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Ask HN: How did you get to your current job/startup?
71–80 of 82 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you get to your current job/startup?
#72Taught myself and started programming in 6th grade (around 12) and made a bunch of small games / demos (QBasic, C, C++). I went to college looking for an English degree (wanted to be a writer) on a full scholarship but graduated with two degrees in Philosophy. Spent about a year temp working for $11/hr hiring contractors and telemarketing for a big home improvement chain. After a year of that, spent about another half a year temping and finally got a job at a university close by managing schedules (SQL, Access, VBA). A couple of months after, I got a call from my sister's old boss who had seen my code from high school and needed a Javascript programmer. Got the job having never written a line of JS, learned JS in two weeks, and worked there for about three years. Moved to SF when they opened up an office out there. Did 6 years of contracting / working various jobs, then moved back east. After coming back east, I got contacted on Stackoverflow careers by my current company, a small bay area company. They indicated they'd be ok with a remote worker and now after a year and a half, they want me to take over all tech operations and be the CTO. Planning to travel around Europe next year while still working here.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get to your current job/startup?
#73Tweeted I was looking for a job over Summer between Uni semesters. Had my interview on CoD4. Worked there over Summer. They liked me enough they offered me an intership. Used it to build my dissertation project. When I finished Uni I looked around at who was hiring. The guys I'd worked with offered more than anyone else and were working on some seriously cool projects compared to anyone else.
What's CoD4? (I may have rather stupidly assumed this is the fourth call of duty video game)
It was indeed, Modern Warfare. This was back in 2007 so it had just launched and when I mentioned maybe Skypeing we both found we already had headsets and played most nights anyway so we just set up a private chat and shot at each other.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get to your current job/startup?
#7429 y/o. Did well in high school, didn't do to well in my school's comp sci program (only minored). At work, adopted a policy to always try to own more things and make things easier for others (particularly those above me) without becoming a silo for information. Write everything down, make it accessible, and give people status updates (which include any accomplishments) before they ever need to ask for them. Then, ju…
That's a really good story. Are you leading a technical team?
Re: Ask HN: How did you get to your current job/startup?
#7541 years old now. Failed out of a top-ten college. Went to work assembling trophies for minimum wage. Lived in a shitty apartment and hung out with people going nowhere. Felt doomed. Got interested in Linux (early 94). Took a job as tech support at local ISP. Accepted back into same top-ten school. Dropped out a year later. Moved to SFBA and took low-wage job as a junior sysadmin with early cable ISP startup. Left af…
What do you think you've learned from living/working in so many different cities? I love hearing advice and insight from people who've lived in a lot of different US cities. What similarities they've noticed, what differences, etc.
In general, I don't put much value in moving around a lot. I was still pretty immature in my early years in the industry and did what many young twenty-somethings do--try out a job, then leave when it gets boring. I bounced around a lot like this. As I grew older, I grew to appreciate the benefits of sticking with one thing for 2+ years: the seniority, the promotions, the advanced knowledge you develop, etc.
My favorite place to live, hands down, was Utah. I really enjoyed my time there. I lived in Park City, UT for both stints. It's a ski town and totally different from how many might conceive Utah. The pay in Utah was never amazing but I got by. Now that I've been working remote for 6 years, I can picture going back to a place like Park City. Mid-sized, activity-focused towns in the Mountain West are awesome.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get to your current job/startup?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
140 / 7 = 20. You eat sleep and shit for a combined 4 hours a day?
Not sure why that is surprising to a lot of people. I have done near 18-20 hour work days(Sometimes going without sleep 2 days at a time), during many parts in my life(A few years at a time). In college, while at work, while building my own start up. The last time I worked like that was when I was working on bootstrapping a start up while having a day job. I did close to a 20 hour schedule for around 4 years. This wa…
Sure, most of us have experienced this kind of schedule short term, but I don't know anyone that is actually effective doing this long term.
There are some human anomalies that can thrive on that little amount of sleep but I would think for most people this would lead to poor productivity at best and be extremely detrimental to health at worst.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get to your current job/startup?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Talk about bad timing...did you get into real estate in 2006?
LOL almost! Sometimes I stop and ponder that if I followed the exact same career path but offset by -4 years (start in tech ~1994, move to banking in ~2004), I'd probably be a multi-millionaire and retired at 40. Luck of the draw. I'm certainly not destitute, but I feel my experiences have given me a more realistic understanding about the role luck plays in your career vs. hard work--certainly more than the average 2…
Luck is the #1 factor in success. Everyone, even super hard working special snowflakes are a product of:
- genetics (overwhelmingly influences intelligence and self-control)
- family influences
- friends
- location
- education
- wealth
- social and political environment
- micro and macro economic picture
- random interactions
- the list goes on...
Re: Ask HN: How did you get to your current job/startup?
#78How did you get your current job or startup?
I applied for it, and passed the interview.
Did you go to college?
Yes
Dropout?
No
If your did go to college, have you ever failed a course?
Only in middle school.
Did you have to move to a different country?
No
How did you manage that and what was (in general) the biggest obstacle/low-point of your journey so far?
When I was fired from a previous job because of a clerical error on my part. I was three months into it, had just bought a new car and was getting married in a few months. Turns out it was the best thing to ever happen to me career wise as it allowed me to focus 100% on programming, leading to a career change and ultimately my current job after a few years in a big consulting corp.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get to your current job/startup?
#79I'm 27. I didn't go to college and got my first job in games as Junior QA Tester at the one "real" games company in Western Australia at the time. After 3 months I was promoted to Senior QA, then the company went down. I freelanced doing software QA and web development for local independent games companies and other clients, as well as contracting doing web dev at a government agency. At the time was making 6 figures and living comfortably.
Eventually I wanted to go back to games, but Australia at the time wasn't a great place for that and I knew I would have to move. I got my Australian citizenship (originally Ukrainian) and spent a year cutting down my work hours and spending all spare time focusing on making games in JS to build up my portfolio and learn.
Ended up moving to Sweden on a Working Holiday visa with about a year's worth of savings and looking for work. Got a job as a Build Manager. Took a heavy pay cut from my freelance salary, but the work was worth it. That was 3 years ago. Currently I'm an SE in Build with a heavy focus on automated testing.
Re: Ask HN: How did you get to your current job/startup?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's CoD4? (I may have rather stupidly assumed this is the fourth call of duty video game)
It was indeed, Modern Warfare. This was back in 2007 so it had just launched and when I mentioned maybe Skypeing we both found we already had headsets and played most nights anyway so we just set up a private chat and shot at each other.
Wow. This is the most unique setups I've heard. I did hear once about a person who got an internship at Facebook (if I recall correctly) over online in-game chat.