I would be more interested in refactoring work. How they have turned upside down a project and make it more scalable.
Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?
81–90 of 157 posts
Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?
#82It's funny - the reality is that it depends on the organization. It's not lost on me that everyone wants to hear about your side projects from a technical and general interest perspective. It serves many companies as a reasonable proxy for life long learning, and checking up on a passion.
At the same time, several of those companies would be mortified that you had, or continued yours once employed there.
Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?
#83Judging both from my experience and other comments here, the organisations that value side projects are not the majority, but they are exactly the places where you WANT to work at.
Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I am trying to hire someone into my team, I want to make use of all relevant and appropriate signals that can help me make a better decision. I consider side projects to be an appropriate and often valuable signal. While it is unfortunate that side projects have some selection bias against those who are time-poor, it also feels wrong to me to discriminate against people who can demonstrate their skills and impress…
I am not an ideas guy. Give me a project and I'll build it. Ask me what I'd like to build and I'll have no idea. In 15 years I've had 1 side project. I'm a staff engineer.
Ideas are not hard to find, even if you don't feel like you have them yourself there are loads of people pursuing side projects who would love help from someone skilled like yourself. I have pages of side project ideas I'd like to explore but will probably never get chance and would be happy to share with someone who might want to do them. Maybe it's more that you don't get very excited by side project type ideas?
The other thing that it might be is rational pessimism. A lot of ideas would take a phenomenal amount of work, and as a senior you probably see those pitfalls and that work right at the beginning, while someone more junior might attack a problem - and eventually succeed precisely because of their irrational optimism.
There was a fun quote on the Alexander long Piano story:
> I think because I was so young I absolutely knew it was totally possible to do, I was fully determined and without consulting any professionals I had no barrier stopping me.
I think the implication there is that if he had consulted professionals, the enormity of what he was taking on might well have crushed the idea.
Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?
#85I always ask candidates if they have anything to show off. I am _always_ more interested in what people do as a side project than I am of what they have done professionally. Hyperbole time but I think it conveys the message: People do side projects for better reaons than they do professionally. At worst it's because they want to quickly learn/achieve something for their next job. Compared to professional experience,…
I appreciate your sentiment. At the same time, looking at side projects runs the risk of discriminating against qualified candidates who don't have time for side projects because of other commitments (e.g. childcare or care for elderly relatives) or who choose to pursue non-IT hobbies to keep a work-life balance. How do you avoid treating such candidates unfairly?
Personally, I found that if I do side projects, I simply burn out in long term. The family is not even necessary for that.
It is really no different then working overtime same amount of hours.
Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?
#86My experience is that side projects are 90% ignored. They are treated strictly as line items like education. I got furious tired of this so on my last resume I treated my employment history strictly as employment history. A list of employers with dates and dates of promotions plus a sentence or two what I worked on. Supremely lowered emphasis. I also put my personal projects into a separate section above my employmen…
I've struggled with this quite a bit. My current employer initially hired me for a less senior position than the one I applied for... and then promoted me to the one I applied for within 2 weeks of me starting the job. I think a lot of that is because they didn't consider my side-project experience (especially the ones I did before my first dev job) as valuable whilst it actually contributes significantly to my capabilities as a developer.
Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?
#87I think most views in this thread already presented are valid, even if contradictory, as it depends a lot on the hiring side.
As a single datapoint: for senior positions i will look at all side projects presented in a CV after the first phone screen. However, it can only serve as a signal amplifier for traits established in the CV by experience or education. So if a candidate does not have side projects, we try to get a better signal in a different way. That said, i have never seen someone getting hired because of their side projects (or someone not hired because of the lack of them)--but i have seen us pass on candidates that accidentally provided negative signal with their side projects.
For junior positions having or not having side projects can be a deal maker or breaker.
Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?
#88I'm a professional resume writer and former tech recruiter, and I'd say "it depends".
Does the side project demonstrate a specific skill that you don't have in your day job that can/will be attractive to the hiring company? (if yes, include)
Does the side project have any popularity or adoption that would potentially make it impressive? (if yes, include)
Does the side project demonstrate your ability to solve problems within the hiring company's domain? (if yes, include)
Does the side project show some level of versatility that your professional body of work lacks? (if yes, include)
Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?
#89I always ask candidates if they have anything to show off. I am _always_ more interested in what people do as a side project than I am of what they have done professionally. Hyperbole time but I think it conveys the message: People do side projects for better reaons than they do professionally. At worst it's because they want to quickly learn/achieve something for their next job. Compared to professional experience,…
I appreciate your sentiment. At the same time, looking at side projects runs the risk of discriminating against qualified candidates who don't have time for side projects because of other commitments (e.g. childcare or care for elderly relatives) or who choose to pursue non-IT hobbies to keep a work-life balance. How do you avoid treating such candidates unfairly?
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Re: Ask HN: for senior positions is it advisable to list side projects on your CV?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not an ideas guy. Give me a project and I'll build it. Ask me what I'd like to build and I'll have no idea. In 15 years I've had 1 side project. I'm a staff engineer.
Ideas are not hard to find, even if you don't feel like you have them yourself there are loads of people pursuing side projects who would love help from someone skilled like yourself. I have pages of side project ideas I'd like to explore but will probably never get chance and would be happy to share with someone who might want to do them. Maybe it's more that you don't get very excited by side project type ideas? Th…
>Ideas are not hard to find,
> I have pages of side project ideas
Well evidently not for you. But please don't assume everybody's mind or personality works the same way yours does. You were told to not judge everybody by the same subjective yardstick and your immediate response is to.. project and judge everybody by the same yardstick.
The ability to generate side project ideas or the interest in investing huge amounts of time into a project on your own time are largely orthogonal to the ability to actually build things when it's your job.