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Ask HN: Where do you find the interesting jobs?

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Re: Ask HN: Where do you find the interesting jobs?

#181

Post by the_only_law »

navbaker wrote: post #177
the_only_law wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I recently tried looking at government jobs but didn't find anything that was either remote or near me. Hell, I’d be willing to go back in office for an “interesting” job. The problem with the government is what they pay for probably having to live in DC. As well as the horrible sounding bureaucratic requirements and leveling.

You need to look at either the private companies or university-affiliated research centers doing the actual research and implementation of technologies for the government rather than the government itself. There are loads of these places that don't require living in DC or have a ludicrous application process. Just to throw an example out, US government spacecraft operations have a large presence in Colorado, so there…

> You need to look at either the private companies or university-affiliated research centers doing the actual research and implementation of technologies for the government rather than the government itself.

Oh these guys won’t touch me. I don’t have any formal education. I do agree that many have some pretty interesting jobs.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find the interesting jobs?

#183

Post by xtracto »

walleeee wrote: post #109

It sounds like you've discovered what you aren't aligned with, but you don't yet know what you do think is interesting or valuable. The first step is answering this question for yourself. What do you care about? Science perhaps? Pick a field and you can probably find a lab or project in need of research software engineers. Healthcare? Plenty of work in digital health records, computational drug discovery, or so I've…

But I think the question still stands: I would kill for a science related tech job. But these are not found on indeed, HN or even LinkedIn.

The post-doc job I got after my PhD was through one of my Viva examiners, who forwarded me an email from some science email list. Theres no way I could have found it without him.

There are EU Framework Programme projects that have good funding for research, but you need to know where to look to find them.

Where???

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find the interesting jobs?

#184

Post by uVacCXNiiJCTnYB »

sicp-enjoyer wrote: post #175
uVacCXNiiJCTnYB wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, I'm thinking of enabling it, but what I'm making is a game engine that only has a few users for now and it would be a very very long way to being able to make a living income from game developers sponsoring it. Maybe eventually it could get to the point where I could do part time freelancing supplemented with github sponsor income, but even that would take a long time. I suspect outside of a few super-popular r…

Unsolicited advice: I think you're right, nobody will pay you for it. Every serious programmer interested in game dev writes engines as a hobby. Just search through GitHub. It's partly because it's just tech exploration fun.. If you're serious about games you should make a game. Build an engine too, but only build what you need for the game. This will guide you in making the countless tradeoffs necessary to build an…

I worked in the game industry for years and left it, I've made games before.

The engine I'm making is for a very specific need (initially made to help someone else make a specific game), a few people have been using it to make their games, but it's a pretty niche thing for narrative games - https://get-narrat.com/

I'm making it for fun, but I don't expect something like that to ever make money, for that I'd need some big companies to decide to sponsor it and pay me, which is super unlikely.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find the interesting jobs?

#185

Post by dan-g »

uVacCXNiiJCTnYB wrote: post #148
DoughnutHole wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The important thing to note is that this is not a passive route to the good stuff - there's no guarantee that being a good soldier will get you rewarded with interesting work. There's probably as many examples of excelling at the more mundane work getting people pigeonholed into the role of the reliable maintenance guy who couldn't possibly be moved off of a project because it would fumble without them. And then you…

Yeah, seriously I'd put a big warning on that one. I've been burned many times (and know many people who have) being the nice one who does the hard boring work that no one wants to deal with, only for the company to then make you do more and more of it. It's a good way to make yourself hard to replace, but they're probably gonna want you to keep doing the thing you're hard to replace at.

Yeah, this is addressed in the book as well. Thinking about your career in terms of capital is really just a useful simplification, but obviously doesn’t capture all the nuance and politics that one has to navigate in a larger corporate environment.

There needs to be self-advocacy, a little luck, and the willingness to walk away (just like in any negotiation)

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find the interesting jobs?

#186

Post by uVacCXNiiJCTnYB »

xtracto wrote: post #183
walleeee wrote: post #109

It sounds like you've discovered what you aren't aligned with, but you don't yet know what you do think is interesting or valuable. The first step is answering this question for yourself. What do you care about? Science perhaps? Pick a field and you can probably find a lab or project in need of research software engineers. Healthcare? Plenty of work in digital health records, computational drug discovery, or so I've…

But I think the question still stands: I would kill for a science related tech job. But these are not found on indeed, HN or even LinkedIn. The post-doc job I got after my PhD was through one of my Viva examiners, who forwarded me an email from some science email list. Theres no way I could have found it without him. There are EU Framework Programme projects that have good funding for research, but you need to know w…

yeah I have absolutely no idea. When I look on linkedin, google, typical job boards and others, I mostly find startups.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find the interesting jobs?

#187

Post by jackling »

inglor wrote: post #29

> How do you find interesting gigs? Get really good in a specific field you care about - for me that was platforms and programming languages but you might really enjoy other stuff. When I say really good let me emphasize that's not exceptional, I am in no means a great programming language designer or web platform person or developer in general. Once you get beyond a threshold - you'll find a lot of people who deeply…

Any advice on how to contribute to open source? Everytime I want to, the project seems too big and the issues too complex. Either that, or someone else has already started working on an issue before I can ask to take it on.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find the interesting jobs?

#188

Post by uVacCXNiiJCTnYB »

Test0129 wrote: post #168
walleeee wrote: post #109

It sounds like you've discovered what you aren't aligned with, but you don't yet know what you do think is interesting or valuable. The first step is answering this question for yourself. What do you care about? Science perhaps? Pick a field and you can probably find a lab or project in need of research software engineers. Healthcare? Plenty of work in digital health records, computational drug discovery, or so I've…

> Science perhaps? Pick a field and you can probably find a lab or project in need of research software engineers. I've been in the industry a long time and OP's realization that most jobs in tech are useless or so-called "evil" typically occurs pretty early on. This would indicate to me that OP is probably still fairly young and has a lot of discovering to do about themselves and the industry itself. Interesting wor…

Not really, I've been thinking that for years, it's just been hitting me more recently.

But it seems unlikely for me that anyone in general tech would know much about the science industry or positions of "research engineer" without having prior exposure to that industry somehow.

Like, I could spend 2 more decades doing full stack dev, it would change nothing to the kind of jobs available to me. I'm already as high as I can go in this area without going into management (which I have no interest in)

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find the interesting jobs?

#189

Post by sam_lowry_ »

r0b05 wrote: post #75
sam_lowry_ wrote: post #58

> I would kill for a job that feels even remotely useful or interesting. Public service as a freelance contractor. No, really. Depending on where you leave, this may pay good money (Netherlands) or next to nothing (Poland). But there will be many useful projects to work on.

What are some examples of this?

I got into public service recently and immediately had to work on a service for "less important than 112 calls" and a service to find a nearby doctor.

A couple of other projects I touched are rather meaningless, but this 50/50 ratio of meaningless to meaningful projects is a refresher from years spent in banking or Silicon Valley focused data-shmining unicorn.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find the interesting jobs?

#190

Post by uVacCXNiiJCTnYB »

yboris wrote: post #162

The most interesting jobs are ones that make the world a better place. See 80,000 Hours - a non-profit organization focusing on career advice and helping people find opportunities to solve the world's most pressing problems. https://80000hours.org/job-board/

Yep, that's exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for. Definitely going to look at this board, thanks :D
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