How I didn't get a DevOps job for Xmas

At the end of November, I had an awkward call with my line manager at the place I was working. They had decided to lay me off as a remote worker and hire someone at their base

The remote working communications had been not great. They were a small company not used to dealing with remote staff. The culture was based around the one office

It had been a cool place to work but I agreed that it was time to look for something else

Shouldn't be too hard right? I am an experienced DevOps/Systems Admin/Developer specialising in systems automation, software-controlled infrastructure, CI/CD pipes. I've got strong Python, Linux admin and a supporting cast of dozens of practices and technologies from many years of experience

I'd prefer remote but I live in commute distance of Bristol in the UK which is a great tech centre

First few attempts

Pretty much the next day after the call I was looking at all the places I normally look for jobs. My CV was, as always, up to date. I use the excellent kick resume site to manage it

I did have to reinstate the details
on LinkedIn. I'd removed them to lessen the amount of spam I get from recruiters. Now, however, I would be fine to get recruiter emails. More about that later

Initially, I applied to a couple of places. A local consultancy where a friend already worked - giving me glowing reviews about it
And a company I'd not heard of before, UK based, who specialised in secure communications for distributed workers

How these things work is that you apply with a CV and cover letter. Then if you get through screening there is an initial call from someone non-technical (maybe in HR if they have that) just to check that you aren't completely nuts

I got through the initial call phase with both of the above easily

Next, all the companies have a second layer - either an interview, a technical challenge or something else.

The secure comms company came up with something else. They had an automated video interview system. It asked questions, gave you thinking time and then you recorded an answer

The consultancy went for a technical task, which they said should take 6 or 7 hours. When I read it I thought "Well maybe, if everything goes swimmingly that's 7 hours" Of course it didn't and I spent the entire weekend building a CI/CD pipeline

Of the companies that use a technical task as part of their process, it's usual to then use this as the basis for a further meeting.

So I was lined up to be grilled by 4 developers and managers in the team I was going to be hired in. Just before the Google Hangout, both of my Bluetooth headsets refused to pair with the laptop and I noticed a bug in the implementation I'd done. I started the interview flustered and didn't really recover. At one point they asked me what stuff was in the VPC I'd set up - a real 101 question which I failed to answer at all convincingly

So that was a turndown and they were left with the impression that, actually, I don't know much about AWS

The secure comms people didn't get back to me for a while. When I contacted them they'd hired someone cheaper instead

Then I had a weeks holiday booked abroad so I had a week off

Round two

Refreshed by winter sun I really got on the case when I returned

• There's a data science company local to me.
• There's an opening where I used to work.
• There's an interesting sounding startup offering fully remote. Apply to all of them!

An email comes in from a contact saying yes, our company is hiring
fill in the form, please.

I contacted my favourite two recruiters SR2 and Techfolk

Both of them come up with some great ideas, one of which leads to an interview/ tech task/ another interview at a software company in Bristol

Unlike the many recruitment agents who contacted me on Linkedin. Most of them were offering roles in London and/or fintech. I also had a surprising number of direct approaches from companies abroad. But I don't want to work in Sweden, Frankfurt or Dublin.

After an intensive 2 weeks of zoom, tech tasks, phone calls and onsite interviews I have got to the "we will let you know" step with 4 companies.

Another week and I should have an offer! Maybe two!

Bust

However, the two favourite ones both let me know that no, I wasn't for them.

The other two are still pending but let's face it. The longer you wait the less likely a positive outcome is

So no job for me!

What did I learn

A few things of interest became apparent

• Tech tasks

I am usually not too bad at these. They are often a great learning opportunity as inevitably whoever you are hiring with will assume that their in house way is just obvious: but it will include at least one thing you never used

Another potential problem is that they all assume that you can do frontend things easily. I am a backend only person so that's always a refreshing change

If they say the task will take x hours then best realistic hope is that it will actually take x + 1

Although one of the above was 2x + 1

Noone offers to pay you for what is essentially work in your own time

• Travel expenses

I'm sure that I used to get travel expenses for interviews? Not any more! Not offered by any of them

• Feedback

Some of them offer "feedback". This is of little use in refining your offer and its main value is to offer closure. One said "there is a gap between working philosophies, methodologies and communication styles" which kind of means that we didn't like the way you talked.

In a sense, the problem with feedback is the problem with the interview process itself. Interviews cannot, in a limited time, work out if you are any use. So also feedback, in a limited format cannot express the irrational decisions of the interview process

The upside

So, no job to look forward to in the new year. But there is an upside. I have loads of time to learn cool new stuff! At the moment I am reading the papers from The Database Internals Advent Calendar, I've got the Tilt system working with my Kubernetes toy project and I have a book on TLA+ to work through