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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

#311

Post by whatsmyusername »

galfarragem wrote: post #257
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…

I have a few friends, really smart ones, that would do anything to have recruiters "annoying" them. And all of this just because they made an unfortunate choice somewhere in their past: they didn't choose STEM. Everytime I ear people here bashing recruiters I feel the urge to shout: It's not about you it's STEM. Enjoy your prized ticket but be humble.

For every decent recruiter I've ever dealt with I got a thousand low effort spams from India or Pakistan from guys all named John trying to get me to take some crappy call center or tech support position 2 moves back.

It might actually be 10000 to 1. I HAVE worked with tech recruiters (I can think of a specific local company) that were good, but it's incredibly rare outside maybe a major metro.

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

#312

Post by abathur »

pbalau wrote: post #291
NoOneNew wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I first started in dev in my early 20s, I got super lucky to have a landlady who was also a VP of Tech for an insurance company. I got to know her decently. When I was emailed by my first recruiter (it was just a blanket message, but I took it seriously since I was young and dumb), I asked her for some advice since she was already in tech for longer than I was alive at the time. I asked what exactly the recruite…

There are bad pimps and there are good pimps (erm...?). But you should aim for a sugar daddy.

I admit, I'm tempted to change all of my bios to "aiming for a sugar daddy" and see where life takes me.

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

#313

Post by zymhan »

whatsmyusername wrote: post #311
galfarragem wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a few friends, really smart ones, that would do anything to have recruiters "annoying" them. And all of this just because they made an unfortunate choice somewhere in their past: they didn't choose STEM. Everytime I ear people here bashing recruiters I feel the urge to shout: It's not about you it's STEM. Enjoy your prized ticket but be humble.

For every decent recruiter I've ever dealt with I got a thousand low effort spams from India or Pakistan from guys all named John trying to get me to take some crappy call center or tech support position 2 moves back. It might actually be 10000 to 1. I HAVE worked with tech recruiters (I can think of a specific local company) that were good, but it's incredibly rare outside maybe a major metro.

I'm so sick of this trope, I have so very many recruiters with "american-sounding" names sending endless irrelevant or poorly explained job posts.

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

#314

Post by sgtnoodle »

kingnothing wrote: post #38
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…

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.

Not necessarily. Elon Musk stopped personally interviewing every vetted candidate about a week before I interviewed at SpaceX. I had to write him a short essay instead. When I started, there were about 1000 employees. Also, if you do get hired and work on something important, it's pretty likely you'll meet the CEO at some point, even in a company with many tens of thousands of people.

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

#315

Post by presentation »

achillesheels wrote: post #215
sillysaurusx wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No offense taken! I have narcolepsy, which means attending a 9-5 job is difficult. I woke up at 2pm today, for example. It’s an advantage to conceal that fact, and the one company I did disclose it to, fired me about a month later. For completely unrelated reasons that totally didn’t violate any disabilities laws, of course /s. It was also partly my own fault, but in hindsight I wasn’t able to recover until I even un…

I’m sorry to hear that. This speaks to the generally lower moral behavior of our society today. It develops gross incompetency in ability to deal with unique human physiologies. Ideally people are able to work with each other’s upmost abilities rather than view people as a threat to their own job security and career progression. :(

> This speaks to the generally lower moral behavior of our society today.

Lol of course disadvantaged minorities were treated far better in the olden days. /s

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

#316

Post by bawolff »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #153
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…

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…

Recruiters are playing a numbers game. They aren't going to be evaluating your side project, they don't care about you as a person. They are there to do a job - find candidates. Yes you should try and be impressive enough they are interested, but if you're doing things primarily to impress recruiters that is probably going to work out poorly, as they don't make the final decision. And that is true regardless of how privleged you are.

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

#317

Post by dschuetz »

First: Don't do side-projects. Then later: Do as many side-projects you possibly can, but don't think your projects will impress recruiters.

Most of the most successful companies started out as someone's side-project. So, I don't see the point of that article that is basically saying be passionate about your job, not your own ideas. And he's saying that to his younger self. Wow.

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

#318

Post by gosukiwi »

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…

This. I had projects before I started working, and still have projects now. They are a hobby. Just that. When I don't want to code outside of work, I dont. When I want, I do. I don't feel guilt for not completing something. Most of them fail or are never finished, yet still I enjoy them, and I've learned a lot from them.

> I'm just boggled at how many people appear to find it unimaginable and unrelatable that a technologist likes technology enough to mess with it for fun, even after work.

I do get their point though, they feel bad because they are not one of those. But that's just the way things are. There aren't many people who got into tech because they REALLY like it. Not because it's a "good" job or because it's the lesser evil.

And by that I don't mean the people who only code at work or learned about tech later in life are bad developers, not at all. Nevertheless, they are the vast majority and they are quite different than the passionate young kid who codes for shits and giggles. It doesn't help than they are socially pressured to be like that. They end up hating it. Like when you have a brother/sister that is better than you at something and your parents always say "WHY CANT YOU BE LIKE YOUR BROTHER/SISTER".

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

#319

Post by gosukiwi »

Reedx wrote: post #183
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 far from alone, it just seems like as hobby/passion programmers tend to spend more time programming and less time posting about work life balance on Twitter or HN. So naturally they have a quieter, smaller voice in these kind of discussions.

I also think that passionate programmers are way more rare. We are used to being weird so we don't care :)

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

#320

Post by gitgud »

A good analogue is:

"When a painter goes home, he might not want to paint more walls... But he may paint murals or canvases... regardless of the monetary reward"

Building software is a form of artistic expression for many people, doing it without the limits of business requirements can be very satisfying.

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