Ask HN: Where do you find the interesting jobs? • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by strikelaserclaw » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 6:24 PM UTC

Kranar wrote: post #220

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 gre…

This is the correct answer for most people. A lot of people jump from job to job every 1-2 years optimizing for TC, they learn a lot of things but not very deeply.

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

#222

Post by strikelaserclaw » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 6:30 PM UTC

Zvez wrote: post #203

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…

I achieved this state of 'you can choose whatever you want to do here, you are too useful to loose' on my previous job and it was pretty great. The main problem with this is you have to invest couple of years to get proper reputation. But you need to be mindful about what you actually get for your efforts. I've started working at [faang] a year ago and now I'm pretty sure I've wasted this year. While I got my share o…

At behemoths like FAANG, 95% of engineers are replaceable. The ones that aren't probably joined in the early days and grew with the company. It is very important to grow with a company rather than coming in at the end stages hoping to make an impact. Two equally talented engineers could have widely varying outcomes depended on how they choose their opportunity.

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

#223

Post by Hercuros » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #36

mcv wrote: post #8

The weird irony of our society seems to be that the most useless jobs pay the most, while the most essential jobs pay the least. A lot of important work is being done by volunteers and charity organisations. The best paying jobs are often parasitic. Like stock manipulation.

> The best paying jobs are often parasitic. Like stock manipulation. Or you could look at it as part of the process of allocating society’s resources towards more productive ventures from less productive ventures. It is not the perfect mechanism, but if anyone has a better idea, they are welcome to share. I would credit at least some people working in finance for opening up the ability for any financially illiterate…

It's not the case though that what's most "productive" in the economic sense is also necessarily the most socially desirable outcome. The economy might be optimizing for some objective of productivity (though it's probably imperfect at that by any measure), but I don't think we can reduce it to something simple like "more overall money / goods / services = better", unless we also start looking in more detail at how those are distributed among different groups of people, and what kind of real value it is providing to them.

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

#224

Post by honkdaddy » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 6:47 PM UTC

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…

I spent a couple months grinding LC before I got my FAANG offers and honestly it was completely worth it, I’m sort of surprised when people feel the opposite.

At the end of the day it’s a couple hundred hours of effort in exchange for years worth of upside. I think when you compare it to the amount of preparation athletes, performers, or service members go through, it really doesn’t seem so bad.

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

#225

Post by Balgair » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

uVacCXNiiJCTnYB wrote: post #208

Balgair wrote: post #178

Shameless plug for my industry: Come to Biotech!

I wouldn't mind but I have no background in it at all

It depends on the role if that's super necessary. You can totally find more CS heavy positions at biotech companies though. They may even find the time to tutor you in bio on the side. Most are very open to experimentation with roles.

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

#226

Post by rglullis » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 7:17 PM UTC

uVacCXNiiJCTnYB wrote: post #159

rglullis wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of successful, profitable businesses are built on open source. > Not everyone can be creating companies, otherwise who would be working at those companies? Those who are not arrogant enough to think they are above the position. Those who tried running their own companies, got humbled by their failure and learned the hard way that perhaps any "uninterested" job is enough. Those who are find meaning in their liv…

I don't know why you keep being so aggressive but you don't know me or anything about me and you're making weird wide ranging judgements just based on the fact that I'm asking for advice on how to find more interesting jobs. Not everyone has to be an "entrepreneur". I like making things, not running companies and managing people/talking to investors and all the other things that come with trying to create a startup.…

My issue is not with you asking for advice. My issue is with the way you dismiss the other things, and try to rationalize your preference as something ethically/morally superior.

You started the post making sweeping generalizations about things that you don't like but pay well, then you go to complain about companies that may as well be profitable and a good place to work on the grounds of "not having best practices".

So, what is going to satisfy you... Oh, yes, let's see what you want to do: it's not even a game, but actually you want to bring to the world another game engine... Hippity dickity yawn, that is only interesting for the overgrown children whose only issue in their lives is their total lack of social skills.

You were asking for advice, so here is mine: if every job is so boring to you and yet you don't feel like you have what it takes to be in charge of your own professional life, accept that this is a "you" problem, not a "them" problem. If every job you had is "uninteresting", perhaps your focus should be in developing other skills that can let you see the interesting challenges that exist in every industry.

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

#227

Post by lotsofpulp » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 7:24 PM UTC

Hercuros wrote: post #223

lotsofpulp wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best paying jobs are often parasitic. Like stock manipulation. Or you could look at it as part of the process of allocating society’s resources towards more productive ventures from less productive ventures. It is not the perfect mechanism, but if anyone has a better idea, they are welcome to share. I would credit at least some people working in finance for opening up the ability for any financially illiterate…

It's not the case though that what's most "productive" in the economic sense is also necessarily the most socially desirable outcome. The economy might be optimizing for some objective of productivity (though it's probably imperfect at that by any measure), but I don't think we can reduce it to something simple like "more overall money / goods / services = better", unless we also start looking in more detail at how t…

Of course. But that is again, in the purview of the political arena. Nevertheless, society’s resources are limited, need to be allocated, and hence the work that many do in finance.

A better way is always welcome, but I have yet to read about it or see it.

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

#228

Post by karmakaze » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 7:50 PM UTC

I've had different kinds of interesting gigs. The first kind is what most would consider interesting, working at a small fast-paced startup with much freedom in many of the choices of language, platform, frameworks/libraries. That's the case if you're early. Some of those same roles will end up becoming supporting a mishmash of varying one-off tech for different programs/services which can be challenging but far from interesting.

Another kind of interesting that I'm starting to appreciate is using boring tech to solve or evolve standard platforms to grow with the sophistication of the customer base at a large company. Things move much slower, the tech, languages, tools can feel stagnant. At the same time, you're still solving the problems that need to be solved with good engineering producing pretty clean/clear implementations. Most wouldn't consider this very interesting. It only feels worthwhile when you take into account that you've now shipped improvements to 100,000s or millions of customers. It also helps greatly if you actually believe that what the company does is a largely net positive for society.

As for my personal history of finding interesting jobs, I've found many of them randomly by being open to new experiences. Some were better than others but I don't regret taking any of them. Even the good small/fast ones were only good for about 1.5 - 2.5 years after which my learning opportunities slowed and I moved on.

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

#229

Post by celdon25 » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 8:13 PM UTC

uVacCXNiiJCTnYB wrote: post #46

gampleman wrote: post #24

First, you need to actually value interesting work in relation to other job values (like compensation, good working hours, low stress, making a difference, family friendliness, good management and many others). Generally these will be a tradeoff, but you might find one where the tradeoff suits you. For instance I had a job I really enjoyed at an Earth Observation startup geeking out about maps and space, but the comp…

See the specialising part is interesting to me, because I've found a lot of companies expect you to be very specialised these days, and it really gets in the way of trying new things. I was originally in the game industry and left it because I was stuck in a hyper specialised niche (web-based game development). I went back to more general full stack, but even here a lot of companies will specifically look for people…

You’d be best off looking to join a company that is seed stage or series A. During growth phase is when companies are looking for specialized skills. What are you using for job sources?

Keep in mind though that startups generally frown upon candidates coming across as picky in what they want to work on. You can’t have it both ways. Think it from their perspective. Of course, they don’t need to know about it. And you won’t be working on it if you are at least appearing less productive in that area if they try to get you to work on it ;)

Startups aren’t for everyone though.

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

#230

Post by uVacCXNiiJCTnYB » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 8:26 PM UTC

Kranar wrote: post #219

uVacCXNiiJCTnYB wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For me the recruiter went on holiday and by the time they came back I had a new job lol