Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#191

Post by throwaway675309 » Sun, Jan 01, 2023, 11:37 PM UTC

mtnGoat wrote: post #123

rubberband wrote: post #86

Late to the party, but maybe I can help. I've helped in the hiring of many developers. (grain of salt, just my opinion, etc...) * Don't do bootcamps. It's a red flag for me. This can be said for any 100% online college. (again, I'm just being honest). Community colleges are fine. * You having a Github that you've committed stuff to often-ish will most interest me. I don't give a crud if you contribute to open source.…

Interesting. I’ve hired At least 100 developers in my career And have never seen coding challenges or boot camps as Red flags, rather I see them as someone going out and trying to learn and improve. On the contrary certain universities and employers certainly are( too much indoctrination(and ego in some cases) to undo). I know a number of boot camp graduates working in FANG level companies. Coding challenges are very…

I absolutely check out somebody's GitHub if they include it on their résumé. Usually I'll pick out some parts of the code during the interview and we'll discuss why they made certain decisions (both architectural and technical). I find that this weeds out forgeries relatively quickly.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#192

Post by neontomo » Sun, Jan 01, 2023, 11:37 PM UTC

indigochill wrote: post #21

I majored in journalism and worked in tech support for a while, but I got into engineering by seeing manual procedures that I could write software to speed up, so I did that. Management saw the value in it (I helped by pitching this as a force multiplier) and gave me an ever-increasing allotment of my schedule to work on that instead of customer support until it became 100%. They did try to route me into QA first, bu…

Oh, I've done that too! I did some work for a hotel and sped up their marketing and IT stuff quite a bit with automation. I didn't end up being paid extra for that, but I enjoyed it. Would you put it on your CV?

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#193

Post by neontomo » Sun, Jan 01, 2023, 11:39 PM UTC

barefeg wrote: post #37

I have a similar experience to yours; programmed from a young age, did several personal and freelance projects, etc. It was hard for people to even consider my CV until I shifted focus towards those projects and freelance jobs. Still, the job search wasn’t successful until one person decided to “just give me a chance”. His point of view, which I completely agree with, was that even with a lot of programming experienc…

Thanks! I do think you're right that someone will need to consider me worth taking a chance on, at least for the first job. Hearing your story is a great encouragement that it's possible.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#194

Post by neontomo » Sun, Jan 01, 2023, 11:41 PM UTC

endymi0n wrote: post #36

Here‘s how I did it (pretty much accidentally), but found out it‘s a great platform to start from: I stumbled into an ill-defined semi-technical role in a growing company with a great boss. I was a technical ad creative support specialist, and the role was ripe for automation. Within a year I had automated my frustratingly boring job away completely and was promoted to engineering as the guy with the ability to „make…

Wow, a meteoric rise. I've rarely heard of people flourishing within a company so easily. Thanks for sharing your background and advice! What platforms would you look at for finding jobs?

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#195

Post by neontomo » Sun, Jan 01, 2023, 11:43 PM UTC

marcusverus wrote: post #31

1) Put your code on GitHub, add the link to LinkedIn and to your resume. Hiring managers and internal recruiters are inundated with applicants with no experience who expect to learn how to code on the job. The way you differentiate yourself from them is by making it crystal clear that you can do the job on day 1. (If you can't do the job on day 1, work on that before proceeding) 2) Ignore experience requirements, app…

Thanks for the reality check. I definitely find myself staring at the entry requirements and thinking that every job application would require me to study 5 years to fit their needs perfectly, it's not a realistic goal. I will apply anyway. I did ask one company for feedback after being let down, but they declined to give it. I'll keep asking politely in the future.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#196

Post by neontomo » Sun, Jan 01, 2023, 11:44 PM UTC

BlueDingo wrote: post #132

It probably won't be feasible due to cost, but my CV was noticed instantly once I enrolled in a Computer Science bachelor's degree program at a local college. I didn't have the degree and was still in my first year but that seemed to help get through the first-pass filter. My knowledge and skills were then apparent during interview. If you live somewhere with free or cheap public education then this might actually be…

Now here's an out-of-the-box idea, haha. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#197

Post by neontomo » Sun, Jan 01, 2023, 11:45 PM UTC

dhosek wrote: post #160

I took a few years off mid-career to try teaching mathematics, but couldn’t make it work. How I got back on the dev track: 1. I picked up any gigs I could from craigslist, just to be able to get a recent job from someone who would give me a reference. 2. Then I took any contracting job I could get, again, focusing on getting experience. 3. From there I was able to get a full time job and leverage myself over a couple…

I'm sorry it didn't work out. Maybe you can combine the two somehow and fulfil your dream. I'll look for some gigs today.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#198

Post by neontomo » Sun, Jan 01, 2023, 11:46 PM UTC

listofthings wrote: post #14

I was in a similar situation. I got a programming adjacent job to break into the market - I applied as a developer advocate since I was comfortable enough talking about code, and writing code that wasn’t necessarily up to par for a full time job but enough to be able to write dummy code for other developers to follow. While in that role I started working with engineers at the company to improve my skills, and also st…

Thank you, hearing from others like yourself gives me a lot of optimism.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#199

Post by torben-friis » Sun, Jan 01, 2023, 11:47 PM UTC

josephg wrote: post #162

Scarblac wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in those few months, they were often trained intensively on exactly the tech stack you're looking for, and they built some things, in a team, that look a lot like what's actually done day to day in many businesses. In an up to date way. That helps! We have only one boot camp graduate, who came from a completely different career. He's been productive from day 1, has carefully listened to all advice he's got since…

There are knowledge holes a mile wide with bootcamp curriculums though. The programs I’ve seen don’t teach: - Information security - Anything lower level than Python/Ruby - Unix (streams, files, processes and threads, syscalls, etc) - Debugging. (Except incedentally) Not knowing these things can be fine in a feature factory workplace. But having an engineer on your team who has no idea about infosec is an active dang…

I’d argue that if any of those reach production it’s never going to be the junior dev’s fault. Where’s the review process?

Stronger point even: it is beneficial to have a person capable of messing up that way so you can check that your quality control is working.

Re: Ask HN: How does a hobby programmer get hired?

#200

Post by phphphphp » Sun, Jan 01, 2023, 11:48 PM UTC

josephg wrote: post #167

phphphphp wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding coding challenges, I meant to say that they're just as easy to pass as they are to fail, meaning you can fail one test and pass another and it mean nothing about your ability or value as a software engineer. I've failed some embarrassingly easy coding challenges and completed others in the best manner the hirer has ever seen. They're meaningless. You should not consider them as a reflection on your value or…

> Regarding coding challenges, I meant to say that … They're meaningless. They’re not meaningless. I worked as a technical screener for a recruiting company a few years ago. We interviewed thousands of people and had good data on this stuff. Programming challenges had high signal - doing well at ours was positively correlated with all the other parts of our quantitative assessment (knowledge, software anrchitecture,…

If you design a hiring process that values a coding challenge then of course people who do well at the coding challenge will do well in the process.

The problem with coding challenges is that they do not require the same skills that software engineering requires. The value of a hired software engineer is measured over many years, you can’t possibly measure the success of a prospect based on whether or not they get hired.

You could hire a dozen people who grind leetcode all day to be one team, and hire 2 people who wouldn’t pass a coding challenge screener to be the other team, and the latter team could very plausibly out perform the former team over 12 months.

My experience is that a company that has designed a hiring process that does not require a coding challenge has a much higher quality team because they’re not relying on something as arbitrary as a coding challenge. Instead, they’re assessing candidates on what is actually relevant to the company.

They’re popular because they’re an easy way to cut down numbers, which makes them feel effective.