
Conclusion
Choosing your next employer can be challenging, especially when you have vast experience. Your expectations for the process are mostly based on your past experiences. Each company you worked for had its pros and cons, and obviously you can’t find one place that will beat anywhere you ever worked before in every way. You can’t have the compensation of A, with the technology of B, the work-life balance of C and the colleagues from D, working at the office of E. Comparing a current proposal with your entire history will always require some compromise, and you’ll have to decide what are your deal breakers. From the other side of the coin, I would suggest employers find the advantages they have over other companies in the market and stress them during recruitment. Candidates should not be the only ones trying to distinguish themselves from the rest.
