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The Unemployable Programmer

unemployable.pen.io

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Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#51

Post by ddevault »

magicbuzz wrote: post #48
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #9

If you can find some spare time, perhaps invest in open source? It's an easy way to diversify your CV.

The whole 'do an open source' project is a crock. I single-handedly wrote a large Javascript plug-in module for a well-known editor. It's used by hundreds of people around the world but all the folks employing 'front-end' programmers seem to bin my CV as my current fulltime job is 100% Python. It baffles me that they want someone who is both a CSS3/LESS/SASS design guru and understands closures/promises/OO/etc.

I almost always get an interview, which almost always leads to an offer, and my resume is laid out so that open source takes up 2/3 of the page.

http://irc.sircmpwn.com/Drew-DeVault-CV.pdf

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#52

Post by gexla »

I want to start dating. I put my profile up to dating sites. I spend much of my days sending messages to women's profiles. I take their personality tests, but I never get messages (or replies to mine) even though I'm sure I get matches. I even started looking at niche sites such as "nerd dating..."

Dude, just get out and actually talk to women.

I'm not going to say how to get gigs, jobs, etc because I'm out of my league with the great people who post here. But whenever I see a post like yours, I see a lack of creativity and human contact.

I understand that you probably get tunnel vision from the stress. But try different things and different approaches. Try to get to know people. Get involved in different developer ecosystems. Talk to real people. Or get someone to talk to real time if not in person. Get that human touch going.

I like James Altucher's idea of list building. Brainstorm a list of different approaches you could take to land different work. Brainstorm other types of work that you could do. Brainstorm a list of side-gigs you could work on. Brainstorm anything, just to get that idea creation machine going.

You got lost somewhere by being the same for X years. What you need is chaos. You need to shake things up. Routine is good for the things you don't want to spend a lot of cognitive overhead (bedtime, eating, etc) on so that you can focus on creating explosive interactions in your mad scientist lab.

As a side note. Don't farm out your dev skills for less than a solid professional rate. Lowering the value that you get for your skills is a rabbit hole. No matter how far you go down that hole, there is still room for people to devalue you. They try to get the work cheaper, they complain about what you do. You could pay them for the opportunity to work for them and it would still be ugly. Better to take a minimum wage job than to farm your dev skills at less than a solid professional rate. Better to be a starving artist waiting tables than to cheapen your artistic skills by selling them to people who don't value them.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#53

Post by bsaunder »

edw519 wrote: post #20

Here's the dirty little secret about "employability" you hardly ever read about in places like HN: It's not about you. It's about your user and what they accomplish with the tools you build for them. It doesn't matter who you are, what you know, what education you have, where you've worked before, what turns you on, or what you think is cool. It only matters what you can do for others. It's really that fucking simple…

It's about creating value. It always is. Whether an individual employee, or a company.

The problem is "value" comes through a subjective lens. Different employers value a given work product differently. The OP's big-co employer is likely to value process and documentation.

In this start-up environment, speed is also relevant. Make lots of value quickly.

edw519's 90 pitch works largely because he presents himself in a manner for his customer to clearly see the value he would create. He spelled it out.

Its less about talking about yourself and more about talking about them.

The key thing the OP needs to do (and should have been doing) is networking (outside of work). As others have pointed out, with that much experience, you also should have a network of folks to reach out to.

It can take a long time to build a network. Fortunately, there are tons of opportunities in tech to do so. I'd imagine one of the best paths might be to fine a moderately significant trending (but not trendy) open source project and start getting involved in the community (in whatever way the community needs (maybe not coding initially)).

Learn the code base inside and out. Read the forums, discuss things with people. Create value! Find something needed and do it!

You'll meet people (virtually) along the way. Build a public reputation (very important), and maybe find a job. At least you'll be able to reference your relevant skill in said open source project. You'll then be an older developer, but with very relevant job skills to someone out there.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#54

Post by keyboardwarrior »

magicbuzz wrote: post #42

The whole 'do an open source' project is a crock. I single-handedly wrote a large Javascript module for a well-known editor. It's used by hundreds of people around the world but all the folks employing 'front-end' programmers seem to bin my CV as my current fulltime job is 100% Python.

What seperates this javascript module from other javascript modules? besides convenience what kind of value adds it to a business?

javascript is typically something you shouldnt focus on as open source experience imo. so many people doing it and doing it badly for feelsy points.

you think the person who wrote nginx wouldnt get hired? something mission critical that alot of businesses use.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#56

Post by fmsf »

duggan wrote: post #44

> Being able to get work in this field without a fancy background is still possible, but only if you have the right connections. Like I said: it's no longer sufficient to be able to do the job This sentiment regularly comes up on HN, and I find it a little exasperating. Human interaction has always been an important part of career. There's a subtle (or not so subtle) contempt for soft skills in these laments. You can…

In most cases we need to sort CVs somehow. If we sort by degree there is a high chance that someone in the top 10 fits the position. Interviewing dozens of candidates is very resource consuming. I can emphasise with his story, but is all game of numbers in the end.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#57

Post by robotkilla »

Hello sir, you have possibly found your doppelganger.

I don't have time to type up my whole story, and a lot of it is in my comment history, but the gist is:

I started programming with BASIC and later QBASIC. Self taught, no degree. Video games / text adventure games were my thing. Later fell into web dev and loved it... until I got further along in my career and was entangled in some really vicious office politics. I also suffered from untreated depression for years (which I have now managed to get under control). Those things combined with some really stressful personal family issues coalesced into a nervous breakdown of sorts and I holed up in my house.

I haven't had a fulltime job in 4 years - I just contract remotely. Almost everything I've done has been through recommendations which is really the only way to go when contracting. I've had multiple clients whom I've never seen - just spoke to on the phone for a few minutes and then slack / email for the rest of the contract. Sometimes this works out well, sometimes it doesn't. I only made $30k last year and it was very spread out - there was at least a full week where the only food in the house were biscuits made with water. This year has been better thankfully.

Contracting is not my end goal - independent video game development is. At the end of the day I don't care about the money all that much. If magical riches await me in the future then I will accept them with open arms of course - but I'm only seeking enough to survive. I care about making things - I really don't want to go implementing the ideas of clients. I always fancied myself a creator and need to find a way to make my projects profitable so that I can find self-fulfillment through the things I create.

So, in addition to contracting for these last 4 years I've spent the vast majority of my free time improving my skill set (improved my python, dabbled with node, started building "modern" websites - SASS, Bower, Gulp etc).

I also started teaching myself how to make 3d games using Unity and c# (in case you're wondering, I'm creating my own assets, not purchasing them - and I have almost zero interest in creating mobile games). My girlfriend teamed up with me, started teaching herself 3d art and has already produced some pretty impressive models for the game we are working on.

I'm very interested in teaming up with a programmer similar to myself, or perhaps a group of similar programmers.

Edit: left out some words

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#58

Post by eitally »

amm wrote: post #40

Degrees only matter for "serious companies" and are used as a filter by often clueless HR employees without technical background. As long as you can prove practical experience, you should be fine. Your network, on the other hand, becomes more important as you get older. Hiring an unknown person in his/her 40s or 50s has a much lower risk/reward ratio than hiring a random developer in his 20s who will a) do whatever y…

One of the biggest problems -- speaking as a former technical hiring manager myself -- is that a lot of those "serious companies" have HR policies that explicitly forbid hiring managers from pursuing candidates on their own. They are 100% at the mercy of whatever recruiters find for them, which is an awwwwwwwful, horrendous situation.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#59

Post by CmonDev »

aembleton wrote: post #32

"But they're not talking about people like me, they're talking about twenty-something Ivy League post docs with stellar CVs." We're trying to recruit a devops with AWS experience. We really don't care about which uni you went to or didn't go to. Probably no good for you as we're in Manchester, UK but I don't think we're that unique.

He probably wants to be a developer rather than a support though.

Re: The Unemployable Programmer

#60

Post by speeder »

What about people that instead NEVER had a job?

I got my degree in 2009, at the height of the crisis (for now at least... here in Brazil the crisis of 2009 is finally getting worse), I NEVER had a legal job, all the stuff I put in LinkedIn were semi-legal or outright illegal stuff (or my startup).

Also my programming language of choice were clearly a poor choice, I learned C, and C++ and whatnot when I was a kid (I was 6 when I started to learn coding), those are clearly mostly useless now.

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