This link was submitted a week ago. Funny enough, I only found the time to read it yesterday (it is very long, an hour to read according to Readability). Most of the original discussion focused on how it failed to consider one aspect or the other, but the truth is, I felt it was a fairly considerate, all-encompassing testimony. Reading it at the same time as clips on Google centered Hiring cartels made the whole HR situation in the Valley… interesting, and far from obvious. Reading it with Brynjolfsson & McAfee’s theory on massive obsolescence gives shivers, because it draws a portrait of a small elite, selected at almost random, or according to unclear practices (in addition to the link, PG did mention that Y Combinator needed to take more risk), that is the only one to collect either skills or signals to stay in the market. Then there is the drone-fueled utopia, where I’m not sure which part will be AI operated, which part will be human Uber-operators, although I am sure that even Uber won’t be able to tell because some unsavory characters will hook AI to human-entries…
My nightmare as a twenty-something with a fanstastic diploma and no job prospects (needs experience to get a job, don’t have references because unearthed a fraud during internship, fraud that almost ruined my family) is getting more detailed and deeper. It’s the systemic, sustainable, sensical version of ‘Entry job; needs two year experience’.
I still think that a large group is not mentioned in most of those reference, certainly OP, are the surprisingly large hordes of people who can’t seem to find jobs in San Francisco. Including coders, including very talented ones. No idea what’s at stake: the list of claimed discriminated groups are long, and constitute a pavement of all candidates (as pointed in the article).
Here is a problem in need of a solution, but I can’t seem to make sense of what either are.
I'm very sympathetic to your plight - I too am infuriated by how crappy the system has gotten when it comes to developing candidates with no experience. This is a situation that's broken across the country though, not just San Francisco - my frustrating experience was in the Washington, DC area, a supposedly excellent job market.
I was once in your situation as well - MS math degree from a top level program (4 year PhD student before leaving in an unexpected manner) who also had problems finding a job & applied to any entry level career track job I could (PR, programming, data scientist, statistician, business analyst, intelligence analyst, HR, secretary, sales, etc.). I got fed up after 2 years of searching (minus 7 months spent in initial active duty training in the military before becoming a drilling reservist) and taught myself how to program. I hit up the local meetup events pretty hard simultaneously, and a recruiter helped me get an entry level position - it was entry level pay, but I quickly proved myself from there and with only 16 months of experience, am about to start making $100k+ doing web development.
Hang in there, it gets better - I've experienced some pretty terrible things as well, and I made it out ok.
I suppose every company is different. As a counter-example, we have two different programs -- one for CS grads and one for other non-CS science grads (e.g. physics, math, ee, biology, etc.). Both programs are about 3 months in length and are meant to either teach or refresh practical skills needed on the job. This includes both outside knowledge (e.g. C++) as well as internal tools/processes. More importantly, the group "graduates" as a class and everyone starts their job knowing a decent size group of people in various places throughout the company. A job isn't entry-level if it requires experience outside of school. I just wanted to give an example to show that programs like these do exist. In fact, some of the best programmers I know were math or physics grads with no CS experience outside of a few classes.
It would be interesting to see data on this. My gut says most companies with a large number of employees have some kind of program, so it may just be something that is acquired over time and only systemic in smaller companies. They maybe don't need to spend the resources on it because there is enough competition for the small number of positions.
> Hang in there, it gets better - I've experienced some pretty terrible things as well, and I made it out ok.
Oh, it’s gotten better, and then crappy, and then better… To give you a time frame, he first time it got crappy for me, that was because Building 7 collapsed. That made me the first Truthist, I guess.
I do code, that’s not the problem; I do have experience too… Loads of it. It doesn’t seem to get better then. As the article point out: being old seem to suck too, everything does.
I understand this as in that younger ones have more wild ideas than pragmatic engineering solutions, unlike older ones tend to skew towards the engineering solutions rather than the ideas.
In a way I see it as ideas vs. implementations. A gross generalization and oversimplification, perhaps doesn't reflect to reality at all, but maybe the thought prevails among certain groups of people in SV.
The reality is simply that young, inexperienced people are cheap and are willing to cut corners because they don't understand the dangers. And then a year or 2 later the next MtGox programming blunder story appears.
I'm old, Valley-based, and I code. I have a very sketchy resume, filled with inexplicable voids and failed startups, plus one very caveat-filled partial success. I find it almost trivial to find well-paying work coding, and I seem to be able to develop great relationships with engineers half my age. The challenge in my case is to find work that is interesting, challenging, and has potential impact on the world at large, things which I care about more and more as I get older.
My sense is that there are quite a few people, both young and old, who find it hard to break into the 'valley scene'. I've felt that too at times, in spite of my (roughly speaking) successful career. The culture is insular and judgmental in a way that can be very intimidating. However, it should be noted that this is equally true in other areas, especially in what might be called "glamour" fields, such as film, music, fashion, writing, art, etc. In every one of these arenas, there is a clique mentality, where judgement can be swift and capricious, and being "in" is almost a binary value, based on a seemingly subconscious pattern-matching process that can at times feel like the result of a hive mind.
I guess the news flash here is that SV startup life is now officially glamorous. Pretty soon we'll have a raft of reality TV shows dogging our every move, and providing income to those of us who have fallen from the grace of the techno A-list.
> Pretty soon we'll have a raft of reality TV shows dogging our every move, and providing income to those of us who have fallen from the grace of the techno A-list.
Should the whole Valley be considered as producing only WhatsApp ? Today's revolution are running on Twitter and Facebook, those dummy, useless, whateveryouwant services are enablers to people.
We are talking about the Valley that is the birth place of Tesla and AirBnB, I wouldn't rate those ones as useless, or solving problems that doesn't matter.
As a mature student all I ever hear about is that no one will hire a student with no experience? So you get students doing unpaid internships, part time jobs and basically anything to show on their CV.
I've come to the solution that it's all a load of rubbish. Build a network, become a face within your little niche and make sure your knowledge / experience is always moving upwards.
Too many youngsters think that getting a 1st == instant £60,000+ a year job.
Too many older people think working 20 years doing the same thing again and again == instant £60,000+ a year job.
Neither is true, a career takes time to build, pruning your network and stacking the cards in your favour.
16 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 44.8 ms ] threadMy nightmare as a twenty-something with a fanstastic diploma and no job prospects (needs experience to get a job, don’t have references because unearthed a fraud during internship, fraud that almost ruined my family) is getting more detailed and deeper. It’s the systemic, sustainable, sensical version of ‘Entry job; needs two year experience’.
I still think that a large group is not mentioned in most of those reference, certainly OP, are the surprisingly large hordes of people who can’t seem to find jobs in San Francisco. Including coders, including very talented ones. No idea what’s at stake: the list of claimed discriminated groups are long, and constitute a pavement of all candidates (as pointed in the article).
Here is a problem in need of a solution, but I can’t seem to make sense of what either are.
I was once in your situation as well - MS math degree from a top level program (4 year PhD student before leaving in an unexpected manner) who also had problems finding a job & applied to any entry level career track job I could (PR, programming, data scientist, statistician, business analyst, intelligence analyst, HR, secretary, sales, etc.). I got fed up after 2 years of searching (minus 7 months spent in initial active duty training in the military before becoming a drilling reservist) and taught myself how to program. I hit up the local meetup events pretty hard simultaneously, and a recruiter helped me get an entry level position - it was entry level pay, but I quickly proved myself from there and with only 16 months of experience, am about to start making $100k+ doing web development.
Hang in there, it gets better - I've experienced some pretty terrible things as well, and I made it out ok.
Oh, it’s gotten better, and then crappy, and then better… To give you a time frame, he first time it got crappy for me, that was because Building 7 collapsed. That made me the first Truthist, I guess.
I do code, that’s not the problem; I do have experience too… Loads of it. It doesn’t seem to get better then. As the article point out: being old seem to suck too, everything does.
Sigh.
In a way I see it as ideas vs. implementations. A gross generalization and oversimplification, perhaps doesn't reflect to reality at all, but maybe the thought prevails among certain groups of people in SV.
The reality is simply that young, inexperienced people are cheap and are willing to cut corners because they don't understand the dangers. And then a year or 2 later the next MtGox programming blunder story appears.
My sense is that there are quite a few people, both young and old, who find it hard to break into the 'valley scene'. I've felt that too at times, in spite of my (roughly speaking) successful career. The culture is insular and judgmental in a way that can be very intimidating. However, it should be noted that this is equally true in other areas, especially in what might be called "glamour" fields, such as film, music, fashion, writing, art, etc. In every one of these arenas, there is a clique mentality, where judgement can be swift and capricious, and being "in" is almost a binary value, based on a seemingly subconscious pattern-matching process that can at times feel like the result of a hive mind.
I guess the news flash here is that SV startup life is now officially glamorous. Pretty soon we'll have a raft of reality TV shows dogging our every move, and providing income to those of us who have fallen from the grace of the techno A-list.
It's already started.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/04/reality-tv-gets-startup-obs...
We are talking about the Valley that is the birth place of Tesla and AirBnB, I wouldn't rate those ones as useless, or solving problems that doesn't matter.
The solution, surprisingly, is to just don't.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7384818
I've come to the solution that it's all a load of rubbish. Build a network, become a face within your little niche and make sure your knowledge / experience is always moving upwards.
Too many youngsters think that getting a 1st == instant £60,000+ a year job. Too many older people think working 20 years doing the same thing again and again == instant £60,000+ a year job.
Neither is true, a career takes time to build, pruning your network and stacking the cards in your favour.