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Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?

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Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?

#31

Post by seankimdesign »

Is your ultimate goal to break into the tech industry? If so, I'd spend a bit more time getting some actual working pieces of code on your GitHub. Editing documentation is a noble deed, but as an interviewer it wouldn't do much for me in assessing your skills.

I know it takes a lot of effort as well as luck in landing that first entry-level job so all I can say is to keep knocking, but also be prepared to show something tangible. Anyone can talk all day about their awesome work ethics but it's another thing to be able to prove it by presenting a polished (for a junior) software.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?

#32

Post by AskHNremote2021 »

908B64B197 wrote: post #24

> I need to work remotely for family reasons. I have a special-needs sister and I look after my youngest brother. They are what's most important to me, which is why I don't want to relocate. Have you considered they might benefit from moving to a new location as well? Better schools and services for instance.

That could be something for the future - but would require a lot besides money. I don't want to go too deeply in the matter, but relocation (at the moment) is not an option. I need a stable income first, and would need to arrange for them to be okay with the move as well.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?

#33

Post by mgkimsal »

c- wrote: post #22
AskHNremote2021 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For GitHub, I looked at projects that interested me, but not necessarily having the skills to contribute code. So I would pour through the docs and find errors, typos, mistakes. These kinds of things. Cleaning up. Sometimes added documentation that was missing.

As a HM if a candidate showed that on their github - it would be a yellow flag (nonsense changes for the sake of changes). Just my $0.02.

If they're presented as "I'm a code contributor" but it's solely non-code changes, then yes, it seems disingenuous at best.

But if they're accepted by the repo owner, they're probably not nonsense. And projects need better documentation. If the OP was applying for a junior 'tech' role of some sort, and demonstrated that experience of revising documentation to be up to date and improved... it's a step up from some people I've seen over the years (who leave behind bad/broken docs, for example).

Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?

#34

Post by coding-saints »

Keep in mind that it's 2021 and yet companies still practice paying wages based on the confidence with each individual when determining offers (more so with software industry). While I encourage you to listen to every comment on here, I also suggest you start matching your learning path in parallel with how you conduct your interviews. Just my two pennies, but if your goal is to dominate the next 2 years to prove your worth, don't forget to provide equal energy and dominate your interviews to gain experience needed for progress. And in case noone mentioned it yet, being a software engineer and interviewing for the position are 2 completely different skill sets. Don't sleep on gaining experience with interviews even for jobs you would never accept. It's not always going to be a fellow peer making the call on your value. It sucks but you'll find out it's not always a straight path to the finish line. Again, just my two pennies...

Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?

#35

Post by foolmeonce »

I liked eloquent JS, it's a nice introduction particularly compatible with the website debugging style instead of one of the flashy SPAs framework styles.

There's actually quite a lot of piecemeal consulting relating to JS snippets on company websites that might be a better fit than support or more traditional development.

I mean things like e-commerce, SEO, form integrations, cookie consent forms, etc. If you talk to small businesses they will have a strong tendency to use wordpress with plugins to try to manage these things with as little coding as possible.

But often they end up needing a little JS/HTML debugging help and if you look at dev support of companies like Google, Stripe, MailChimp, etc, as you develop skills debugging JS, and try to debug websites then you'll actually be building skills that are normally farmed out by the larger orgs to consultants at pretty good rates.

Similarly, you can also do a lot in spreadsheets, i.e. in JavaScript in Google spreadsheets to do more business related tasks and it can be easier to find small businesses in your area that want to pay for projects to organize their inventory, integrate numbers scraped from different tools, etc.

At any rate, I just thought those might be some ideas that would be a bit different and might have some more local stepping stones even in a pretty small economy as well as remote consulting possibilities.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?

#36

Post by zerkten »

As others have stated, coding development jobs are the best thing to aim for. They also give you a baseline that has value everywhere else. Others have provided good advice on this so I'll focus elsewhere.

Documentation writing is something that can get you in the door at interesting places. It can also give you time with technology in a less pressured environment to learn it and switch to more technical jobs.

Bigger companies have roles like this, but they are obscured because documentation writer is not a sexy title, and the role is more than writing. It can be part testing features or providing product feedback ("I tried writing about this feature but it's so complicated. Will people even use it?")

To work out some places to try applying I started with Microsoft. I'd ignore locations, even when listed because companies haven't updated their tools to reflect remote or are stupidly optimistic. Even if you got fired because you wouldn't work onsite at the end of 2021, the experience would give you a serious boost. How I found the roles:

1. Searched for "Microsoft documentation". Found docs.microsoft.com. 2. Searched for docs.microsoft.com on jobs.microsoft.com. 3. Found "content developer" roles listed. This is the job title stuff I was talking about. At the core it's tech writing. 4. Pivoted to searching "content developer" - https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/search-results?keywords=...

Repeat that for other companies and you'll find different opportunities. There may also be contracting roles but it's harder to get into those initially. Writing docs for open source projects associated with these companies can help to make contacts. Red Hat is another place to consider for this reason.

It's important to have a portfolio of work. If you apply for a doc writer role you'd need to find examples that map onto what they produce. Also, look for opportunities to critique their work to some degree and be ready to suggest how you might improve their current work. Docs are becoming more interactive and interesting too, so any suggestions on how to make them more interesting will find more ears.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?

#37

Post by ARandomerDude »

seankimdesign wrote: post #31

Is your ultimate goal to break into the tech industry? If so, I'd spend a bit more time getting some actual working pieces of code on your GitHub. Editing documentation is a noble deed, but as an interviewer it wouldn't do much for me in assessing your skills. I know it takes a lot of effort as well as luck in landing that first entry-level job so all I can say is to keep knocking, but also be prepared to show someth…

^ This.

I've known several people – usually in their early 20s – who claim to be smart and motivated. Most of them are smart. But when it comes time to actually build something, they'd rather play video games. So how do you distinguish yourself from the video gamers? Build something. Anything.

If you want a full stack job, build a Twitter clone (with limited features) in React (or ReactNative) and Django. Even if you don't use those tools when getting hired, it'll show people that you have what it takes to do the work. Both React(Native) and Django have the added benefits of being in high demand, and extremely well documented.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?

#38

Post by rement »

c- wrote: post #22
AskHNremote2021 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For GitHub, I looked at projects that interested me, but not necessarily having the skills to contribute code. So I would pour through the docs and find errors, typos, mistakes. These kinds of things. Cleaning up. Sometimes added documentation that was missing.

As a HM if a candidate showed that on their github - it would be a yellow flag (nonsense changes for the sake of changes). Just my $0.02.

Fixing mistakes, typos, and errors are good things. Many articles and people suggest fixing typos in documentation for your first open source contributions. I would be interested if I found a new GitHub account with multiple accepted/pending PRs fixing things.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?

#39

Post by hosh »

I know this option isn’t the best, but check out rentacoder or freelancer. You’re going to get underpaid, and competing with lowest-cost vendors. This is contract, 1099 work, so no employee benefits. (But! If you play your cards right and understand taxes and laws, it can be more lucrative).

However, what you have going for you is that you can speak and write English well. You do not have to (and should not mention) where you live, or your own circumstance. Most people are looking for someone cheap to do short projects.

The goal here is to bootstrap your experience with paid projects, even if the pay is low. You use that to then get in front of larger projects or part time work.

Pick a tech platform or a platform family and stick with it, at least initially. You’re looking for projects that, after completing them, will get you in the door with stuff that pays well.

Anything that you develop that you can put into github, you should. Usuallly, contracts are done as work-for-hire. You might be able to negotiate keeping copyright. You might not. However, tools and scripts you write to assist with it should get posted. Your hobby projects should go there too.

Now, to talk specifically about your strengths. If you love teaching and you are good at writing, one thing you can do is to start blogging about your projects, or writing tutorials. It is a kind of psychological or marketing jujutsu. Teaching something implies expertise and authority, so long as the content is competent. You can even frame this as documenting your experience learning something. Just make sure that you brand this as you authoring the thing.

Last, give some thought to speciality. If you are known to be able to solve problems in specific areas, people come to you. Some people write web apps. Some people do devops/sre/infrastructure. Some people write low latency multiplayer game servers.

Re: Ask HN: Advice for finding an entry-level remote job?

#40

Post by hosh »

hosh wrote: post #39

I know this option isn’t the best, but check out rentacoder or freelancer. You’re going to get underpaid, and competing with lowest-cost vendors. This is contract, 1099 work, so no employee benefits. (But! If you play your cards right and understand taxes and laws, it can be more lucrative). However, what you have going for you is that you can speak and write English well. You do not have to (and should not mention)…

(So don’t just do documentation pull requests. Blog about the project itself, why you like it, help promote it, write a short tutorial about it on your own blog.)
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