Is cold-calling software engineers on their personal phones creepy, or is it just me?

Photo by May Gauthier on Unsplash

Today, I was unexpectedly interrupted by a phone call.

As I was immersed in writing unit tests for a new project, my phone rang with a number I didn’t recognise. While I didn’t recognise the number, I answered.

Hi, this is ********** from ******, and I am calling about a potential partnership.

This completely caught me off guard. I thought it would be a teacher calling because my eldest child was on a school trip, and something was wrong. While I am thankful this was not the case, I was taken aback by the true nature of the call.

They then discussed how a partnership could benefit me and my workplace. After convincing them that right now wasn’t an appropriate time, I got off the call.

This intrusion left me questioning the nature of such unsolicited calls and the methods by which these companies obtain our personal information.

Afterwards, I spoke to someone else on my team regarding this, and they replied that this is exactly why they don’t answer their phones anymore; it’s either people calling to sell him stuff or recruiters.

This led me to do some research, and I found that the ways in which these companies can get your phone number can range…