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Ask HN: How can I get a tech job that's more social?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I get a tech job that's more social?

#51

Post by guyzero »

mojomark wrote: post #2

Technical sales. It's not easy to find people who are personable but can also explain the underlying tech clearly to potential customers... and the best tech in the world isn't with a hill of beans if it isn't being used by sutomers. If your an inherently social, dependable and trustworthy person, I believe the sales part of it comes naturally.

This. Being a sales engineer can be just as technically demanding as any job shuffling protobufs in a big tech company. But there's a lot more 1:1 interaction talking to people and gathering information about the problem they're trying to solve.

Jobs like devrel can also have a good combination of being technical and talking to people and giving presentations.

Finally roles like "Technical Account Manager" can vary really widely across companies - in some cases these are basically glorified support jobs or sales jobs where you're dealing with existing customers instead of new customers. In other places it can be more like a solutions engineer where you're implementing a customer-specific solution using your company's platform. Again, a lot of 1:1 communication with customers.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get a tech job that's more social?

#52

Post by codegeek »

PretzelSweat wrote: post #12
codegeek wrote: post #6

If you are in Philadelphia area, come work for us. A small SAAS edtech company. I love working in person (even though ironically a lot of our team is remote in different countries)

Could you expand on your company and current needs?

Contact me directly. Will be easier to discuss.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get a tech job that's more social?

#53

Post by 999900000999 »

donretag wrote: post #41
999900000999 wrote: post #38

I'll also say don't expect to socialize at work. It should be a given now but you should never ever ask a co worker out. It's too risky for everyone involved. Conduct which is okay at a bar or a party has no place in an office. That said I have made great friends at work. This should be a bonus. If you want to make friends and date do that at a bar , alumni events , concerts, etc. If you step to a girl and ask if you…

At no point did the OP talk about dating. Not sure what is driving your comment.

A lot of people use socialization as a euphemism for dating.

Regardless you shouldn't expect anything from work aside from a paycheck. I actually love working remote because while I try to be a friendly person in the office, I'm not at the office to make friends.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get a tech job that's more social?

#54

Post by sophacles »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #48
LindyTalker wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tone deaf. There's still ~6 hours a day of just sitting in a room alone. Glad you've found success in life but this might not be for others

Call it what you want but that advice comes from experience. I worked remote for many years before pandemic and had plenty of issues with isolation. Sometimes in life socialization comes easy and requires no work, but that's not always the case. This is a common problem people face once they leave high school/college. The truth is that real social relationships, the ones that keeps us more fulfilled take work. I real…

What's tone deaf and patronizing about your responses is that you assume that your personal working style is the best and only one for every person. Imagine not understanding that different people are different, and as a result may have working styles that are different too.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get a tech job that's more social?

#55

Post by ectopod »

polynomial wrote: post #31

Curious what people thing is the reason this post is being downvoted (while also having decent responses in the comments.) On the surface, that would seem to indicate it is a polarizing topic.

What do you mean? Posts don't have a downvote button.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get a tech job that's more social?

#56

Post by red_hare »

My NYC-based startup is struggling with this from the other side right now.

Half of us are "in person people" and the other half have never been happier working remote, so we're doing it team by team. My team has decided to be in-person. We show up 3+ days a week, have in-person happy hours, grab lunch together, and optimize our meetings for in-person. I love it.

But now hiring for this team has become impossible. We have other teams that will take on remote engineers, but ours looking for someone who also prefers in-person is just filtering so many people so early in the pipeline.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get a tech job that's more social?

#57

Post by baron_harkonnen »

sophacles wrote: post #54
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call it what you want but that advice comes from experience. I worked remote for many years before pandemic and had plenty of issues with isolation. Sometimes in life socialization comes easy and requires no work, but that's not always the case. This is a common problem people face once they leave high school/college. The truth is that real social relationships, the ones that keeps us more fulfilled take work. I real…

What's tone deaf and patronizing about your responses is that you assume that your personal working style is the best and only one for every person. Imagine not understanding that different people are different, and as a result may have working styles that are different too.

Where are you getting that I'm assuming that "personal working style is the best and only one for every person"? I am recommending what worked for me. It's a bit different than the question the OP ask's but, given a similar situation, it's what has worked.

I suspected you my be projecting a bit of your own insecurities here.

Unfortunately HN has become an increasing hostile place, and I think rather extreme reactionary response to a simple recommendation is becoming the norm.

In a weird way, thanks for finally waking me up to the realization that is community is not what it was and not one where I should be spending time anymore.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get a tech job that's more social?

#58

Post by dd_roger »

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #18

I would recommend looking into decoupling your social needs from your job. Even in the time before wide spread WFH this was an issue, during good times it feels great to go into work and get all your social needs met but when layoffs come or companies collapse suddenly that great work friend everyone loves gets let go and in a few more weeks they effectively don't exist anymore. It's great if you can meet people at w…

>I would recommend looking into decoupling your social needs from your job.

I absolutely hate that this is the standard answer that comes up everytime someone mentions not being happy with WFH. Not only it doesn't answer the question, but it's just a slightly more polite version of "just make friends, duh" which is not helpful at all.

To many people (myself included) 2-3 hours of social activities in a day is not enough. I need to be around people, and while it's great to meet some friends in the evening it doesn't change the fact that I just spent 10 miserable hours alone in my appartment. In addition to that, I find there are many disadvantages to remote work: I hate doing over the phone what could have been a nice in-person chat, I hate how tedious it is to show/explain things that would have been easily demonstrated in person, I hate how difficult it is to grasp non-verbal cues, etc. I don't know a single person IRL who likes full time WFH, but judging by how popular it is here, it seems I shouldn't assume that everybody is in the same situation. Conversely, don't assume everybody can turn his miserable WFH experience in something awesome just "by doing stuff in the evening". Btw no offense but I had to laugh at your suggestion that a vido chat is a social activity.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get a tech job that's more social?

#59

Post by cpfohl »

chrismatheson wrote: post #14

Coworking spaces. Not the “we work” kind, but the smaller community run ones. Being social can be with people who aren’t colleagues. This way you set your own limits on the environment, rather than joining a new place that might be too much of an over correction six months from now.

This is the way to go. Many will also have private offices that provide the perfect balance between quiet space and socializing opportunities.
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