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Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

manuel.darcemont.fr

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Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#231

Post by spiffytech »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #186
spiffytech wrote: post #146

Every time this topic comes up on HN I feel like the only person who does side projects because I enjoy them as a hobby. Learning for the job is distantly secondary, and getting my next job is tertiary. They're perks to something I'm doing anyway, not justifications for doing it. Yeah, I program at work, but the tasks I get at a software job don't scratch the itch that got me into tech in the first place. Just like h…

Exactly this. I do my side projects for personal development and enjoyment. It's my opportunity to grow in whatever direction I like, and I'm not going to let my job dictate what kind of side projects I'm taking on. If that results in skills useful at work, or for finding work, that's a nice but entirely secondary benefit. The more important benefit is burnout prevention - because I too "don't get paid to do the inte…

> I also sometimes wonder if this isn't because my eyes just don't get tired from screens

I don't have the eye fatigue, either. My hunch is it's because I turn my display brightness way down, down far enough that coworkers insist they can't see my screen when I show them something. It seems like colleagues keep their screens near full brightness. I could imagine that being tough to look at all day.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#232

Post by mushbino »

winrid wrote: post #209
sillysaurusx wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

impressing recruiters is downright stupid. Let's be frank: recruiters are bottom-of-the-totem-pole, lowest-common-denominator, bottom-feeders. My friend, this isn't personal, but a fact: you're privileged. I sense you've never been in a position where you have $3,000 in the bank, your wife is depending on you to get through college, and you have to get a job or you lose your apartment. Out here dropping stories about…

Impressing recruiters is easy. Doing that doesn't make you privileged. I drove from PA to CA when I was 18, working along the way on my own business, and got a job in SV on my third interview as a "software engineer" making 65k. Bottom of the barrel coding job. I'm somehow privileged now? Because I worked literally every day from the time I was 17 in high school until I got a full time job. Right.

You left out 18 years in that story so it's hard to tell.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#233

Post by princevegeta89 »

Your side projects will never go to waste - you'll get to keep that learning and experience at the very least.

The only thing that needs attention paid to is have a flow of income while you're still working on your side project. It becomes mainstream as your only job when it starts bringing back decent money or VC support.

There's a reason they're "side" projects.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#234

Post by ku-man »

Focusing in your employer/job was a good career move up until the 70's. Nowadays, you are being a fool if you dedicate 100% of yourself to your company. Your company doesn't want you, you are too expensive. You may think you are worth that money because you bring value to the company. Think again.

Apologies if I am being too blunt.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#235

Post by seph-reed »

spiffytech wrote: post #146

Every time this topic comes up on HN I feel like the only person who does side projects because I enjoy them as a hobby. Learning for the job is distantly secondary, and getting my next job is tertiary. They're perks to something I'm doing anyway, not justifications for doing it. Yeah, I program at work, but the tasks I get at a software job don't scratch the itch that got me into tech in the first place. Just like h…

It's really too bad how many people are in tech for the money.

I think that was kind of the beginning of the end for the golden era.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#236

Post by ntsplnkv2 »

dvt wrote: post #164
sillysaurusx wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

impressing recruiters is downright stupid. Let's be frank: recruiters are bottom-of-the-totem-pole, lowest-common-denominator, bottom-feeders. My friend, this isn't personal, but a fact: you're privileged. I sense you've never been in a position where you have $3,000 in the bank, your wife is depending on you to get through college, and you have to get a job or you lose your apartment. Out here dropping stories about…

> My friend, this isn't personal, but a fact: you're privileged. Oh man, only if you truly knew how off-base this is :) My parents moved to the US with $2000, two kids (I was 11), and two carry-ons. But I'm not here to compete in the Victim Olympics. > Most people don't know any CEOs, PMs, or hiring managers. Good thing attending a hackathon is free. Good thing you can interact with literal SV royalty here on HN for…

Attending a hackathon is free but being able to do something that impresses a high level member of a company and get offered a job is a bit unreliable, no?

it's survivor-ship bias at its most obvious. Most people are not getting jobs by doing something extraordinary at a public event and getting offered it right on the spot.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#237

Post by winrid »

mushbino wrote: post #232
winrid wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impressing recruiters is easy. Doing that doesn't make you privileged. I drove from PA to CA when I was 18, working along the way on my own business, and got a job in SV on my third interview as a "software engineer" making 65k. Bottom of the barrel coding job. I'm somehow privileged now? Because I worked literally every day from the time I was 17 in high school until I got a full time job. Right.

You left out 18 years in that story so it's hard to tell.

My entire direct family is on welfare and was half my life. My parents spent a significant amount of time in mental hospitals while I lived with various aunts and grandparents (sometimes trailers, sometimes in a farm house. I liked the farm house though).

Yeah. Lots of privilege.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#238

Post by xenihn »

evo_9 wrote: post #138

Honestly when I interview someone and they have no side-projects, or any interest in that sort-of-thing, it's a huge warning sign they're not likely to succeed and/or stick around long. I mean I don't expect people eat/sleep/breath code but I also don't want to hire folks that just got into CompSci/Coding cause it was a 'good/safe' career choice. In my experience the guys that are self learners, doing side projects,…

What kind of companies and roles are you hiring for? How do your offers compare to the top bands on levels.fyi for equivalent roles/experience? How many engineers with big names on their resumes do you get in your pipeline, and how many convert to full-time offers?

In my career so far, every time I've encountered an employer (or more specifically, a representative of an employer, e.g. a recruiter or hiring manager) who cared about side-projects and off-the-clock programming to the point where it was a dealbreaker / red flag for applicants, and not just a nice-to-have, the following things were true:

- they paid significantly below market rate (when accounting for bonuses and RSUs)

- they did not respect engineering work/life balance

- they had high turnover

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#239

Post by fakedang »

orange8 wrote: post #196
dvt wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My friend, this isn't personal, but a fact: you're privileged. Oh man, only if you truly knew how off-base this is :) My parents moved to the US with $2000, two kids (I was 11), and two carry-ons. But I'm not here to compete in the Victim Olympics. > Most people don't know any CEOs, PMs, or hiring managers. Good thing attending a hackathon is free. Good thing you can interact with literal SV royalty here on HN for…

Kudos on making something of yourself from humble beginnings. You are now privileged.

I am inclined to agree with the top comment, partly from my own experience. In college, I was a sub-3 GPA student with not-so-great internship experience, although I did cofound a startup. Yet I was able to reach out to some of the "privileged" you mention at the top of the totem pole - firm partners, founders, etc. Heck, I literally connected with MBB partners simply by shooting an email to them to meet and chatting with them. I don't even know what one guy even saw in me, but he even persuaded me to apply and referred me for an interview (which I was able to crack thankfully), which is a big deal considering they have to give clear reasons as to why they are referring you. And this was not in a backwater with a few guys but a major global financial center. I got my first good internship and subsequently my first job in private equity because I was an idiot who decided it would be a good idea to wait outside an office building an entire day so that I could show an MD the financial models I had built (after shooting an email obviously). And this was in white shoe finance, so I'm sure the barriers are much lower in tech.

Edit:- Apologies if I sound like I'm using a lot of anecdotal evidence/ grand-standing, but I had to disagree with that comment, and the best evidence I had was my own, although there are a lot of similar stories in the Street.

Edit 2:- I should add this too, since it is highly relevant to the linked topic. The people who referred/hired me later mentioned that a key reason for them taking me on was my startup experience, which was what the original link's author would call a "side project".

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#240

Post by sixdimensional »

spiffytech wrote: post #146

Every time this topic comes up on HN I feel like the only person who does side projects because I enjoy them as a hobby. Learning for the job is distantly secondary, and getting my next job is tertiary. They're perks to something I'm doing anyway, not justifications for doing it. Yeah, I program at work, but the tasks I get at a software job don't scratch the itch that got me into tech in the first place. Just like h…

My only problem is I spend so much energy on work, I don't have it when I go home, no matter how excited or interested I am in the side projects.

I realize that's also a personal problem - poor time/resource allocation - not allocating a proper amount of time/energy to work vs. personal projects.

However, I can say, doing a full time, involved job and giving it all my attention tends to use up all the cycles. Is that true for other people too?

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