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Sorry, Conceptual Fluency Won't Land You a Job

I saw a recent post where a software engineer/programming influencer was encouraging:

If you know how to work with C#, you can learn Java.
If you know how to work with JavaScript, you can learn TypeScript.
If you know how to work with GitHub Actions, you can learn Jenkins.
If you know how to work with SQL, you can learn SparkSQL.
If you know how to work with Angular, you can learn React.
If you know how to work with Databricks, you can learn Snowflake.
If you know how to work with Event Hubs, you can learn Kafka.
If you know how to work with Bicep, you can learn Terraform.
It's not the tools that are important, it's the concepts.

Kudos for speaking the truth. With 20 years of experience in software engineering myself, I whole heartedly agree with her post. But sadly, the market doesn’t value conceptual fluency.

From a job search perspective, conceptual fluency presumes you're networking and already in contact with the hiring manager, they like you, and they are willing to give some "wiggle room" on requirements. There are many candidates who don’t have that luxury. They're stuck looking for work on slop job boards, and when applying in this manner, the ATS that helps the overworked recruiter is configured to match Java, not C#*. Applicants applying cold through job boards or recruiters aren’t evaluated as thinkers, they’re filtered as product.

As the market continues implodes, we're also left with many unemployed, extremely qualified engineers. Employers seem more inclined nowadays to wade through the hundreds of applicants to find the unicorn that matches their reqs than to the dedicate time and resources to train. They also don't intend to keep the engineer around for very long, for example using unregretted attrition to save on benefits and lower salaries. There's no loyalty and thus no incentive for training.

Fun fact: I once had a hiring manager explicitly say candidates should "learn on their own time" (I withdrew my application).

What's also interesting to think about is the impact that AI coding assistants are having. Most tech stacks are common enough where engineers can use these on a daily basis for their professional work. They don't have to be proficient in React because an LLM will spit out code for them. Critical thinking is still required to solve bugs, but the day to day proficiency is less important now. At least thats what the marketing hype is leading us to believe. I don't see many jobs listings that show the employers have adjusted their mindset to reflect the new reality they're trying to bring about. There should be no distinction between a C# or Java or PHP programmer... it should be just "experienced programmer".

I guess that makes me feel a little better about the decline of Stack Overflow and what it means for the language rankings that reference the site.

Oh, and what does it mean for things like coding interviews? :-D

* Except when it doesn't... but even then it does... because it doesn't.... but sometimes.... depends on who you ask

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