Senior Frontend Developer Yuriy Honcharuk told how he, a programmer with 25 years of experience, was rejected due to an alleged lack of commercial experience working with monorepositories. The community is actively discussing this case.
Senior Frontend Developer Yuriy Honcharuk told how he, a programmer with 25 years of experience, was rejected due to an alleged lack of commercial experience working with monorepositories. The community is actively discussing this case.
«I’m writing this post after another technical interview. I’m an engineer with over 25 years of experience. I’ve gone from MS DOS (BASIC) to React and AI-oriented API development, worked in teams of two to dozens of people, launched products for thousands of users. The last 8 years — Senior Frontend Developer / Tech Lead / Architect: I create architectures, lead teams, communicate with clients, build systems from scratch and bring them to production. And after all this, I receive a letter: „You don’t have enough commercial experience working with monorepositories — this is a significant problem“,» the IT professional said on LinkedIn.
According to Yuri, such a refusal is like a formal rejection of a checklist.
«Seriously? Frameworks and approaches have changed dozens of times. I’ve developed my own libraries, worked with systems where monorepo is a trifle, not a «hiring risk.» Technologies come and go. But engineering thinking, the ability to build architectures and quickly master new tools, always remain. At this point, I want to ask:
«Do we really evaluate engineers on their merits, or do we just check the checklist?» wrote an indignant IT worker.
In addition, Yuriy shared that he received an offer from another company that appreciated his skills. “ While some were looking for «commercial experience with monorepo,» I received an offer from a company that thinks truly strategically.
To develop our own framework and interpreter for a new, XML-based programming language that mimics the React approach. And what’s most interesting: we are creating this framework specifically for web developers who lack the experience and skills to effectively work directly with React.
«This only confirms that the most valuable thing is not compliance with a checklist, but deep engineering thinking and the ability to create new tools, not just use existing ones,» he noted.
The post is being actively discussed by the community — there are over 100 comments under the post.
«I regularly encounter this same problem. 35 years of experience, 35 of which are commercial. And every time „you don’t have enough commercial experience“. It happened that they wanted commercial experience more than the technology lives in industrial use. But in fact, engineers with 20-30+ years of experience are too expensive for the modern market. Now it’s cheaper for an employer to hire juntas for three kopecks. Yes, the project may not take off, then they will hire engineers to pull it out. Or they may not hire them…», shared Senior iOS/macOS developer Ihor Taratayko .
Yuriy Pelinko, DBA ORACLE, suggests: «Most likely, during the conversation, you discovered their weaknesses. And arrogance will not allow someone who is wiser than the technical manager, and who also speaks Russian, to work.»
Petro Sasnyk, technical product manager, comments as follows: About monorepo — they made a fuss. That’s what you need — such enchanting dolby.obs. You haven’t lost anything. It’s better to lose with a smart person than to find with a fool.»
«I think you haven’t lost anything. A company that can’t appreciate the fact that a specialist with 25 years of experience wrote all these Reacts himself (or rather, alternatives when React didn’t exist yet) wouldn’t respect you and wouldn’t pay you the desired salary,» noted Android Developer Artem Pelevin .
Igor Vinnik, Node.js Tech/Team Lead, believes that Yuri’s story is a classic. «What you are telling is a classic. And there are 2.5 reasons for this kind of rejection. First, the match between the team and the candidates simply did not take place — and this is just a catch to give at least some more/less structured feedback.
Secondly, the level of engineers in the company is not high, or they are not yet mature as specialists. They have studied some technology well, and this, for example, is 50% of their knowledge, and they think that if a person does not know this technology, then he is 50% less skilled than the interviewer. And for someone, knowledge of this technology is only 5% of a person’s general skills. In addition, of course, a library or framework is more about understanding patterns and approaches than about a specific implementation.
Third, in our world of outsourcing/outstaffing, they can interview for a specific customer/project, the interviewer is told that the requirements are as follows, because the customer’s requirements are as follows, and that’s it. In this case, the interviewer’s goal is simply to go through the checklist, and the customer’s goal is simply to get a person who will start closing the gaps as quickly as possible because development must go on, and how much profit a person will bring to the project is a completely different story, a product story, and this is outsourcing/outstaffing,» he notes.
According to product owner Valentin Shaverda, it is necessary to understand that many HRs do not even remotely understand what monorepositories are, nor what commercial experience is. «That is why such incidents happen. Trying to explain something in most situations is a waste of time. There have been more interesting situations. I am already used to it. A smart employer is looking for smart people, not experience with some kind of stack,» he believes.
« Screw it. This answer was copy-pasted by a 20-year-old recruiter who has a problem with spelling and punctuation,» suggests QA Engineer Nataliya O.
