Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job? • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by aureianimus » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 11:00 AM UTC

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…

Add-on story:

I joined binwiederhier for a while in developing Syncany and he invited me for an internship at his current employer.

The experience I gained both in contributing to Syncany and said internship helped me indirectly land the role I'm currently in, and my open source experience in general helped me land a cool engagement where I got to do some innovative open source projects.

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

#392

Post by kzrdude » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 11:03 AM UTC

Side projects (Github) helped me get a job in two ways, partly I could show deep open source projects in my resume but it was just as much that the side projects increased my self confidence: I actually am good at something. I was in a deep hole and that was very much needed.

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

#393

Post by __jonas » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 11:05 AM UTC

rjzzleep wrote: post #387

pokepim wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it common for Germans to dream about getting out of Germany and moving to US? Congratulations to you that you managed to do that, I am wondering how hard for German is to migrate to US to puruse better life here.

This is vastly different for native Germans and immigrant Germans. There are even some papers about how having a Turkish name immediately cuts your chances of getting a response to your job application in half. German job applications also require a photo on the application. For a lot of immigrant Germans leaving Germany is very much a goal, since upward mobility in German society is very low compared to the US. So f…

> German job applications also require a photo on the application.

I don't disagree with the rest of your comment but this is not true. Technically an employer cannot legally require you to attach a picture to your application or judge you any differently if you do not attach one, since the AGG passed in 2006 – although I don't doubt that it plays out different in practice sometimes.

I remember even being told in Highschool though that we shouldn't attach a picture to job applications, since it's generally not done anymore to avoid discrimination.

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

#394

Post by yoavhortman » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 11:06 AM UTC

I wrote a game[1] fully in typescript and uploaded it to various platforms, I was lucky enough and the game was found by a company that wants to create exactly those type of games (Arcadey/casual party games).

They had to go deep into the library of the platforms I uploaded to but it stood out as a work of passion. They contacted me and offered me a job on the spot.

The project took 9 months and a ton of iterations but I was so happy doing it I didn't care.

Still happily working at this gaming company.

[1] https://floripondis.com

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

#395

Post by lolive » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 11:07 AM UTC

I worked for something like 15 years on a Semantic Web/Linked Data/Knowledge Graph client GUI. Funnily, the market never provided a convenient alternative. So when a big company decided that their data were becoming a massive mess, and it was time for a proper layering of data architecture, they chose my tool. Then me.

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

#396

Post by max_ » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 11:19 AM UTC

I worked on a VSCode extension for a new Programming language. I then later got a message from its language designers asking if I was okay getting paid to maintain it.

I loved it.

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

#397

Post by ath92 » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 11:26 AM UTC

rjzzleep wrote: post #387

pokepim wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it common for Germans to dream about getting out of Germany and moving to US? Congratulations to you that you managed to do that, I am wondering how hard for German is to migrate to US to puruse better life here.

This is vastly different for native Germans and immigrant Germans. There are even some papers about how having a Turkish name immediately cuts your chances of getting a response to your job application in half. German job applications also require a photo on the application. For a lot of immigrant Germans leaving Germany is very much a goal, since upward mobility in German society is very low compared to the US. So f…

> upward mobility in German society is very low compared to the US

This appears to be untrue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Social_Mobility_Index

Germany ranks 11th on social mobility, while the us ranks 27th.

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

#398

Post by binwiederhier » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 11:30 AM UTC

aureianimus wrote: post #391

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…

Add-on story: I joined binwiederhier for a while in developing Syncany and he invited me for an internship at his current employer. The experience I gained both in contributing to Syncany and said internship helped me indirectly land the role I'm currently in, and my open source experience in general helped me land a cool engagement where I got to do some innovative open source projects.

Oh man, Pim! What a small world. I looooved working with you on Syncany, and I tried so hard to recruit you hehe. I looked you up on LinkedIn the other day and it looks like you're doing amazingly.

Ping me and we'll chat if you like. I'm working on a new open source project [1] that needs your help, hehe.

[1] https://ntfy.sh

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

#399

Post by roshanbabuwa » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 11:31 AM UTC

Looking all this amazing comments, feels like i started coding in such a lame era. FYI started coding around 2020. Such amazing people and motivating stories!

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

#400

Post by skip_region » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 11:34 AM UTC

brantonb wrote: post #52

20 years ago, I was a college kid who built a running log website as an alternative to keeping paper records. My college cross-country team lived all over the country, so this let us keep each other accountable during summer training. It was fairly early in the Internet, before GPS watches and not many runners had heart rate straps. It got featured in Women's Health and Runners' World (UK edition) magazines. When I i…

If you don't mind me asking, what is the site? My issue with "much better options" is that they tend to include an overwhelming amount of distracting data (Avg HR, Max HR, Cadence, Pace, ect).

Sometimes, less is more :) I use a Google excel doc for mine and have not looked back!