Advice to my young self: put MORE effort into one of your 100 side projects, and stop messing around with other stuff.
If only you knew which one!
Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job
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Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job
#32Advice to my young self: put MORE effort into one of your 100 side projects, and stop messing around with other stuff.
How would you go about choosing that one project?
Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job
#33> First, most recruiters don’t care about your personal projects or how many meetups you went during the year. What matters the most is your current company - and by that I mean the name of your current company. He is so much right here. Recruiters don't have the time to go through and understand your side projects, for that matter even engineers don't. Most interviews are 45-60 mins, you need to scope your interview…
If you can speak to the processes involved and have demonstrable knowledge about how to implement things learned from side-projects, what's the difference between having done it at work versus personal time? None in my opinion.
> If you can speak to the processes involved and have demonstrable knowledge about how to implement things learned from side-projects
As I mentioned in my comment, no difference if the person is starting out or if the project gets traction.
But for experienced positions like the post author was talking about. You don't get additional signals on the developer, like did the product scale well, how was the uptime, the performance optimisations he needed to do, evolving the product with customer feedback etc. Also, bigcos love to ask around conflicts within a team, working with other teams because it matters a lot to them.
As an engineer I can admire the dexterity of a solution even if unproven but how do I verify it in an interview span. Easier to do this if I can attach it with a company name or some numbers.
I hate this and I spent early part of my career trying to come up with methods that can make hiring easier and reduce biases like company name but I realised how difficult the process is with different stakeholders, each having his own criteria and biases.
Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job
#34I began my side-project [1] one year ago. I quit my very well-paid job 6 months ago to make my side-project my full-time job.
It is going quite well (I am nowhere near making the same money). Just 2 of us at the moment. I've learnt so much over this period. Like what you would get over 10 years in a big tech company while jumping over all the hierarchy.
Moreover, my very first side project turned me from a guy who knows only Python into a guy who can set up entire architecture on the cloud. Later, I became somewhat a "rockstar"/jack-of-all-trades engineer.
But I agree, unless you do your side-project just to do something then it is your hobby.
My advice would be: someone has to pay for your side project's product/service. Because only then you can show that it generates real business value. This is the only thing which should matter to your future employer. You generate business value.
Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job
#35This _opinion_ can be countered with a single ancedote- I got a job because of my side projects and would be unemployed if I didn't work on side projects. Now, who's opinion is correct?
The best thing is to do both. Work at a top company, and have a side project that you can discuss with hiring managers.
Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job
#36I had a different experience, specifically it was my embedded software and hardware spare-time experience that gained me my most influential role to date (bridging iOS and embedded systems at a fast-growing start-up). It even helped me pass my technical screen as the CTO asked me to build a ring buffer. Little did he know I built one for an RS232 driver the week before.
I'm heading soon to do the same thing at another fast-growing startup.
I've actually talked about my side projects each time I've hopped jobs, and actually, when I took on advisory work. Niches are good!
Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job
#37I admire this approach and have many colleagues who operated this way. But for someone who didn’t get into a top school and had to start with “low prestige” jobs and work my way up focusing on side projects was essential to my career. By showing I could take risks and learn emerging technologies I was able to make myself attractive to startup and on the bleeding edge and just spent the last two years working in my dream field of AI/ML.
If you’re young and believe in yourself more than society’s ridged idea of credentialism has don’t be afraid to buck the trend. I failed out of a mid tier college. And while my 20s has my been a stressful hodgepodge of jobs I was under qualifying for. A public track record of my ability to create something with emerging technologies has always meant someone is willing and excited to work with me.
Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job
#38> First, most recruiters don’t care about your personal projects or how many meetups you went during the... Why are you trying to impress recruiters? I mean, the entire point of the post is wrong, but impressing recruiters is downright stupid. Let's be frank: recruiters are bottom-of-the-totem-pole, lowest-common-denominator, bottom-feeders. If you aren't trying to do your own thing (which, let's face it, is the most…
At any company of any decent size, your resume isn't going to get to the hiring manager if it doesn't get through the recruiter. The CEO of any large tech company is never going to meet you, much less see your resume.
Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job
#39I can understand not letting your side project get in the way of your job. If you have a slow day at the office, it's not the time to be working on your side project - although many people do. However, if it weren't for side projects, I would never have learned Linux, virtualization, handfuls of programming languages, or so many other things I ended up bringing into my 8-5 job.
If you use work materials to work on your side project, your employer can make a claim to it. This is why you should always have a separate personal computer for personal stuff, and a work machine you use for only for work stuff.
Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job
#40It is interesting reading the comments. It's funny too because I would say most of the time people advocate others to create side projects because you never know if it will become the next big thing. Obviously there are some amazing success stories here related to side projects, but I wonder if that's just luck. Is the actual success rate of a side project going viral just as unlikely, for example, as a young basketball player getting a contract and going pro? (which is a scenario most people actively discourage pursuing)