I'm not a dev per se (I'm a sysadmin), but I perfectly know how it feels ...
I didn't graduate from a uni either, and always get passed. But that was years ago. I'm lucky to have the recent two companies I work with are awesome.
Being in the US helps a lot for those remote jobs. Many "remote" companies only want people in US timezones.
As an expat, this has been very frustrating for me recently since it excludes seemingly 75%+ of remote positions. I went from generating tens of millions of dollars of revenue for startups to being unable to get a reply from startups when applying for their remote positions.
The "being unable to get a reply from startups when applying for their remote positions" part is 100% true. I'm in such a position now and it's amazing how many companies complain about there being not enough good programmers and at the same time don't do a basic courtesy of responding to their candidates.
> it's amazing how many companies complain about there being not enough good programmers
I've heard this complaint before; it's absolutely ridiculous. You can get plenty of developers for nearly any technology as long as you stop offering pathetic wages. It's a seller's market, deal with it.
It hits close to home, too, because you'll see YC-funded startups posting the same job ad on HN for months. One I saw repeatedly was even for a "founding" engineer or something similar. Literally what are you doing on a daily basis if you don't have your initial engineer(s)?
If you're really desperate for job, create a LinkedIn account. There are literally thousands of headhunters there, judging from my inbox looking for just about anybody.
this is a good suggestion, increasing the chances to get an offer or anything is certainly good, but:
It seems to me that a lot (most?) of the head hunters on linkedin use a "shotgun approach" to recruiting where they basically just send you a message if you have a random matching keyword in your profile, ignoring actual details of your skills, ability to relocate/location, seniority, wage expectations etc.
So you might easily get a full inbox, but going from that to a real position might not be trivial.
The whole notion of loyalty is insane. It's a contract. It's not a romantic relationship. Any employer that even mentions loyalty deserves to go out of business.
I really wish employers would stop talking about "our culture" also. "Culture" and culture-worship are just another attempt at enforcing loyalty in a world where everyone knows loyalty is dead.
3. Lots of people recommend https://angel.co/jobs ... you can probably hit up a few dozen companies a day; it's ok, the worst they can do is ignore you. There's also http://crowdfunder.com/ --- look at the companies that were financed recently - they will definitely be in a hiring mood.
4. Try going to company-you-want-to-work-for.com/(jobs|careers) ... really. Send an introductory email and if you don't get a response, respond to your own email. Do it every 2 days or so until you get a response.
If this doesn't exist, then look at /sitemap.xml or the whois record and email that person. Also, typing in the company name followed by "HR" and "linkedin" can usually get you a name that you can find a personal email address to. Just hit them up during business hours and explain how you got the email. It's fine.
If they don't respond, change the subject line to "[follow up #2]" and then "[follow up #6]" etc ... stop when you get a "no". You may actually get a "let's set up a call". This does work, I've done it - and gotten the gig.
Oftentimes the people who are hiring have a lot of things on their plate. Sometimes you need to nag them to make your candidacy more of a priority.
5. Go to meetup.com --- find the tech-centric meetups with the most attendants and go to those. Arrive early and talk to anyone you can. Don't be ashamed to say "I'm looking for work." or "I just want to build things and get paid." along with "A regular job would be great right now." ... straight-forward, non-bullshit honesty goes a long way.
6. Don't dismiss craigslist. There's lots of ok short-term gigs at below-industry, but not-to-terrible pay. I also got a 120k/yr job through craigslist.
7. Use all the above methods in tandem. They all work together. Find out who the decision makers are, where they go, get to know them ...
If you make getting a job your full-time job it will come faster than you think.
Seeing this on the front page, gives me hope he'll be helped with all the exposure. I'm not in a position to help, but good luck to you and I wish you all the best.
I can't really add anything that hasn't been written in other answers except good luck. This is a really unfortunate story and I hope you get the job you deserve.
I can't be the only person who wants to know what company could have abused an employee like this, if only to never apply to them or help support whatever godawful business they're trying to run.
Honestly I don't think they're bad. I have a lot of respect for a lot of the dev team and the product itself, which is why I'm so vague on details. Like I said in the post, I'm fairly private and didn't bring much up with anyone until the end, so I don't think anyone understood the situation.
Actually one of the things that was encouraging during the past few months was remarks from former employees that [CEO] is a dick, but [Company] pay is what makes it worth it.
If I were a dev there I would start looking for another job -- a CEO that can string an individual along like that probably has no qualms about screwing other people. It is only a matter of time before (s)he does it again and fires someone for being "disloyal" So don't look at it as a fault with you as you just happened to be the person it happened to on that day.
Also for a laugh / attitude change take a look at this flowchart [1] which is geared to graphic designers who always get asked to do work for free. In your case substitute "intern" in there and "reduced salary" for free. You've got a lot of valuable skills and people should pay accordingly.
Don't be afraid to ask for a reasonable salary, even if it was 2x what you were making before. While this sounds easy to do, practice doing it with some friends in a mock interview. You want to be prepared when going in for an interview and not asking for the right salary is a big mistake a lot of programmers make as they want to avoid confrontation. Become comfortable with asking it and you'll get what you want.
If you don't name names you might as well be condoning what happened to you, and damning other people to the same fate. The only way to stop this sort of thing happening is for CEOs to realise there is a very big downside risk of being outed as an unethical business.
That's great if your life doesn't hang in the balance. Maybe if he gets another job first, but naming names, even if it is for great justice is not going to help him one little bit right now.
I'm not comfortable in general about the idea of labeling people based on their neurological makeup, unless one is in a therapeutic/psychiatric setting.
In a relationship or work setting, people should be mainly judged by their actions. Hurtful things should not be ignored and people should be made responsible for their actions. I agree it's good to be aware of typical pathological personality types so people who end up in relationships with them have some framework to work with their problems and even identify a bad case and leave.
Sure, taking advantage of people is a thing that comes easily to psychopaths. But there are lots of other personality disorders and ways to act like one.
Was the CEO actually lying or just trying to squirm out of an emotionally uncomfortable position for as long as possible? The situation sucks for the OP and there are absolutely horrible employers, even psychopaths out there - but really, there's not enough data to make those claims even if you are an experienced therapist or a psychiatrist.
> I'm not comfortable in general about the idea of labeling people based on their neurological makeup, unless one is in a therapeutic/psychiatric setting.
The setting you're in has no bearing on whether people actually differ greatly based on their neurological makeup, though, so I don't see how that matters.
We're not on the same page here, but that's to be expected, even if you're actually not a psychopath yourself.
But what the world really needs to know is that because the difference between humans and psychopaths is so counter-intuitively vast, even seemingly small things are strong signs that someone is a psychopath.
For example, if someone keeps talking over you, he's probably a psychopath. Because he has no respect for you as a human being, he'll just casually interrupt you whenever he feels like saying something.
An actual human being wouldn't do that, because he naturally respects you as another human being.
You can't tell that someone is a psychopath without having actual psychiatric credentials and actually performing diagnostics on the patient.
"For example, if someone keeps talking over you, he's probably a psychopath."
I'm pretty sure that it does not suffice as evidence.
You're focusing on the wrong thing - on the specific action and not on the feeling it generates. A non professional individual seldom has enough experience on personality disorders to tell what exactly is wrong. This means collecting anecdotal evidence has little value unless one knows the subject really intimately. But one can trust ones feelings.
The key to identifying difficult people is first realizing that the interactions with the person leave you mostly feeling worse. Not in a single interaction, mind you, but over time. That is probably a good time to read a "how to deal with difficult people" guidebook and assess ones situation.
The diagnostics part should be left to professionals.
> The key to identifying difficult people is first realizing that the interactions with the person leave you mostly feeling worse.
But you're not a psychiatric professional so how could you possibly identify "difficult people" like that? :p
Even if it happens over and over again with some specific individual, you're still not in a position to conclude anything based on that, because you lack psychiatric credentials!
It's totally possible there are many excellent people working at that company, but the boss is pure evil. It's pretty clear to you too that he's the one being disloyal, and a lot more than just that. He screwed you because he could, and he lied to you about it for months. Feel no loyalty to the guy.
That said, revenge can only hurt you. You need a job, and unless you have a legal case against him, there's nothing you can do about him right now. You need to think about you and your family, not about the shitty boss.
THIS right here is the part that drives me up a wall. Earlier in my (admittedly still pretty short) career, I'd probably have done dev work for free, if only to get some "official" experience and work with some devs I could learn from. But it's an entirely different situation when someone is working for far less than they're worth because they're being lied to. That's not a CEO giving someone a leg up despite lackluster credentials, that's just a CEO stealing labor under false pretenses.
As a freelancer I've had pretty good luck with Upwork. The art in getting hired is crafting an apt proposal, being personable and accommodating. This might require doing a bit of research on the client (not necessarily easy to figure out), learning about their vertical, understanding what they are actually asking for, etc. A lot of this is common sense but often overlooked. However, many of these details are gleaned from an initial interview.
A few notes
- Obviosuly, don't apply to jobs you lack skills for
- Similarly, don't apply to jobs you wouldn't be a good fit for
- Keep your Upwork profile up to date
- Use the Github, LinkedIn, etc accounts integrations. This helps clients verify your experience skill-set
- Don't be afraid to adapt your profile to the job you are applying for
- Be sure your rate matches your experience. If you're billing $100/hour but can't prove your skill-set, experience or the value you provide you won't get hired.
Since 2010 I've worked from a few hours a week, to part-time and in full-time capacity on Upwork. Its gotten me connected to a lot of great startups (mostly SF) and recurring gigs. However, it was very difficult getting started.
All this being said if you're based in the US and can verify your skills you have a lot better chance of landing quality gigs than your international counterparts putting in very low bids.
1. Tell your wife. Trust me you'll feel better afterwards.
2. Keep looking for new opps. Get your CV out to as many places. Keep your hopes up. Spend time with your kids in the mean time. Kids are great company when you are "present with them".
3. Note for yourself: get numbers in writing before making changes to your life about opportunities.
4. Never use the word Fuck or any other expletives or crass language in any communique where you have the moral high ground. That just makes you look like the guilty one. Don't give the fuckers that chance.
Oh I see. Sorry. I didn't mean it to come across like that. Just had a recent personal situation I'd rather not go into on a public forum that would have turned out a whole lot better if me and the truth were more in alignment, sad to say : / Anyway, one lie begets another. Just tell the truth, less cognitive overload, less trust issues. Easier said than done I know; we all want to save face, we all have our shame to hide.
I'd say if you can't trust each other in a long term relationship, you have no business being in that relationship. You're in it to support each other. This is a situation where you need support.
Doesn't this person deserve some form of severance or the equivalent of?
It's kind of ridiculous that he was "cut out" from a job like some kind of child who was no longer part of the "club". It's grossly unprofessional to disconnect an employee without any due process or policy.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the events leading up to the situation.
> It's grossly unprofessional to disconnect an employee without any due process or policy.
In the US, it depends on what state the company is headquartered. Many are "right to work" states, which means any employee can be fired so long as it is not for reasons such as age, sex, weight, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation.
In those states, an employee literally can be fired for a reason such as "you upset the owner" with no further obligations.
Actually I don't think sexual orientation and definitely not weight are 'protected classes' against discrimination with hiring and firing. Sexual orientation might be protected now with some of the recent Supreme Court rulings, but weight is sadly something employers can discriminate against with no repercussions.
Why do people confuse "Right to Work" with "Employment At Will"?
Right to work means that you can work for an employer without having to join a union or pay union dues. Right to work is used in conservative states to keep unions from forming.
Employment-at-will means your employer or you can terminate the employment relationship for (most) any reason whatsoever. If you are an employer, you can fire someone for wearing the wrong color shirt (This really happened). If you are the employee, you can say "I quit" and leave with no notice for not having coffee available in the workplace (also, really happened at one of my previous employers).
The problem with employment-at-will is that the employer has more power because the employer-employee relationship is asymmetrical.
We need to teach this stuff in high school civics so everyone can see how disgusting employment-at-will really is.
> Why do people confuse "Right to Work" with "Employment At Will"?
You are right, I used the wrong term (Right to Work) where I meant "Employment at Will." Thank you for pointing this out as they are different.
While 22 states practice Right to Work laws[1], Employment at Will appears to be much more prevalent:
Virtually all states are employment at
will states, meaning that all states
uphold the Doctrine to some degree. To
what degree states uphold the Doctrine
regarding employers' rights to discharge
employees varies by state.
EmploymentIssues[2]
[rant on]
Because in this filter bubble here you are not worth a dime, if you can't brag about how friggin' awesome you are - thats what twitter is for.
[rant off]
Imho he should apply for jobs, apply more and even apply more. Having studied literature, I have jumped ships from publishing to tourism (marketing analyst) to being a full time data analyst via doing the work and having a resume to show it.
Having an application, that differentiates one from the competition did maybe help a little bit.
If @brokedev would like, he could shoot me a mail and I would show him, what I had for an application. Helped me get a lot of interviews - in the end I could choose between jobs.
[edit on]
Have just updated my profile - seems to be cached. In some minutes my email should show there.
[edit off]
I had always a knack for the technical stuff. While in school my main focus where natural sciences. You could say, I always had two hearts beating in my chest.
So when the chance arose, I first started doing some web analytics. As the data grew more and more (esp. in our internal tools) I needed more then excel. So I tried to learn a little bit of (in my case) python to help crunch bigger numbers.
From there I got to manage the technical side of an ad server, did a lot of project management and via a gig in online marketing as a "pure" web analyst I came to work in a digital agency as a so called data analyst. Most work is "classic" web analytics, some is work on bigger datasets (growing part of my work).
So basically I had a knack for math, science, empirical stuff, statistics and tried some programming (bad code, but code non the less) and that way I was able to jump ships.
One day I will try to incorporate my love for literature/texts into the mix - maybe NLP or some things like that might be fun. We'll see.
literature major here, just chiming in to say it can be done! (I'm a founder/CEO now.) Follow the things that challenge you and that you can learn from, that intersect with things you have some strength in. Maybe marketing in the context of developer platforms?
whenever you scale to Germany, please shoot me a line. What you are building seems to me the ideal service to use. So many use cases shooting through my head...
There's a lot of luck involved, and just persistence over a long period of time. But I figure you also just have to start doing what you want to do. This is amazingly possible in the developer world in a way that's hard to imagine in any other industry.
I was a music major in university (and planning on an English lit or creative writing minor) -- then I took an intro compsci course halfway through, and had a bit of a shock; it was an entirely new thing for me, but I really had a knack for it, and enjoyed it as well. It was a bit late to change my major... but I just fit in as much compsci as I could, and also just starting building things outside of coursework. I managed to get a software dev job right out of college based on a bunch of interactive online drills I wrote for the music department, plus I had very solid communication skills and academic recognition.
The software dev job was doing custom dev on lots of different kinds of projects (that was good), and in my spare time I turned the interactive music stuff into a site that's still a side income stream. It's languishing somewhat these days, because 5 years ago I started as a developer at a UK-based startup (working remotely from France; long story) and gradually became the CTO -- mostly just from looking for the hardest, riskiest problems we had and chasing them down one at a time, and being easy to work with.
It's hard to abstract any of this to general advice -- maybe just that mastering anything requires a good deal of focus and just time. If you want to do technical work (huge range there) you need to be doing it -- making mistakes, finding your way to solutions (good ones and bad), paying close attention to what's hard and why. It's probably worthwhile building something other people use, and can look at, etc. -- plus (whatever your focus is), mastering the context of working with customers, colleagues, competitors is valuable. If you build and support something all on your own, you're forced to learn a lot about all that.
No, Twitter isn't for bragging in this case. It's to follow other RoR devs and find out what they need help with. It's about leveraging Twitter to help you find jobs. Bragging isn't going to impress anybody, you have to let your Github do the bragging.
To be fair, Twitter is filled to the brim with noise. And I'm just as jaded as you are WRT to the massive scale pandering to Twitter-mobs going on in current society.
With that being said, Dev communities tend to be quite different on twitter.
I'll have to take the plunge as well, so I'm speaking to myself as much as I'm speaking to you, make an account _solely_ for your developer persona.
I think my problem with Twitter is, I have no idea what I would tweet about. Do you just use it to follow things and post replies to people looking for help? I have skipped Twitter for years because I didn't feel a need to micro-blog (esp publically), but now I regret that and don't know where to start. I'm worried that maintaining my feed (?) would be a huge time sink.
I like your suggestion about my "developer persona". Do you have suggestions for tools or tactics for making sure the signal to noise stays high?
That's essentially why I don't use the service in a nutshell, and find it in its entirety much ado about nothing.
However, I mentioned I need to follow this advice as well because I often meet developers from other companies, and many in my local area are involved with each other on Twitter. Particularly, the UX and RoR communities of my area are both quite strong on Twitter (I'm a C#/Python guy, but it still applies). In sum, They are much better aware of what's going on and where to find a new job, should they need one.
I'm in the same boat as you - in order to further develop myself I'll inevitably have to cave and make a Twitter account.
> Do you just use it to follow things and post replies to people looking for help?
In a nutshell, yes. Or dev jokes, or your current project(s), or really anything that builds up your following. The metrics are available....use them!
"Retweeting" other developers you follow should help as well.
> I'm worried that maintaining my feed (?) would be a huge time sink.
> Do you have suggestions for tools or tactics for making sure the signal to noise stays high?
It is a huge time sink. But unfortunately the "powers that be" place a premium on having both an online presence, and online "clout." While a Github profile and personal website is certainly more important for reputation as a developer, your Twitter serves as a mouthpiece for your work and is (again, unfortunately) ultimately the first _and_ last thing looked at.
Maintaining your feed, I guess, would be easy as a developer. You have normal user level things - ie: only follow the accounts in your developer sphere - and you can also use management systems and third party software to filter out more of the noise. Hell, you could even write your own and use that same tool to build up your following! I believe most of the timesink in that aspect would be front-loaded - once you're up and running, you don't need to put much more work in.
It does not have to be a huge time sink. Like anything, it will take some time to get your bearings. But the messages are short and the way it works is very favorable to popping in when you feel like it. It is as much of a time sink as you are willing to make it.
Mostly because many job sites (greenhouse.io and lever.co) ask for a twitter link along with LinkedIn and Github. I've found the more interesting you can make yourself when applying, the more likely you will get a follow up interview.
You don't need to be a 140-char Shakespeare, just follow some influences and projects you're interested in, re-tweet things you find useful and if you have anything of substance you've created (github, blog post etc) post it.
It's not so much showing off as it is showing you're on-top of new ideas and trends in your field.
My problem is that I tweet a lot, but seldom about technical stuff that would actually be interesting to an employer, so when I do tweet some neat new devopsy thing, it's buried between four tweets about how I'm scared of the police and mad at the Phillies for trading somebody. It's really tough for me to find a balanced tone on this thing, because I can never decide if it's a personal or professional feed.
Having an online presence where you talk about dev things is really useful, often in interviews I'm often surprised when they ask about projects I've put up (though shouldn't be - that's the whole point of my blog).
It's close to impossible to get a remote job by the sheer amount of people wanting them. And no place will let you negotiate less salary for a job. :-/
I find myself as the same place as the the dev who wrote this. I don't even need a "dev-salary", we could live on the 44k a month and I would be happy with that as long as it's remote. Could go less, but it has to be a job that exists in ~5 years.
Time to get your game face on. I'm a CEO, we're hiring but not in your skill area. Having interviewed a lot of candidates lately and looked at many more, I wanted to give you my 2c on getting into extremely hirable shape fast:
Update your LinkedIn profile as someone has mentioned already. Sweeten it up, get a great looking but professional profile pic up there, get kudos from friends, etc.
Do the online profile cleanse. Make sure everything is very professional looking. Remove any controversial political views or disparaging remarks about previous employers. Looks like this blog post is anonymous. Keep it that way and make sure that email address isn't associated with anything. Employers will google your email address. They'll even drag your profile pic into google image search, so the cleanse includes anywhere that appears.
Get code into GitHub asap and make your profile there sound like you're a team player, super positive, super keen, all that good stuff.
Stop blogging about how tough your life is and don't ever mention it in conversation. Whether you like it or not (personally I don't), that idiotic quote in American Beauty from the motivational tapes is true: "In order to be successful, one must project an image of success at all times.". Yup, that came from the real-estate King himself. Seriously douchey and seriously true.
What employers care about is that you're going to be a great addition to the team, make the rest of the team happier and more productive and be super productive yourself. That's pretty much it besides not being a liability or a risk. Hence the profile cleanse, positivity, demonstration of ability by getting your code into GitHub and so on.
Then go forth and market the hell out of yourself with tons of positive vibe. What I'm telling you here is pretty much to do very much the opposite of what you're doing. Absolutely don't beg. You may get charity but I don't think you're going to be happy with it considering your salary expectations and family situation. You're going to want to land a job earning $75K upwards with excellent benefits in a stable and growing business. That means they need to think that you're awesome, so make yourself awesome and go and kill it.
> get a great looking but professional profile pic up there, get kudos from friends
Really? as a CEO those are signals for you? the profile picture is debatable but the endorsements are just a joke and everyone knows it, people just exchange them like they do with twitter follows. If anything, too many of them would be a negative signal for me.
Completely agree with the rest of your comment though.
I'm very aware, my point is being an endorsement collector will put you in the group filtered out, at least if I'm doing the filtering, but perhaps I'm the minority.
Off the cuff, I agree with you, but I also wonder if it isn't an approach only used by a minority of people involved in hiring, primarily those with a technical background. This is the sort if matter on which I would love to see an empirical study based on real data from the industry, not stimulated hiring experiments, unlikely as it may be to happen.
Just out of curiosity, where do you work as a hiring manager that you get so many candidates to filter out? At the company I work at it's been somewhat difficult to find suitable candidates to even interview with us -- the few that do come in for interviews are usually so-so (and we do pay quite above average). Also, anecdotally, during my own job search I was the one filtering out companies to apply to (nearly all the ones I applied to accepted me in the end), so at least that's consistent with the developer shortage my company is currently facing.
I am very curious how the balance of power can be tipped so drastically in the other direction in some places.
Using something like "professional-looking LinkedIn picture" as a filter is just throwing out candidates for the sake of getting the number lower. Any company that would be this lazy as to potentially throw away their best candidates in the first round of filtering on criteria that has such little actual signalling is not one that I would want to work for anyway.
I doubt people get filtered out solely on their profile picture. Yet when you have two similar resumes, things like this might (and probably will) decide who'll be filtered out.
Pro-tip: no one wants to see a Nikon in your profile picture and no one cares about your photography hobby on your resume. I'm talking to you, half of the tech community on Linkedin!
People are filtered all the time for BS reasons, e.g. there's a fairly well-known "I only hire lucky people" filter where a random half of the application pile is tossed out without a glance.
Fair enough. Though I still can't help but think there have been people out there who read the fable and then said, "That's a good idea, I'm going to try it."
(You've most likely also read https://web.archive.org/web/20120501193533/http://raganwald.... too, a point in which is that other BS filters act just like the toss-half one in that they aren't really useful when your qualified applicant proportion is small.)
People looking for jobs are usually far more motivated than managers looking to hire (or worse, people who aren't going to work with directly with the employee).
Even the CEO, who has skin in the game, won't be entirely dependent on making the best possible hire (hopefully).
Most job seekers are terrible at job seeking. What does that say about how good managers are at hiring?
(Also, managers has to look at hundreds of different candidates.)
>Using something like "professional-looking LinkedIn picture" as a filter is just throwing out candidates for the sake of getting the number lower.
Who said hiring is fair?
>Any company that would be this lazy as to potentially throw away their best candidates in the first round of filtering on criteria that has such little actual signalling is not one that I would want to work for anyway.
For most companies (not talking Facebook and Google level stuff) it doesn't really matter -- and they could care less if you would work for them or if they get top talent or not. Any decent-ish programmer can do the work they require, so they are OK with being lazy in hiring.
Why not filter out those 80 with a dead-simple (fizzbuzz level) online quiz?
In my experience it was enormously difficult to find qualified candidates, especially if HR or recruiters were allowed to pre-filter candidates using relatively superficial judgments. A fizzbuzz test easily eliminated more than 80%.
I imagine that e.g. the average Rails job listing gets maybe 1/10th that many candidates.
Certainly one wants an edge, what I find confounding is that none of the advice dealt with proving actual ability as much as being shinier and flashier than the next candidate. I guess I was naive in thinking that kind of superficiality had diminished relevance in this industry.
As a hiring manager myself, I would say those kudos/recommendations are nice-to-have and I am not paying too much attention to the contents. However these testimonials tell me a candidate has basic social skill, talks to colleagues, and able to get along with others (yes, people won't write testimonials to someone they don't get along).
Endorsements don't mean much, but they do show that people know you and think you don't suck, which is still better than nothing, especially for someone with very limited work experience.
I guess beggers can't be choosers, but you're describing an employer I would never work for.
> Remove any controversial political views or disparaging remarks about previous employers.
If a person keeps their stupid political views to themselves while at work, it's really not any of their employers business. As far as disparaging remarks go, if it's an awesome company to work for, there shouldn't be anything to worry about.
If your employees have to be as fake as possible to get hired, maybe you're doing it wrong.
Workplaces are intensely political. Corporations are huge donors to political campaigns.
Of course, politics goes beyond the pageant of professional politicians we call elections. (For example, saying "corporations are illegitimate entities" is political. Or "corporations are structured as dictatorships, and that's where you spend much of your lives". What would we expect a corporate gatekeeper to do, upon seeing that?)
My haunch is that most donations by corporations are strategic and don't have an ideological bent.
Yes, there are plenty of hiring managers who let their ideology get in the way of making decisions that benefit the business. The companies that have a lot of those won't be around very long. But if you make any political comments online, just pretend that you're on TV and everyone can hear you. In other words, don't be an ass.
It's not so much "fake" as presenting one's best face in a professional context. Most of us present different faces in different contexts every day.
I often pick my nose, scratch my ass, tell rude jokes, love wearing sweatpants, and don't have a problem with embarrassing-to-most sexual conversations. Do I engage in these things on a first date as I might on a day to day basis with friends? No.. I dress up a bit, smell a bit better than usual, steer clear of politics and sexual jokes. So it goes when seeking a job.
> It's not so much "fake" as presenting one's best face in a professional context.
That's what I take issue with. I think for most people, the majority of their internet use isn't in a professional context, and I see no reason it should be used to judge them professionally. My Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and even GitHub accounts aren't professional things. I'm an adult, I know the difference between work and non-work, and I only work for companies that also know the difference.
And one day when every activity done outside of your home is recorded, will you agree that you shouldn't do any of that except in the private of your own home? Or would you say that if you run to the local market at 8PM in your jammies, your professional reputation shouldn't take a hit. Would you say that if you were seen flirting with a date (or SO or spouse if dating/married) while at some restaurant, it shouldn't be used against your professional reputation?
You're a CEO, and would hire the Real-Estate King, if he could code?
I have a few websites. They don't produce much income, but some guys offer their services for hire; thinking I might hire them if they say the right things? I tell them up front, I can't afford to hire them, but some are very persistent.
They send me their resumes, even after telling them I'm a struggling website owner, and I don't make a living doing this work. From my perspective, it's so easy to spot the Real Estate Kings? This one guy wanted me to join his companies, exclusive website forum. He was going to put in a good word, so the the other Winners would let me in. Well, I went to the forum, and it was just this guy and me. Every article was written by him. Every comment on the site was written by this guy. I couldn't belive the verbage this guy was throwing around. His favorite phrase was "Are you interested in monetizing? Followed by "You need to scale!" It's was almost like he memorized that movie about Facebook? And yes, he had a professional, cheesy profile pic. with a tie, and head cocked. Call me old school, but I wouldn't put his picture into Google Image search, but that same cheesy picture came up at least a couple dozen times just in just Images. He used the same portrait pic. in every website--ever created? My point is I had this guy figured out pretty quick. I think, if he didn't try so hard to sound professional, I would have loved to kick around a few ideas I have? And yes, if we meshed, I have a small bank roll I would be willing to risk.
I thought hiring in tech was about abilities? I don't care what a person looks like? It's so easy to spot "The Real Estate Kings" of Coders; I couldn't imagine trying to hide who you are? Yea, scrub the web, if you can, of anything controversial, but be honest? Honesty used to go along way?
Do you really need that Starbucks fueled, go, go, save world with my app, never sleep, positive vib in order to get noticed for employment?
Maybe it's just me, but I'll take the well rounded individual, with some finished projects over a Cheerleader?
This is great advice for anybody seeking a job. When I'm going to hire somebody I'll stalk them online until I'm comfortable I've unearthed as much detail as I can before pulling them in for an interview.
Personally, I'm freaked out seeing a LinkedIn profile that is complete, but in a way that signals they might have actually paid someone to make it look that way. I've seen great profiles that really give me a good feel for what someone is up to, but others, like with a cheesy school-photo, just seem like marketing material.
"As a general rule, the information obtained and requested through the pre-employment process should be limited to those essential for determining if a person is qualified for the job;...employers should not ask for a photograph of an applicant. If needed for identification purposes, a photograph may be obtained after an offer of employment is made and accepted."
It surprised me when you attached any importance to "a great looking but professional profile pic", since it's such an obvious way for discrimination to work, so I checked if that was allowed. I don't recall being asked for a photo pre-employment in 30 years.
They're not allowed to actively discriminate on it, but people naturally make choices based on gut feeling and having a good photo can really help.
They're not allowed to discriminate on whether your resume contains the right collection of trendy buzzwords either, but that's what HR systems sit and do every day.
You play the game that exists, not the one that's written in statute.
I'm not surprised that candidates put their photos on resumes or their information sites.
I am surprised that a CEO publicly declares photos to be useful. A photo is clearly bullshit - there's no useful information in a photo (unless it's "here I am accepting $PRESTIGOUS_AWARD last year") - and it raise risk of discrimination claims.
A talented HR/CEO can size up a lot of things from it, even from the way the candidate is dressed in the photo.
"Hmm, too old, too quirky looking, doesn't look a good fit for our culture, fucking hipster I hate them, too slopilly dressed don't like working with such guys" etc.
Read all the way through, as he points out that it is not the equipment that matters, its the setup with the reflectors, which can easily be improvised...
This is good advice, don't get me wrong (I read the article), but you don't absolutely have to have a pro photo. What you do need is a good, clear headshot. Advice like yours is necessary because I've seen a lot of really bad, unprofessional LI photos:
1/ Don't use your Facebook profile photo
2/ Don't use anything blurry: photo should be well lit and clear
3/ Don't use a photo that isn't a headshot—make sure your face is clearly visible and smiling
4/ Don't use anything where you're engaging in unprofessional behaviour
Not that your advice is bad -- it's about the same as any college advisor would give -- but to those with whom such fakery leaves a foul taste, just remember the tech industry still has plenty of opportunities where that's unnecessary.
Thanks. And glad to read this. Got a job with an very holidayish image on my professional resume (me climbing in Greece). Got my job having a personal site with quite left wing blogposts.
Got a job in a great environment with great colleagues - without having to constantly denying myself.
For me these things work as a filter for companies, where I would not want to work. But for the OP I would first say - get any dev job at all and after that look for a great job to then jump ship.
Aren't you describing all of the things that you should be trying to see through, to see past? Anyone can fake being an uncontroversial, positive, "team player" in the interview process. Anyone can take a nice headshot. Anyone can censor themselves on social media and not have an opinion. But surely you're trying to gauge their qualities past that superficial level? You didn't even really describe any technical requisites besides having an appealing GitHub profile.
It sounds like I've been wasting my time trying to be a better software developer or hone my skills; the big bucks are waiting for me as soon as I choose to project an artificial persona. My entire life thus far is starting to make a lot of sense.
I'm not saying this makes sense, but the perception of an employee wanting to leave a company goes from "terminable flight risk" to "an asset worth fighting to keep" as soon as you get an offer from another company. This is why employees never share that they're looking for work until they've received an offer, which allows negotiation. It's a strange reality I think.
My condolences that you're going through this. You did good demanding what you're worth. contact any tech headhunter in your area, and you'll find work in no time.
"the perception of an employee wanting to leave a company goes from 'terminable flight risk' to 'an asset worth fighting to keep' as soon as you get an offer from another company."
This is so true. An offer changes the dynamic of the negotiation totally. I think the psychology and economics goes like this: If there is no counter offer, then the company would pay just more for the monthly asset they will likely have any how.
However, if there is a direct offer they are competing with, it means there is on the balance an acute need to find and train a replacement - one whom might actually cost more than the current employee is paid. Also, the value of the employee is validated by his demand in the job market.
The emotions, which will be present but subdued in a professional setting, are also different. Without a counteroffer, the employee will just sound greedy. With a counter offer, the employee is actually generous by offering the current employer a chance to save in hiring and training costs (unless the new wage is ridiculously high).
Sorry for the language guys, but guess we all know someone like that boss!
It's not that hard when you're single but the things are totally different when you had a family and kids. The situation can drag you to any point when it comes to a hungry brother, sister or children. I know, I've been there (thank god it's a history now).
But the good news is, you are really valuable. I mean, you are a ruby developer. You'd be having £400/£450 per day if you were a contractor in London/UK.
So don't give up yet! Check the links other users provided and open a linkedin account as suggested as well as job site accounts and upload your CV. Just hold on couple of weeks and I am sure things will be better.
Hacker News is a great community. So keep us updated and let us see what we can do about it.
Also it might be useful if you can tell us where are you based (I may have missed that if it's already in the article).
I hate to break it to you, but if you are making £400/£450 per day as a Ruby contractor in London with less than 1 year of development experience, you are either insanely good or insanely lucky (probably both).
Although I'm working on contract in Japan at the moment, I spent the last 2 years working in London and interviewing people for positions almost every day. Entry level for a good Ruby dev is £30-40K for a full time position. Some companies pay higher (some significantly higher), but they will only hire one in 1000 applicants, probably. There are still people in London making £22K per year as a full time Ruby dev.
And, no, you can not live on £22K per year in London :-P
It's not an entry-level salary certainly, however you probably only need 4-5 years of experience to achieve it. Skill-level, signalling ability and confidence are all you need.
Entry-level for a good junior engineer is what you say it is, however senior/lead probably reaches around £100k for particularly impressive candidates, and finishes at around £60-80K for other engineers.
Contracting on the other hand seems to top out at about £650 pd. There £300-400 is entry-level, £400-450 is mid-level or low-end senior, and £500+ is high-end senior, architect or lead. Generally you get more if you work for financial institutions and have a skill that is extremely difficult to recruit for. Basically it's generally not about how good you are - that is the wrong frame. It's about how cleverly you have fit a pain point within the market.
My numbers might be a little wrong but it should give a general feel.
It's certainly unfortunate that there are engineers that are only making £22K but ultimately in many cases it's low confidence in testing the market. They can get more.
Your comparing permanent and self employed temporary jobs. Contracting jobs pay a lot more, even for juniors. They're paying for the ability to easily get rid of you, paying no employee crap(NI, etc) etc So it is justified.
400 GBP is low end dev. Companies such as Accenture rent out juniors for a lot more than that.
Please see my profile and email me your resume and GitHub. I run a small Rails firm and all of our devs work from home; happy to share details with you if you contact me via email.
I can help with your CV. That's something you can improve right now (besides active Twitter account/Github/Blog) to start shooting for jobs. I haven't been in your situation before but have dealt with such management, so I understand the feeling. Let me know if I can help. My contact is in my profile, or you can reach out to me via Twitter @rebyn.
I'm sorry I can't offer you a job. I can only offer a couple of pieces of advice (some of which I wish I could wait a while to give... but since I probably will never get the chance to speak to you again...)
1. Tell your wife ASAP about the job situation. No matter what stress she is under, learning about it later may cause serious problems. She can help you (emotionally and in trying to find answers to your problems). The better off you are emotionally, the better chance you have of finding a job quickly.
2. I've seen stories like yours a lot in my career. Some people are selfish. A disproportionate number of these seem to end up in management/entrepreneur roles (luckily, not all!!!). To your boss you were merely a source of cheap labour. Take the "cheap" out of the equation and he was not interested any more. I'm afraid that this is probably not the last time you will run into this, so be prepared.
3. This is locking-the-door-after-the-horses-have-bolted kind of advice, but if you find yourself in a similar situation (it happens a lot in this industry): get the new job first and negotiate for salary second. It's horrible, but that's the way you have to do it.
4. If you get the new job first, think hard about whether or not you really want to negotiate salary in the first job. If in doubt, don't negotiate -- just leave. I tell my employers up front that I don't negotiate salary, so they have to be prepared to offer me enough that I will accept. They won't get a second chance.
5. Remote working with no academic background and 8 months of experience means that the next job is going to be tough to find. Keep at it, even if you have to take another job doing something else in the mean time. Eventually you will make it, though you may be in for some difficulty for a couple of years. Trust me on this one.
6. I hate to say it (I really do), but depending on where you live, your salary expectations may not be reasonable. For example, $45K USD is very nearly $30K GBP. In London, I can get university graduates with intern experience lining up outside my door for that salary. In hourly wage it represents $22.50 per hour worked (8 hour day -- excluding holidays). That's 2-4x minimum wage in the US. If you are offered that salary again, I advise you to take it. Just do whatever it takes to keep working (easy for me to say, I know). Keep looking for the bigger payout and don't worry about "loyalty" for now. Once someone respects you enough to offer you a good wage, then work on building a good relationship with them so that you can grow together.
- It may take you some time to find another job. In the mean time, spend every free second you have writing code. Build an amazing portfolio. Some people don't care about it, but I have gotten good jobs from my side projects.
Again, the biggest thing I have to say is not to get too upset or disappointed. Just keep moving forward -- even an inch is enough. Whatever you can do right now is enough. Never give up. Good luck!
> I hate to say it (I really do), but depending on where you live, your salary expectations may not be reasonable.
On the flip side, $45k may well be borderline questionable depending on where OP is located. In California, for example, the minimum that a programmer needs to be paid to be considered overtime exempt is $86k/year. It can become fairly expensive to pay for overtime, so that $86k tends to be roughly the starting salary for lower level jobs.
Definitely a case where OP needs to do their due diligence to find average salaries for their location to use during salary negotiations.
Yes. This is an excellent point. There are some websites that show data for salaries (including outliers for extremely low and extremely high values). It is very much worth it to search around for them as opposed to asking other programmers. Some companies routinely pay up to double (or half) of the median rate, so anecdotes can give you very misleading numbers.
$70K may very well be a reasonable starting salary for the OP. I think my main point was that $45K is at least twice the base pay for the plastics factory work (although that probably pays overtime), so even if being abused it still might be worth it as a stepping stone.
I honestly wouldn't worry about having too many job switches at the beginning of a career path like this. You can always say, "I'm trying to get as much experience as possible, and accepted some jobs at a very low pay. I'm looking for stable work now, though."
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[ 0.20 ms ] story [ 300 ms ] threadI didn't graduate from a uni either, and always get passed. But that was years ago. I'm lucky to have the recent two companies I work with are awesome.
I hope these will help you out:
https://www.reddit.com/r/railsjobs
http://www.cybercoders.com/jobs/ruby-on-rails-developer-remo...
http://www.indeed.com/q-Ruby-On-Rails-Developer-Work-Remotel...
https://weworkremotely.com/
As an expat, this has been very frustrating for me recently since it excludes seemingly 75%+ of remote positions. I went from generating tens of millions of dollars of revenue for startups to being unable to get a reply from startups when applying for their remote positions.
I've heard this complaint before; it's absolutely ridiculous. You can get plenty of developers for nearly any technology as long as you stop offering pathetic wages. It's a seller's market, deal with it.
It seems to me that a lot (most?) of the head hunters on linkedin use a "shotgun approach" to recruiting where they basically just send you a message if you have a random matching keyword in your profile, ignoring actual details of your skills, ability to relocate/location, seniority, wage expectations etc. So you might easily get a full inbox, but going from that to a real position might not be trivial.
I really wish employers would stop talking about "our culture" also. "Culture" and culture-worship are just another attempt at enforcing loyalty in a world where everyone knows loyalty is dead.
You also don't state which city/location you're in; that could be useful for potential employers.
It may also be worth checking out if there's anything in last weeks HN Who's Hiring post to see if anything suits you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10152809
1a. Write a few small technical articles on some specific thing you know a lot about. (this is totally just a ripped patio11 recommendation)
2. There's this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10152809 which I made a script for, and a number of people ran with (like http://hnwhoshiring.herokuapp.com/)
3. Lots of people recommend https://angel.co/jobs ... you can probably hit up a few dozen companies a day; it's ok, the worst they can do is ignore you. There's also http://crowdfunder.com/ --- look at the companies that were financed recently - they will definitely be in a hiring mood.
4. Try going to company-you-want-to-work-for.com/(jobs|careers) ... really. Send an introductory email and if you don't get a response, respond to your own email. Do it every 2 days or so until you get a response.
If this doesn't exist, then look at /sitemap.xml or the whois record and email that person. Also, typing in the company name followed by "HR" and "linkedin" can usually get you a name that you can find a personal email address to. Just hit them up during business hours and explain how you got the email. It's fine.
If they don't respond, change the subject line to "[follow up #2]" and then "[follow up #6]" etc ... stop when you get a "no". You may actually get a "let's set up a call". This does work, I've done it - and gotten the gig.
Oftentimes the people who are hiring have a lot of things on their plate. Sometimes you need to nag them to make your candidacy more of a priority.
5. Go to meetup.com --- find the tech-centric meetups with the most attendants and go to those. Arrive early and talk to anyone you can. Don't be ashamed to say "I'm looking for work." or "I just want to build things and get paid." along with "A regular job would be great right now." ... straight-forward, non-bullshit honesty goes a long way.
6. Don't dismiss craigslist. There's lots of ok short-term gigs at below-industry, but not-to-terrible pay. I also got a 120k/yr job through craigslist.
7. Use all the above methods in tandem. They all work together. Find out who the decision makers are, where they go, get to know them ...
If you make getting a job your full-time job it will come faster than you think.
You can search for keywords like "remote" and "rails".
Actually one of the things that was encouraging during the past few months was remarks from former employees that [CEO] is a dick, but [Company] pay is what makes it worth it.
Also for a laugh / attitude change take a look at this flowchart [1] which is geared to graphic designers who always get asked to do work for free. In your case substitute "intern" in there and "reduced salary" for free. You've got a lot of valuable skills and people should pay accordingly.
Don't be afraid to ask for a reasonable salary, even if it was 2x what you were making before. While this sounds easy to do, practice doing it with some friends in a mock interview. You want to be prepared when going in for an interview and not asking for the right salary is a big mistake a lot of programmers make as they want to avoid confrontation. Become comfortable with asking it and you'll get what you want.
[1] http://shouldiworkforfree.com/
That's why he was able and willing to screw you over like that.
Here's a brief overview: http://www.sociopathworld.com/p/portrait-of-sociopath.html .. but the rabbit hole goes pretty fucking deep.
While I sympathize with your situation, it serves as a good reminder to others that you should put off having kids until you're financially secure.
On a more positive note, just "fake it till you make it", and everything will be alright. There are plenty of dev jobs out there.
It's good to be aware of these facts, sure. Reading a one sided three paragraph description is not sufficient evidence.
In general, it's good to be "rigorous", but in this case, it's not.
In a relationship or work setting, people should be mainly judged by their actions. Hurtful things should not be ignored and people should be made responsible for their actions. I agree it's good to be aware of typical pathological personality types so people who end up in relationships with them have some framework to work with their problems and even identify a bad case and leave.
Sure, taking advantage of people is a thing that comes easily to psychopaths. But there are lots of other personality disorders and ways to act like one.
Was the CEO actually lying or just trying to squirm out of an emotionally uncomfortable position for as long as possible? The situation sucks for the OP and there are absolutely horrible employers, even psychopaths out there - but really, there's not enough data to make those claims even if you are an experienced therapist or a psychiatrist.
The setting you're in has no bearing on whether people actually differ greatly based on their neurological makeup, though, so I don't see how that matters.
We're not on the same page here, but that's to be expected, even if you're actually not a psychopath yourself.
But what the world really needs to know is that because the difference between humans and psychopaths is so counter-intuitively vast, even seemingly small things are strong signs that someone is a psychopath.
For example, if someone keeps talking over you, he's probably a psychopath. Because he has no respect for you as a human being, he'll just casually interrupt you whenever he feels like saying something.
An actual human being wouldn't do that, because he naturally respects you as another human being.
You can't tell that someone is a psychopath without having actual psychiatric credentials and actually performing diagnostics on the patient.
"For example, if someone keeps talking over you, he's probably a psychopath."
I'm pretty sure that it does not suffice as evidence.
You're focusing on the wrong thing - on the specific action and not on the feeling it generates. A non professional individual seldom has enough experience on personality disorders to tell what exactly is wrong. This means collecting anecdotal evidence has little value unless one knows the subject really intimately. But one can trust ones feelings.
The key to identifying difficult people is first realizing that the interactions with the person leave you mostly feeling worse. Not in a single interaction, mind you, but over time. That is probably a good time to read a "how to deal with difficult people" guidebook and assess ones situation.
The diagnostics part should be left to professionals.
But you're not a psychiatric professional so how could you possibly identify "difficult people" like that? :p
Even if it happens over and over again with some specific individual, you're still not in a position to conclude anything based on that, because you lack psychiatric credentials!
That said, revenge can only hurt you. You need a job, and unless you have a legal case against him, there's nothing you can do about him right now. You need to think about you and your family, not about the shitty boss.
https://remoteok.io
https://www.upwork.com
https://careers.stackoverflow.com
A few notes
- Obviosuly, don't apply to jobs you lack skills for
- Similarly, don't apply to jobs you wouldn't be a good fit for
- Keep your Upwork profile up to date
- Use the Github, LinkedIn, etc accounts integrations. This helps clients verify your experience skill-set
- Don't be afraid to adapt your profile to the job you are applying for
- Be sure your rate matches your experience. If you're billing $100/hour but can't prove your skill-set, experience or the value you provide you won't get hired.
Since 2010 I've worked from a few hours a week, to part-time and in full-time capacity on Upwork. Its gotten me connected to a lot of great startups (mostly SF) and recurring gigs. However, it was very difficult getting started.
All this being said if you're based in the US and can verify your skills you have a lot better chance of landing quality gigs than your international counterparts putting in very low bids.
2. Keep looking for new opps. Get your CV out to as many places. Keep your hopes up. Spend time with your kids in the mean time. Kids are great company when you are "present with them".
3. Note for yourself: get numbers in writing before making changes to your life about opportunities.
4. Never use the word Fuck or any other expletives or crass language in any communique where you have the moral high ground. That just makes you look like the guilty one. Don't give the fuckers that chance.
Good luck bro.
Stay professional, nothing but just business.
Personal is unwise and not-necessary.
It's kind of ridiculous that he was "cut out" from a job like some kind of child who was no longer part of the "club". It's grossly unprofessional to disconnect an employee without any due process or policy.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the events leading up to the situation.
In the US, it depends on what state the company is headquartered. Many are "right to work" states, which means any employee can be fired so long as it is not for reasons such as age, sex, weight, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation.
In those states, an employee literally can be fired for a reason such as "you upset the owner" with no further obligations.
Right to work means that you can work for an employer without having to join a union or pay union dues. Right to work is used in conservative states to keep unions from forming.
Employment-at-will means your employer or you can terminate the employment relationship for (most) any reason whatsoever. If you are an employer, you can fire someone for wearing the wrong color shirt (This really happened). If you are the employee, you can say "I quit" and leave with no notice for not having coffee available in the workplace (also, really happened at one of my previous employers).
The problem with employment-at-will is that the employer has more power because the employer-employee relationship is asymmetrical.
We need to teach this stuff in high school civics so everyone can see how disgusting employment-at-will really is.
You are right, I used the wrong term (Right to Work) where I meant "Employment at Will." Thank you for pointing this out as they are different.
While 22 states practice Right to Work laws[1], Employment at Will appears to be much more prevalent:
1 - http://employment.laws.com/right-to-work-states2 - http://employeeissues.com/at_will_states.htm
Professionalism is a concept that serves mostly to keep employees orderly. There's frequently no real professionalism in one-way relationships.
Hope this helps and good luck.
Imho he should apply for jobs, apply more and even apply more. Having studied literature, I have jumped ships from publishing to tourism (marketing analyst) to being a full time data analyst via doing the work and having a resume to show it.
Having an application, that differentiates one from the competition did maybe help a little bit.
If @brokedev would like, he could shoot me a mail and I would show him, what I had for an application. Helped me get a lot of interviews - in the end I could choose between jobs.
[edit on] Have just updated my profile - seems to be cached. In some minutes my email should show there. [edit off]
I'm very curious how you managed to shift to data analysis.
I've made a successful shift to marketing, but technical work still eludes me.
So when the chance arose, I first started doing some web analytics. As the data grew more and more (esp. in our internal tools) I needed more then excel. So I tried to learn a little bit of (in my case) python to help crunch bigger numbers.
From there I got to manage the technical side of an ad server, did a lot of project management and via a gig in online marketing as a "pure" web analyst I came to work in a digital agency as a so called data analyst. Most work is "classic" web analytics, some is work on bigger datasets (growing part of my work).
So basically I had a knack for math, science, empirical stuff, statistics and tried some programming (bad code, but code non the less) and that way I was able to jump ships. One day I will try to incorporate my love for literature/texts into the mix - maybe NLP or some things like that might be fun. We'll see.
whenever you scale to Germany, please shoot me a line. What you are building seems to me the ideal service to use. So many use cases shooting through my head...
Greetings from the old world Sven
I was a music major in university (and planning on an English lit or creative writing minor) -- then I took an intro compsci course halfway through, and had a bit of a shock; it was an entirely new thing for me, but I really had a knack for it, and enjoyed it as well. It was a bit late to change my major... but I just fit in as much compsci as I could, and also just starting building things outside of coursework. I managed to get a software dev job right out of college based on a bunch of interactive online drills I wrote for the music department, plus I had very solid communication skills and academic recognition.
The software dev job was doing custom dev on lots of different kinds of projects (that was good), and in my spare time I turned the interactive music stuff into a site that's still a side income stream. It's languishing somewhat these days, because 5 years ago I started as a developer at a UK-based startup (working remotely from France; long story) and gradually became the CTO -- mostly just from looking for the hardest, riskiest problems we had and chasing them down one at a time, and being easy to work with.
It's hard to abstract any of this to general advice -- maybe just that mastering anything requires a good deal of focus and just time. If you want to do technical work (huge range there) you need to be doing it -- making mistakes, finding your way to solutions (good ones and bad), paying close attention to what's hard and why. It's probably worthwhile building something other people use, and can look at, etc. -- plus (whatever your focus is), mastering the context of working with customers, colleagues, competitors is valuable. If you build and support something all on your own, you're forced to learn a lot about all that.
But maybe I just wasn't able to find the right strategy.
With that being said, Dev communities tend to be quite different on twitter.
I'll have to take the plunge as well, so I'm speaking to myself as much as I'm speaking to you, make an account _solely_ for your developer persona.
I like your suggestion about my "developer persona". Do you have suggestions for tools or tactics for making sure the signal to noise stays high?
That's essentially why I don't use the service in a nutshell, and find it in its entirety much ado about nothing.
However, I mentioned I need to follow this advice as well because I often meet developers from other companies, and many in my local area are involved with each other on Twitter. Particularly, the UX and RoR communities of my area are both quite strong on Twitter (I'm a C#/Python guy, but it still applies). In sum, They are much better aware of what's going on and where to find a new job, should they need one.
I'm in the same boat as you - in order to further develop myself I'll inevitably have to cave and make a Twitter account.
> Do you just use it to follow things and post replies to people looking for help?
In a nutshell, yes. Or dev jokes, or your current project(s), or really anything that builds up your following. The metrics are available....use them! "Retweeting" other developers you follow should help as well.
> I'm worried that maintaining my feed (?) would be a huge time sink. > Do you have suggestions for tools or tactics for making sure the signal to noise stays high?
It is a huge time sink. But unfortunately the "powers that be" place a premium on having both an online presence, and online "clout." While a Github profile and personal website is certainly more important for reputation as a developer, your Twitter serves as a mouthpiece for your work and is (again, unfortunately) ultimately the first _and_ last thing looked at.
Maintaining your feed, I guess, would be easy as a developer. You have normal user level things - ie: only follow the accounts in your developer sphere - and you can also use management systems and third party software to filter out more of the noise. Hell, you could even write your own and use that same tool to build up your following! I believe most of the timesink in that aspect would be front-loaded - once you're up and running, you don't need to put much more work in.
This has the added benefit of being able to look stuff up if I forget about it.
[/sarcasm]
I really love this passive aggressiveness.
You don't need to be a 140-char Shakespeare, just follow some influences and projects you're interested in, re-tweet things you find useful and if you have anything of substance you've created (github, blog post etc) post it.
It's not so much showing off as it is showing you're on-top of new ideas and trends in your field.
https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job#job-board...
It's close to impossible to get a remote job by the sheer amount of people wanting them. And no place will let you negotiate less salary for a job. :-/
I find myself as the same place as the the dev who wrote this. I don't even need a "dev-salary", we could live on the 44k a month and I would be happy with that as long as it's remote. Could go less, but it has to be a job that exists in ~5 years.
Update your LinkedIn profile as someone has mentioned already. Sweeten it up, get a great looking but professional profile pic up there, get kudos from friends, etc.
Do the online profile cleanse. Make sure everything is very professional looking. Remove any controversial political views or disparaging remarks about previous employers. Looks like this blog post is anonymous. Keep it that way and make sure that email address isn't associated with anything. Employers will google your email address. They'll even drag your profile pic into google image search, so the cleanse includes anywhere that appears.
Get code into GitHub asap and make your profile there sound like you're a team player, super positive, super keen, all that good stuff.
Stop blogging about how tough your life is and don't ever mention it in conversation. Whether you like it or not (personally I don't), that idiotic quote in American Beauty from the motivational tapes is true: "In order to be successful, one must project an image of success at all times.". Yup, that came from the real-estate King himself. Seriously douchey and seriously true.
What employers care about is that you're going to be a great addition to the team, make the rest of the team happier and more productive and be super productive yourself. That's pretty much it besides not being a liability or a risk. Hence the profile cleanse, positivity, demonstration of ability by getting your code into GitHub and so on.
Then go forth and market the hell out of yourself with tons of positive vibe. What I'm telling you here is pretty much to do very much the opposite of what you're doing. Absolutely don't beg. You may get charity but I don't think you're going to be happy with it considering your salary expectations and family situation. You're going to want to land a job earning $75K upwards with excellent benefits in a stable and growing business. That means they need to think that you're awesome, so make yourself awesome and go and kill it.
Best of luck!!
~Mark.
Really? as a CEO those are signals for you? the profile picture is debatable but the endorsements are just a joke and everyone knows it, people just exchange them like they do with twitter follows. If anything, too many of them would be a negative signal for me.
Completely agree with the rest of your comment though.
I am very curious how the balance of power can be tipped so drastically in the other direction in some places.
Pro-tip: no one wants to see a Nikon in your profile picture and no one cares about your photography hobby on your resume. I'm talking to you, half of the tech community on Linkedin!
I agree that many of the filters that people use are bullshit.
(You've most likely also read https://web.archive.org/web/20120501193533/http://raganwald.... too, a point in which is that other BS filters act just like the toss-half one in that they aren't really useful when your qualified applicant proportion is small.)
You'd be surprised. Might not be so explicit, but randomness (ie luck) plays a huge role in filtering process.
Even the CEO, who has skin in the game, won't be entirely dependent on making the best possible hire (hopefully).
Most job seekers are terrible at job seeking. What does that say about how good managers are at hiring?
(Also, managers has to look at hundreds of different candidates.)
Who said hiring is fair?
>Any company that would be this lazy as to potentially throw away their best candidates in the first round of filtering on criteria that has such little actual signalling is not one that I would want to work for anyway.
For most companies (not talking Facebook and Google level stuff) it doesn't really matter -- and they could care less if you would work for them or if they get top talent or not. Any decent-ish programmer can do the work they require, so they are OK with being lazy in hiring.
In my experience it was enormously difficult to find qualified candidates, especially if HR or recruiters were allowed to pre-filter candidates using relatively superficial judgments. A fizzbuzz test easily eliminated more than 80%.
Certainly one wants an edge, what I find confounding is that none of the advice dealt with proving actual ability as much as being shinier and flashier than the next candidate. I guess I was naive in thinking that kind of superficiality had diminished relevance in this industry.
> Remove any controversial political views or disparaging remarks about previous employers.
If a person keeps their stupid political views to themselves while at work, it's really not any of their employers business. As far as disparaging remarks go, if it's an awesome company to work for, there shouldn't be anything to worry about.
If your employees have to be as fake as possible to get hired, maybe you're doing it wrong.
Of course, politics goes beyond the pageant of professional politicians we call elections. (For example, saying "corporations are illegitimate entities" is political. Or "corporations are structured as dictatorships, and that's where you spend much of your lives". What would we expect a corporate gatekeeper to do, upon seeing that?)
Yes, there are plenty of hiring managers who let their ideology get in the way of making decisions that benefit the business. The companies that have a lot of those won't be around very long. But if you make any political comments online, just pretend that you're on TV and everyone can hear you. In other words, don't be an ass.
I often pick my nose, scratch my ass, tell rude jokes, love wearing sweatpants, and don't have a problem with embarrassing-to-most sexual conversations. Do I engage in these things on a first date as I might on a day to day basis with friends? No.. I dress up a bit, smell a bit better than usual, steer clear of politics and sexual jokes. So it goes when seeking a job.
If you present a pretty good face that isn't the expected one, it won't work-- frequently they want the drone.
That's what I take issue with. I think for most people, the majority of their internet use isn't in a professional context, and I see no reason it should be used to judge them professionally. My Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and even GitHub accounts aren't professional things. I'm an adult, I know the difference between work and non-work, and I only work for companies that also know the difference.
I have a few websites. They don't produce much income, but some guys offer their services for hire; thinking I might hire them if they say the right things? I tell them up front, I can't afford to hire them, but some are very persistent.
They send me their resumes, even after telling them I'm a struggling website owner, and I don't make a living doing this work. From my perspective, it's so easy to spot the Real Estate Kings? This one guy wanted me to join his companies, exclusive website forum. He was going to put in a good word, so the the other Winners would let me in. Well, I went to the forum, and it was just this guy and me. Every article was written by him. Every comment on the site was written by this guy. I couldn't belive the verbage this guy was throwing around. His favorite phrase was "Are you interested in monetizing? Followed by "You need to scale!" It's was almost like he memorized that movie about Facebook? And yes, he had a professional, cheesy profile pic. with a tie, and head cocked. Call me old school, but I wouldn't put his picture into Google Image search, but that same cheesy picture came up at least a couple dozen times just in just Images. He used the same portrait pic. in every website--ever created? My point is I had this guy figured out pretty quick. I think, if he didn't try so hard to sound professional, I would have loved to kick around a few ideas I have? And yes, if we meshed, I have a small bank roll I would be willing to risk.
I thought hiring in tech was about abilities? I don't care what a person looks like? It's so easy to spot "The Real Estate Kings" of Coders; I couldn't imagine trying to hide who you are? Yea, scrub the web, if you can, of anything controversial, but be honest? Honesty used to go along way? Do you really need that Starbucks fueled, go, go, save world with my app, never sleep, positive vib in order to get noticed for employment?
Maybe it's just me, but I'll take the well rounded individual, with some finished projects over a Cheerleader?
Another quote is "act as if" - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-robbins/the-law-of-attrac...
Like Mark said, your attitude is at least half as important as your ability to code.
"As a general rule, the information obtained and requested through the pre-employment process should be limited to those essential for determining if a person is qualified for the job;...employers should not ask for a photograph of an applicant. If needed for identification purposes, a photograph may be obtained after an offer of employment is made and accepted."
It surprised me when you attached any importance to "a great looking but professional profile pic", since it's such an obvious way for discrimination to work, so I checked if that was allowed. I don't recall being asked for a photo pre-employment in 30 years.
They're not allowed to discriminate on whether your resume contains the right collection of trendy buzzwords either, but that's what HR systems sit and do every day.
You play the game that exists, not the one that's written in statute.
Aren't they?
I am surprised that a CEO publicly declares photos to be useful. A photo is clearly bullshit - there's no useful information in a photo (unless it's "here I am accepting $PRESTIGOUS_AWARD last year") - and it raise risk of discrimination claims.
There's lots of useful information in a photo.
A talented HR/CEO can size up a lot of things from it, even from the way the candidate is dressed in the photo.
"Hmm, too old, too quirky looking, doesn't look a good fit for our culture, fucking hipster I hate them, too slopilly dressed don't like working with such guys" etc.
http://www.diyphotography.net/take-professional-linkedin-pro...
Read all the way through, as he points out that it is not the equipment that matters, its the setup with the reflectors, which can easily be improvised...
1/ Don't use your Facebook profile photo
2/ Don't use anything blurry: photo should be well lit and clear
3/ Don't use a photo that isn't a headshot—make sure your face is clearly visible and smiling
4/ Don't use anything where you're engaging in unprofessional behaviour
Not that your advice is bad -- it's about the same as any college advisor would give -- but to those with whom such fakery leaves a foul taste, just remember the tech industry still has plenty of opportunities where that's unnecessary.
Got a job in a great environment with great colleagues - without having to constantly denying myself.
For me these things work as a filter for companies, where I would not want to work. But for the OP I would first say - get any dev job at all and after that look for a great job to then jump ship.
It sounds like I've been wasting my time trying to be a better software developer or hone my skills; the big bucks are waiting for me as soon as I choose to project an artificial persona. My entire life thus far is starting to make a lot of sense.
My condolences that you're going through this. You did good demanding what you're worth. contact any tech headhunter in your area, and you'll find work in no time.
This is so true. An offer changes the dynamic of the negotiation totally. I think the psychology and economics goes like this: If there is no counter offer, then the company would pay just more for the monthly asset they will likely have any how.
However, if there is a direct offer they are competing with, it means there is on the balance an acute need to find and train a replacement - one whom might actually cost more than the current employee is paid. Also, the value of the employee is validated by his demand in the job market.
The emotions, which will be present but subdued in a professional setting, are also different. Without a counteroffer, the employee will just sound greedy. With a counter offer, the employee is actually generous by offering the current employer a chance to save in hiring and training costs (unless the new wage is ridiculously high).
Silly and strange world we live in.
Sorry for the language guys, but guess we all know someone like that boss!
It's not that hard when you're single but the things are totally different when you had a family and kids. The situation can drag you to any point when it comes to a hungry brother, sister or children. I know, I've been there (thank god it's a history now).
But the good news is, you are really valuable. I mean, you are a ruby developer. You'd be having £400/£450 per day if you were a contractor in London/UK.
So don't give up yet! Check the links other users provided and open a linkedin account as suggested as well as job site accounts and upload your CV. Just hold on couple of weeks and I am sure things will be better.
Hacker News is a great community. So keep us updated and let us see what we can do about it.
Also it might be useful if you can tell us where are you based (I may have missed that if it's already in the article).
Although I'm working on contract in Japan at the moment, I spent the last 2 years working in London and interviewing people for positions almost every day. Entry level for a good Ruby dev is £30-40K for a full time position. Some companies pay higher (some significantly higher), but they will only hire one in 1000 applicants, probably. There are still people in London making £22K per year as a full time Ruby dev.
And, no, you can not live on £22K per year in London :-P
Entry-level for a good junior engineer is what you say it is, however senior/lead probably reaches around £100k for particularly impressive candidates, and finishes at around £60-80K for other engineers.
Contracting on the other hand seems to top out at about £650 pd. There £300-400 is entry-level, £400-450 is mid-level or low-end senior, and £500+ is high-end senior, architect or lead. Generally you get more if you work for financial institutions and have a skill that is extremely difficult to recruit for. Basically it's generally not about how good you are - that is the wrong frame. It's about how cleverly you have fit a pain point within the market.
My numbers might be a little wrong but it should give a general feel.
It's certainly unfortunate that there are engineers that are only making £22K but ultimately in many cases it's low confidence in testing the market. They can get more.
400 GBP is low end dev. Companies such as Accenture rent out juniors for a lot more than that.
No, I don't. I mean, I've had a seriously awful boss before, but even he wasn't this sociopath.
Certainly not endorsing, just curious.
I can help with your CV. That's something you can improve right now (besides active Twitter account/Github/Blog) to start shooting for jobs. I haven't been in your situation before but have dealt with such management, so I understand the feeling. Let me know if I can help. My contact is in my profile, or you can reach out to me via Twitter @rebyn.
Cheers, T.
The gist is you get paid to hear job offers, and with your development background you should be in demand.
1. Tell your wife ASAP about the job situation. No matter what stress she is under, learning about it later may cause serious problems. She can help you (emotionally and in trying to find answers to your problems). The better off you are emotionally, the better chance you have of finding a job quickly.
2. I've seen stories like yours a lot in my career. Some people are selfish. A disproportionate number of these seem to end up in management/entrepreneur roles (luckily, not all!!!). To your boss you were merely a source of cheap labour. Take the "cheap" out of the equation and he was not interested any more. I'm afraid that this is probably not the last time you will run into this, so be prepared.
3. This is locking-the-door-after-the-horses-have-bolted kind of advice, but if you find yourself in a similar situation (it happens a lot in this industry): get the new job first and negotiate for salary second. It's horrible, but that's the way you have to do it.
4. If you get the new job first, think hard about whether or not you really want to negotiate salary in the first job. If in doubt, don't negotiate -- just leave. I tell my employers up front that I don't negotiate salary, so they have to be prepared to offer me enough that I will accept. They won't get a second chance.
5. Remote working with no academic background and 8 months of experience means that the next job is going to be tough to find. Keep at it, even if you have to take another job doing something else in the mean time. Eventually you will make it, though you may be in for some difficulty for a couple of years. Trust me on this one.
6. I hate to say it (I really do), but depending on where you live, your salary expectations may not be reasonable. For example, $45K USD is very nearly $30K GBP. In London, I can get university graduates with intern experience lining up outside my door for that salary. In hourly wage it represents $22.50 per hour worked (8 hour day -- excluding holidays). That's 2-4x minimum wage in the US. If you are offered that salary again, I advise you to take it. Just do whatever it takes to keep working (easy for me to say, I know). Keep looking for the bigger payout and don't worry about "loyalty" for now. Once someone respects you enough to offer you a good wage, then work on building a good relationship with them so that you can grow together.
- It may take you some time to find another job. In the mean time, spend every free second you have writing code. Build an amazing portfolio. Some people don't care about it, but I have gotten good jobs from my side projects.
Again, the biggest thing I have to say is not to get too upset or disappointed. Just keep moving forward -- even an inch is enough. Whatever you can do right now is enough. Never give up. Good luck!
On the flip side, $45k may well be borderline questionable depending on where OP is located. In California, for example, the minimum that a programmer needs to be paid to be considered overtime exempt is $86k/year. It can become fairly expensive to pay for overtime, so that $86k tends to be roughly the starting salary for lower level jobs.
Definitely a case where OP needs to do their due diligence to find average salaries for their location to use during salary negotiations.
$70K may very well be a reasonable starting salary for the OP. I think my main point was that $45K is at least twice the base pay for the plastics factory work (although that probably pays overtime), so even if being abused it still might be worth it as a stepping stone.
I honestly wouldn't worry about having too many job switches at the beginning of a career path like this. You can always say, "I'm trying to get as much experience as possible, and accepted some jobs at a very low pay. I'm looking for stable work now, though."