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

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

#211

Post by rubberband » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 1:05 AM UTC

neontomo wrote: post #178

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.…

Thank you, a very insightful comment. I've recently started adding to my Github, I will keep it up and be honest about my level of skill. I find it hard to know where my level is though, as I don't have much to compare it to other than seeing Stack Overflow answers and the stuff I find on Github.

Aw crud... I completely forgot about Stack Overflow @.@. I think because I'm off today, and don't have it opened in 17 background tabs...

A Stack Overflow profile is another wonderful thing on a resume. It demonstrates you're curious and/or helpful (among other things, I suppose).

A note on your Stack Overflow profile... I don't care if you don't have a lot (or any) points from answering questions. Points for asking is just as good (to me).

Tips on actually building up rep on the site (hope they're mildly useful; I had a hard time TBH):

* If you're legitimately stuck on a problem, and have actually tried finding the answer elsewhere, take 30 minutes (or whatever you can spare) to write up an intelligible question. You [usually] won't be downvoted for asking a question that is well put together and hasn't been asked before. Most of my rep comes from asking esoteric questions about Git or Visual Studio, rather than answering them.

* Don't be afraid to answer old questions with new answers. Just make sure it's actually useful, and not a copy/paste (or rewording) of what someone has already said.

* Don't feel bad if a reply is blindingly obvious in hindsight (most of mine have been). You're asking an extraordinarily large number of nerds for help.

Cheers.

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

#212

Post by hnfong » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 1:05 AM UTC

tejohnso wrote: post #108

yellow_lead wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think three in 45 mins is a bit hyperbole. Interviewing at Google I got 45 mins for each. At Amazon I got an hour for each. (Both mediums)

Not hyperbole. Direct quote and confirmation from FAANG recruiter. Maybe even after confirmation they were misinformed. Or maybe that was the suggested practice goal rather than what would actually happen in the interview.

Definitely hyperbole. I dabbled in competitive programming many years ago in high school. There's are only a handful of people I know that might be able to correctly complete 3 leetcode hard questions within one hour (they're the ones that end up in ICPC for example). There's no way the bar is actually that high, otherwise they wouldn't be able to recruit many thousands of people every year.

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

#213

Post by codethief » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 1:13 AM UTC

neontomo wrote: post #189

codethief wrote: post #156

The IT consulting[0] firm I work for (~700 people, Germany-based + a few satellite branches in other European countries but unfortunately not in Sweden (yet) — which is where I take it you are located) hires people with zero professional SWE experience – often straight out of university (though not exclusively so) and frequently it's people who didn't even study computer science (though in that case it tends to be ma…

Haha I spent a few minutes trying to figure out if this was a round-about way of offering a job without triggering some HN rule about self-promotion or something... Thank you for the encouragement, your business sounds cool. I like the consulting route too.

Haha, my apologies! :) I just thought I'd tell you a bit about what kind of company we are, so that you have an idea what to look for. Good luck with the job hunt!

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

#214

Post by dt3ft » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 1:13 AM UTC

Since you seem to be based in Stockholm, I suggest you sign up for a dev talent program in Stockholm. You get trained by a reputable tech company and if you pass the talent program, you get sent to further training to a potential future employer. My team (in Stockholm) is getting a new potentially permanent member in a month or so. The person switched their careers (age 30+) and I, amongst others will be training them to work with our codebase. If they perform well, they will be recommended for a permanent position.

Example: https://www.knowit.se/karriar/trainee/

There are at least 5 such programs.

While you are applying and waiting, I also recommend to pick a tech stack that is attractive for employers in Stockholm.

TypeScript, react, net core web api (c#) and MSSQL are the only tools you need to master in order to become very attractive to all major employers here. Start learning these and publish your learning project on GitHub and you will be well on your way. Heck, when you are done building your asp.net core webapi+typescript react frontend project (a basic todo app, something that demonstrates CRUD (create, read, update and delete), contact me and I will get you an interview.

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

#215

Post by pinum » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 1:17 AM UTC

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.…

>This can be said for any 100% online college.

I'm curious about this part. Do such students tend to underperform at interview?

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

#216

Post by newshorts » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 1:29 AM UTC

Everyone has opinions on this so take mine worth the price charged.

You could go to a talent / recruiting program, there are usually some university affiliated programs that have ties to major tech companies or advertising firms.

Of course there are internships as well.

All of that is fine, but anecdotally I found it was far easier to just start doing weird / fantastic things with the internet. Experiment, have fun, create wacky things and blog / YouTube / TikTok about it (full disclosure there was no TikTok in my day). Get the word out that you do this stuff and funnel everything back to a portfolio page that says your available for contract or hire.

Additionally, start attending events where there are other “famous” devs doing what you want to do. Get to know the people and participate. Might take a few years, but if you’re motivated you can network your way into something.

Yeah it’s a ton of work - but that’s a barrier to entry also potentially highly lucrative.

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

#217

Post by aardvark179 » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 1:35 AM UTC

neontomo wrote: post #192

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?

Yes, putting relevant experience on your CV would be a good thing.

I’d also suggest changing the tone of the website a little. You say, “Take a moment to browse through my innovative ideas,” and then link to mine sweeper that uses sums instead of numbers? I kind of expected more from the description, and if I were looking as part of a job application I might start to doubt other things you claim. If you’d just said Minesweeper with sums I’d have come away with a much more positive impression.

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

#218

Post by pototo666 » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 1:37 AM UTC

My story: making real world working products to train and show your skill.

I learn program to make my own products. I made several working products but they didn't work as a business. I need a job to survive.

I tried to use Upwork to get a gig. There was a team hiring enginners. I showed the tech lead my repo and my working web apps. He is impressive. I get hired.

There are some luck involved. It turns out that my tech lead is not a good programmer. Maybe his lack of experitise is why he hired me. I don't know. But it helps to have working product and public codebase to show.

Wish you good luck!

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

#219

Post by newshorts » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 1:37 AM UTC

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.…

Agreed on the boot camp thing.

I’ve interviewed more than a few folks who got their start with boot camps but couldn’t answer some basic questions about web development.

Not knocking those who are motivated to go through a boot camp, just saying you can’t stop there. The content covered in a boot camp is just a single slice of a much larger pizza.

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

#220

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 1:39 AM 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…

And most college courses also don’t teach that.