djellybeans

That's not very good resume material.

And this is the only top level reply. Interesting.

Question for everyone else- how have tech related meetups recovered in your city?

In Chicago I find they're still sparse, still nowhere near the level they used to be since the lockdowns threw everything off.

Some of the oldest web forums (circa '98) I've been to use the nested comment format you see on Reddit or on here. The flat timeline format because much more popular from what I've seen.

Reddit style forums are not great for posts intended to log something in progress (like a computer build) because they require the user to make a new thread multiple times instead of making a new comment that automatically brings the thread back to the first page. But flat list threads are great for that.

They usually try to compromise with comment replies shown in "comment pyramids" but they can get unwieldy quick. It's a reasonable tradeoff for the flat chronological layout.

It's more than a concept. They already exist right now. Amazon has a returnship program for example. "Return to Work" is another name given to them.

I'm interested in how to find them more easily, and from smaller companies. Finding them in general is like a needle in a haystack (as well as discussions about them, apparently)

I stumbled into it by accident as a junior software engineer. They offered me a 3-month contract-to-hire job, but instead it became a 2-year independent contractor job for the company. Most jobs that followed have been cold applying to startup contract jobs from Craigslist or obtaining them from local word-of-mouth. It's very feast or famine, and not everyone can keep the momentum of new clients going. As for myself, I am planning to leave self-employed work for the first time in over a decade, for the relative safety of a full-time job (even with the current market situation).

No detailed plans for retirement. I'd need a new job first, to start saving again and I'll cross the bridge when I get there.

But, it is true that I did not take my career seriously for a long time. I treated it more as just work, with no clear direction, since I didn't understand the fundamental difference between a career and a series of similar jobs. Every new job, I was just hoping for a modest pay raise and learning a new thing or two, and being able to coast when I wanted.

Coasting is probably acceptable once you hit senior level in a well rounded team, but I figured out the hard way it's bad to do as a junior or mid-level.

Am confused by your second paragraph. You refer to "easy times" of 5 years ago, but also say "one of the hottest tech job markets" in the past 18 months. Not sure if this is meant to say that today is as good as it was 5 years ago for jobs.

I just can't see myself improving by learning on my own anymore. As another professional told me, "you're practicing, but with no guidance and nobody to step in and let you know when what you're practicing is the wrong approach." And when a person can spend many hours a week with practice and learning and receive the same result - no job offers - as someone who did little-none, it's entirely reasonable to conclude that learning new things is just a waste of time.

I still code once in a while, just to keep busy. Still haven't gotten a good idea of "exchange rate" for employability with the knowledge I obtained from my personal C and JavaScript projects.

I know that many companies won't train you from the ground up, but there are a couple. So I started looking into WITCH and similar consulting firms with a contract training program.

InfoSys and Deloitte have rejected me for some general SWE positions (not language-specific) but there are other similar places. Don't mind if I have to go to one of these body shops, they seem like my best fit for a software job right now.

Sunken costs.

I've had my resume re-done several times, and took the aforementioned interview prep. Applied to almost a thousand jobs last year alone. It has not made me more employed. And yes, I do want a job handed to me because the lack of progress has made me very desperate.

I don't even trust myself to do the right things anymore. But I now prefer not to learn anything for work unless I am getting paid for it. There's no positive feedback cycle I can find otherwise.

I've had this happen early in my career- worked permatemp as a junior and finding out what I'm allowed to do as a 1099, so I decided to set my own hours. Co-founder of the company wasn't happy about it. He hired me as a contractor and didn't like that I established my rules as a contractor. Odd.

Wasn't just me at this workplace, but all the individual contributors were as well. We saw the writing on the wall, that the co-founders were not interested in full-time conversions and turnover rate increased.

It actually made me question the legitimacy of software careers for a while, because I was caught in this illicit operation.

I think your advice comes from the mistaken assumption that I haven't already looked beyond FAANG companies and startups. Thereby making some of your intentions hard to follow.

I've actually had a tough time since 2016.

I suppose it has more to do with developers dealing more with logical systems than with physical and legal systems that have more direct and immediate consequences. In the case with doctors and lawyers, a bad process will have a more visible impact. In software, there's lots of "bad code" that still operates with the expected outcomes, regardless of the processes used (or ignored) that took them there.

Auditing and forensics does seem to get applied more frequently in cryptocurrency projects, but as you said, that sort of accreditation still has to be meaningful.

The crux of the matter really is, repetition.

Formal credentialing generally means you demonstrate "I can do this", in a very drawn-out, thorough manner. It's gatekeeping more, but there's a much larger guarantee for your creds to be transferrable from place to place.

In software engineering, you demonstrate "I can do this", in a several-round bout of interviews. And then have to demonstrate it all over again and again, for every single company. Your interview performance is non-transferrable.

My opinion is, the latter is more wasteful as it involves repeating yourself a whole lot.

The former has a higher upfront cost but you are betting in the long run that it will amortize over time as you continue to go on interviews.

The latter has less upfront cost but a greater chance of creating more cost in the long run, depending on how much you interview and where.

OP spent 6 hours- personally I wouldn't spend that much on any assignment, but the bigger issue here is that 6 hours is only valid for one company. Interview "work" is so proprietary and non-transferrable- like currency that is useless outside that one company. You cannot take what you did there and show it elsewhere to expedite an interview. You will have to run through another several-hour process again (whether interviewing or another assignment), for some other variation of a CRUD based problem that they expect developers to do.

I suppose the closest thing we have to avoiding repetition is- the answer many won't like- Leetcode. You still have to navigate through opinionated views of your answers, but at least there are more patterns that carry over that its benefits compound more easily from interview to interview.

Before I started working remote, and when I had something resembling a normal 9-5 office job, I would have lunch with several of my co-workers almost every day. I do it more as a formality and because I'm already in the office with them so it doesn't really interrupt the flow of things.

Outside of work, though, I drop my colleagues at the drop of a hat. Doesn't matter if I had drinks and lunch with them many times, they are out of my mind as soon as I leave the office, goes both for quitting the job or just clocking out for the day.

I almost never go back to chatting with the people I worked with, unless I am curious enough to ask if their current company is hiring, as they would've changed companies as most do. Outside of that, I don't really have a need to contact them. Maybe the occasional look at my resume online, for a sanity check when I'm applying to various jobs.

Sounds exhausting to me. But, I'm not looking for advice on how to make friends at work. Moreso looking for avenues where being very close with colleagues is not a big necessity to have a good steady career.

I've freelanced and contracted for about 10 years before the 2.5 years time of no work. When I had work, it didn't do so well for me. Barely made good income, and it's so much freedom, to a fault. No safety nets. You need to be especially proactive to make it work for you, more than a regular job.

I did the bare minimum. I was picking off contract gigs for small business, and for below body shop prices. The most I ever made in one year was $50k. In my worst years I made under $10k.

It also turned me into an "expert beginner" because I worked in isolation, I was still living in the now, and my clients have been small with little to no exposure to a strong technical culture.

You need a lot of hustling and "working your network" to rise above that. At this point, it's killed my drive and want to go back to the relative safety of FT work.

That's an interesting perspective to me, since I'm the complete opposite with detail work. I feel like I am very much a little-picture person.

Most of my career I tend to strike out billable line items, close tickets, and became very comfortable with it. I found it easier to get in the groove of things with feature work coming in and chugging through it at a predictable pace.

It's true that you bury yourself in the details that way, but I didn't mind it.

However, this little-picture focus turned out to be bad for me in the long run.

I avoided small talk with co-workers, there was little to no casual socializing, after work I just want to shut my brain off and turn on Netflix or a video game when I'm back home.

Because of my focus of tallying down complete items being more important, I saw writing code as the only important thing there is to my job and career. I stopped noticing my coworker's needs around me, the company's greater needs, and the industry trends around me.

It included not caring about network building, company meets or other "extracurriculars" that will get you noticed and have a peer put in a good word for you.

I didn't want to manage big things, whether it's my network or my skillset. I just wanted to live in the moment and meet my boss's demands each day without worrying.

Consequently I would have to change focus now that I know how important the big picture is and not to ignore it. If I had to choose an alternative I might go for a ECE career or perhaps aerospace. Both will however require a full degree- you can't easily self-teach your way into those types of careers.

You list the trifecta of red flags for employers:

Incredibly I never went out of my way to do everything as wrong as possible. It just kind of happened without thinking about what is really bad, for the first couple years of my career. I would have assumed that to have so many red flags you'd have to actively work to get them, but here we are.

I've been following point 1 by making side projects that make more use of modern web development. Have some on Github and one on Heroku as well. What is unclear to me is which kinds of topics are usually taught in on-boarding and which are left to the candidate to learn for themselves. I don't have experience with mentoring or on-boarding situations which is why I ask.

As for the next point, I am trying to avoid companies with no IT staff as I've heard many times that they are not well suited to grow your career in tech. I also know from experience, been there, done that, hasn't worked for me, so it's time to move away from them. They are more "cost center" than "profit center" jobs and am following different advice to choose companies where software is at the core of their business.

I'll see what I can do with socializing with others for professional talk. The only people I speak with face to face are the places I grab a bite or coffee, etc. and typically otherwise just converse and chat with people in tech focused communities like this one.

the major difference between the world OP and yourself describes and my experience is mostly in that it seems you two are trying to get "a job" (any job) whereas I'm saying, I find companies that I think I would enjoy

I'm in the second group, for the long term goal on finding companies I'd like to work at. It's in the thread's title.

Recently I chatted with a less experienced engineer, he currently works at Lyft and has had internships at Intel and Github while at college, along with related extracurriculars. That is what inspired me to make this thread. I'm trying to build a several years long plan to do what is possible for a self-taught in order to get to a similar position.

So my aim right now is to plan a itinerary that is suitable from getting noticed the way reputable tech companies notice future graduates with good internships and credentials. I will have to earn my own credentials differently (not necessarily with a job), to position myself in the same way. You can think of this plan as a "school away from school" on the way to get multiple offers from reputable companies.

There is a risk that it may backfire from a hiring standpoint, since this plan would probably further delay my re-entry into the workforce. However, without the ability to pass job interviews, I will have to obtain other accomplishments without work experience. Also, I'll probably cut my oldest jobs from my resume to shorten my experience.

Looks like I'll message you shortly.

My age is 39 and doing on-and-off work since 2008. Single and no kids so I have no other commitments to make. If you added all the time that I was actually hired as a developer I think it is roughly 9 years.

There's really no social or network issues related to drug issues, or strong personality dysfunction issues. And there's nothing in my past that'll stand out in terms of business-related controversies or illegal activity. I have none of that in my record. I tend to be one of the quieter ones at work, hardly raising my voice or starting drama. I don't consider it to be as much burning bridges. I built my bridges poorly and they collapsed from neglect.

I still have an interest in software development. I make personal projects from time to time, since I was a college student, and put some on Github. Not paint-by-numbers stuff, but things that directly relate to my interests and problems I want to solve. Many people have really good engineering careers without having uploaded a single thing to a public repo so I know it's very possible to attain.

Will joining a staffing agency be easy and no-sweat in terms of interviews? I had interacted with Robert Half in the past, granted that was almost 10 years ago, but they made me sit in front of a computer to take a technical test. Some of the questions were arbitrary trivia knowledge- they seemed to care more for explicit knowledge over tacit knowledge. I didn't pass the test so there was not much they could do for placing me for work.

I also tried Triplebyte because their more novel approach got my attention. It really heavily favored people that can finish the tests fast. I was never fast enough in my three attempts so didn't get into the phase of company selection.

You finish off by saying I should think about completing my education more formally. I swing back and forth on this thought often. I wonder how necessary this is, given that the common advice I receive on education is, the job experience you have trumps education. In other words once you have like ~5 YOE your degree no longer matters. With my background, is it still worthwhile to formally complete the CS degree?

BA, Art degree in 2007

I apply only to software engineer jobs. Full-stack, front end, or back end, I'm shooting my shot at all three. 95% of those are for mid-level and lower. Other 5% are for senior level. I get zero interviews for senior jobs, though.

I share similar views on passing an interview vs. getting an interview. The former is pretty codified these days- there's so much reading material to cover on leetcode/tech interviews.

Comparatively it's very tricky to figure out what goes into making your resume turn heads for big tech. It's great that I can read about top Lyft interview questions, but how to get Lyft to 1st round your resume to the top, though. Leetcode practice is useless if you don't even get the chance to use it.

I answered some questions in a different comment, but I'll also answer these questions directly.

I used Craigslist to find all my jobs from 2008-14. This probably contributed a lot to haphazard career management. Typically those CL jobs were posted by small web shops or startups looking for extra helping hands, on a tight budget. PHP, JavaScript, Ruby, no cloud. They were not really great to grow as a software dev but hindsight is 20/20.

From 2015 onward, I stopped using CL and switched to LinkedIn, Indeed and sometimes AngelList and WeWorkRemotely (I had some remote exp. in 2014 already)

I definitely use the 'spray and pray' with jobs and am pretty familiar with the typical pace of 1 round per week in most companies that interview me. Occasionally I get talent sourcers and managers emailing first for a job. My most recent interview was in April. 6 month full-stack dev contract for $80/hr. They approached me first. I didn't pass the first round because I didn't have enough experience.

I also finished a career accelerator course last year which really helped me in organizing my job search. I could go to interviews with hardly any nerves. I fulfilled their a minimum quota of 25 applications a week for several months.

Unfortunately I wasn't the best in rephrasing the best answers to interview questions. Positive points on composure and attitude, but fail in the right knowledge.

A lot of questions are being asked already, many of them similar, so I'll try my best to answer most of them, starting with the basics.

- 4 year Bachelor's degree in Fine arts (digital media concentration)*

- Male, age 39

- from 2008-14 my jobs came from Craigslist. Call it a habit from applying to PT jobs in college. I moved onto LinkedIn and other more "real" career boards in 2015 and the job search got much tougher

- I would count at least 2000 applications from 2015 onward. No offers came from applying on LinkedIn etc. Instead they were all from word of mouth from a local tech group that I am a part of. All of them part time, and temp contract jobs

- At least 1000 applications from 2020-present, interviewed at around 20 companies. Most with LinkedIn Easy Apply. A few interviews from direct emails from some manager/sourcer that came across my resume.

- I took an application break to cut back on burnout. The last 6 months are almost application-free

- Nearly all jobs applied are for software engineering. 95% are mid-level or lower rest are senior-level (just to feel things out). I might get as far as 3 rounds with a few interviews.

* Actual time it took to finish the degree was 6 years because I changed majors prior. At year 5 I was in my final year in Art, and I also had a growing interest in comp. sci, but I had to make a tough choice. Graduate at >5 years with the BA degree, or double major BS in CS with Art graduating in >8 years. I thought it would look awful to stay in college that long (plus my debt really started growing at that time) so I cut my losses short and graduated with just the BA.

I suppose he's believing that there's a sunk cost fallacy given it's been 10 years. But I am trying to redeem myself.

My story is not quite the same as the start of those that made a great turnaround by changing careers, which I've read many of. I'm curious to hear how a story of turning a new leaf in the same career would pan out.

It's still on the low side for engineers in a MCOL area.

55k was my best year. Usually I make under 25k.

I think personality issues are kind of overstated for interviews. Just about every industry has its fair share of jerks and sociopaths that throw people under the bus. Regardless, they have jobs, and almost all of them had to pass interviews to get into their respective companies. These are the workers that set the lower bar for entry into a job, and in the "right" companies, your personality would be passable by those standards to get hired.

(Additionally, QA jobs for game companies are almost never lucrative.)

The core problem is that a median income lifestyle is a relatively unstable state due to unforeseen circumstances like your example. A poor person stays poor (if whatever happens doesn't kill them) which means that poverty is a stable state. A rich person can weather at least a couple disasters, so that makes it a mostly stable state. If you're in the middle, you are in a more unstable position compared to the extremes.

I have a safety net, it's in the form of subsidized housing where I don't have to pay anything for rent as long as I don't earn an income, and utility and food are paid by one of my relatives through an allowance. Having said that, I'd be careful how you treat these situations because it's easy to fall into a loop of complacency.

With nothing to light a fire under your butt, you have to sometimes create your own crises because simply setting deadlines when you don't need to pay for anything doesn't have any real stakes. This is coming from personal experience- I've been constantly job hunting since 2015 with no FT offers in software development, despite having 8 years experience from 2007-14. Job hunting now just feels like going through the motions and I'm burned out from so much interview practicing.

I have the potential to turn down offers because of my situation of not needing to pay for almost anything, but I can only take advantage of that if I get offers to begin with. Whatever approaches I took in the early 2010's to get work aren't effective anymore and I'm still in the process of discovering what will work for me today.

Last year I was phone screened by a manager in a e-commerce shop from LA while I was living in Chicago. They seemed to be too fixated on my Github contributions. This was not a startup trying to accelerate- it's merely an agency that sees modest growth with a modest volume of clients.

Don't know what they though that my involvement in open-source projects would correlate well to e-commerce CMS work (I've worked in e-commerce dev well before opening a Github account). But it's probably some weird "tie breaker" decision given that I am not local to LA.