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Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

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Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#111

Post by modeless »

kugelblitz wrote: post #87
modeless wrote: post #78

I was one of the first backers of the Oculus Rift Kickstarter. When I got it I decided eye tracking was going to be huge for VR, so as a side project I cut a hole in my Rift and built my own eye tracker. I posted it on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7876471 A few days later the CTO of a small eye tracking startup gave me a call. I quit Google and joined them. I built a (novel at the time) deep neur…

Feels like a storyline in the Silicon Valley series.

That's nothing, the "Silicon Valley" part is what happened after the acquisition. Google was so paranoid about "user data" that they forced us to delete every scrap of our training datasets, going as far as physically shredding any laptop that had contained the data. We had a memorable evening at the office with the onsite shredder truck. It couldn't shred the MacBooks due to the aluminum case and we ended up smashing them with hammers in the parking lot.

When we got to Google of course privacy concerns blocked new data collection until we completed an overengineered project to build a shiny new database with access controls and stuff. About a year later with no technology progress to speak of, the whole eye tracking project was shelved due to a strategy pivot from higher up (unrelated to anything we were or weren't doing) and we all went our separate ways. Fun times!

Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#112

Post by fipar »

brezelgoring wrote: post #103
fipar wrote: post #33

Back in 2002 I lost my job during a regional financial crisis (I’m from Uruguay). I was working at a bank (as a contractors) and some coworkers and I were working on a HA project for MySQL at the moment (to use it at work). Once I got laid off, I focused on it to the point that it became quite useful, and at some point, someone from Israel reached out with questions. I answered with a lot of delay, and when I explain…

Que bueno ver otro Uruguayo aca en HN, somos pocos pero buenos! Que estes bien Fernando, me alegro que prefieras quedarte en el paisito y cultivarlo ayudando a otros.

¡Muchas gracias!

Y si, espero que ahora que el trabajo remoto es mas aceptado, mucha mas gente pueda "irse sin irse", trabajando para donde sea pero desde acá.

¡Que estés bien también!

Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#113

Post by aleku »

In 2003/2004, during my undergrad, I observed a recurring trend in the university's IT department. They struggled to retain Unix/Linux engineers for more than three months, primarily due to two reasons: the university's remote location (apparently engineers loved the city life) and the local telecom companies' at the time hired anyone who could type "ls" on a Linux shell. Recognizing an opportunity, I began self-studying FreeBSD and Linux, the operating systems used by the university for their internet services like DNS, email, and proxy servers. Before completing my degree, I applied for the sysadmin position at the uni. In the interviews, I was able to explain and answer even the hardest of questions. I was hired. I eventually went to "ls" elsewhere as well but this role, which I held for eight years, provided me with a foundational knowledge that I believe influences my career even to date!

Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#114

Post by tyleo »

I made a sweet visual programming editor for JavaScript that no one really ended up using: https://devev.com/

Rec Room saw the product and hired me as their visual scripting architect. I ended up building Circuits which is used by millions of players: https://recroom.com/cv2. I've even had children message me in Discord that they've chosen to get degrees in programming because they used Circuits.

My team is currently hiring: https://recroom.com/careers?gh_jid=5382144003

Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#115

Post by totallyhuman »

My first job was at a hydroponics store. I wanted to grow some fresh fruit in my basement over the winter, and wanted to build the system rather than buying an out-of-the-box one. I asked the owner a few questions about building a system, and got some advice from him. When I came back the second time to get more materials, I was offered a job.

Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#116

Post by polpo »

Way back when the Nintendo Wii was brand new and hard to find, I wrote a script to scrape Target.com for store inventory and notify me if a nearby store restocked. A few years after that I revamped it to check on inventory for newly released iPad models. I put the code up on GitHub [1] and the CTO for a company that had large-scale store inventory checking as part of their product emailed me out of the blue after seeing my repository. A little while later, I replied back, interviewed and got a pretty good job offer out of it. I wound up not taking the offer, but in hindsight I probably should have.

[1] https://github.com/polpo/ipad-target.py

Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#117

Post by Widdershin »

This has happened a few times to me.

First was some downhill skateboarding projects - a bushing recommendation system and a site that allowed me to search all NZ skate shops from one place.

A popular US skate shop posted on Reddit looking for interns, but they weren’t interested in hiring so remotely.

Fast forward a week and the CTO got in touch to say that he’d interviewed a bunch of dud candidates, and meanwhile had been watching me commit exactly the code they were looking for.

Ended up contracting with them for a bit building an internal equivalent of the search tool, as well as bushing recommendations integrated with their listings.

The next is my work in the Cycle.js community (niche FRP JS framework). Mostly worked on trendy dev tools, but also did some valuable work on improving the speed, reliability and clarity of async UI tests that is still arguably close to best-in-class for JS.

That resulted in multiple job offers and an approach from Manning for a possible book deal, but none of it was that good of a fit.

Re: Ask HN: What side projects landed you a job?

#118

Post by rikafurude21 »

cqqxo4zV46cp wrote: post #100
rikafurude21 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but this sounds like LARP, who the hell wouldnt jump on a job offer from apple? Even if it doesnt work out, having Apple on your resume wouldve been an insane career booster, telling people you got an offer from them but didnt take it sounds very unbelievable, atleast personally, I wouldnt have believed you

I am genuinely unsure if this is a parody comment. I am assuming that you are fairly green behind the ears? The thing about Big Tech companies is that they hire lots of developers. That’s in large part makes them Big Tech. “Having Apple on your CV” is not as prestigious as you’re making out. It doesn’t mean you have The Knowledge that makes you a ‘10x developer’ or whatever anywhere you work. In fact, it could mean t…

From a developers perspective youre right, most of us here probably wouldnt be able to keep up with the amount of work it takes to thrive at apple, sure. Im looking at it from a future employers view, who sees "Apple", has an iPhone, and immediately has an idea in his head about what kind of developer you are, even if its completely inaccurate- Its all marketing. But also, immediately assuming youre not gonna make it at Apple because of what you heard about their work culture alone sounds like a quitter mindset. I mean at least try. If its not right, good riddance. Its not like having been there is gonna cost anything besides the time you invested.
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