New mystery AWS product 'Infinidash' goes viral — despite being entirely fictional A tweeted musing that merely mentioning a new AWS product would be enough to see it appear in job ads has come true — even though the product mentioned is made up. The story starts with the following tweet from developer educator Joe Nash (the tweet has since been deleted, but is cached). Joe Nash Infinidash Tweet The tweet …
I remember back in around 2005, whilst I was busily searching for a job after uni, coming across an ad for a "Junior CFD Analyst" minimum 10 years experience with CFD required.
I'm sorry, but if I've got 10 years experience in something, I think I'd be pretty insulted to be considered a Junior!!!
10 years expereince - that's less than half of Asok's intern experience, so another couple of decades and you'll be junior ;)
It's always amusing, but usually just a mangled request from the people with the vacancy. Like when they ask for '10+ years experience supporting Windows 10', but really mean '10+ years experience supporting Windows, including W10'.
I always view job specs more as RFCs than definitions.
I suppose you just have to hope that the recruiters screw up doesn't end up as part of the automated CV/Resume filter.
If you just hope that, you are already screwed. The very best you can hope for, is that after a while an adult will note the lack of results and review the filter and the results.
Many years ago, when the Web was young (and so was I), I had a headhunter cold call me on the phone about a position at the AA. Probably as a result of me gabbing on www-talk mailing list. One thing he said the company wanted was "4 years experience with Netscape".
When I told him that might be tricky, because Netscape had only existed as a company for about 9 months at that point and before that all the cool kids had been using NCSA Mosaic, there was a silent pause on the line for a few seconds and then he said, "well that's just the sort of detailed knowledge of the field that they want - you sound perfect!". 10/10 for brass balls and a quick come back.
During the job crash post 911 in 2001/2002, I actually struck up quite a friendship with one of the more diligent recruitment consultants I was using. There was a an ulterior motive for him, because when he came across my CV, he noticed a broad set of experience that on subsequent calls, realized was a little understated rather than overstated.
But what he did was if he got an lead, with terminology he didn't recognize, he quite often called me to ask what it was all about (things were more simple back then, but the rate of new technologies had just started to ramp up). It quite often allowed me access to the job info before he posted it, but unfortunately, although I followed the tech of the time, it was not always something I knew about in detail, and I wasn't prepared to blag about things that I didn't know.
But at the time, for every opening he posted on Jobserv, he was getting about 200 direct inquiries. He did not even do searches of the CVs they had on record, and most of the time, he randomly just dumped a number of the inquiries with only the most cursory of skim reads.
It did not actually get me into a new contract (at least not this time around, but it would later) but it was interesting hearing from the other side of the fence.
Eventually, I was asked back by one of my previous clients who needed skills that they knew I had.
... I was out of work for 2005 (too much niche tech straight out of uni, dammit!), and as the months passed I became increasingly desperate as I scoured the then-nascent job boards trying to find new employment. The number of ads I was that were looking for 3-5 years commercial .NET experience was unbelievable.
Okay, so at that point in time it was possible to have that kind of experience, but given the sheer volume of ads that cited this I'm pretty sure it was all buzzword-stuffing.
On another note, I recall another place I worked for, some eight years later (older, wiser and more burned) - they were one of about half-a-dozen London-based firms who seemed to have this great bleeding-edge tech pissing contest going on... which probably explains why when I left, they were scratching their heads trying to figure out just how to deal with the fact that a band new chunk of their website that had just gone online and was written in Angular v1 was now stuck with no upgrade path.
I can see them falling hook, line, sinker, waders and copy of the Angling Times for something like this.
One upshot of the era of non-technical management is that the PHB will likely sign off 2 weeks paid leave to complete 10x Infinidash certification at the university of Wakanda. Bring on the annual summer viral marketing campaigns. 2022 is a 3-week retreat in New Zealand for plexinetes multiband containerbangs. The wider scientific community managed to pull it off decades ago - they call them "conferences"! ;)
You see this on LinkedIn all the time.
Adverts that say things like "we're looking for a frontend PHP developer...". Oh, so a backend developer that also has knowledge of frontend technologies? Or a frontend developer who knows a bit of PHP?
The reality is usually that the company asking for the candidate wants somebody who can do "any work" they have, and/or doesn't really know what they need. The recruiter - generally - has no idea of the difference between backend and frontend tools, and doesn't care, as long as they get their commission. Somebody has already alluded to this when you get people asking for 5 years experience in something that hasn't even existed for half that time. Amongst many other giveaways such as a real lack of understanding of where the technologies fit into a particular stack or toolchain.
Exactly the same principle comes when you get a new or "cool" technology. Not so long ago it was Kubernetes and Docker. So many adverts asking for people with experience of it. What were these companies doing before they had it, and why did they suddenly _all_ need it simultaneously? Oh yes, because it's a bandwagon on which you must jump otherwise your company will fade into obscurity? Well if you know as little about what you're advertising for as to how to run a company, it may do just that.
"The recruiter - generally - has no idea of the difference between backend and frontend tools, and doesn't care, as long as they get their commission."
It's said that a good salesman can sell anything. Well, yes and no. A "good" salesman will thoroughly research the product before becoming a great salesman. And then do it again for the next product. Recruiters are the same. A "good" recruiter will at least know what the skills are for and will keep up to date on new skills requirements. But, like most salesman, most recruiters are just commission oriented sloggers who think a flash car, red braces, a shiny buttoned blazer and the gift of the gab are all you need to make it big.
I believe "front end php developer" means "I can do a bit of PHP, but you wouldn't want to set me loose on anything complicated. I will work for free office coffee.".
Whereas "backend php developer" means "I can do complicated stuff, but I've got the visual sense of Stevie Wonder" and the eye for style of Steptoe. I insist on being paid in money. "
I'm working my way through their products in the hope of finding something I feel I can stick with for a couple of weeks to see if it does indeed combine saving me time with addressing a Covid weight problem (in addition to long daily walks).
I am quite willing to invest money into this, but so far I'm yet to be impressed. This is partly due to their use of "natural" sugar replacements which must have been specifically engineered to taste as vile as the chemical crap they replace, and which are used in quantities that make you suspect they're hiding something.
Ugh. A shame, really, the idea is OK.
..... or are they fundamentally the same?
What do you imagine your present and your future to be ? Have you not realised yet that such as party political manifestos and national and international security programs are simply promises of future goals currently impossible to reach and keep ..... and with the arrival of every tomorrow there will be ever more
currently impossible to reach and keep future goals to replace them and be destined to be recorded in the annals of history as a virtual fiction in yet another broken unattained and unattainable promise fed to the gullible and seriously undereducated and misguided/maladministered.
Is that the way you exercise and presume to Command and Control the Future for Main Streaming Media Machine Presentation? Do you not see the massive flaw in that which effectively invites outside intervention and surreal stealthy otherworldly exploitation?
:I was trying to figure out how you could combine AMD's Infinity Cache with the Doordash delivery service, but now that I see the product is fictional, I've stopped worrying.
So there you are: Infinidash is an Amazon service that delivers to your door, with enhanced reliability and availability because they've abandoned Just-in-Time practices, and have real warehouses again!
You can have twelve year experience by only doing six years if you do double shift because in practice you did work the same amount of time that someone doing twelve years but put half the time, right?
That sounds like something the BOFH would say...
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