Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Are you contracting on the side (while working full time)?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–62 of 62 posts

Re: Ask HN: Are you contracting on the side (while working full time)?

#61

Post by ScottFree »

tluyben2 wrote: post #57
mc3 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for regular jobs (permanent or a long 6-12m contract), you might get referred by your network, but the company needs to whiteboard you all the same (it's policy!). The referral probably prevents your CV getting binned at least.

If you apply where you have no clout; if I get an invite from my network I assume no hurdles aka based on that they know what I can do for them and that the CTO (in my case) simply removes this requirement.

You're a CTO at a banking startup. Your experience does not apply to most programmers.

Re: Ask HN: Are you contracting on the side (while working full time)?

#62

Post by tluyben2 »

mc3 wrote: post #58
tluyben2 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you apply where you have no clout; if I get an invite from my network I assume no hurdles aka based on that they know what I can do for them and that the CTO (in my case) simply removes this requirement.

Interesting. Honestly that feels alien to me, and it might be for a number of reasons, including inadequate networking, not "selling" myself well enough, or being too much of a team player to not stand out as the 5X-er or 10X-er who you just have to hire to solve those tech issues that will double your business or whatever. To counter this, my experiment at the moment is in freelancing at moonlight, but where the cli…

> My question to you, is what sort of companies let you skip the hoop jumps?

Hard question as I did not apply to many, but the largest offer I had was a company with some 150k+ people and I could just go in and start. I knew the CTO from a project in another company (he was the CTO there and we were contractors); the project failed but we kept in touch. I find (my prejudice) that kind of scale very much not interesting to work for; I like companies For Google/Netflix(/Facebook/...) I definitely cannot answer as I never wanted to work for those companies and my network is local so I am nothing to them. In working for a very-large-company I think I would only consider microsoft research as I really love what they are doing [0] (and would work there almost for free), but like said, my network is far more local.

[0] https://www.rise4fun.com/

Post reply on HN