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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?

#211

Post by 62951413 »

eatonphil wrote: post #112

I think the most interesting jobs technically are in developer tools or developer infrastructure companies. This includes companies building databases (e.g. Cockroach, Neon.tech), compilers (e.g. JetBrains), CDNs (e.g. Fastly, Cloudflare), hosting (e.g. Digital Ocean). These companies hire frontend developer, backend developers, core systems developers. You don't have to be a genius or a CS grad. You can always get i…

My favorite example would be big datish startups too. The likes of Imply, Dremio, Starburst who develop in a not-too-low-level language from an average developer's PoV. But they are obvious to anyone familiar with the domain.

It used to be the case that the answer to the original question would be "in the Bay Area, London, Berlin, Hyderabad". I guess this constraint is less rigid now but I'm fairly certain it's still there.

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

#213

Post by randcraw »

Unusual gigs are just outliers. I think odd jobs don't necessarily have much in common that would bring them together under one umbrella listing agency.

But interesting jobs depend on the eye of the beholder. What's interesting to one person may not be to another and reflect what you think is cool right now.

Personally, I find jobs interesting if they take me somewhere new, where I haven't been before. Learning about biology and medicine sufficiently to convince pharma researchers that you have found a meaningful signal in their data -- that's what led me to analyze biomedical images and develop computational models of disease.

Before that I got into HPC and supercomputing because I like speed and wanted to learn about weird forms of computing (like the original Connection Machine).

These days, to me, 'interesting' might be applying machine learning to new spaces, like exploring a cutting edge niche at a biomedical startup, or the automation of government, or adding smart instrumentation to city services.

Interesting jobs as diverse as these are unlikely to appear at any one listing agency. I suspect you'll have to actively search for whatever tech tickles you.

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

#214

Post by populifolia »

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…

https://biopharmguy.com/career-by-location.php has links to a ton of career pages for individual biotech companies. To find the union of Interesting and Hiring-Software-Devs you'll need to warm up your browser's tab bar and do some manual digging though.

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

#215

Post by ipaddr »

germinalphrase wrote: post #97
ipaddr wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low wages are the reason for low applicants. High standards are another reason for low applicants.

There are multitudes, and they differ across the country. I will add though that “high standards” in many states is as low a bar as ‘generic bachelors degree’ and/or ‘experience relevant to content area’ and the shortage persists.

When I went to school teachers didn't need a bachelors degree they went to teacher college for a year or two. Requiring a bachelors hasn't increased educational outcomes either just added gatekeeping.

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

#216

Post by Loughla »

mind-blight wrote: post #145
Loughla wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I have experience in higher education (for decades), as a consumer of technology, as well as the key player in implementation of software for campuses: This is a field with many opportunities for technology growth, but there are two problems. 1. Many of the ed tech "solutions" are just pretty packaging on the same three services (scheduling, generic student/institution information databases, student tracking). The…

Anecdotally, I've also heard: 3. There is limited or no budget for software that does new things, only for software that manages existing core issues Which then makes 2 a bigger problem. Does that fit with your experience?

It really depends. The last two years were a prime time for ed tech that was absolutely missed (outside of Canvas and zoom/teams). There was a TON of grant money and state/federal money that was used for new initiatives. I don't believe any company took advantage of that, and that's to their detriment.

For example; the institution I am working with right now just invested about $500k (on an 18.1mil annual institutional budget, for context) in two new software implementations with our existing vendor, with an ongoing 50k annually for almost zero support on the vendor's part. I did the leg work on finding the fit for that. As soon as the covid dollars were announced to education, ed tech companies should've been just absolutely all over their institutional contacts.

But, it does absolutely fit with what you said. Those new implementations were not 'new' but were new features within existing infrastructure.

It's less about no money for managing new things, but more about finding out how to make administration understand that the 'new' is really just focused on alleviating core issues. Again, from our most recent purchase - this is just a new wrapper on existing data. But, it can free up three full-time staff positions to either focus on recruitment and retention instead of processing, and/or it can allow for an entire department to shift focus and be MUCH more succinct with their processes. Either way, the cost savings was there within 5 years. But No one from the ed tech companies took the time to get to know anything at all about the institution.

Had I not been there consulting, they would've just kept moving on.

The opportunities (and massive paychecks for just a little work) are there, but they're not easy to find. I know 500k and 50k are not big dollar amounts, but that is a substantial portion of the institution's budget for one initiative - they just happen to be a small school. My experience with massive colleges and universities is in line with the small institution as well; there's just more bureaucracy at those places.

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

#217

Post by germinalphrase »

ipaddr wrote: post #215
germinalphrase wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are multitudes, and they differ across the country. I will add though that “high standards” in many states is as low a bar as ‘generic bachelors degree’ and/or ‘experience relevant to content area’ and the shortage persists.

When I went to school teachers didn't need a bachelors degree they went to teacher college for a year or two. Requiring a bachelors hasn't increased educational outcomes either just added gatekeeping.

Non-public schools can, of course, hire anyone they like. In many - if not most - states, principals in public schools are empowered to hire anyone with relevant experience under emergency licensure laws.

I don’t disagree with your point necessarily, but I also don’t believe it is a significant concern in most places.

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

#219

Post by Kranar »

uVacCXNiiJCTnYB wrote: post #124
gniv wrote: post #78

Sometimes you can get lucky and land an interesting job, but I think getting to do interesting work takes time (and luck). An anecdote from my past as an illustration: When I started my job at [FAANG] I was assigned a project. It was not mind-numbing, but not sexy either -- modernize the infrastructure while not messing up the site. Being new, I gave it my all and was rewarded a couple of years later by having the op…

Honestly, Facebook has tried to hire me like 3 times now and every time I got a completed offer at a different job by the time they finished organising their 8-step interview process so I never finished it. FAANG might be interesting but their interview processes kill it for me. I have no idea how people find the time to do homework for it + are willing to spend months in this lengthy interview pipeline. (Also there…

Don't know about Facebook specifically, but for Google and Microsoft, if you let the recruiter know you're actively interviewing and considering other offers, the process speeds up real fast.

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

#220

Post by Kranar »

You don't find interesting jobs you have to earn them. When a company is hiring, generally they are not hiring someone to do the interesting stuff, they are hiring people to fill an immediate need which is usually the more generic line of work.

The interesting stuff is reserved for more senior people with domain expertise and who can be trusted to handle a great deal of responsibility. New hires are risky, take a great deal of investment, and often leave within a matter of a couple of years. If you want to find interesting work, stick it out with a company and work your way towards a position where you are entrusted with a great deal of autonomy, and that only happens with time.

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