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Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

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Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#341

Post by stpn »

archeantus wrote: post #288

Back in 2014 I was tired of how awful the Mint app was and I wanted to make a banking app of my own (that I affectionately called Basil). The premise was that it would be like Mailbox (remember that flash in the pan email app?) but for finances. You’d swipe on every transaction to make sure they were categorized correctly. I even wired it up to my local bank’s very rudimentary API. It was beautifully designed (thanks…

I am actually currently working on something like this - inbox zero style (don't have swipe gestures built yet) finances tool where you check/set the category. What's old is new I guess.

Is basil still around? Would be interested in taking a look.

Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#343

Post by hackernewds »

binwiederhier wrote: post #121

I wrote a Dropbox-like file sync and share application called Syncany [1] as a side project back in 2014/2015. While it never made it out of alpha, it had gotten some traction, and looking back, I am still proud of the architecture and design (not so much of the code, hehe). One day, a developer from this random company in Connecticut (I am German and lived in Germany at the time) reached out to me in my project's IR…

That sounds hilariously on character for Drew :)

Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#344

Post by p0d »

I worked in a school as a technician and wrote a room booking system. It shaped my life. It has brought sideline income for 16 years. It got me a job in the private sector. It opened the door for a number of large paid projects. I'm now a lecturer trying to pass on my IT curiosity to others. The booking system is https://freeperiod.co.uk.

Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#345

Post by 8n4vidtmkvmk »

yieldcrv wrote: post #276
simonsarris wrote: post #203

When I was fresh out of college I semi-obsessively started answering StackOverflow questions about HTML Canvas, which was still new enough to not have a lot of coverage. At one point I answered over 10% of all canvas questions ever asked. I also blogged a few tutorials. This made Pearson email me for a book offer (HTML5 Unleashed, 2013, almost no one read it as I had no fame, but last amazon review: "Still relevant i…

I got a job from stackoverflow posts too, it was a company whose entire strategy was hiring "Developer Evangelists" which I had never heard of before. I tried to internalize that silly name but really the company's product just wasn't in a place to "evangelize" anyway so it didn't work for very long. I hated that job, I excluded it on my resume.

I'm in the top 250 on Stackoverflow and didn't get any job offers through there. I wasn't looking but I think I've only had one person contact me off the platform which involved finding my website and then my contact form. But they just wanted more answers.

Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#347

Post by dep_b »

I did a very simple implementation of WebRTC for iOS. Somehow somebody found that project on GitHub, saw I was from the same country and hired me. Did like a few months of freelance work because of it.

I did a (paid) side project for a macOS app and another one a few years later. The first one very small (but complex, digging through many layers) the second one small but substantial in scope. I got two job interviews because of those.

Moral of the story: keep doing paid side projects whenever possible. You learn a lot from your customers.

Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#348

Post by flir »

xena wrote: post #76
jessehorne wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard from many that writing can help build credibility for hiring purposes. I have committed myself to writing at least something on all future projects because of this. Thanks for the tip. p.s your use of "Technophilosopher" and "chaos magician" to describe yourself is incredible

I've been meaning to write a longer rant about this, but I'm not an engineer. I'm a glorified product designer and marketer. Also every title is made up. Some are more made up than others.

Data point for you: In Douglas Coupland's Microserfs the start-up team choose their own titles for their business cards (yes, business cards - it was written a long time ago). Two that I remember were "Personal Trainer" and "Crew Chief".

Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#349

Post by franky47 »

Do freelance client gigs count as "a job"? If so, a few projects have definitely contributed to visibility: my end-to-end encrypted analytics SaaS [1], and a lot of the open-source libraries that I published while building it [2].

The "build in public" approach of publishing often while doing a side/weekend project helps a lot in showcasing your skills.

To this date since I started by freelance business, it's more often clients finding me then me looking for them.

[1] https://chiffre.io

[2] https://github.com/47ng

Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#350

Post by carabiner »

device_id wrote: post #335

Created a financial markets tech project, put it on sourceforge. Didn’t even get to the second commit. A hiring manager from a nyse group co emails me: “can you implement this for us to completion we will give you money”. I go “sorry I am busy building a startup [in some unrelated area]”. Startup grew and then failed, and I became poor, temporarily.

sourceforge? must be ancient. what did the project do?
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