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Ridiculous job requirements

A very amusing (and possibly frustrating) experience for a Node.js developer is browsing through node.js job posts and having a look at the job requirements with a mixture of amazement and disbelief. Node is very young and as such, some recruiters, or worse, companies get a bit confused on its history. Like the one above.

If we do just a little math we can determine that, given that Node.js was created in 2009, it’s literally impossible to have 9 years experience. Well, only if you manage to travel to the future, get a few more years of Node experience and the come back and apply for this job. But that might be a bit difficult.

Another option, as one reddit user puts it after a company asks for 10 years of Node experience is to code on two machines simultaneously, for double the experience.

Job requirements tend to become more and more ridiculous. Sometimes it seems like the recruiter or the employer doesn’t actually know what they want, or if they do, it’s not something very likely. Like job posts with the headline “Node.js developer” that carry on with ”Must also be proficient in: Java, PHP and Perl.”

There are plenty of Node.js positions available, if you do a quick search on any job site, you’ll find quite a few, but most of them are not just Node positions. There’s a dangerous trend going on, that comes either from ignorance or from a simple desire to have, not just full stack developers, but full everything developers. Programmers that know more than 5 languages, do front end and back end and are familiar with the latest frameworks. Every employer want to hire someone that is good in that respective field, but some want the sun and the moon at minimum wage as well.

That’s how you get a Junior Developer position with the following requirements;

  • has 4+ years experience

  • experienced in 5+ backend web languages/frameworks (eg PHP)

  • experience with UI/UX design and development (HTML/CSS/JS)

Responsibilities are really heavy in both frontend and backend development, including security, requirements analysis, some sysad stuff, etc

Some job postings are just funny, made by people that either don’t understand how programmers work (non technical people) or just want a stuffie job posting to look “serious”. Like whet a Reddit user got confused about a job posted that required expert knowledge in Ewok. After applying (and mentioning that he was an expert in that language) and getting hired he never heard anything about the Ewok language that he was supposed to know, and no surprise, he didn’t bring it up either.

What mind shattering job posts have you run into lately?

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Node University

Node.js University is a new and exciting project brought to you by Azat Mardan. If you’re not familiar with the name, here’s a quick bio on him. Azat is a technology fellow at Capitol One and JavaScript and Node.js author. He wrote Practical node.js, React Quickly, Full Stack JavaScript, Pro Express.js etc. We covered Capitol One’s involvement in Node.js in a recent article. Even though they are are a bank, their investments and dedication to technology and node.js in particular is something to appreciate.

Azat Mardan is a pretty well known figure in the Node community, he held several workshops and courses in conferences like Node Interactive and ForwardJS. He also teaches at NodeProgram.com and is a mentor at nodeSchool.io. Node University is his new project, a free education platform focused on Video Tutorials for the JavaScript ecosystem, about topics such as: Node, Express, JavaScript, ECMAScript, Mongoose, React, Webpack, npm, MongoDB, HTTP/2, OAuth, HTML5 and others as well. As an experienced developer and a skilled teacher it’s no surprise to see him behind a concept like Node University.

Video tutorials and courses are very popular right now, it’s an easy to consume teaching medium, a very practical way to teach coding and development in general. This is not something new, there are plenty of similar platforms out there, like Udemy, but these are a bit more generalistic. There’s also Youtube videos available of course and many other, but variety isn’t necessarily all good, as it can be hard to find the right video that brings value to you. It can also be difficult to find a trustworthy source/teacher on certain topics so covering so many relevant and current topics in one place by reputable individuals is something useful for the development community.  That’s what the Node University represents, an open source platform for video courses.

Right now there are only a few available courses, as the platform was just recently launched, both free and premium. You can check it out here.

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