My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs
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My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs
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Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs
#2This is terribly useless for anyone else. I’d go so far as to say it is not, in fact, a data point for anyone.
- 65 days is a very very short time to be on the market
- the coding interview experience of this applicant and requirements of the companies appears to be far more lax than most experiences in tech hiring
- it took place right around the pandemic / unemployment / layoff time period which is a nasty confounder to everything
- it focuses a lot on start-ups
- doesn’t give specifics on negotiation or salary numbers
It seems like a fine write-up and all, it’s just critical to emphasize this experience is not translatable to other people. If your experience happened to be similar to this, total coincidence. If you’re trying to predict a future hiring experience for yourself, this won’t offer you that.
If you just want to read about someone else’s experience knowing it won’t be related to yours for any reason aside from coincidence and don’t mind it is light on specific salary details, this is fine.
Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs
#3Note this is for a PM role. This isn't mentioned for a long time into the article. I found that slightly annoying personally, as most people on HN seem to be engineers. But I don't think the experience generalizes, as someone who has received eng and pm offers from FAANG companies.
Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs
#4Note this is for a PM role. This isn't mentioned for a long time into the article. I found that slightly annoying personally, as most people on HN seem to be engineers. But I don't think the experience generalizes, as someone who has received eng and pm offers from FAANG companies.
I'm pretty sure the applications he discussed weren't for a PM role. Check out the first footnote which talks about that experience separately:
> [1] I actually did also apply to 3 product manager positions. None of them panned out. Made it to an interview stage at one company, and I thought it went quite well. Apparently, it didn’t go well enough. I’m glad. I’m happy where I wound up.
Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs
#5Note this is for a PM role. This isn't mentioned for a long time into the article. I found that slightly annoying personally, as most people on HN seem to be engineers. But I don't think the experience generalizes, as someone who has received eng and pm offers from FAANG companies.
Check the article again.
He “also applied to 3 PM roles”
Meaning primary job applications not for PM
Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs
#6This is terribly useless for anyone else. I’d go so far as to say it is not, in fact, a data point for anyone. - 65 days is a very very short time to be on the market - the coding interview experience of this applicant and requirements of the companies appears to be far more lax than most experiences in tech hiring - it took place right around the pandemic / unemployment / layoff time period which is a nasty confound…
> 65 days is a very very short time to be on the market
Wait what? Is this just an SF/Valley thing? 60 days on the market is a long time IMO. Long enough that my experience with east coast recruiting is that by the time you hit 30 days offers start evaporating so it makes it difficult to play them off of each other for negotiating purposes.
Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs
#7This is terribly useless for anyone else. I’d go so far as to say it is not, in fact, a data point for anyone. - 65 days is a very very short time to be on the market - the coding interview experience of this applicant and requirements of the companies appears to be far more lax than most experiences in tech hiring - it took place right around the pandemic / unemployment / layoff time period which is a nasty confound…
> - it took place right around the pandemic / unemployment / layoff time period which is a nasty confounder to everything
The article was written in Jan. I don't think the pandemic had hit the USA then.
> - it focuses a lot on start-ups
Mozilla, Stripe, Reddit, Buzzfeed, and Square aren't exactly startups.
Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs
#8The ‘wannabe philosopher to wannabe entrepreneur’ line in the Gradle resume was incredibly cringey. I suspect the author has a very poor understanding of how best to sell himself and this also at least somewhat explains his results (in addition to the factors he mentions).
Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs
#9This is terribly useless for anyone else. I’d go so far as to say it is not, in fact, a data point for anyone. - 65 days is a very very short time to be on the market - the coding interview experience of this applicant and requirements of the companies appears to be far more lax than most experiences in tech hiring - it took place right around the pandemic / unemployment / layoff time period which is a nasty confound…
>- 65 days is a very very short time to be on the market
I'm an experienced engineer (10+ years) in a good location. For me, 65 days is absurdly LONG pre-pandemic. Assuming you interview well, you can go from nothing to offer in something like two weeks with most startups.
>- the coding interview experience of this applicant and requirements of the companies appears to be far more lax than most experiences in tech hiring
How so? Seems pretty standard to me, the usual leetcode stuff with various bits around the edges.
>- it focuses a lot on start-ups
This is the case for many people especially on this site and the "startups" are very wide in size. So not sure why you consider this to be a non-transferable part.
Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs
#10Some perhaps unsolicited advice from a hiring manager in a company very similar to the great ones in which this writer was unsuccessful.
- Rare programmers won’t identify themselves as such.
- Most great companies hire for humility as a trait.