Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting jobs? • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by gms7777 » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 7:40 PM UTC

Robin_Message wrote: post #99

namelezz wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remember Google infamously rejecting Max Howell, the original Homebrew author If Donald Knuth interviewed with Google, he would fail too because he would need 24 hours to solve a hard level leetcode question[1]. Unfortunately, Google loves throwing those kind of questions at interviewees and expect them to come up with solutions within 1 hour interview, lol. [1] - http://keithschwarz.com/interesting/code/?dir=find-…

I thought the trick with this one was to sum all the entries and subtract the sum of 0 to N-2. The remainder is the duplicate entry. It's just a trick though; I don't think skill in coming up with these is particularly well-correlated with being a good programmer, and for that reason Google claims not to do teasers like this any more.

That works in the case where there is exactly one duplicate entry. The question says there is at least one dup entry.

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

#112

Post by Wazzymandias » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 7:42 PM UTC

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 very much agree with this, but just as an aside I'd like to mention that I worked on a full stack web application as a side project and I believe that helped me land my current job at a startup.

However I'd also note that I applied to a LOT of companies, and while my side project helped me land my current job, 90%+ of the companies didn't care about it.

I learned a lot from my project but job hunting is a numbers game, and it's far more worthwhile to study than it is to build a side project IMO.

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

#113

Post by user5994461 » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 7:46 PM UTC

What you need to get through the door is experiences at real companies, on real projects, serving real users.

No one cares about side projects, outside of juniors who got nothing to sell. It's very likely that noone even ask about it during the interviews.

Put a link to a random github just to have a link and you're good.

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

#114

Post by pmiller2 » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 7:50 PM UTC

bsvalley wrote: post #82

pmiller2 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. What does "tough on culture fit" mean exactly?

Like any other companies they have a list of values, company culture etc. I said tough because you could have easily passed all their interviews and failed at the very end, by talking to one of the founders.

That basically applies to any company. What makes Airbnb so tough as to be worth noting?

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

#115

Post by _pctq » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 7:54 PM UTC

Leading a side project up to release is already a plus : it means that you can build a product by yourself, which is actually quite rare among developers (few even try, many of those who try never get it done).

On top of that, having a side project which actually has users is better : this gives you street cred and also demonstrates you can communicate with stackholders.

If you have a side project in the same field than the business you're trying to get in, obviously, this is almost an instant hire. Developers often think business domain is a detail, business people don't.

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

#116

Post by marcosdumay » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 7:57 PM UTC

logicallee wrote: post #70

akhilcacharya wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> stupid toy problems in minutes. What sort of toy problems are you talking about?

I'm going to be snarky but I'll say it anyway: you know, stupid stuff like balanced binary trees and shit like that, when nothing's going to fall apart if the user's browser shows a spinning wait animation for 7 seconds (45 seconds at peak times but that happens for just a few hours per week at most) while you iterate through the data sequentially. honestly, who ever needed an algorithm or data structure. /s (I'm sor…

You know, besides the other comment about not implementing data structures in a real job¹, why do people insist on memorizing all that trivia about balancing binary trees instead of just using some much simpler self balancing structure like a B-tree²?

1 - I have. But it is overwhelming more likely that you'll just need to know their characteristics than how to implement them.

2 - And get better caching behavior for free.

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

#117

Post by user5994461 » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 7:59 PM UTC

nrjdhsbsid wrote: post #16

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…

This 100%. When I'm involved in the interview process I make a point to check out all candidates side projects but over 90% of people don't care. In getting my last job I thought I would have a slam dunk because I have a bunch of cool stuff I work on but nobody cared at all. I failed multiple on site interviews until I gave in and read a couple CSCI 101 books cover to cover. I had too much specialized knowledge and n…

> I had too much specialized knowledge and not enough fizzbuzz

It's dubious to say that one has a lot of specialized knowledge yet he fails at writing a for loop.

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

#118

Post by RandomOpinion » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 8:00 PM UTC

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…

>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 "huh that's cool", and that's it, unless you created something really unique.

Something else to consider: Depending on the corporate policy on open source, employees may be forbidden to look at external source code without prior approval by the legal department. This is more likely at large companies who are afraid of lawsuits accusing them of copying code or ideas (and, yes, it does happen). So, your interviewers may not even be permitted to look at your portfolio anyway.

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

#119

Post by EpicEng » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 8:01 PM UTC

user5994461 wrote: post #117

nrjdhsbsid wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 100%. When I'm involved in the interview process I make a point to check out all candidates side projects but over 90% of people don't care. In getting my last job I thought I would have a slam dunk because I have a bunch of cool stuff I work on but nobody cared at all. I failed multiple on site interviews until I gave in and read a couple CSCI 101 books cover to cover. I had too much specialized knowledge and n…

> I had too much specialized knowledge and not enough fizzbuzz It's dubious to say that one has a lot of specialized knowledge yet he fails at writing a for loop.

I suppose it would be if you took what the parent said literally. Not sure why you would though.

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

#120

Post by dragandj » Mon, Jan 23, 2017, 8:03 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #95

logicallee wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to be snarky but I'll say it anyway: you know, stupid stuff like balanced binary trees and shit like that, when nothing's going to fall apart if the user's browser shows a spinning wait animation for 7 seconds (45 seconds at peak times but that happens for just a few hours per week at most) while you iterate through the data sequentially. honestly, who ever needed an algorithm or data structure. /s (I'm sor…

the last time i had to implement a datastructure was in class. on the job i use the standard library. i hope you do the same.

Even then, you'd have to know the characteristics of various data structures to be able to choose the right one.

On top of that, in almost all code beyond CRUD, you'd have to write some custom algorithms - there, the knowledge from data structures and algorithms is really helpful.