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

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

#71

Post by yellow_lead » Sun, Dec 03, 2023, 11:34 PM UTC

mandeepj wrote: post #60

stpn wrote: post #27

A long time ago sonos didn't support apple airplay. I did some protocol reversing and wrote a small program that pretended to be an airplay speaker to pipe audio to a sonos speaker (archive: https://github.com/stephen/airsonos ) I ended up getting recruiting messages from both the airplay team at apple and some folks from sonos. I didn't end up taking either offer, but it was also an interesting talking point when in…

So, respective teams from those two companies (or even other companies for that matter) are actively searching GH for any mods to their work?

More likely is employees use their own products and happen to see it while searching for a way to do the same thing.

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

#72

Post by immibis » Sun, Dec 03, 2023, 11:35 PM UTC

flakes wrote: post #17

Not really a side project, but I used to be a lot more active on stackoverflow. A recruiter reached out to me through the job board that stackexchange used to host. Been with the job for about 5 years now. Pretty lame that they discontinued that job board. It was a lot nicer experience than using linkedin.

I also got a significant job upgrade this way.

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

#73

Post by immibis » Sun, Dec 03, 2023, 11:37 PM UTC

takkatakka wrote: post #9

It was my half hearted attempt at factorio with Clojure: https://github.com/pyrrhic/learning-clojure-factorio-clone It mostly just showed that I had a genuine interest in programming, and served as a talking point (why Clojure, my experience with it, etc). The project wasn't related to the job at all.

The creator of shapez.io has made money on it, I think. It's like Factorio but simpler.

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

#74

Post by flakes » Sun, Dec 03, 2023, 11:39 PM UTC

gumballindie wrote: post #23

flakes wrote: post #17

Not really a side project, but I used to be a lot more active on stackoverflow. A recruiter reached out to me through the job board that stackexchange used to host. Been with the job for about 5 years now. Pretty lame that they discontinued that job board. It was a lot nicer experience than using linkedin.

> Pretty lame that they discontinued that job board. I used to hire people straight off of SO. Sometimes skipping the usual process of they has solid answers to the types of questions we’s ask - went straight for culture fit. I think instead of blaming ai and other esoteric reasons for SO’a downfall leadership should look into the damage cancelling the job board has done. People helping others at least had the incent…

I still like to help people regardless of if it will directly benefit me. It was just a nice perk.

Although, since they made all of these controversial changes, it feels less like helping people and more like doing free work for a random company.

The real killer for me was limiting the data dumps to paying customers. They really let down the community who trusted SO would be a trustworthy steward of the data. The charm of the site is gone.

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

#75

Post by brianolson » Sun, Dec 03, 2023, 11:40 PM UTC

going way back: Science Fair in High School landed me summer internships that rolled over into my first job out of college. ("Science and Engineering Fair" project was building robots with microcontrollers) I think it was the proof that I could do that kind of work in a self directed way that made them notice me.

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

#76

Post by xena » Sun, Dec 03, 2023, 11:40 PM UTC

jessehorne wrote: post #22

xena wrote: post #15

My blog https://xeiaso.net (source code: https://github.com/Xe/site ) and the stuff I've written for it ended up doing several things to help me get employed over the years: 1. Letting me have a place to write to get better at writing, which makes it easier to do my job in DevRel. 2. Lets me talk about all of the interesting projects I work on (eg: an AI novel writing experiment https://xeiaso.net/videos/2023/ai-hack…

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.

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

#77

Post by the_only_law » Sun, Dec 03, 2023, 11:41 PM UTC

jessehorne wrote: post #36

tonyonodi wrote: post #29

My side project NumPad https://numpad.io got me my current job at Decipad https://www.decipad.com/ (the similar naming scheme is a coincidence!). I came across Decipad while looking for a job, and messaged the founder, highlighting my work on NumPad. They were impressed enough that the hiring process ended up being just a few interviews, I've been there for almost a year now, and it's been pretty good! If there's a m…

It's funny you say this. After struggling to find work (but mostly to find meaningful work), I've committed myself to pursuing jobs related to my curiosities/interests. I didn't really do that before. Over time, I've started to narrow down based off of what I'm genuinely interested in. That way I don't have to lie when I say I'm "passionate" about something I'm working on. :-)

> I've started to narrow down based off of what I'm genuinely interested in.

How do you do that if you’re past work is disconnected from what you’re interested in.

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

#78

Post by modeless » Sun, Dec 03, 2023, 11:43 PM UTC

I was one of the first backers of the Oculus Rift Kickstarter. When I got it I decided eye tracking was going to be huge for VR, so as a side project I cut a hole in my Rift and built my own eye tracker. I posted it on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7876471

A few days later the CTO of a small eye tracking startup gave me a call. I quit Google and joined them. I built a (novel at the time) deep neural net based VR eye tracking system for them, and less than two years later Google acquired us.

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

#79

Post by pizzafeelsright » Sun, Dec 03, 2023, 11:45 PM UTC

A long time ago I built a business app for the company to replace our existing. I first ran it in parallel and then had my boss do the same. They loved it and it went into production.

Later I applied for a job and all the work I did, backend and frontend and support and database and migrations and reports and visualizations showed my future employer that I knew every stage of work suddenly finding myself moving them into devops.

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

#80

Post by 23B1 » Sun, Dec 03, 2023, 11:45 PM UTC

stpn wrote: post #27

A long time ago sonos didn't support apple airplay. I did some protocol reversing and wrote a small program that pretended to be an airplay speaker to pipe audio to a sonos speaker (archive: https://github.com/stephen/airsonos ) I ended up getting recruiting messages from both the airplay team at apple and some folks from sonos. I didn't end up taking either offer, but it was also an interesting talking point when in…

You didn't miss out because Sonos continues to do an awful job software-wise. One of the things I'm most looking forward to as I de-IOT-ize my life is selling that system and running speaker wire like a true G.