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Who wants to work in a fast-paced environment? Not me! I want a civilized environment where people have a sense of balance. Higher quality work gets done that way and work life isn't full of stress and anguish.

Chuck Stephanski
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    Excellent question! I see this a lot. I think that, whether a technical or a non-technical person wrote this phrase, you want to stay the hell away. – Job Mar 17 '11 at 22:00
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    I have a problem with ads that don't truthfully reveal this. – Aditya P Mar 18 '11 at 07:27
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    I might disagree here. A 'fast paced environment' can either be an environment from hell, or one where technological challenges abound. I stay away from the former, but I purposely seek the later. Obviouly one should seek a balance (specially if you are like me, with family and kids). However, if your job doesn't challenge your skills and passion, you are not learning. And that is the worst you can do to your professional career development. – luis.espinal Mar 18 '11 at 11:13
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    @luis this should be an answer! – Chris Mar 18 '11 at 12:43
  • @Chris - I know, I added as an answer a while ago :) – luis.espinal Mar 18 '11 at 13:15
  • I guess I'm taking a less cynical view of the posting. I believe the ad writer could just be trying to appeal to the engineer that would get bored working on the same project for extended periods of time. – Patrick Mar 18 '11 at 14:04
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    Maybe it simply means they're no longer using Windows 98. – JYelton Mar 18 '11 at 14:37
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    Good question. I just saw this a week ago (but similar postings appear all the time): "Fast-paced environment, Work under pressure". Sounds like a dream job. :/ – Randy Levy Mar 18 '11 at 14:45
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    To heck with pace. Show me the snack bar and I'll show _you_ pace :) – Tim Post Mar 18 '11 at 15:42
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    "Fast pace" is the corporate culture equivalent of a "Dynamic" worker from the job ads of the 90s. It's also code word for "if you're past 35, we don't want to hire you but can't admit it". – Uri Mar 18 '11 at 16:25
  • It is pointless, 'fast paced' could mean so many different things that it is a losing game to try and give it unified meaning. The only way to tangibly get a feel for the company is to perhaps go to it for a day, ask for a walk around, and maybe just ask friends or people in the same field that work there for an opinion. A job advertisement is about advertising first to attract your attention and then, once they have your interest, can they really get into the details. – Robert Massaioli Mar 18 '11 at 21:53
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    @JYelton Does this mean they're using Windows ME? – Mateen Ulhaq Mar 19 '11 at 05:08
  • Most places I go for lunch have a fast-paced environment. – Kyralessa Nov 13 '11 at 01:59

31 Answers31

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It's code for "We change our minds a lot about what we want from the software, and if we hire you we don't want you to complain about it. In fact, we expect you to put in a lot of overtime to implement our latest whim decision because we're fast paced. You've been warned."

In programmer-speak, it means "we have no specs, unit tests, or for that matter, anyone still around who remembers why our software is the way it is."

Scott Whitlock
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  • two thumbs up!! – Imran Omar Bukhsh Mar 17 '11 at 21:57
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    it could also means 'we will not respect you or your point of view. You just need to shutup and deliver what we want tomorrow, or maybe by the end of the day. We don't care long term solutions and'. You guys might have never heard of this one though...I was given the task to develop a crawling engine for forums. My boss told me 'don't waste time with classes'. – Imran Omar Bukhsh Mar 17 '11 at 22:02
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    It's a "truth in advertising" requirement, so they can say manic disorganized hell hole without putting people off. – Martin Beckett Mar 17 '11 at 23:30
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    I *really* disagree with this point of view. Fast-paced means that the team is really efficient and releases frequently. Yes, some companies abuse the phrase, probably stealing phrases they see used by successful companies which they pretend their own company is like. If the job sounds good, go to the interview and make sure you tell them your expectations for work hours in no uncertain language. Good fast-paced companies don't want martyrs, but do want efficient, reliable people with time management skills. – Ethel Evans Mar 18 '11 at 00:06
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    @Ethel - I don't agree. If that's what they meant, and they knew anything about software development, they'd use the word "agile", not "fast paced". – Scott Whitlock Mar 18 '11 at 01:48
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    @Scott, sadly many use the word agile when what they really mean is what you posted in your answer. I suspect that's where much of the agile hate comes from... not from actual agile experience but from dealing with managers who have found it handy to hide their laziness behind "agile - the leading industry standard". – Jason Mar 18 '11 at 02:27
  • @Jason - true, but that's a different issue. :) – Scott Whitlock Mar 18 '11 at 11:25
  • @Scott - it might be a different issue, but it is still an issue with semantics and word usage. Just as "agile" is a term not used properly, "fast paced" can mean anything. Ergo, one cannot assume a factual, unambiguous meaning to the usage of one word/phrase to the other. To me (as indicated in my answer), fast paced has been used in both good and bad work places. I don't hold 'fast paced' as something negative. I actually look for 'fast paced' work places given certain conditions. – luis.espinal Mar 18 '11 at 15:36
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    Nonononono.... you're all wrong :) It means: WE ARE LOOKING FOR SLAVES! – 7wp Mar 18 '11 at 20:54
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    Another related key phrase that often occompanies this is "results oriented". Again, this means *short term* results oriented, with no concern for specifications, documentation of any sort, unit tests, or anything that might lead to long-term maintainability of the code. They simply want "results now". It's sad really, they burn up so much energy in the short term and never really build for the long term. Avoid places like this at all costs. – Mike Rosenblum Mar 18 '11 at 23:52
  • @Imran 42 up votes. – Mateen Ulhaq Mar 19 '11 at 05:14
  • @JubJub I am your father. – Mateen Ulhaq Mar 19 '11 at 05:15
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    @Scott and Imran: Spot on. @Ethal: I'm concerned you may be one of those who offer developers in a 'fast-paced environment'. The wide use of the phrase is as described, people have major misconceptions about software, splice together their own ideas and than take the steaming pile to a developer and expect instant magic. There's other usages of fast paced, to be sure, and yeah agile has a similar dilemma on a smaller scale imo. Still, usually this shows a weak link in the chain. Good, fast developers are great but to put that in a job post is more like an abusive office than a software firm. – That Realtor Programmer Guy Mar 19 '11 at 23:23
  • I would upvote it, but right now it has 255 upvotes and I find it very byte-ish looking :) Whatever that means. – karlphillip Mar 27 '12 at 19:14
  • @karlphillip Well, it's up to 298 now... – Panzercrisis Oct 18 '13 at 12:40
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Because most job ads aren't written by software engineers.

It's the exact same reason so many require the "ability to multi-task". Every respectable software developer knows that the human brain cannot multi-task. Or have 10 years experience in Windows Server 2008.

John
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whatsisname
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Maybe it's the old fart in me, but when I see that I think they're looking for the youngsters who will work with great passion and excitement and dedication... and for less money.

But that's me.

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    As a fellow greybeard, I see this as a code phrase for "only youngsters need apply." – Tangurena Mar 18 '11 at 04:30
  • That may be the thing – maz3tt Mar 18 '11 at 10:44
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    Young-at-heart may be more to the point than physical age. If you can keep up with the younglings' in terms of topics of discussion and language use (e.g. zomg), you should be fine. Similarly, talking about 'the good old days' won't win hearts. – JBRWilkinson Mar 18 '11 at 15:48
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    I was there during the good old days. They weren't that great. I do keep up with and beyond a good portion of the youngins. I'm simply talking about a job **ADVERTISEMENT** that says "fast paced." I'm OK if the job IS fast paced, I just don't like an **AD** that says that like it's an important selling point. Tell me the type of project, the technologies and the pay. That's all that's important to me in an **AD.** I will get the rest of what I want to know at the interview. –  Mar 18 '11 at 16:09
  • If it's truly fast-paced, perhaps the Project, Technologies and Pay can all change according to various factors such as personal performance, sales or spats with large database vendors. – JBRWilkinson Mar 18 '11 at 16:57
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    Perhaps. My apologies for my jerky reply earlier. –  Mar 18 '11 at 17:30
  • Fast-paced is definitely code word for young and unencumbered. It is a way for companies to discriminate without being overt about it. Another way that companies discriminate and get away with it is by asking for recent college graduates. What they really mean is that they are only looking at young candidates. Forty-year-old recent college graduates need not apply for these positions. – bit-twiddler Mar 19 '11 at 17:37
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    I've flagged a few craigslist ads that were obviously asking for young candidates exclusively, and only *barely* managing not to say the word "young". – Chuck Stephanski Mar 19 '11 at 23:14
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Many people (think HR since they are the ones who write these things up) equate a "fast paced" with excitement, and if it is not exciting, then it is boring.

Who wants a boring job? If it is boring, certainly "top talent" does not want to do it and it is not really worth doing.

That line of thinking, though prevalent, is wrong.

Sparky
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    *Is* it wrong? I generally don't pick up new skills and grow my abilities doing boring work, and top talent generally still wants to grow. If that top talent wants work-life balance, it's even *more* important to be able to grow on the job and not only in their free time. On the other hand, people can often mix up "non-stop emergencies" with "interesting work". IME, emergencies are very boring and just get in the way of the interesting work offered by a real fast-paced environment. – Ethel Evans Mar 17 '11 at 20:36
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    @Ethel - I aim for boring. If I am too busy, I do not have time to do things properly, to learn or to grow. Boring work still needs to get done. Boring code just works, and does not break. When bored, I take the opportunity to learn and try something new to make things even better (and ultimately more boring). – Sparky Mar 17 '11 at 20:48
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    Boring code and products are good, agreed. I think we're disagreeing about what "fast-paced" means in a work-environment. I think fast-paced means delivering business value quickly and consistently. I think people get confused and think it means working hard and being stressed, always being in emergency mode, etc. These things slow down the pace of releasing business value, however, and therefore are truly symptoms of a slow-paced work environment. I fixed my answer up to better explain my point-of-view on this. – Ethel Evans Mar 17 '11 at 20:58
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    @Ethel: fact paced in reality means constant high pressure and stress because of overly tight deadlines, poor specs, and general poor management. As a result it usually also means delivering poor value for money, as there's no time for proper QA, documentation, requirements gathering, etc. – jwenting Mar 18 '11 at 07:34
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    Somebody once asked me "isn't DBA work boring?" I replied, "only when you do it right." – Walter Mitty Mar 18 '11 at 10:03
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    Who wants a boring job? Airplane pilots. – Kaz Dragon Mar 18 '11 at 10:16
  • @Kaz - a good sysadmin? Or do you prefer it when your admins are running around screaming in a panic all the time. – Martin Beckett Mar 18 '11 at 15:12
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    No, it is a legal technique that is used by HR to discriminate without running afoul of employment laws. It is illegal for HR to say that they are only looking at candidates who are young and unencumbered. – bit-twiddler Mar 19 '11 at 17:44
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Don't let them know not to put that in, we need to be able to easily weed out the companies we don't want to work for! To me "fast-paced environment" = lots of unpaid overtime.

HLGEM
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    yeah, i do think they are doing me a favor when they put it in by warning me i don't want to work there. unfortunately i see it too often. – Chuck Stephanski Mar 17 '11 at 20:31
  • General practice has started to follow suit of this bad habit =/ Some companies with nothing special about their pace whatsoever will add in "fast paced environment" simply because it is a development position. x_x – That Realtor Programmer Guy Mar 19 '11 at 23:33
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I disagree with the negative takes on this. When I hear, "Fast-paced environment", I think "lots of interesting responsibilities, because work gets done effectively so you can move on to something else". I would describe my current work environment as "fast-paced", but I would also rave about the work-life balance I get.

I think the issue is that recruiters confuse "fast-paced" with "we have lots of emergencies and make people put in lots of hours" - which is almost the opposite of fast-paced. Emergencies derail and randomize people, slowing down the pace of business. Working long hours is a symptom of not being fast-paced during normal business hours, and trying to make up for it by working more. "Working hard, long hours while being randomized when things go wrong" and "producing great business value rapidly" are two different, often contradictory things.

"Fast-paced", in the sense of "our team delivers lots of business value in a short period of time," is desirable because it leads to an improved work-life balance. You get great resume content and develop your talent without investing lots of time into independent study in your own time, since you are learning so much on the job - meaning your free time can be spent on non-programming hobbies without your skills becoming obsolete. "Fast-paced" is also not boring, since you complete one project quickly and then can move on to something fresh. IMO, constantly dealing with emergencies and "fires", covering for other people's mistakes, coping with crummy tools and poor documentation, and so on, is very frustrating and boring.

Edit: I thought of a few other things "fast-paced" implies that are positive and can be attractive: First, it suggests that the team uses Agile practices; waterfall isn't fast-paced. Second, it implies that the company or team is small and light-weight, and not bound up in miscellaneous process; people who sit in lots of meetings and need to fill out three forms for each bug fix aren't going to be moving quickly. Third, it hints at a growing company (maybe a start-up?) or team that is making strides and delivering lots of value to their customers, vs. a company or team that has already done its interesting work and is now just sitting there doing maintenance and getting money for the work they already did.

One comment below also points out that "fast-paced" is a contrast to "in-depth". A fast-paced environment is one where you pick up a lot of skills in a very short time, but may not become an expert in any of them. A slower environment where lots of experts are needed and things need to be done well the first time is more likely to grow in-depth skills. Having lots of breadth in one's skills and having a few skills in depth are very different career tracks, so "fast-paced" is also a signal that people who want to become experts at a relatively narrow set of skills probably shouldn't apply.

Ethel Evans
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    But completing projects "quickly" is not de facto good. Projects should be completed WELL. Quickly is also meaningless because it's completely relative to the project. If you're writing the software to control the space station I don't think you'll be completing that quickly. – Chuck Stephanski Mar 17 '11 at 21:47
  • @Chuck - I agree that it is relative to the project. I'm not trying to say all projects should be fast-paced. My specific point above is that fast-paced shouldn't mean, "Constant emergencies and shoddy work", but "able to deliver significant business value frequently". What you are mentioning - that not all projects should be fast-paced - is very true, but not really on-topic (since they wouldn't be advertising as a 'fast-paced' work environment). But, yes, there are some projects that need a slower, more in-depth approach, and they have advantages as well for devs, depending on goals. – Ethel Evans Mar 17 '11 at 23:38
  • @Chuck . . . thought about this a bit more, and decided the point isn't really off-topic. Thanks for the feedback, I updated the post. – Ethel Evans Mar 17 '11 at 23:51
  • "Second, it implies that the company or team is small and light-weight, and not bound up in miscellaneous process" This is immediately what I thought of. I understand _some_ negative readings of 'fast paced', but I agree with Ethel that it can be a positive. While you don't want quick turnaround on a dialysis machine's software (life and death), who wants 2 code reviews and paperwork just to show some people a prototype? – acmshar Mar 18 '11 at 14:49
  • I disagree that waterfall isn't fast-paced. If you measure start to finish, where finish means you incorporated all the customers requirements, then there is no evidence that agile performs any faster. From my personal experience, agile ends up slower since the refactoring tends to take longer and longer as the project gets nearer to completion because the code base has grown larger and the lack of an overall system design hampers adding new functionality without affecting a lot of other areas of the code. – Dunk Mar 18 '11 at 15:42
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    Also why do you need to imply that you're using Agile by saying you're fast-paced? Why not just say you're using Agile? – Chuck Stephanski Mar 19 '11 at 01:15
  • @Chuck - Exactly. –  Mar 19 '11 at 15:47
  • "Fast-paced" is a positive if it's the opposite of "no one at the company knows how to make a decision." – Kyralessa Nov 13 '11 at 01:58
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You probably only read ads for software developers, but the truth is that all job postings say they "offer a fast-paced environment."

Caleb
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I'm a recruiter in the tech space. Most job "descriptions" get washed by HR before they get out in front of the public. So an engineering manager might be sitting there, and write up a reasonable req, talking about how "TBD" is never allowed when setting requirements, describe their team, the types of projects they focus on that set them apart, etc etc, yadda yadda. Then, HR gets it, and says "but, everyone likes to 'work hard, play hard, right'?? I mean, that's what every other job description out there says. We'd better tell people we're 'fast paced', or we'll look too old school and boring. Google's fast-paced, right? Right?? We have to be like Google!! Oh, and get rid of anything we could vaguely, potentially, 1-in-a-million chance get sued over."

Uggh. I hate most job descriptions. Full of junk like what Chuck described. Plus, they're just a bullet point list of requirements, with no meat to them. Most HR departments go to their competitors web site, find a similar job to the one they need to fill, copy and paste it, change the name of the company, maybe tweak the requirements a bit, and then post it.

They're ads: they should do a good job of communicating what the company's really like (ie, so when you take the job you aren't sitting there in 3 months feeling like you got suckered, and then they have to replace you when you quit); be funny (because, c'mon, who doesn't like funny - again, it's an ad); and not freak people out with "fast-paced" and "hard-charging" types of phrases if they aren't true.

End rant...

paul
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    So, as a recruiter, are you able to read these HR-washed job ads and determine what the company and work is really like? I'm sure the people you try to recruit want the truth (in as much detail as possible) about these jobs. – mj1531 Mar 18 '11 at 14:58
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The cliche term here is "young and dynamic team". In other words, a group of people who're too inexperienced to know that putting in 20 hours overtime a week without pay is not normal and a not a sign of a healthy project, that requirements that change several times a day up until 5 minutes before delivery is abnormal and unhealthy, etc.

It's also a way to tell you that you're too old without actually stating so openly (which would be illegal under age discrimination laws).

cczona
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jwenting
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  • "young" = inexperienced. "dynamic" = high turnover. – Chris Cudmore Mar 18 '11 at 14:16
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    nah. "young" = cheap, "dynamic" = high overtime with no pay. Of course they only hire in the top 1 percentile, so no inexperienced people, but the real hotshots in the industry! – jwenting Mar 19 '11 at 21:01
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If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough. Mario Andretti (race car driver)

I take "fast-paced" as code for "somewhat out of control". Some people like that. Others don't.

Walter Mitty
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So far my favourite statement along with the "fast paced environment" was the HR manager trying to make it sound like some sort of fun slumber party type thing to stay at the office til midnight pushing out code.

Personally I want a job that's relaxed and has cookies...

mmmmm..... cookies..... (>^.^)>(#) mmmmmm..... coookies....

But it does seem that most HR folk are wanton to believe that us programming folk want fast, high speed, stress filled jobs, not sure who gave them that idea but it needs to be squashed.

Jeff Langemeier
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  • Actually, I wouldn't mind not even getting out of the house for doing my programming assignments. Also, I don't see why I should get fully dressed, when all I do all day, is sit at the computer. – polemon Mar 19 '11 at 01:26
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Many people have focused on what fast-paced can mean but I think there's one other reason: many shops are slow-paced to the point of stagnation - picture the kind of place where finding a problem results in either requesting off-site training or filing a ticket and going home for the day. If you're hiring, there's a desire to avoid submissions from the kinds of developers who got into the industry thinking "indoor job, no heavy lifting" but this particular wording is too cliched to actually do that.

Chris Adams
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Maybe its an attempt to scare away the lazy programmers...

Kenneth
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Do you mean this?
"You must be able to thrive in a Agile / Scrum environment that is fast paced and has minimal structure and process and is growing rapidly."

I think it means exciting. Then again, It could also mean extreme overtime and lost wages.

DisEngaged
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    I don't know about anyone else... but I zoned in on the "has minimal structure..." That could be a very good thing or a VERY bad thing! hahahaha – Kenneth Mar 17 '11 at 23:53
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    I think it means the clue fairy didn't visit. – Tim Williscroft Mar 18 '11 at 01:55
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    @Kenneth For me, the "minimal structure and process" is a *very* troubling sign. To me, it says, "We don't know what we're doing, but it must work because we've managed to stay in business so far." – quanticle Mar 18 '11 at 17:41
  • @quanticle... thats what I was thinking too. I mean it could mean that they don't hold their engineers to an exact work schedule but it almost sounds as though the other is more likely! – Kenneth Mar 18 '11 at 20:27
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Well... us rockstar ninjas prefer action!

red-dirt
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  • Yes! I work in video games and nearly all the jobs I get emails about want me to be a rockstar. – justinhj Mar 18 '11 at 18:20
  • That's not true about ninjas. They might implant themselves in an organization, quietly doing some menial labor for years, just to get close enough to perform an assassination. – dasil003 Mar 18 '11 at 19:22
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Who the hells wants a fast-paced environment?

** raises hand **

A 'fast paced environment' can either be an environment from hell, or one where technological challenges abound. I stay away from the former, but I purposely seek the later. Obviouly one should seek a balance (specially if you are like me, with family and kids). However, if your job doesn't challenge your skills and passion, you are not learning. And that is the worst you can do to your professional career development.

To assume a fast-paced environment is always bad reveals a particular outlook to life and the type of technology-oriented career we have chosen for ourselves. Every job has its warts. What you make of out them, even the worst environments, it is solely and squarely up to you.

There are some 'fast-paced' jobs (on the bad sense of the word) that were just horrid, and I would never set foot on those companies again. But the experiences themselves taught me how to handle pressure in a professional manner, and how to get things done as much as humanly possible. Those jobs were horrid not because of the technical and requirement challenges, but because of horrid personal dynamics and management style.

On the other side of the coin, the best jobs I've ever had were also 'fast-paced', in terms of changing requirements and technological challenges. That's where you really learn how to rise to the ocassion and deliver, which is ultimately what every programmer (or any professional) ought to seek.

Difficulty of something is not an excuse for avoiding its accomplishment.

Just people change their minds when it comes to software is not a bad thing. It is a reflection of world dynamics, and we in software, we are the business of creating realistic executable models of the world. I'm amazed at how many programmers actually fail to understand this.

The challenge is in knowing how to manage the continous (and usually chaotic) rate of change. And there are two sides of the coin in this: there is non-technical management and there is technical management (your part as a programmer and software engineer). And the later is as important, and perhaps more so, than the former.

Ultimately, you want to stay away from bad working environments, but for the purpose of cultivating your professional career, you should always look for legitimately fast-paced enviroments. Otherwise, we might just look for a 9-to-5 job maintaining COBOL/RPG reports.

luis.espinal
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  • And obviously a -1 rep without a commentary is a stellar way of making a counter-argument, specially among us programmers. Color me surprised. – luis.espinal Mar 18 '11 at 13:17
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    @luis I agree, downvoting without reason is not acceptable... Maybe we should make a rule out of it. Good answer though. – phunehehe Mar 18 '11 at 13:51
  • This is very true. Personally, I have learned and grown more within 1 year at a fast-paced workplace than I ever could at previous positions that were of a different pace. It can be a good thing, unless they're paying you pennies and/or the work is the equivalent of repetitively digging holes only to refill them. – Psionic Mar 18 '11 at 17:46
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    I don't see any correlation between the technical challenge and the pace whatsoever. The best position I ever had involved continually changing projects, learning lots of new technologies. We had the best manager I've ever had - a Zen-like guy who kept the pace very civilized and work-life balance was always respected. I think when people work under pressure they do sloppy work. We produced products that lead the market and won prestigious awards - validating the approach - which could not have been characterized as "fast-paced" in any way, shape or form. – Chuck Stephanski Mar 18 '11 at 19:08
  • @Chuck - I never said there was a correlation between pace and technical challenge. I said that 'fast paced' is not necessarily a bad thing and that can be technically rewarding (see the first sentence in paragraphs 1, 2 and 4 of my post.) One of my best jobs was also zen-like where we could dictate the pace of our work/research. But it is always nice (as well) to work in a fast pace technical challenge. Several justified real world challenges involve fast pacing to adapt to unavoidable challenges. – luis.espinal Mar 18 '11 at 20:27
  • @Chuck - Changes in local legal regulations, scrambling to counteract an unexpected competitor, increased cost in hardware pieces for a high volume product line, those are changes that create fast paced environments and which make work (specially consulting work) interesting (and financially rewarding). That is different from jobs that are 'fast paced' due to maniacs running the asylum. Two different environments my friend. I purposely seek the former, and I compulsively avoid the later. – luis.espinal Mar 18 '11 at 20:30
  • Scrambling to counteract an unexpected competitor is almost always a poor strategy. I was with a company that did that. We lost focus on our own mission and got preoccupied with this competitor because sales was freaking out that they were losing accounts to them. Well really they should have retrained and sold better. The new competitor went out of business. And we wasted two years chasing them and working at a fast pace instead of staying in balance and continuing to win. – Chuck Stephanski Mar 18 '11 at 23:26
  • I think the better term as someone said above is "agile". Not necessarily capital A Agile but, agile. – Chuck Stephanski Mar 18 '11 at 23:33
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Wow, your all looking deep in to the exact meaning of that phrase :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor says "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Why do ads for s/w engineers always say they “offer a fast-paced environment”?

Because the job ad was written by a someone who can't actually write, has no imagination and so has to fall back to tired old phrases like this?

I mean come on, we all know how good programmers are at writing documentation :-P

James
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  • Generally speaking though (especially for large corporations) the job postings are posted by HR... which generally tends to be ignorant about what actually goes on in SE. – Kenneth Mar 18 '11 at 20:28
  • True ... but it doesn't hold that HR are good writers either, and as you say they don't know what goes on in engineering ... hence more cliches :-) – James Mar 19 '11 at 10:37
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It could just be that HR wanted something that sounds like "cool", but since the company does salary calculations rather than robots on Mars they go for that vague "it means whatever you want it to mean" style. Proof of that is in several of the answers here.

l0b0
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The answer is because good developers get bored easily and when they get bored they leave. Saying that you offer a fast paced environment is an attempt to find good developers. Actually offering a fast paced environment is a good way to reduce turn over.

Also, I saw someone mentioned 'lazy programmers' I agree with that too. Fast Paced means that you'll have no time to learn how to be a dev so you should already be one.

Also, most of the time the ads that people write are from HR or someone who doesn't know anything about the position. "We require expert levels in [insert alphabet soup here] and BA and 10yr Experience and [insert other insane requirements here]". I hate those ads.

DustinDavis
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Is just syntactic sugar for stress and chaos.

This is what it means. It will mean you have to adapt fast, that will invent deadlines for yesterday and you'll have to deal with it because is a fast paced environment. Just an nice syntax and an excuse for an environment that will be stressful.

Elzo Valugi
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We might be overthinking this.

I think often it's used because "gee I've only got three sentences and a ridiculously large set of bullet points ... I'd better think of something else to say".

glaucon
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  • +1. Obviously from all of the answsers it's a very unclear and subjective point. There is probably a site like hrfactory.com that will just pump out a Word template with the same 5-6 points all programmer jobs have (e.g. "excellent written and oral communication skills") – Morgan T. Mar 12 '12 at 17:25
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Keeping up with technology or at least the illusion of it would be another reason I'd note. Wouldn't you want to work where new things are always coming at you when people, "Hey, could we do this? How about we get started on it now?"

JB King
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When I hear it, I think of this blogpost from Coding Horror. Fast-paced can certainly be a huge advantage when it comes to iterations and development. Unfortunately I doubt the "fast-paced" in job ads refers to the speed of iterations.

Fredrik
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for me fast-paced-environment means that the applicant have to be willing to learn new things.

Example

  • Last months project was in java
  • Next project will be in c#
k3b
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As someone who recently wrote a job description, I was tempted to use that phrase but not really for most of the reasons that everyone has mentioned above. It's not because things are out of control and it's not because everything is a mess or because we need you to put in a boat load of unpaid overtime. That's not fast-paced. That's just mismanagement.

Fast-paced to me is: We have a lot to do and you'll need to keep up. If you want work at a relaxed, government-job pace, it's not the right place for you.

This is a positive because it means there is a lot of opportunity to create value for the company, which will translate to more growth for the company and higher compensation for you.

  • I'd up-vote except for the government-job comment: I've worked in corporate and academic environments which were considerably slower paced than the very OSS-friendly government job I now have. – Chris Adams Mar 18 '11 at 16:59
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Isn't the English language brilliant. A simple two word statement can stir up a great debate based on interpretation, ambiguity and personal experience.

I don't think there's anything wrong with "face-paced" provided it's qualified. Having said that given a lack of a qualified statement, I'd favour an alternative synonym or more detail. If your trying to say "frequent, fortnightly iterations" or "lots of work enthusiastic programmers who want to spend 80% of their programming" say it, don't say "fast paced" as it's ambiguous and open to interpretation.

Far too often jobs add are kept concise with buzz words that recruiter think you want to hear.

In my experience, fast paced has often meant fire fighting, or working on projects against deadlines with not enough time to deliver everything to the best of your teams ability. This has at times been to poor management, and unforeseen circumstances, but I'd choose a more relaxed balanced (yet efficient and streamlined delivery) approach over "fast-paced" one.

I once read a job ad where the recruiter put something like "the best job you'll see this year". Immediate reaction, nonsense, it's a sales pitch, why? because I put recruiters in the same group as estate agents (there in it for the commission and they can't afford to be honest).

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I have a friend, which is a self-taught developer. You know, the only language he is somewhat proficient in is C#, which is not a bad thing, it's OK to know just one language, but to know it good. He had no professional schooling, aside from Microsoft certificates (MCSE or something), no college degree or anything, he barely made it out of high school.

Now, he keeps posting on Facebook about his latest idea for an Android app, for a new twitter client, URL shortening service, image hoster...

He wanted to develop a new browser in C#, but stopped mid way.

He keeps making videos on youtube about TFS, and how cool project management is with all those nice Microsoft products.

Now, he has another startup, a social networking integration client for use with MS Office products.

*sigh *

The kind of "Start-Ups" and Software he develops, is exactly the kind I picture behind those ads. Brain farts that sound exciting, but lose are pretty quick. They plan to make the software freeware and charge for support. It all seems kinda vapor ware. It seems like working for them is putting in some work, of which most stuff won't be used eventually, and then the whole thing shuts down and everyone is looking for the culprit, the lazy ass, that didn't get the work done.

polemon
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It's their way of saying "the sh*t will flow downstream faster than you can paddle against it.". Requirements will change faster than you can finish coding the previous version, and features will be added whenever the RedBull-fueled project manager thinks them up.

I'm so glad I no longer have to deal with implementing other folks' "shower visions".

Daniel Kitchener
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It probably means in part that the company values business-based decisions driven by customer requirements, over the needs of their engineering staff.

Not trollin', just trying to be realistic...

CokoBWare
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Because their Capability Maturity Model is at Level 1 - Chaos.

CodeART
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Usually because they think that using Boost and C++ make them cutting edge.

Matt Joiner
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