Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: About to be homeless, any ideas for a junior dev?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 82 posts

Re: Ask HN: About to be homeless, any ideas for a junior dev?

#71

Post by 27182818284 »

was_hellbanned wrote: post #26

Resume: * Starting with "Greetings" makes me think of the nerd from The Simpsons. * "KICKASS" really? * Terrible attention to detail: Geocities not capitalized, no space between popular and the open parenthesis, "I've Spent" capitalization, random use of present tense in job descriptions, the first entry under My Services is blank, etc. * Irrelevant information. Massage therapy? Strip all that down and write in a dry…

I'm with you. I really hate everything on that psuedo-cover-letter introduction.

I would honestly ctrl+A delete all of that and restart. If that's what people have been seeing while you've been trying to find a job, I'm not surprised you're having some trouble.

Re: Ask HN: About to be homeless, any ideas for a junior dev?

#72

Post by stevenspasbo »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #53
mrbill wrote: post #11

Reword your resume (especially this part: "I've Spent a good decade just doing mostly freelance work, and installing apps") - otherwise it sounds like you're really good at installing/configuring stuff other people have written. Also remove the $70K Salary Requirement.

On your LinkedIn profile you have written the salary requirement as "65,0000" (with four zeros). As others have recommended, I highly recommend having some people proof-read your resume / profiles, and following all the advice you've received here.

And the (downloadable) resume, it says 60000.

Re: Ask HN: About to be homeless, any ideas for a junior dev?

#73

Post by mrbill »

You say "I was willing to interview/learn more Rails" - yet your resume has the cringe-worthy statement "If you made it to this page, it probably means you need a KICKASS Ruby on Rails developer"?

You need to edit/improve your "online presence" IMMEDIATELY - the longer these bad examples of your work stay online, the more chance is that someone will see them. Start going through the suggestions already provided here for edits and improvements and make changes as soon as possible.

As someone else already said, people can see through your BS. Honesty about your experience and actual skill level will make a bigger impression than anything else.

Re: Ask HN: About to be homeless, any ideas for a junior dev?

#74

Post by gremlinsinc »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #70
gremlinsinc wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The past month I've been working as CTO in a Startup Accelerator, my team had promised me 2k per month to live on during this time, this week they backed out of that agreement and instead are wanting 2k for the entire 3 months. I've been coding 70 hours per week on this project. Before we were sure we were even going to be accepted to BoomStartup, I had been going to about 10 interviews per week, I'm on the jr side m…

Have you talked to the folks at BoomStartup about the situation? As investors and leaders in the company, they will want to know about (and it would be in their interests to help resolve) any potential legal situations. I am not a lawyer, but I would guess that if you cannot afford to fight this legally (though I wouldn't tell them that), talking to them is more likely to get you what you agreed on than just walking…

I have talked to them and they are mediating a resolution, but if there can be none, I'll burn my team down reputation wise-- I used to work in SEO/Content Marketing and I'll make sure any investor who does due diligence will NEVER invest in them.

Re: Ask HN: About to be homeless, any ideas for a junior dev?

#75

Post by TallGuyShort »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #74
TallGuyShort wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you talked to the folks at BoomStartup about the situation? As investors and leaders in the company, they will want to know about (and it would be in their interests to help resolve) any potential legal situations. I am not a lawyer, but I would guess that if you cannot afford to fight this legally (though I wouldn't tell them that), talking to them is more likely to get you what you agreed on than just walking…

I have talked to them and they are mediating a resolution, but if there can be none, I'll burn my team down reputation wise-- I used to work in SEO/Content Marketing and I'll make sure any investor who does due diligence will NEVER invest in them.

Threatening to "burn down" a previous employer on an account that's associated with your real name, even when you think they deserve it, is another really good way to steer clear of companies that offer long-term stable employment.

Re: Ask HN: About to be homeless, any ideas for a junior dev?

#76

Post by mrbill »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #74
TallGuyShort wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you talked to the folks at BoomStartup about the situation? As investors and leaders in the company, they will want to know about (and it would be in their interests to help resolve) any potential legal situations. I am not a lawyer, but I would guess that if you cannot afford to fight this legally (though I wouldn't tell them that), talking to them is more likely to get you what you agreed on than just walking…

I have talked to them and they are mediating a resolution, but if there can be none, I'll burn my team down reputation wise-- I used to work in SEO/Content Marketing and I'll make sure any investor who does due diligence will NEVER invest in them.

Making statements like that just ensures that anyone doing their due dilligence will NEVER give you a job.

Re: Ask HN: About to be homeless, any ideas for a junior dev?

#77

Post by gremlinsinc »

computer wrote: post #42
was_hellbanned wrote: post #26

Resume: * Starting with "Greetings" makes me think of the nerd from The Simpsons. * "KICKASS" really? * Terrible attention to detail: Geocities not capitalized, no space between popular and the open parenthesis, "I've Spent" capitalization, random use of present tense in job descriptions, the first entry under My Services is blank, etc. * Irrelevant information. Massage therapy? Strip all that down and write in a dry…

Also, the resume says that you were Marketing Director somewhere, and that you were CTO at a company with 2000 employees. Is that actually true? If not, why are you trying to imply it? That's the type of bullshit on a resume that's very easy to see through, and makes people lose trust immediately.

Yes, it is true, I handled the entire tech stack for a company with 2000+ insurance agents. I single-handedly did all the networking, pc troubleshooting, wordpress installs/design, sugarCRM integrations, ppc ads, seo, content writing, etc..

Re: Ask HN: About to be homeless, any ideas for a junior dev?

#78

Post by gremlinsinc »

hncomment wrote: post #39

If you're on the brink of homelessness, there's something amiss that's deeper than will be fixed by a "startup accelerator" gig, "crowdfunding campaign", or desperation lowball contract to build an "app MVP". Your resume is scattered in tone and content, and inconsistently formatted: it's a bad audition for a detail-oriented solo-web-dev project. Your prior HN posts suggest a roller coaster of cash problems plus unre…

That's my end goal--especially since I have tons of solo experience, and less of a structured office /team environment where you learn different workflows, and more agile ways of doing business. I know how to create milestones and a roadmap for an MVP, and do sprints, but teams that have been doing it longer and follow better practices could help me learn a lot--and I'm WAY more interested in LEARNING and becoming an awesome dev than I am in payment--I need to pay the bills, but I'd settle for 40k in order to get more experience under my belt --especially inside a team, some sort of apprenticeship/internship.

Re: Ask HN: About to be homeless, any ideas for a junior dev?

#79

Post by kevinskii »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #78
hncomment wrote: post #39

If you're on the brink of homelessness, there's something amiss that's deeper than will be fixed by a "startup accelerator" gig, "crowdfunding campaign", or desperation lowball contract to build an "app MVP". Your resume is scattered in tone and content, and inconsistently formatted: it's a bad audition for a detail-oriented solo-web-dev project. Your prior HN posts suggest a roller coaster of cash problems plus unre…

That's my end goal--especially since I have tons of solo experience, and less of a structured office /team environment where you learn different workflows, and more agile ways of doing business. I know how to create milestones and a roadmap for an MVP, and do sprints, but teams that have been doing it longer and follow better practices could help me learn a lot--and I'm WAY more interested in LEARNING and becoming an…

Lots of people have offered you specific and constructive advice, both in this thread and in a similar one from a couple of months ago [1]. You could have incorporated most of the suggestions in only a couple of hours. Yet as of this writing, your resume remains just as sloppy and unprofessional as before. Your personal website still broadcasts blatant dishonesty to anyone who cares to look.

Unless you're fortunate enough to stumble upon a web development shop with no internet connection, it's unlikely that you're going to be hired in the role you're hoping for. Since panhandling doesn't quite seem to be working out either [2], you may want to start thinking about taking any honest work you can find. Your opportunities will surely improve once you have grown up a bit. Good luck.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7588059 [2] https://twitter.com/patrickcurl

Re: Ask HN: About to be homeless, any ideas for a junior dev?

#80

Post by mrbill »

pnathan wrote: post #32

Bluntly, I would say you need to corporateize it up. All the advice here is good. Also, it's cool that you wrote your own framework, but right now, the jobs that map to your skills are Wordpress and Rails jobs. Your framework is an example of your capabilities. You're a Rails/Wordpress developer, X years of Rails experience, Y years in the computer industry. You have Z academic experience relating to the field. Your…

As far as I can tell, he didn't write his own framework.

By "my framework" he means "the one I know".

Post reply on HN