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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

#301

Post by humbleMouse »

dvt wrote: post #28

> 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…

Recruiters are not bottom of the barrel. How is this the top voted comment? Where do I even start here!

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

#302

Post by rco8786 »

dvt wrote: post #28

> 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…

Yea dawg this is a horrible take. Most jobs go through recruiters, not chance impressions of CEOs.

This reads like an overly pumped up alpha macho business guru telling his disciples how to "crush it".

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

#303

Post by lostmsu »

zolland wrote: post #43
lostmsu wrote: post #5

I turned a side project into a company, and recruiters contacted me non-stop during the entire journey. But maybe it is because I already had experience at Microsoft and Amazon.

I think there is a huge difference between what the author mentions as "shallow" side projects (where you are just trying to mess around with some new tech), and side projects where the aim is to develop a legit product. I imagine the latter, when seen all the way through, is much more attractive to recruiters. Although, I don't have any solid anecdotal experience with recruiting to validate that claim. I just think…

I don't think I would have arrived at the non-shallow project without churning through the shallow ones first.

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

#305

Post by kyawzazaw »

dvt wrote: post #28

> 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…

The issue is how else are you gonna get the attention of those people without going through a recruiter? Some, like you said, maybe able to do it. Some might have referrals.

But for a lot of people, recruiters reaching out or applying through a portal is the start of many new positions.

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

#306

Post by dntrkv »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #61
actuator wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 p…

The counterpoint to this is the amount of resumes I've had to read and subsequent interviews I've had to sit on from "seniors" or "principals" that they themselves haven't gone fully into the weeds on whatever technology they've been practicing for 10+ years. The amount is staggering. You know my hypothesis why, because they don't have side projects. They have silo'd themselves into whatever niche project or have bee…

> They have silo'd themselves into whatever niche project or have been on maintenance mode on a piece of software for years and never evolve. Sometimes it's not their fault, their company has pigeon-holed them into whatever software and they can't escape for whatever reason.

I think your hypothesis is correct. In my experience, most of the devs I've seen in that position do it to themselves. They get comfortable in their part of the codebase and rarely venture outside. Instead of helping other devs ramp up in their codebase, they just close all the tickets out themselves since that's easier than actually getting someone up to speed. I've gotten close to that situation, but realized what was happening and worked with my manager to take on different projects. It definitely creeps up on you.

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

#307

Post by kyawzazaw »

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.

What year was that?

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

#308

Post by kyawzazaw »

dnautics wrote: post #277
nosianu wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You did not answer the question which was not if there ever was any case at all, but how many. An individual example is useless when the question is about if something works at (even minor) scale.

nobody is claiming that my experience is extrapolatable ad infinitum. However, if it was such a rare thing, what are the odds that someone like me would exist? > An individual example is useless when the question is about if something works at (even minor) scale That is incorrect. The plural of anecdote is data.

It's the rare thing. I bet that if you go to any big tech companies, you will find that pretty much none of the engineers got hired by impressing a CEO

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

#309

Post by kyawzazaw »

chrisseaton wrote: post #142
redisman wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone should just do “x very specific thing that happened to work for me”

If you can't impress a recruiter, you are going to struggle to get a job at most companies. That's the starting point. It's great to think about what to do beyond then... but if you can't get past the starting point you're going to fail.

I think the parent comment to yours was being sarcastic to the very top comment.

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

#310

Post by dorkwood »

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…

You're not alone. To me, side projects aren't a means to an end -- they are the end. They are the entire point. They're what I'd spend all my time on if I wasn't forced to work a day job, because the act of creating is what I enjoy the most.
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