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Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?

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Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?

#101

Post by RobertDeNiro »

CrystalLangUser wrote: post #10
neverminder wrote: post #8

I got my first job in a company that was desperate, because their only other developer was leaving in days. Got my second job under similar circumstances. And a third one. I did well at all of those companies and left on my own accord. I should also mention that none of those companies were even on a map as far as serious software development is concerned. Reality is that companies that are not desperate will be pick…

And how do you consistently find said companies?

It sucks, but networking. Desperate companies usually don't have to means to go through a formal interview process and they'll often hire someone solely based on recommendations.

I got my current job simply because a friend worked there. I had practically zero experience in the field.

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?

#102

Post by cheapsteak »

slackingoff2017 wrote: post #99
cheapsteak wrote: post #85

Didn't actually know how to use git when I landed my first FT dev job. Had no Github Account, no portfolio site. Been coding since I was 12 though, had a good grasp of HTML/CSS, jQuery (but not really of javascript), VBScript, C#, SQL. All stuff I picked up either while making plugins/themes for a BBS I operated, or writing scripts for bots for MMORPGs. My code quality sucked, but I made stuff that people (other BBS…

How do you get promoted so quickly? I've worked my ass off at several companies and been in high positions at early startups but when I ask for a promotion everyone so far has said no"sorry, you only have X years experience". Maybe I'm not working for the right places...

Hard to say for sure, I think being in the right places has a lot to do with it, luck too.

My "break" was when I was at the time freelancing for an agency/ production studio (about 3 years ago). All the project managers and other developers I've worked with said really nice things about me to the tech director and the person in charge of staffing projects, and when they had a project that they didn't have a tech lead for, they decided to take a chance on me, even though I'd never really lead a project before, wasn't even sure myself if I could, and I've only worked with them for about 3-4 months at the time.

That first project came dangerously close to flustercluck territory (partially my fault, partially because we were understaffed), but everything actually turned out pretty great. The projects afterwards went much smoother - always delivered on time, usually ahead of schedule without having to crunch, and they liked how I mentored the other devs; so when a a client pulled a project (through no fault of ours, they had some internal restructuring) and I started looking for contracts elsewhere, they offered me a senior developer position instead.

It's a really cool place with amazing people (still hang out with them), atmosphere, and some breathtaking projects. Leaving it was one of the hardest things I've done, but I couldn't say no when a cancer research place asked me to be the architect for their front end projects. The story about how I got that offer is actually even more random. Maybe I'll write a post about it one day :p

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?

#103

Post by ateesdalejr »

jacknews wrote: post #5
golergka wrote: post #4

None of them - repo and portfolios weren't even mentioned. I was working as a game designer in the company that had a developer opening, and got burnt out. Since the company knew me, landing an interview was easy. I was teaching myself programming since I was 8, and, as I retroactively understand, was at steady junior level in high school already. The interview turned out to be a walk in the park. I wish I was more s…

You were burnt out and switched to game development? Frying pan, fire, surely?

Surely...

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?

#104

Post by sytse »

wolfgang42 wrote: post #98
TomMarius wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like some misused form framework. They were potentially striving for Facebook-like functionality ("Hi Tom, welcome back") and got it wrong.

I reported a similar issue in GitLab a while back where an incorrect password, entered in the login form, was echoed back to the user in the registration form! IIRC the registration form was picking up on the validation failure in the login form and filling itself in with the submitted form details.

I hope we fixed that.

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?

#105

Post by wolfgang42 »

sytse wrote: post #104
wolfgang42 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reported a similar issue in GitLab a while back where an incorrect password, entered in the login form, was echoed back to the user in the registration form! IIRC the registration form was picking up on the validation failure in the login form and filling itself in with the submitted form details.

I hope we fixed that.

Yes, I reported it as https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/14552 (confidential so you need permission to see) and it was fixed in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/3691

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?

#106

Post by noir_lord »

slackingoff2017 wrote: post #99
cheapsteak wrote: post #85

Didn't actually know how to use git when I landed my first FT dev job. Had no Github Account, no portfolio site. Been coding since I was 12 though, had a good grasp of HTML/CSS, jQuery (but not really of javascript), VBScript, C#, SQL. All stuff I picked up either while making plugins/themes for a BBS I operated, or writing scripts for bots for MMORPGs. My code quality sucked, but I made stuff that people (other BBS…

How do you get promoted so quickly? I've worked my ass off at several companies and been in high positions at early startups but when I ask for a promotion everyone so far has said no"sorry, you only have X years experience". Maybe I'm not working for the right places...

Titles beget Titles at some places.

Most recent job boss asked what I wanted written in on my contract, I was tempted to have "" but I had that on my business cards at the previous place so I just went for "Senior Software Engineer".

I'm the only software engineer so I am simultaneously the most senior and most junior software engineer ;).

Thing is if I go for a new job in the future I can legitimately put "Senior Software Engineer" on my CV (and Systems Administrator and Systems Architect (previous jobs)).

The reality is that if you work for a small tech company as the sole/part of small team developer you'll effectively do multiple roles (sometimes less than brilliantly) that would earn you most of the way towards those titles in large orgs.

I've worked with big companies where their 'senior' programmers where less capable than me (and I'm by no means fantastic, just experienced, diligent and patient), outsourced IT firms with "years of linux experience" where the solution to permissions issues was chmod 777 everything etc etc.

Some of it I wouldn't believe if I hadn't actually seen it (I'm actually preparing a tech talk on the subject since all the talks I go to locally are "Look at this fabulous tech/architecture" and never "Putting out the dumpster fire").

To paraphrase Louis CK "Think the most average developer you know, half of them are worse than that".

Also soft-skills, they matter, I know it's tempting to think that technology/software is a meritocracy and parts of it might be, hiring/promotions near universally aren't.

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?

#107

Post by sytse »

wolfgang42 wrote: post #105
sytse wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope we fixed that.

Yes, I reported it as https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/14552 (confidential so you need permission to see) and it was fixed in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/3691

Cool, I removed the confidentiality from the issue. Thanks for reporting this.

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?

#109

Post by deivid »

franciscop wrote: post #21

My first freelancing job (previous jobs were internships) came from this project getting to the HN front page: https://umbrellajs.com/ It basically skyrocketed from there to what you can see in https://francisco.io/resume/ , with basically all experiences afterwards building on top of that (either directly, by reference or just as credentials for the next ones). People (including Google) also seem to love https://pic…

Nice resume page. The umbrellajs link actually points to ubrellajs.com (missing the M)

Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?

#110

Post by jogjayr »

slackingoff2017 wrote: post #60

Nobody ever looks at my repos :(. Software hiring is stupidly broken. Google has done much research on hiring and a code sample+cognitive ability are the two most important predictors of job performance. Tell that to anyone that hired me ever.... The first time you'll even talk to another dev is your on-site. When I was in charge of hiring once we made a huge deal of user repos and probably spent more time looking at…

I always look at Github profiles when candidates have them. Problem is I'd say < 20% of candidates I've interviewed have it on their resume.
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