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Developers: How to get Hired by Every Startup You Contact

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Re: Developers: How to get Hired by Every Startup You Contact

#11

Post by technotony »

noelwelsh wrote: post #8

Generally good stuff. Not sending a resume is interesting -- I bet there are people who would expect one and argue the opposite. What really struck me were two things: - Outsourcing the MVP. I've seen a few people do it but it seems a very expensive way to get started. Wouldn't it be easier to pitch for funding/a technical partner without this? - Building a recommendation engine in Ruby? Really? I've never used Ruby…

I think outsourcing the MVP is a great way to go in the current climate. Pitching for funding without a technical co-founder is impossible beyond a friends and family round, at least in the established startup hubs. It's also very hard to find a good technical partner without already having demonstrated some traction: this makes sense as good technical partners have many options and want to see that you can deliver the non-technical side of the business (40% of a company worth 0 is still 0!).

So in this context spending a little savings on an MVP is a great way to go, it lets you show traction to get the funding or technical partner and can be done by raising from friends/family or working nights at another job.

Re: Developers: How to get Hired by Every Startup You Contact

#12

Post by droithomme »

slantyyz wrote: post #5

I find it interesting that the OP seems to think that being a lead developer and being a CTO are the same.

I thought that was very strange as well. I suppose it's as far as one can go with title inflation: "Code shop looking for rock star code monkeys/CTOs to work for equity."

Re: Developers: How to get Hired by Every Startup You Contact

#13

Post by jordo37 »

technoir wrote: post #7

Surprised this guy didn't write an article on how to sell his position to developers. In spite of claiming to understand the current labor market for development talent, it appears he's still got it backwards.

Totally agreed. It seems he made some interesting choices about how to setup a startup for success before bringing on a technical co-founder, and as a technical co-founder I would be interested to hear 1) what he did and 2) what he thinks would be useful in convincing someone like me to come join him

Re: Developers: How to get Hired by Every Startup You Contact

#14

Post by gexla »

Generally agree with this. Whenever I hear about people not getting job offers, there is mention somewhere in there about sending resumes. I have never sent a resume to get a job or a gig, however I do sometimes attach the PDF output of my LinkedIn profile which comes out in resume format. Other than being an attachment, I only mention it as a one-liner. Not sending resumes is probably not intuitive since that's what everyone has been doing to get jobs in the U.S. for decades.

I disagree that the lack of supply is temporary. I'm not even sure that's really the case. For one, there will always be more demand than supply for "A level" developers. This is a field where people have to really push themselves to keep up with the game and continue expanding their skills, and most people don't want to go through that effort. All you have to do is run faster than the average developers and the bar isn't very high. Also, there will always be "niche" areas where developers are hard to find and well in demand and those niches are everywhere.

Re: Developers: How to get Hired by Every Startup You Contact

#15

Post by Swizec »

Getting hired is easy, the tough part is working on your own stuff. For me the cycle is usually like this:

1. Make a cool pet project

2. Show it to The Internet

3. Get a little exposure, feel awesome, decide this project is going somewhere and you'll work on it for months on end because it's just that awesome

4. Freelancing offers[1] start raining in

5. Realize you actually don't have any money, are a student and don't have a lot of time next to classes

6. Accept one or two freelancing gigs

7. Pet project dies a miserable death

8. Rinse and repeat a few months later

[1] I freelance for startups, always for startups. Usually I'm the guy they go to for "Hey, so uhm, I hacked this prototype together in two weeks now there is more than 1 user. Everything is breaking. Halp."

Re: Developers: How to get Hired by Every Startup You Contact

#16

Post by msutherl »

How to get hired by the startup that you want to work for:

   1. Figure out what you think is the most important thing 
      to be doing in the world right now.
   2. Learn the requisite skills to do it.
   3. Find somebody who's doing it already and write a carefully 
      crafted, enthusiastic email explaining why you think what 
      they are doing is important and why you are uniquely suited 
      to be part of it.
   4. Show some evidence (produced in step 2).
If you don't know what you think is the most important thing to be doing in the world right now, then somebody else is deciding for you.

Re: Developers: How to get Hired by Every Startup You Contact

#17

Post by jsolson »

Swizec wrote: post #15

Getting hired is easy, the tough part is working on your own stuff. For me the cycle is usually like this: 1. Make a cool pet project 2. Show it to The Internet 3. Get a little exposure, feel awesome, decide this project is going somewhere and you'll work on it for months on end because it's just that awesome 4. Freelancing offers[1] start raining in 5. Realize you actually don't have any money, are a student and don…

Eh, you're doing better than I am. In general I don't make it past step one.

Re: Developers: How to get Hired by Every Startup You Contact

#18

Post by exim »

I got an impression that author is looking for the specific experience that his company needs at the moment - this is OK for quick contract or one-shot jobs, but in general, I think it is quite short sighted. I wouldn't favor someone because of twitter or facebook integration experience or similar.

Regarding not sending resumes - this is quite in hype now, which is bad - I prefer structured text over some heart-touching tale - and not everyone is great at writing. What author is looking instead of resumes, it is actually called a cover letter - so it can be sent _with_ a resume, not necessary a replacement.

Re: Developers: How to get Hired by Every Startup You Contact

#19

Post by fidz »

brianscordato wrote: post #3
thedaydreamer wrote: post #2

Send them your portfolio and tell them why and how you can be very helpful to them. Easy ?

For front-end dev, absolutely. Back-end is trickier to judge for someone less tech-savvy.

How about showing portfolio of open source application like how many our commits in Github? Is it relevant?
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