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Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting jobs?

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Re: Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting jobs?

#21

Post by bsvalley »

From my own experience dealing with all kinds of companies. If you aim for C-level companies (IBM, Banks, Oracle, Walmart, etc.) then you don't need to spend time building side projects. They simply don't care. For B-level companies like Uber, Airbnb, Dropbox and everything in between low and high skilled engineers, it's crucial to have a product of your own out there. They hire mostly young engineers with no professional experience, fresh out of college, so need something to look at. Your app(s) or website(s) will lead you to an interview if you apply. Now, for A-level companies like Google, Apple, FB, etc. it's actually better to do what you do! They prefer a nice github profile rather than an actual app. They're looking for very technical people who teach, mentor, etc.

So I'd say, do what you do, update your github profile and apply at google, etc.

Re: Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting jobs?

#22

Post by daheza »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #10

Here's a piece of advice from actual experience (from both sides): Invest your time studying for interviews than wasting time building side projects if you're doing this purely for getting a job, period. In my experience, companies don't care about your little side project when hiring--that is, unless your "little side project" had some huge impact or is something they have been aware of--the best you could get is "h…

I wonder if this is programmer specific and not as relevant to designers.

Re: Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting jobs?

#23

Post by RomanPushkin »

IMO anything you like. Could be library, jquer/react plugin, theoretical work.

Just released my side project: http://libretaxi.org - it is open source, useful for some users, code is kinda clean, plenty of tests.

Just show how you can take an idea and implement it. So your employer will know what to expect.

Re: Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting jobs?

#24

Post by s_ngularity »

daheza wrote: post #22
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #10

Here's a piece of advice from actual experience (from both sides): Invest your time studying for interviews than wasting time building side projects if you're doing this purely for getting a job, period. In my experience, companies don't care about your little side project when hiring--that is, unless your "little side project" had some huge impact or is something they have been aware of--the best you could get is "h…

I wonder if this is programmer specific and not as relevant to designers.

As a programmer, I'd venture to say it is programmer specific. I know for many creative type jobs a good portfolio is key

Re: Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting jobs?

#25

Post by pjc50 »

jamesmp98 wrote: post #15
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #10

Here's a piece of advice from actual experience (from both sides): Invest your time studying for interviews than wasting time building side projects if you're doing this purely for getting a job, period. In my experience, companies don't care about your little side project when hiring--that is, unless your "little side project" had some huge impact or is something they have been aware of--the best you could get is "h…

So what do you do if you lack a degree and professional experience?

You need to get one of those two.

Which means getting the experience somehow. Unpaid work is one (expensive) way of doing it, but so is getting into a related position and working your way across. QA is potentially a good path for this: hired to do simple things without the degree requirement, move into test automation, move across into development. Then you have it on your CV.

Re: Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting jobs?

#26

Post by bsvalley »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #10

Here's a piece of advice from actual experience (from both sides): Invest your time studying for interviews than wasting time building side projects if you're doing this purely for getting a job, period. In my experience, companies don't care about your little side project when hiring--that is, unless your "little side project" had some huge impact or is something they have been aware of--the best you could get is "h…

I think you missed the fact that before landing a job, you need to land an interview. I've been on both sides as well for different kinds of companies. Some value side projects a lot at the first screening. If you study a lot it will get you a job %100 guaranteed. But it's nice to be able to work for a company you like.

Re: Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting jobs?

#27

Post by ChuckMcM »

jamesmp98 wrote: post #15
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #10

Here's a piece of advice from actual experience (from both sides): Invest your time studying for interviews than wasting time building side projects if you're doing this purely for getting a job, period. In my experience, companies don't care about your little side project when hiring--that is, unless your "little side project" had some huge impact or is something they have been aware of--the best you could get is "h…

So what do you do if you lack a degree and professional experience?

It probably varies from place to place but in the Bay Area at least you pretty much have to get a degree of some sort. There are so many programmers out there that the degree/no-degree has become an easy filter for recruiting types and no-degree + no experience (which means no one to talk to about how you work and what it is like to work with you) makes it doubly difficult.

That said, it doesn't have to be a degree from Stanford or Berkeley, it can be from pretty much any accredited institution. Typical path forward here is community college for a couple of years and doing the general education requirements, then transferring to one of the state schools to finish a degree in a STEM subject (typically math, cs, ee, or physics)

Re: Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting jobs?

#29

Post by paublyrne »

zad1 wrote: post #5

I'm a junior web developer (1.5 years of experience) and I don't have a degree in the field, so references are all I have to proof my worthiness. And similarly I have a lot of small (mostly useless too) projects that nobody uses. But I still put them online. I have my own domain for development purposes only and whenever I finish a project to a satisfiable degree I put it on some subdomain amd add it to my list of re…

Care to share your site?

Re: Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting jobs?

#30

Post by ceeK »

juanbyrge wrote: post #13

For typical full-time jobs, whiteboard cording questions are all that matter. Whether or not you have interesting side projects or experience does not matter all that much. For other type of work, such as freelancing or consulting, your previous experience may matter slightly more.

Maybe it's just my experiences (iOS development interviews), but whiteboard interviews are actually quite rare. Most of the time it's either questions about iOS, pair programming iOS or discussing your implementation of some coding test.

I wonder if this is just a result of it being a more niche skill set than a general software developer.

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