Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Feeling quite disheartened about job search, any advice?

news.ycombinator.com

21–30 of 148 posts

Re: Ask HN: Feeling quite disheartened about job search, any advice?

#22
post #3

I have 25 YoE and talking to walls too. My only suggestion is to ask everyone to review your resume. If that doesn't work, start lying. The last time I was looking for work, I applied to over 600 positions. I've been off work 2 weeks and I'm nearing 200. Came across this the other day, good resources hidden in links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IUUwdEw0RjTftvJv3LTA-7XI... (such as this: https://docs.google.co…

I'm curious what subset of tech you're applying for, and what your region and salary expectation are. Speaking as someone with 20+ YOE experience myself.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling quite disheartened about job search, any advice?

#23

How about physical office jobs in your area? Have you applied to those? Remote is tough these days but willing to butt in the seat for 8 hours with a 2 hours commute might put food on your plate and buy you time.

I'm afraid that's my current takeaway of the situation as well. Not sure if that is really the case though. It would be nice to hear about different experiences.

Apparently, after remote was "the new normal" and "worked extremely well", now nobody wants it anymore for ... reasons?

Re: Ask HN: Feeling quite disheartened about job search, any advice?

#24
post #3

I have 25 YoE and talking to walls too. My only suggestion is to ask everyone to review your resume. If that doesn't work, start lying. The last time I was looking for work, I applied to over 600 positions. I've been off work 2 weeks and I'm nearing 200. Came across this the other day, good resources hidden in links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IUUwdEw0RjTftvJv3LTA-7XI... (such as this: https://docs.google.co…

Don't lie, that just degrades signalling for everyone else.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling quite disheartened about job search, any advice?

#26
post #19

Why do you want to work in tech so bad? Just get a different type of job and code on the side.

Why do you want to be a , just do it as a hobby spend ~8 hours a day doing something you hate.

Hell, what if you’re not even passionate about tech, but you trained for it and became a pro? Like imagine telling an out of work electrician that they should exit the industry and just do it as a hobby.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling quite disheartened about job search, any advice?

#27
If you haven't already, set up a profile on upwork. The barrier to entry is a lot lower on short term projects, so you are more likely to find some work to keep your finances from depleting too quickly.

It will also give you a boost of confidence, an opportunity to build social proof about your work, and it may even end up scoring you a longer term engagement.

Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Feeling quite disheartened about job search, any advice?

#28
If you haven't already, perhaps try applying for non-engineering positions with adequate pay and of such nature that your SWE experience is useful. I think soft skills / industry specific knowledge will become only more valuable on the long run, as AI will eventually reduce work required for writing basic CRUD apps.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling quite disheartened about job search, any advice?

#29

How about physical office jobs in your area? Have you applied to those? Remote is tough these days but willing to butt in the seat for 8 hours with a 2 hours commute might put food on your plate and buy you time.

I'm afraid that's my current takeaway of the situation as well. Not sure if that is really the case though. It would be nice to hear about different experiences. Apparently, after remote was "the new normal" and "worked extremely well", now nobody wants it anymore for ... reasons?

Remote working extremely well is one of the reasons I was laid off from a previous job - they moved it to a cheaper country.

Re: Ask HN: Feeling quite disheartened about job search, any advice?

#30

> have 8 YoE (mostly web apps) This sounds like a red flag for me.

Depends, but I'd agree. If you can do only JavaScript/TypeScript and frameworks related to those languages then I can understand having issues finding work.

Quite frankly, if you want to work as a developer right now then go add Java or C# to the list of language you know. A quick check on the local job listing site shows all Java and C#, and a single Rails developer, job posted. The Java and C# are frequently not for a single position, but multiple.

In my experience the companies that are currently hiring either expect you to be able to do some web app (front-end) work, or they have a smaller team of front-end developers supporting a large team of back-end developers.

One major issue I've seem with developers who focus to hard on web apps is that their understanding of infrastructure, deployment and configuration management leaves a lot to be desired. Not saying that that is the case universally, but it is less rare to encounter a Java developer who can't navigate database and web-servers.

Post reply on HN