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Ask HN: Where can I work if I'm just a good developer?

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Re: Ask HN: Where can I work if I'm just a good developer?

#11

Post by al_borland »

BrenBarn wrote: post #10
al_borland wrote: post #7

Pretty much every company has some software component to it these days, even if it’s for internal tooling. Find a normal company and work on that stuff, not a “tech company”.

Aren't a fair number of them are outsourcing/contracting that out, though?

Not all of them, and he just needs one.

Depending on what he’s willing to tolerate starting out, he can also turn a job he might not like on paper into a development job. I started out doing sys admin work. Eventually I started building tools to help myself, which I then shared with the team. Management saw the value in that after a while and built a whole team around what I was doing and now I have a software engineer title. It wasn’t a fast way to get there, but it’s exactly the kind of job the OP seems to be looking for. When you’re a developer outside of a hardcore development team, people treat you like a wizard for doing fairly basic things.

Re: Ask HN: Where can I work if I'm just a good developer?

#12

Post by BrenBarn »

al_borland wrote: post #11
BrenBarn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't a fair number of them are outsourcing/contracting that out, though?

Not all of them, and he just needs one. Depending on what he’s willing to tolerate starting out, he can also turn a job he might not like on paper into a development job. I started out doing sys admin work. Eventually I started building tools to help myself, which I then shared with the team. Management saw the value in that after a while and built a whole team around what I was doing and now I have a software engine…

True, although both of those are hard roads in a way. Finding one of the small number of tech or tech-adjacent jobs at non-tech companies can be like looking for a needle in a haystack, since you have to comb through so many companies looking for something they don't foreground. And turning a non-dev job into a tech job is even harder since you have to first get (and probably do a decent job at) the non-dev job.

It may be that this is inevitable. In fact it may be why these jobs have the advantages they do, because they're hard enough to get to that they're ignored by the people rushing for the "10x ultra high performing engineer" jobs.

Re: Ask HN: Where can I work if I'm just a good developer?

#14

Post by nico »

bigyabai wrote: post #3

My sincere advice: move out of the Bay Area.

Definitely wouldn't recommend

Highest concentration of software engineering jobs are in the Bay Area, especially well paid ones. Even in LA is hard to find good software engineering roles outside of FAANG

In the Bay, the ratio of companiescandidates is higher, ie. there are fewer candidates per engineering role than pretty much anywhere else

To OP: being in the Bay Area you might be perceived as a better candidate, even if subconsciously. So maybe try getting a remote job while still there, then move somewhere else. Or just keep looking. Especially here on HN, in the Who is hiring threads, there are plenty of well-funded startups that can pay good salaries and struggle to find engineers (but only hire locally in the Bay)

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