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Ask HN: Can't get hired – what's next?

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Re: Ask HN: Can't get hired – what's next?

#101

Post by walkabout »

silvercymbals wrote: post #7
leakycap wrote: post #2

You have set a high goal of $150k salary without a clear way to achieve it, or a clear passion, if I'm reading correctly. What is your depth of knowledge in? You say software? Law would be an risk idea if you don't love it with all your heart, even people who love law hate it by the end of law school.

People on HN saying $150k is a "high bar" is frankly insulting. Anyone in the bay who's not a founder or working for a meaningless company easily clears $200k. I've started two companies, exited one and technically have the skills of a "senior engineer". I've managed teams of engineers and have architected remote factory production systems for one of my companies along with a dozen or so relatively complex web apps i…

Um. That’s tens of thousands over median software developer wages in the US.

I know good developers who’ve done more impressive stuff than that, making at or under this $150k cut-off.

Re: Ask HN: Can't get hired – what's next?

#102

Post by xtracto »

silvercymbals wrote: post #99
dangus wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess what I mean to say is don’t get the idea that $100-120k for a non-senior developer job in a middle America city is a bad living. You’ll probably live better with that than you do now in the Bay Area. I was at a concert last night and met someone working concessions who used to do training for a tech company. She has been out of career work for 2 years. Has a promising job opportunity but no offer yet. Real li…

Reducing myself to the career mean of a midwest town sounds worse than checking myself into a mental institution.

You've had already several replies commenting in your attitude issues; but it seems you are still to young to see them. I really, really hope in my heart that you can still keep the way of life you are used to. Although, from what I've seen in the US and the world currently, it will be quite difficult.

It is a reality that us people from Xenials (myself), Millenials and Z have have lived our work lives in a generally confortable era. I myself ended my BSc in 2004, way after the dot-com bubble burst, and fortunately the 2008 crisis didn't hit me.

But, the advice you are calling "boomer coping" (or similar) has some experience in there, most likely from people that suffered the 2000 dot-com bubble burst. From the accounts I've read of older friends, there were people with plenty of experience and great CVs washing dishes at local restaurants.

Right now, the way things are moving in our field, with AI, outsourcing and everything else playing, it looks like the skillsets are getting cheaper. So, we are getting punched by reality and I believe it will only get worse.

Good luck.

Re: Ask HN: Can't get hired – what's next?

#103

Post by CoastalCoder »

almostaboomer wrote: post #75

I've read all the comments in this thread and I will be frank with you. You are arrogant and entitled. You are not as great as you think you are. If you were, you would have what you want. But you don't. And even if you were great, you (or anyone for that matter) shouldn't be arrogant or entitled. It's a terrible way to live. Insulting those who are trying to help you by calling their advice "boomer cope" is beyond a…

I agree with the parent's main point, but I'd like to soften it a little:

Many of us have learned humility the hard way. It's a painful process. But if you take the right lessons from it, then in retrospect you'll be glad for the personal growth.

Re: Ask HN: Can't get hired – what's next?

#104

Post by acdha »

xtracto wrote: post #102
silvercymbals wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing myself to the career mean of a midwest town sounds worse than checking myself into a mental institution.

You've had already several replies commenting in your attitude issues; but it seems you are still to young to see them. I really, really hope in my heart that you can still keep the way of life you are used to. Although, from what I've seen in the US and the world currently, it will be quite difficult. It is a reality that us people from Xenials (myself), Millenials and Z have have lived our work lives in a generally…

> But, the advice you are calling "boomer coping" (or similar) has some experience in there, most likely from people that suffered the 2000 dot-com bubble burst. From the accounts I've read of older friends, there were people with plenty of experience and great CVs washing dishes at local restaurants.

Also the early 90s weren’t great: the Cold War ending meant that a lot of defense contractors laid off very specialized workers. For an example of that circa 1994:

https://web.archive.org/web/20000816014209/https://philip.gr...

Re: Ask HN: Can't get hired – what's next?

#105

Post by quantumtheremin »

silvercymbals wrote: post #49
rockemsockem wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As in they didn't ask leetcode-style questions or you solved the same sort of questions no problem?

These were real-world type problems etc. Maybe I just use cursor too much and I've forgotten the short-hand they were looking for. Prior I never had to do leetcode screens for interviews because of my network - don't really regret not burning tons of hours grinding leetcode. My best guess is they thought my skills weren't advanced enough for my age or found it weird I was bald.

> Prior I never had to do leetcode screens for interviews because of my network - don't really regret not burning tons of hours grinding leetcode.

I hate to be the one to break this to you but this is what it comes down to. For those without great networks there is only leetcode hell. I don't have to tell you how dumb it is, everyone hates it for a reason, but that's the game. If i was in your shoes i would try to level up before changing course, i.e banging out 1-2 leetcode hards everyday. Best of luck which ever path you take.

Re: Ask HN: Can't get hired – what's next?

#106

Post by dave333 »

Been there after the dot com bust - in my case I eventually got hired by a startup where I aced the brain teasers and 6 months there gave me the tech stack to get hired at a big company that carried me through to retirement. Six months of 996 may be the price to get back on the ladder.

Re: Ask HN: Can't get hired – what's next?

#107

Post by ytNumbers »

From the tone of your post, you might be suffering from a bit of burnout. If that's the case, then I would recommend taking any extremely low paying and low stress retail job for the rest of this year. Perhaps, when January rolls around, having had a chance to mentally decompress, you might once again consider a position in the startup world. In this job market, given your situation, you're going to have a really tough time applying for jobs at large companies while hoping to beat out all the other job applicants for that $150K+ position. If you're willing to consider taking a lower salary, I would recommend that you focus on applying for jobs at tiny startups where money is tight and the base salary they are offering is $100K or less. A lower salary means that there will be fewer job applicants that you have to beat out for the position. Right now, it might sting to take a lower salary, but, the job market might pick up in a year or two, and then it might be a lot easier to land a high paying position.

Re: Ask HN: Can't get hired – what's next?

#108

Post by dumbmrblah »

ytNumbers wrote: post #107

From the tone of your post, you might be suffering from a bit of burnout. If that's the case, then I would recommend taking any extremely low paying and low stress retail job for the rest of this year. Perhaps, when January rolls around, having had a chance to mentally decompress, you might once again consider a position in the startup world. In this job market, given your situation, you're going to have a really tou…

Speaking as somebody that worked retail in their Youth, I didn’t really find it stress-free, more mindless.

Re: Ask HN: Can't get hired – what's next?

#109

Post by radixdiaboli »

silvercymbals wrote: post #55
rednafi wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know where you are but 150k is decent at best in most US and Western European big cities. So if someone has a few years of experience under their belt, the expectation isn’t too complacent.

Look up the average salary of H1B visa holders... I don't really have any interest arguing what a respectable salary on HN is. The recruiter I was working with clearly stated that $180-200k given my resume was reasonable. America isn't europe.

Bro, recruiters are kindof idiots.

I'm gonna be real with you: you need to face the fact that you don't understand the game you're playing.

I know because I was there. I founded a startup that I can make sound impressive. I left when I burnt out, thinking of course what I did was impressive enough to easily land a job. I floundered for 5 years.

Places look at your resume and either see someone who is overqualified (they're right) or someone who hasn't worked on a real project (they're right). If you can't swallow that, you're going to keep beating your head against the wall until you do.

I started refusing any interview that had a live coding exam (I vibed way better with places that did project based exams). I coded my own projects to hone my skills.

Eventually I decided I needed to play the game. What I did was really niche. I took a web dev boot camp and practiced code exams.

Now I have a job where I started at a low salary, but they created a senior position for me in less than a year. It's looking like managing my team will be a thing before year 2. I will get paid less than other people in the industry, but if that ever really bothers me I'll be able to move laterally and make more easily.

This is all to say: suck it the eff up. Your experience is useful, but you're playing a different game. Lower your expectations, get the chip off your shoulder, and maneuver whatever you can find into a win.

Re: Ask HN: Can't get hired – what's next?

#110

Post by platevoltage »

silvercymbals wrote: post #47
platevoltage wrote: post #26

Man, I feel like my "Ask HN" post from a few years ago isn't too different from your's besides me being 15 years older than you. The result I got from it was a HN user contacting me, where we got coffee and he explained to me how to be successful on Upwork. Being a freelancer was never my intention, but it's where I ended up, and right now I'm very thankful for it. I don't make much money, but I can say that I make m…

thanks, this means a lot I'm in my early 30s, but I generally find it really discouraging here when people on HN try to "be nice" by claiming $150k isn't effectively minimum wage even working at startups in the bay. Fortunately I've had some success with consulting - the world just seems really bleak right now in terms of my employment prospects.

You're not wrong about the bleak part. My team at Akamai was routing for me, but at that time, they were worried about layoffs. Their stock dropped from 110 to around 75 dollars since then. Sucks for me, but it was a Cloud Support job. Very technical, but not really what I wanted to be doing long term. I figured it would be a good foot in the door at a good company.
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