Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#231

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 3:42 AM UTC

JCharante wrote: post #228

scarface74 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And most college courses also don’t teach that.

Most college courses don't but most curriculums have some sort of security class. When we were learning assembly we used gdb to exploit faults in a C program (and we didn't get the source code so we had to read the assembly). There was also one for finding exploits exposed for a website that has a DB in the backend. Nothing prevents bootcamps from having those classes though.

And none of that has anything to do with

> can be fine in a feature factory workplace. But having an engineer on your team who has no idea about infosec is an active danger. “I make a sql query from this string builder” / “we save the passwords in this database table” / “the AWS credential is here in the javascript code in the repository” / etc.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#232

Post by mavelikara » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 3:54 AM UTC

josephg wrote: post #229

torben-friis wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d argue that if any of those reach production it’s never going to be the junior dev’s fault. Where’s the review process? Stronger point even: it is beneficial to have a person capable of messing up that way so you can check that your quality control is working.

A tiny minority of places I've worked do code review for every commit. Or have careful enough processes that they would catch every mistake made by incompetent engineers. Most companies simply trust their employees most of the time. Hardening a process against programmers you don't trust has a massive cost.

> A tiny minority of places I've worked do code review for every commit.

In the past three jobs I have had, over 13 years, all changes were code reviewed before merge. I don't know the industry's general stance on this, but I wanted to describe my experience here which is very different from yours.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#233

Post by mavelikara » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 3:55 AM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #171

Scarblac wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in those few months, they were often trained intensively on exactly the tech stack you're looking for, and they built some things, in a team, that look a lot like what's actually done day to day in many businesses. In an up to date way. That helps! We have only one boot camp graduate, who came from a completely different career. He's been productive from day 1, has carefully listened to all advice he's got since…

> he's just very good after two years Right, but a self-taught developer might well have years of non-commercial experience and be good in two months or even from the get-go.

The word "might" is doing a lot of work in that assertion.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#234

Post by turdprincess » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 4:30 AM UTC

josephg wrote: post #162

Scarblac wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in those few months, they were often trained intensively on exactly the tech stack you're looking for, and they built some things, in a team, that look a lot like what's actually done day to day in many businesses. In an up to date way. That helps! We have only one boot camp graduate, who came from a completely different career. He's been productive from day 1, has carefully listened to all advice he's got since…

There are knowledge holes a mile wide with bootcamp curriculums though. The programs I’ve seen don’t teach: - Information security - Anything lower level than Python/Ruby - Unix (streams, files, processes and threads, syscalls, etc) - Debugging. (Except incedentally) Not knowing these things can be fine in a feature factory workplace. But having an engineer on your team who has no idea about infosec is an active dang…

I have a CS degree from a top university and I didn’t learn any of the above in college (except for perhaps debugging), including an internship.

Actually 10 years later I’m a senior engineer at a FAANG (mobile specialty) and I still don’t know most of the things you listed. Except for debugging - I got that down!

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#235

Post by whoopdeepoo » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 5:10 AM UTC

pizza234 wrote: post #90

wturner wrote: post #51

If you can pass employer coding challenges as easily as you say, the rest is low hanging fruit. It’s hard for me to imagine what the problem is on your end. I have the complete inverse problem. Here’s what I would do: Make up a name for your own personal company and get a matching domain. Make a basic website with your domain. Under the resume/CV entry for this make-believe-company write that you perform contract wor…

Not sure this is an effective strategy (but who knows, it may work in some cases). As a dev who's been on the hiring side, it's very easy to spot people who adopt this strategy (where devs even define themselves as CEOs/CTOs... of fictitious companies), and for me it's a yellow flag. I personally prefer somebody who's very explicit (that is, looking for a junior position), but has considerable projects to showcase.

I followed a similar strategy and was hired as a senior. Granted I had ~8 years programming experience before being hired but none of it was as a salaried SWE.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#236

Post by whoopdeepoo » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 5:11 AM UTC

seattle_spring wrote: post #153

wturner wrote: post #51

If you can pass employer coding challenges as easily as you say, the rest is low hanging fruit. It’s hard for me to imagine what the problem is on your end. I have the complete inverse problem. Here’s what I would do: Make up a name for your own personal company and get a matching domain. Make a basic website with your domain. Under the resume/CV entry for this make-believe-company write that you perform contract wor…

It's easy to see right through this little charade. If you label yourself as "CEO" or some related nonsense, any competent HM will throw your application directly into the garbage.

Just say independent contractor

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#237

Post by crespire » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 5:55 AM UTC

rubberband wrote: post #86

Late to the party, but maybe I can help. I've helped in the hiring of many developers. (grain of salt, just my opinion, etc...) * Don't do bootcamps. It's a red flag for me. This can be said for any 100% online college. (again, I'm just being honest). Community colleges are fine. * You having a Github that you've committed stuff to often-ish will most interest me. I don't give a crud if you contribute to open source.…

Fingers crossed I can make it happen this year! Thanks for your tips!

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#238

Post by yellow_lead » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 7:02 AM UTC

tejohnso wrote: post #108

yellow_lead wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think three in 45 mins is a bit hyperbole. Interviewing at Google I got 45 mins for each. At Amazon I got an hour for each. (Both mediums)

Not hyperbole. Direct quote and confirmation from FAANG recruiter. Maybe even after confirmation they were misinformed. Or maybe that was the suggested practice goal rather than what would actually happen in the interview.

That recruiter shouldn't have said that as its probably caused lots of people who aren't inadequate to feel like they are.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#239

Post by ookblah » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 7:26 AM UTC

Grew up programming for fun as a hobby. Came to the same realization you did after working at a job that was not fulfilling after graduating in my field. Thought if I loved doing it for fun why not try it as a "real job".

Applied at a bunch of places even though I had zero work experience or matching degree credentials. What I did have though were a bunch of side projects that I had worked on...

Interviewed with some companies and found out that I was actually pretty competent. That process and working at said companies gave me the confidence boost that I needed to know I wasn't fully kidding myself about my skills. Rest is history.

I feel like if you love it as much as you say you do, you should probably have similar projects ready to show. Not these side projects for the sake of getting hired or bootcamp type demo things, but things born out of your passion.

Take this with a grain of salt for today's age, but this is what I did back then (10 years ago..showing my age here haha).

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#240

Post by atraac » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 10:13 AM UTC

dan-robertson wrote: post #154

seattle_spring wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to see right through this little charade. If you label yourself as "CEO" or some related nonsense, any competent HM will throw your application directly into the garbage.

At least in the U.K. one-person contracting companies are reasonably common. Though I do find the GP suggestion weird.

I work as a contractor in a single-man company because in Poland it's incredibly beneficial to regular employment contract tax wise and 60-80% of polish developers do the same. I don't think I know even one person that would call himself CEO of his 'company', while working as a contractor. It would be... honestly, cringe.