Quick Links: Download Gideros Studio | Gideros Documentation | Gideros Development Center | Gideros community chat | DONATE
Hiring and IT Industry — Gideros Forum

Hiring and IT Industry

OZAppsOZApps Guru
edited June 2013 in Relax cafe
On and off I keep getting some head hunters call me up and the conversations are quite interesting specially given the fact that the guys on the other end have no clue, but know buzz words, might not ever have used an iPhone but might be recruiting for iOS or Objective-C related positions and ask questions that seem like this conversation.

http://dawood.in/if-carpenters-were-hired-like-programmers/

It is also a bit of a shame to note that a lot of organisations spend (read that as WASTE) money on creating apps that need to be recreated for another platform and thereby end up paying hundreds and thousands of dollars for the same AND most importantly end up with products that look and feel real crappy. They can opt for middleware and frameworks that hinge on Lua, Javascript, etc that offer multi-platform options but it seems that the larger contracting companies also have the same issues as the $10 backpackers that run the employment agencies in Australia. They have absolutely no idea of the industry and the technologies. This is a bit of a passionate topic as I see several of my students battling this barrier and have heard enough battle stories and experienced this first hand too.

Likes: Platypus

twitter: @ozapps | http://www.oz-apps.com | http://howto.oz-apps.com | http://reviewme.oz-apps.com
Author of Learn Lua for iOS Game Development from Apress ( http://www.apress.com/9781430246626 )
Cool Vizify Profile at https://www.vizify.com/oz-apps
+1 -1 (+1 / -0 )Share on Facebook

Comments

  • I thought in that post you were going to reference a quote that was on the first page of one of the first books on programming I ever brought.

    Can't remember who said it - but I've tried to be mindful of it since day one

    "If carpenters built houses like programmers write code, then the first Woodpecker would destroy civilisation"

    :)

    Likes: fxone

    WhiteTree Games - Home, home on the web, where the bits and bytes they do play!
    #MakeABetterGame! "Never give up, Never NEVER give up!" - Winston Churchill
    +1 -1 (+1 / -0 )Share on Facebook
  • @techdojo, I avoid quoting quotes as there is enough of that on Facebook and other social media. However the link above was funny as it was a bit like the MAD humour or some early articles from Punch and it also touched upon a topic that I feel strongly about given that the industry decisions are heavily influenced by HR and that most of these specialist are the $10 backpackers (i.e unexperienced and ignorant) but then every person is an expert when it comes to computers, the sales guy at the local computer store told me that he makes apps for Androids but had no idea about a programming language used for the same ;)
    twitter: @ozapps | http://www.oz-apps.com | http://howto.oz-apps.com | http://reviewme.oz-apps.com
    Author of Learn Lua for iOS Game Development from Apress ( http://www.apress.com/9781430246626 )
    Cool Vizify Profile at https://www.vizify.com/oz-apps
  • It is actually quite frustrating, especially when you hear "has to be native" knowing full well they don't understand what that even means.

    Coincidentally I was chatting with a company director fairly recently about an app he wanted building and he said those very words in a 'buzzwords make me sound clever' kind of way. He can be a bit of a marketing nobhead somethings :) .

    When I asked why it had to be native his response was "performance", facepalm! That was the only reason and he probably only said it after hearing off of some equally unqualified person.

    Tried to explain that native isn't a byword for performance and that an app version of his website wouldn't be doing anything too intensive anyway. But he went on about having thousands of datapoints to process, blah blah. I've had regular chats with him and his dev's so I knew all of that got handled server side anyway, as it should.

    The biggest bottleneck will be receiving the data from the server, which is completely reliant on the device connection bandwidth and not the app. No amount of native wizardry will speed up a crap connection (second facepalm).

    The upshot is that even after explaining the benefits of unified coding and being able to deploy cross-platform he's gone and chose a big agency to create native android and ios apps for just over 80k (third facepalm). That agency really know's how to sway the people that make budget decisions. The quote was about 20 pages long and looked like a glossy holiday brochure full of pictures, case studies and justifications.


    Likes: OZApps

    +1 -1 (+1 / -0 )Share on Facebook
  • @james, those issues will remain after but you cannot beat one manager/director that I recall, Oman (the country) was conducting a census that year and they wanted to have all the data captured electronically and for the same they decided to use mobile device at the time it was either Windows Pocket PC or the Palm Pilots. Funnily there was not enough stock for the PocketPC in the MENA region to support this, so they had to go with Palm Pilots (and I also think it had something to do with the software and kickbacks) However there was this snr. manager of a IT company that prided itself as one of the top suppliers, who suggested that they could buy palm pilots, replace the hard drives, install the pocket pc os on it. In short, he had no clue about these devices and that is how many of the people that call the shots are. They use apps and Boast to their friends where they get to hear the buzz words and try to engage into a pissing contest with who has an app for their business and what it does.
    twitter: @ozapps | http://www.oz-apps.com | http://howto.oz-apps.com | http://reviewme.oz-apps.com
    Author of Learn Lua for iOS Game Development from Apress ( http://www.apress.com/9781430246626 )
    Cool Vizify Profile at https://www.vizify.com/oz-apps
Sign In or Register to comment.