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Ask HN: I will work for free ...

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Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#31

Post by davidw »

shabda wrote: post #18
davidw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those that have been around for a while? I got started doing web stuff in 1997, with Perl. We then switched to the up and coming PHP. Later I branched out and did some Tcl and Python and have since pretty much converted to Rails for web stuff. I also know C, Java at least in the context of Java ME for mobile stuff, and a bit of this, that, and the other thing (Erlang, Emacs lisp). It all depends on what you want, of…

> Of course, what the OP probably means is that these sort of random strings of technologies look, at times, a bit dubious. Yes. If you were looking for a webdev position, you probably will not list your Perl and Rails experience with same prominance as your Tcl and C experience.

Err... actually I would:-)

http://tcl.apache.org/rivet/

Point taken though.

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#32

Post by jagtesh »

swombat wrote: post #3

I don't think this is a good approach. As an employer, I wouldn't want to invest the time in getting someone up to speed with my systems if they have no "lock-in" that means they'll stay with me until they've paid off for that initial ramp-up period (which would cost me time). I particularly wouldn't want to do so for someone who already has a job at a software company - I'd clearly be a distant second (if not third…

swombat, everyone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur.

I'm an Indian, one who has lived in Bangalore for the past 6 years. I made a conscious choice of not working for an outsourcing outfit and instead plunged into the unknown realms of entrepreneurship. But I was lucky. I'm young with no dependents. No additional responsibilities other than taking care of myself. It's OKAY for me to get my hands burnt, because I know I'll survive to fight another day. On the other hand, many of my peers have their parents and siblings to take care of. Not to mention their own family if they're married. It's a big risk in India to lose a job and there are lesser financial instruments to aid the people (it's impossible to get a credit card without a job and the govt. doesn't pay anything to the employed, rather it _can't_).

Once you've lived under these circumstances, it's understandable to see a person who wants to work in a field they enjoy while having a sense of job security. Maybe because they have 10 years of experience in their fields, (which would pay them significantly more than Rs.350,000, esp. in _Bangalore_), a chunk of which goes into settling their EMIs. In such a case, jumping to a new field won't earn them as much while it could leave them stranded (there's little or no demand for non-Java/Oracle/BI Suite/.NET specialists here).

While I hope this give's a better insight into a Bangalore office worker's way of thinking, I do agree with your suggestions.

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#33

Post by RiderOfGiraffes »

jagtesh wrote: post #32
swombat wrote: post #3

I don't think this is a good approach. As an employer, I wouldn't want to invest the time in getting someone up to speed with my systems if they have no "lock-in" that means they'll stay with me until they've paid off for that initial ramp-up period (which would cost me time). I particularly wouldn't want to do so for someone who already has a job at a software company - I'd clearly be a distant second (if not third…

swombat, everyone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur. I'm an Indian, one who has lived in Bangalore for the past 6 years. I made a conscious choice of not working for an outsourcing outfit and instead plunged into the unknown realms of entrepreneurship. But I was lucky. I'm young with no dependents. No additional responsibilities other than taking care of myself. It's OKAY for me to get my hands burnt, because I know…

This is a pet peeve of mine, and my apologies if it feels inappropriate. I also recognise that, given your post, you are likely not be a native English speaker. If that's the case, please accept this as intended to help you improve your already excellent English.

However:

  > ... everyone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur.
The opposite of "Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur" is "Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur" which is (logically although not in emphasis) equivalent to "Some people don't want to be entrepreneurs."

To say "everyone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur" means that there are no people in the world who want to be entrepreneurs, which is clearly false, because some people do.

Again, apologies, but this is a common mistake, and it's really worth being able to recognise it when you see it, and to be able to avoid it.

Sometimes it's worth recognising it and ignoring it. Apologies if this was one of those occasions.

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#34

Post by adrianscott »

I don't think you should knock the guy for having experience with a lot of technologies and mentioning them. Like he mentions 3 languages, c#, Java, Ruby. (My resume has a lot more and I'm hiring, not job seeking.)

What might help you a bit more in marketing yourself, swdev, is to mention a bit about some projects and/or accomplishments. hope this helps.

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#35

Post by HaltingState »

plinkplonk wrote: post #28
swombat wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if true, 7695 $$ is much lesser than the 1200$ you claimed people were getting. Exaggerate much? You mean "much more".

"You mean "much more"." Correct. Edited. thanks!

The difference between $1,000 and $10,000 is not much more than the difference between 10 million and 100 million. Its only an order of magnitude.

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#36

Post by plinkplonk »

HaltingState wrote: post #35
plinkplonk wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You mean "much more"." Correct. Edited. thanks!

The difference between $1,000 and $10,000 is not much more than the difference between 10 million and 100 million. Its only an order of magnitude.

"Its only an order of magnitude."

heh! classic! I rest my case. (I see you edited your original post to remove "1200 $" ;-))

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#37

Post by mapleoin »

erlanger wrote: post #15

Why not just throw yourself into an open source project? Many pay down the road if you're successful enough, and you get to keep your dignity. More importantly, you'll know you aren't being exploited.

Getting into an open source project with the objective of at sometime getting a paid is a very bad reason to join an open source project. Besides the fact that there are absolutely no guarantees of that happening the attitude you'd probably bring to the project wouldn't be beneficial for the community there.

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#38

Post by mapleoin »

plinkplonk wrote: post #19
shabda wrote: post #6

[Hope this doesn't sound too harsh.] I few months back, we were hiring and Put up an ad on Monster. One of my reject criteria was "having more than 3 unconnected technologies". Even with >10 yrs exp, listing all the technologies you might be connected with doesnt look nice at all. Also no matter how desparate I am I would never, "I am willing to work for free on interesting projects", as that just leads to wrong peop…

" One of my reject criteria was "having more than 3 unconnected technologies". Even with >10 yrs exp, listing all the technologies you might be connected with doesnt look nice at all." WHile it is your privilege to use whatever criteria to reject people, this is complete nonsense. I know many excellent developers from my days at ThoughtWorks who are experts in and move seamlessly between the java/j2ee, dotNet and RoR…

Well those three technology that you mentioned are actually connected, and you mentioned a very strong link between them: they're all web stacks. You actually cited that part of the original post: "...having more than 3 unconnected technologies..."

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#39

Post by _b8r0 »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #33
jagtesh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

swombat, everyone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur. I'm an Indian, one who has lived in Bangalore for the past 6 years. I made a conscious choice of not working for an outsourcing outfit and instead plunged into the unknown realms of entrepreneurship. But I was lucky. I'm young with no dependents. No additional responsibilities other than taking care of myself. It's OKAY for me to get my hands burnt, because I know…

This is a pet peeve of mine, and my apologies if it feels inappropriate. I also recognise that, given your post, you are likely not be a native English speaker. If that's the case, please accept this as intended to help you improve your already excellent English. However: > ... everyone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur. The opposite of "Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur" is "Not everyone wants to be an entrepren…

I see what you're trying to do, to help the parent with American/British English, but actually the language the parent is writing in is a typical idiom found in Indian English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English).

English is the official second language of India (which doesn't mean an awful lot but consider that Hindi in Devanagari is the main language and is only spoken by just over 40% of Indians) and is generally spoken with Indian idioms. It's been this way for several hundred years. Indian English is generally as valid as American English, although less formalised.

Re: Ask HN: I will work for free ...

#40

Post by randallsquared »

RiderOfGiraffes wrote: post #33
jagtesh wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

swombat, everyone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur. I'm an Indian, one who has lived in Bangalore for the past 6 years. I made a conscious choice of not working for an outsourcing outfit and instead plunged into the unknown realms of entrepreneurship. But I was lucky. I'm young with no dependents. No additional responsibilities other than taking care of myself. It's OKAY for me to get my hands burnt, because I know…

This is a pet peeve of mine, and my apologies if it feels inappropriate. I also recognise that, given your post, you are likely not be a native English speaker. If that's the case, please accept this as intended to help you improve your already excellent English. However: > ... everyone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur. The opposite of "Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur" is "Not everyone wants to be an entrepren…

I don't think this is necessarily a mistake. I'm American, and I think "everyone doesn't X" has a clear meaning of "Not everyone does X". It only fails to mean that if you don't take it as a whole, but no one ever says "Everyone doesn't X" to mean "No one does X"; it always means "Not everyone does X".

There are lots of phrases in English that do not mean the same thing as the literal meanings of the words would indicate.

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