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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?

#251

Post by ankura22 »

Have you looked for jobs at companies where you are already working with their product? e.g. Gitlab, VSCode, Ubuntu, Firefox, Grafana, Kafka etc.

I recently got a job at a company where I was already using their product, and I now feel that I'm actually working on a product that I think is worth working on. It's worth remembering though that at the end of the day work is work, and maybe you ended up doing what you do because you loved doing it when you were younger (e.g. programming). As a professional your day to day work isn't going to be 100% doing something that you love, but there's all sorts of other things going on that need your attention.

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

#252

Post by nurettin »

mstipetic wrote: post #48
nurettin wrote: post #11

> Everything is crypto "web 3" bubble, fintech, or recruiters being very vague about "unicorn" startups I work in fintech and it is very interesting to me. I've turned down recruiters from 50 countries since getting this job and I obviously don't care if you think money is the root of all evil or some other weird tree hugger babble. So what is interesting for you ?

Tree hugger babble? Aren’t you just confirming the fintech stereotype

It was tongue-in-cheek, but you've got a good eye.

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

#254

Post by yodsanklai »

steve_coral wrote: post #231
yodsanklai wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FAANG is mostly 3 steps. 1. chat with the recruiter 2. screening interview 3. on-site interview You normally get an offer after 3. EDIT: I'm downvoted, but this was my experience at Google/Facebook. There were exactly three steps. There can be more if they ask a follow up if you're borderline in some of the interviews but it's not the default.

What about the team-matching portion of the Google interview? I had several post-"onsite" (it was all remote) interviews with interested teams and your performance in these can sink your chances.

Maybe their process has changed at some point? recently, a recruiter told me that they now match with teams based on resume before starting the interview process.

Were your post-onsite technical?

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

#255

Post by unload »

uVacCXNiiJCTnYB wrote: post #49
nurettin wrote: post #11

> Everything is crypto "web 3" bubble, fintech, or recruiters being very vague about "unicorn" startups I work in fintech and it is very interesting to me. I've turned down recruiters from 50 countries since getting this job and I obviously don't care if you think money is the root of all evil or some other weird tree hugger babble. So what is interesting for you ?

Something useful that feels like it's worth being made, technically interersting to make (which to me generally means challenging to keep me interested), and with good quality tech practices where you can feel satisfied you've done good work. You need a good balance between "getting things done" and "doing things right". So ideally I want something that satisfies as much of those things as possible. I'm not necessari…

“Something useful that feels like it's worth being made”

Example? What is worth making?

“technically interersting to make (which to me generally means challenging to keep me interested)”

What do you find challenging? Sounds like writing a programming language and using Rust are interesting to you, given your projects?

“with good quality tech practices where you can feel satisfied you've done good work.”

If you don’t mind me saying, it sounds that you know what you don’t want, but do not have a good handle on exactly what you want (or haven’t expressed it) or how to get where you do.

As an exercise, follow up on some of these threads. Multiple people have made suggestions and you have been a bit dismissive. Go a bit deeper. If you want a job programming Rust and building programming languages but find you are not getting the interviews for programming language companies like JetBrains, its possible you could also just take on open source tasks in Rust’s existing community. It doesn’t have to be the core team, maybe one of the game dev rust environment frameworks. What are the pros of doing this? Ignore the cons for a moment since you are feeling stuck. Is it worth being made? Is it technically interesting? Is it good quality tech practices?

I have noticed for me that my interest in programming languages peaks when I want to sharpen the saw. When I want to learn and get ahead of the next wave (our industry is so faddy, I find it silly to ignore it. It’s an amazing way for new people to become the experts quickly in a new area and ride the demand). When I dive into it, I realise that its not so much the language, it’s just a new work environment and opportunity I want, then I dive into a new industry. For me, my passion was really being in something used by millions/billions of people. I went to big tech and loved it. I came to recognize that I wanted a team that knew what it was doing in a big org with possibilities and lots of learning material. When I get the programming language itch now I recognize it as being bored. Thats me, not you though. I am just illustrating. What appeals to you specifically as making a difference? Who do you want to learn from or work with?

To help you out, it can seem that you are going in circles and the doors you want are closed. But those doors are not the only way into the building. What building do you want to be in?

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

#256

Post by unload »

rglullis wrote: post #226
uVacCXNiiJCTnYB wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"…

To be more charitable, I think the original poster wants help finding what they want… but isn’t providing useful feedback. Making it hard to help.

Hopefully rglullis here is helping nudge (if uncomfortably) into actually articulating a positive desire instead of asking fairly generic questions and dismissing everyone’s suggestions and feeling attacked when challenged to show a direction.

There are literally thousands of hiring managers reading these threads. Any one of us could help if the poster opens up with real specifics and what their strengths and desires are. It can be frustrating being one of those managers when the poster doesn’t appear to know what they want other than more money and a challenge. And also doesn’t provide any list of skills and experience.

For anyone reading: original poster is too timid to put their real self out there, making it hard to even help them. When you shoot your shot, step forward unapologetically and say what you have to offer and the challenge you are looking for. The Only piece of info I have is liking narrative text games with relatively simple decision trees, some interest in rust and some reflexive hate for fintech. Also some desire to not move from some unspecified location.

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

#257

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#258

Post by fisikali »

If you can live with decent but (definitely) not outrageous pay, I find that Research Software Engineering (the art of enabling better (often academic) research through better software) can be very interesting and very rewarding. RSE is becoming a thing in almost all domains, and RSEs often work with different domains from within a central team.

Check job sites for academic institutions and national labs. There are also professional RSE societies in some regions of the world, often called [country code]-RSE.

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

#260

Post by pipecork »

As cliché as it sounds... networking. My best careers have always come from being open to meeting people outside of a career-seeking context.

Last August, a startup moved in next door to my place in SF. I was friendly to the owners and we'd occasionally share a beer in my front yard. They mentioned they were hiring engineers and I always laughed it off.

One night they were working late in lawn chairs out front, and I idly asked them to finally show me the app. Turned out to be one of the most innovative web products I've seen in a long while. I've been with them now 8 months and couldn't be happier.

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