[HN Gopher] Advice to my young self: forget side projects and fo...
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Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job
Author : megalomanu
Score : 234 points
Date : 2020-10-12 18:55 UTC (4 hours ago)
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| d_burfoot wrote:
| It's a good thing Steve Wozniak didn't get this advice (Woz
| created the Apple I as a side project while he was working for
| HP).
| artembugara wrote:
| I began my side-project [1] one year ago. I quit my very well-
| paid job 6 months ago to make my side-project my full-time job.
|
| It is going quite well (I am nowhere near making the same money).
| Just 2 of us at the moment. I've learnt so much over this period.
| Like what you would get over 10 years in a big tech company while
| jumping over all the hierarchy.
|
| Moreover, my very first side project turned me from a guy who
| knows only Python into a guy who can set up entire architecture
| on the cloud. Later, I became somewhat a "rockstar"/jack-of-all-
| trades engineer.
|
| But I agree, unless you do your side-project just to do something
| then it is your hobby.
|
| My advice would be: someone has to pay for your side project's
| product/service. Because only then you can show that it generates
| real business value. This is the only thing which should matter
| to your future employer. You generate business value.
|
| [1] https://newscatcherapi.com/
| person_of_color wrote:
| How did you learn about cloud?
|
| That's what I'm missing ATM.
| pantulis wrote:
| There's also another strategy: focus on the company you work for
| until you begin managing people, projects and may be never write
| a line of code again. And that would probably be good if that
| made you happy.
|
| There is always something for everyone.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I had a different experience, specifically it was my embedded
| software and hardware spare-time experience that gained me my
| most influential role to date (bridging iOS and embedded systems
| at a fast-growing start-up). It even helped me pass my technical
| screen as the CTO asked me to build a ring buffer. Little did he
| know I built one for an RS232 driver the week before.
|
| I'm heading soon to do the same thing at another fast-growing
| startup.
|
| I've actually talked about my side projects each time I've hopped
| jobs, and actually, when I took on advisory work. Niches are
| good!
| nbardy wrote:
| I admire this approach and have many colleagues who operated this
| way. But for someone who didn't get into a top school and had to
| start with "low prestige" jobs and work my way up focusing on
| side projects was essential to my career. By showing I could take
| risks and learn emerging technologies I was able to make myself
| attractive to startup and on the bleeding edge and just spent the
| last two years working in my dream field of AI/ML.
|
| If you're young and believe in yourself more than society's
| ridged idea of credentialism has don't be afraid to buck the
| trend. I failed out of a mid tier college. And while my 20s has
| my been a stressful hodgepodge of jobs I was under qualifying
| for. A public track record of my ability to create something with
| emerging technologies has always meant someone is willing and
| excited to work with me.
| puranjay wrote:
| What's the point of knowing a powerful, creative skill like
| coding and _not_ using it to create stuff?
|
| This is like a writer telling you to "forget
| blogs/articles/novels/stories and focus on your newspaper writing
| job".
| throwaway23483 wrote:
| I don't know where this advice comes from. If this can be advice
| to your young self, good luck with your young self.
|
| Do you know how many successful startups come from side projects?
| To some extent, a large number of startups are from "side
| projects":
|
| If a college student starts a company when they are at school, by
| definition, that's pretty much their side project from the
| beginning, because their main job is to study and get degree at
| school. Those are side projects. Zuckerberg stole the FB idea
| from his side project.
|
| Look at how many successful people quit their jobs and then
| started their successful companies. You think they all really
| quit their jobs first and then begin to work on the startup they
| founded? Come on, very few of them have this clean start. Even if
| they are on paper looking clean, there are overlaps. Those are
| side projects, side ideas.
| ChicagoDave wrote:
| I wouldn't have been half the programmer and architect I became
| without side projects.
| fizx wrote:
| I split time between a successful side project and early Twitter,
| both at around 30 hours a week, with spikes up to 50hrs.
|
| While they both netted positive outcomes for me, if I had gone
| all-in on either one, I think I would have had an order-of-
| magnitude better outcome. Splitting my attention cost me serious
| advancement & money at both.
| lhorie wrote:
| Eh. I'd tell my younger self the exact opposite. My side project
| is what eventually led me to a 2x increase in income. In fact, it
| was only after I started to spend time on a open source project
| that I started getting recruiters to initiate contact with me.
|
| Heck, my entire career was born out of immersing myself in an
| area of interest in my free time, outside of my original field of
| study.
| NanoWar wrote:
| I think the question to ask here is, why your side project is not
| actually _within_ the company! You can try to move it there or
| find another one that would "fit" better.
| nojs wrote:
| I think side projects have become a casualty of Goodhart's law,
| they stopped being a very good metric for hiring as people
| started gaming the recruitment system and building side projects
| that were really showpieces. But a genuine curiosity for
| technology outside work is still a very valuable attribute I
| think.
| rhacker wrote:
| It is interesting reading the comments. It's funny too because I
| would say most of the time people advocate others to create side
| projects because you never know if it will become the next big
| thing. Obviously there are some amazing success stories here
| related to side projects, but I wonder if that's just luck. Is
| the actual success rate of a side project going viral just as
| unlikely, for example, as a young basketball player getting a
| contract and going pro? (which is a scenario most people actively
| discourage pursuing)
| dustingetz wrote:
| Marketing 101 - don't present as hot shit research programmer to
| IBM
| andreyk wrote:
| FYI, the title is a bit misleading, the content here is moreso
| just about not expecting side projects to be good career
| development strategy, but it ends on a note saying that you
| should do side projects just because you feel like it:
|
| "I don't want to make this blog post a rant against side
| projects. In fact, I'm advocating the exact opposite. Continue to
| do as many side projects as ever, code on nights and weekends if
| you want too, but don't think about how they could be useful to
| you to get a new job. Don't do all the tutorials you find about
| Vue.js, but use this weird technology that you saw yesterday on
| Hacker News. Don't think about what are the best blog post topics
| that could expand your personal branding, but write poetry or a
| review of the last movie you saw. Create the apps, services,
| websites, or video games you want to use. This may not make your
| portfolio or your public image convincing for the next recruiter
| you'll meet, but this is how you will be able to express all that
| you have in you and end up affirming yourself. At least, you
| should end having something meaningful to show, something to be
| proud about."
| zhobbs wrote:
| Agree -- recruiters don't care about side projects. But, if you
| hustle and track down the hiring manager they might be impressed,
| and at a minimum it could be a good conversation starter.
|
| My side projects have opened a lot of doors for me, particularly
| they have enabled career switches. I'm a B2C product manager, was
| interested in moving to B2B and was ignored until I launched a
| small SaaS side project (B2B vs B2C PM is considered quite
| different.)
|
| But the theme of this article is true, recruiters don't care and
| you should focus on enjoyable side projects.
| umutisik wrote:
| A lot of people who do side projects do them for themselves
| rather than simply for improving career prospects. Many folks
| need a balance between being an independent creator, and being
| part of a bigger organization and side projects are a great way
| to get to that.
| archeantus wrote:
| I made this same decision a few years ago and can attest that
| this is true.
|
| The side projects I was working on were pretty small potatoes, so
| that needs to be pointed out. But overall a higher focus on my
| job has led to two promotions and a ton more money.
|
| Maybe I could have struck it rich with a startup, but the golden
| handcuffs feel so nice right now that I may never find out.
| sbussard wrote:
| It's interesting how the author equates independence with leftist
| ideology. That seems more libertarian to me, leftist support of
| government expansion is more authoritarian. Ideally a career is a
| launch pad to a business, or else what are we all doing here?
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Here's a more reasonable take:
|
| #1: No one will ever look at your side project. However, it can
| still be of use to your job hunt if you can _talk_ about it. In
| fact, it 's possible to get away with a empty project provided
| you can talk about what _would_ have been in there in great
| detail (as if you 'd actually done it).
|
| #2: If you can't talk about your project in great detail, then it
| has as much worth as if you'd never actually completed the
| project.
| evo_9 wrote:
| Honestly when I interview someone and they have no side-projects,
| or any interest in that sort-of-thing, it's a huge warning sign
| they're not likely to succeed and/or stick around long.
|
| I mean I don't expect people eat/sleep/breath code but I also
| don't want to hire folks that just got into CompSci/Coding cause
| it was a 'good/safe' career choice. In my experience the guys
| that are self learners, doing side projects, playing with the
| latest 'for fun' are the dudes that really get stuff done.
| brookside wrote:
| Likely unintentional, but your language around hiring is quite
| gendered. Guys / dudes ?
| armatav wrote:
| Not relevant to his point.
| brundolf wrote:
| That's a false dichotomy. There are plenty of smart, capable,
| hardworking programmers who enjoy their jobs and aren't just
| taking the easy-street, but have enough else going on in their
| lives that they don't want to spend their free time writing
| code. I say this as someone who _does_ write lots of code
| outside of work: it is not fair to gate people based on the
| number of side-projects they have. It 's not even a reasonable
| indicator of job performance.
| [deleted]
| armatav wrote:
| I agree with this - an exploratory mindset is super important,
| and high quality side-projects do make you stand out - that's a
| fact.
| Milank wrote:
| This is just one of the many approaches to building a career.
|
| As with many other things in life, there is now one-size-fits-
| all. For someone else, a complete opposite will work.
|
| Stay informed, learn about different approaches, and simply
| choose what you think is best.
| megalomanu wrote:
| Hello HN! Author here. I wasn't expecting so much comments! I
| would have chosen a less provocative title if I had known :)
|
| Just to clarify: I founded a company a few years ago from a side
| project I had started three years before, and this year I
| released two projects, so I can say that I love side projects. I
| simply regret this tendency to start so many shallow side
| projects (which are little more than tutorials) just to build a
| portfolio instead of focusing on creating something really
| substantial, or something that at least you really like. It's a
| waste and an illusion to think that it could help to be hired. I
| know too many developers stuck into this pipe dream.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| I think the overly general title doesn't help as your article
| narrows down exactly who that advice applies to.
| jnwatson wrote:
| This should be taken with a generic serving of salt.
|
| The fact is, (even different parts of) organizations vary widely
| in their hiring practices. Some care and some don't. I've hired
| people almost solely on their side-project (nearly a proto-
| startup), and I've hired folks without them.
|
| If you interviewed Mssrs. Bellard or Hunt (and you didn't know of
| them beforehand) and they talked about their side projects QEMU
| or haveibeenpwned.com (respectively), you should probably rate
| them highly, maybe even hire them on the spot.
|
| You should aim to work for groups that value such projects.
| spiffytech wrote:
| Every time this topic comes up on HN I feel like the only person
| who does side projects because I enjoy them as a hobby. Learning
| for the job is distantly secondary, and getting my next job is
| tertiary. They're perks to something I'm doing anyway, not
| justifications for doing it.
|
| Yeah, I program at work, but the tasks I get at a software job
| don't scratch the itch that got me into tech in the first place.
| Just like how most workers in "creative" fields don't get paid to
| do the interesting things that first attracted them. They're
| stuck using their arts degrees to write marketing copy instead of
| their dream novel, or they became a civil engineer to design
| inspiring architecture but their day job is trying to update
| someone else's vision to include the safety features the designer
| didn't leave room for.
|
| I get that lots of people get their fill of technology at their
| job and don't want to see a screen when they get home. Live the
| life that makes you happy. I'm just boggled at how many people
| appear to find it unimaginable and unrelatable that a
| technologist likes technology enough to mess with it for fun,
| even after work.
| ck425 wrote:
| > I'm just boggled at how many people appear to find it
| unimaginable and unrelatable that a technologist likes
| technology enough to mess with it for fun, even after work.
|
| It's not that I can't understand it. I don't have that urge
| personally but I can see where it comes from and if that makes
| you happy go for it! The reason I personally get so defensive
| and anti side project is because as someone who's very
| defensive of their non-work time (due to spending it on other
| productive hobbies that bring more joy into my life than
| anything else) I've experienced a lot of colleagues/managers
| who have tried pressure or belittle me into doing side
| projects. It's been implied that I'm not a 'real' engineer or
| that I can't be successful in my career if I don't. And frankly
| I resent that attitude because it's bullshit and it tries to
| take away time from the things that make my life truly joyful.
|
| As you say do what makes you happy, side projects or not.
| Unfortunately a lot of folk on the side projects side
| don't/won't accept them as optional if you want to be seen as a
| competent engineer.
| spiffytech wrote:
| I think side projects can open career doors that you wouldn't
| otherwise have, and not doing side projects can close some
| doors. There is a probabilistic value of pursuing those doors
| and a cost to the time spent doing so, and it's fine to
| decide it is or isn't worth it. I'd happily do side projects
| even if there was zero chance they'd help my career.
|
| Two of the best engineers I've ever worked with did basically
| nothing on the side that resembled a technical side project.
| The worst engineer I ever worked with also did no side
| projects. And I knew brilliant engineers who were big into
| things like the Hacker Cup or aerial robotics, just for fun.
| It's tempting to think that if we ourselves are competent,
| people who act similarly must also be competent. But the
| longer my career goes on, the less weight I place on seeing
| someone does or does not do side projects.
| michannne wrote:
| IME, once you get your foot in the door (in any career, not
| just software), side projects, hobbies and such become
| irrelevant to securing a job compared to real world
| experience. All that really matters in the initial stages of
| career progression is to prove to potential employers that
| you can do whatever work they may ask you to do. I think some
| employers do like to see initiative, but that can be conveyed
| during an interview, you don't necessarily need a starred out
| Git repo to demonstrate you are passionate about software,
| and of course, a Git project is not enough to show employers
| you are passionate about software.
| heleninboodler wrote:
| I think your attitude is right, and you just have to ignore
| the "what?!?! no side projects!?!?" people. I've known plenty
| of extremely competent engineers who either don't do side
| projects or simply don't want to invite their coworkers into
| talking about their personal lives. I do a ton of small side
| projects and I haven't been asked about _any_ of them in
| interviews, nor have I advertised my github on my resume or
| anything like that.
|
| Out of all 9 members of my current team, the only ones I can
| remember ever talking about any side projects are the dev
| manager, who is obviously addicted to setting up tech stacks
| like he did when he was a developer (we recently compared
| notes about our experience using prometheus and grafana on
| home servers, for example), and one guy whose side project is
| a heavy metal band. Everyone else? Nothing I've been told
| about. Maybe they occupy their time with being a parent, or
| SCCA racing, or mountain climbing, or building dollhouses; I
| don't know and it's not really my business.
|
| I think there's a lot of value in being able to confidently
| say "yeah, I've got different hobbies <shrug>."
| secondcoming wrote:
| I used be like that when I was younger. Hell, I taught myself
| to program doing this exact thing. But nowadays, I really don't
| want to spend weekends looking at a monitor all day. Before you
| know it, you've spent 8 or 10 or whatever hours tinkering away.
|
| There's a point where it's not healthy. It'll catch up with you
| and there's a danger you'll find yourself not having the
| enthusiasm to do your hobby projects and also your real job.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I wonder what will catch up with us exactly. A serious
| question - because I'm by no means young, and I'm still in
| the "forever tinkering" phase. I wish I could spend 8 or 10
| hours on it on a regular basis - but the job that's funding
| my tinkering is also taking away the time for it.
| Reedx wrote:
| You're far from alone, it just seems like that because
| hobby/passion programmers tend to spend more time programming
| and less time posting about work life balance on Twitter or HN.
| So naturally they have a quieter, smaller voice in these kind
| of discussions.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Not sure if that's true. The (small, local, biased) sample I
| have suggests the reverse. People I know who program only on
| the job generally don't participate in the wider programmer
| community, and don't frequent discussion sites, unless
| they're looking for something directly job-related.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Exactly this. I do my side projects for personal development
| and enjoyment. It's my opportunity to grow in whatever
| direction I like, and I'm not going to let my job dictate what
| kind of side projects I'm taking on.
|
| If that results in skills useful at work, or for finding work,
| that's a nice but entirely secondary benefit. The more
| important benefit is burnout prevention - because I too "don't
| get paid to do the interesting things that first attracted" me
| to software, or science and technology in general.
|
| > _I 'm just boggled at how many people appear to find it
| unimaginable and unrelatable that a technologist likes
| technology enough to mess with it for fun, even after work._
|
| Me too. I sometimes wonder if I'm not missing out, but try as I
| might, I don't enjoy the "normal" stuff as much as I enjoy
| intellectual stimulation. I also sometimes wonder if this isn't
| because my eyes just don't get tired from screens. I can look
| at computer screens 16 hours straight, and my eyes don't get
| dry or itchy. I had co-workers who had to use saline drops at
| work, and I can understand if they didn't want to look at any
| screen when they got home.
| godshatter wrote:
| I'm the same. I've been working for my current employer for
| over 30 years. I'm not doing side projects to impress
| recruiters. It's an extenuation of the love of programming I
| picked up when I was first exposed to a Tandy Level I at my
| local junior high school.
|
| I enjoy going hiking or going swimming in a lake or river or
| going to movies with friends when that was still a thing, but
| it's mostly experiencing, whereas programming side projects
| is creating. I much prefer creating over experiencing.
| mlang23 wrote:
| Was it always like that? Did people only write free software to
| eventually get hired by someone for their great side project?
|
| I never wrote any code to impress someone. I always wrote code to
| learn things, for my own benefit. And yes, usually there was a
| lot of synergy, but with high latency. Much of the knowledge I
| use at work comes from so-called "side projects" I used to do
| months or even years earlier.
|
| I also find the headline rather sad. As if everything you do in
| your spare time has to be geared towards maximum efficiency in
| the day job. That is a pretty sad path to go down.
| pier25 wrote:
| Technical expertise and experience doesn't really tell the whole
| story. CV bling is mostly irrelevant to know if someone will
| perform well on a job. You can have the best engineer in the
| world coming from a top tech company and be a total asshole that
| will only cause problems and make the team underperform.
| jamil7 wrote:
| I switched from web to mobile through learning Swift and Kotlin
| in my spare time and building and releasing side projects. I'm
| not sure how else I would have done it, if I'd been at a larger
| company maybe I could have transferred but I'd likely still have
| to show some examples of work.
| RIMR wrote:
| This sounds like great advice if you want to be a follower and
| never accomplish anything innovative personally but just
| contribute as an employee until you retire.
|
| Which is fine if that's what you're looking for, but not so great
| if you consider yourself an entrepreneur.
| city41 wrote:
| My personal experience has been quite the opposite. My side
| projects (and my blog) have been instrumental in me getting two
| key jobs that really boosted my career quite a bit.
|
| I'm not saying "you should definitely do side projects". I'm just
| disagreeing they aren't always useless. Like pretty much anything
| in life, your mileage will vary.
| werber wrote:
| I think I agree with this post, I personally almost never discuss
| side projects with a recruiter, but I've gotten jobs based on
| having code I could actually (to say, legally) show in interviews
| that I made in my free time. I can abstractly talk about what
| I've done professionally, but, having solid code I did in
| isolation, especially early in my career was invaluable. And to
| that end, "culture fit" probably worked more in my favor than my
| code, it's royally messed up, but being young-ish and a cis
| american white man totally gave me an unfair advantage. And those
| side projects probably spoke more to me as a culture fit than a
| technical one in retrospect.
| justinlloyd wrote:
| Anecdotally my experience is completely orthogonal to the
| author's.
|
| My side-projects gave me the career I have today. They have
| gotten me jobs without interviews. Because of my side-projects,
| every job I have had in the past two decades has been without a
| formal interview or usual take home/coding/white boarding/hazing
| ritual. I have used a resume precisely twice in the past 15+
| years, and one of those two times was because of the company we
| built and turned profitable was being acquihired.
|
| Some of my side-projects have turned into products that generated
| real world value. Side projects let me explore new technologies
| that I don't get to deal with at work.
|
| I would say, because of my side-projects, that I have frequently
| drowned in opportunity in terms of offered work. I have gotten
| offered a "when can you start" job, without interview, in an
| unsolicited approach, on more than one occasion simply because
| someone was using one of my side-projects in their day-to-day
| work.
|
| I recently did a few "test the waters" interviews with a couple
| of companies (FANGMAN being two of them), just to get some
| practice in, to see if I "still got it." Only the FANGMAN
| companies required a resume before they would even talk to me.
| Apparently, I've still got it, but I realized those kinds of
| positions weren't for me.
|
| Having spoken to several people about "focusing on your job" many
| realise that they have a great job, but what they don't have is a
| great and diversified career. They get pigeonholed in to a single
| role, whether that is marketing, or project management or even
| software development. When that career dries up, Flash programmer
| anyone? COBOL programmer? Then they have to reskill and hope
| someone gives them another chance. "I am an $X" where $X is how
| they identify themselves. I've always struggled to answer that
| question of "what is it you do?" Perhaps that is a failing on my
| part.
|
| The majority of software development is code that is not customer
| facing, that is never seen outside of the business unit for which
| it was developed. For each and every job you will have through
| your career you will be told to take a number, stand in line,
| wait your turn, do as your told, learn to compromise and if we
| like you enough and you check all the boxes, we'll let you know
| at our convenience. In the words of Casey Neistat, "this... is
| terrible advice."
|
| My last job was without anything more than a 20 minute chat and
| "here's what I've been building these past few months as a side-
| project." My job before that was "we really liked what you did on
| Project $X for Company $Y, do you have any experience in
| Technology $Z?" (Yes, here's a side-project you can look at that
| uses Technology $Z). Every single job, for 20+ years, "here's
| something I did on a side-project that's really neat and
| interesting, do you want me to do that neat and interesting thing
| for your company?"
|
| I have studiously avoided any and every company that has tried to
| pigeon hole me, or get me to jump through the hoops of their
| hiring process, so far it has worked out pretty well for me. I
| don't think I have ever worked a single day in my entire life.
|
| Not everybody can do this, not everybody wants to do this, but it
| has worked out pretty well for me.
|
| If I had to give advice to my younger self, if my younger self
| would actually listen to the advice, I would say "Do more of the
| picking one project in any given year, and hyper focus on that
| for 12 months, rather than only doing things for a few months. If
| you need to figure out which project that is, do three or four
| for a couple of weeks, then abandon the ones that don't have
| enough interesting problems." I do focus on single projects for
| extended periods of time, and it is those projects that have
| built my career.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG7dSXcfVqE
| shortformblog wrote:
| Most of the interviews I've ever gotten in my career have been a
| result of the side projects I've created. Never the job. This is
| just bad advice and I feel bad for anyone who feels this way.
|
| Side projects open the creative pipeline. Your job, all too
| often, closes it.
|
| Also, who cares about recruiters? This is your life--you should
| find a bigger pool of people to impress and delight.
| jyu wrote:
| This is decent career advice, but it doesn't address the root of
| why.
|
| If you want FIRE, the best way is to optimize your career. How do
| you do that? It starts early before your first job, as you try
| out different school subjects, books, friends, hobbies. As you
| look out to the future, what do you see on the horizon?
|
| Thinking about the time I entered school, programmers were near
| the bottom of the totem pole. Mathematicians were trapped in
| academic ivory towers. Data was barely used as the alpha bros of
| finance dominated the talks of high compensation. The most sought
| after jobs did not even exist then. Youtuber, data science, deep
| learning, cloud computing, analytics, ecommerce, cryptocurrency,
| even professional video gamer were not real careers.
|
| Increasing revenues solve all problems. Jump on the waves of
| industries that are booming and will continue to boom.
|
| The world and culture is constantly changing as we march towards
| the future. Put yourself in a position to succeed by learning the
| fundamentals needed to pass interviews and recognize when
| something seems obvious to you but not to everyone else yet.
| maverickJ wrote:
| It's also important that one understands the career game.
| Especially early on. See this
| https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/early-career-tactics...
| for example
|
| In this dynamic world, one need to constantly assess their
| career.
| [deleted]
| jackdh wrote:
| For people unaware, FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early).
|
| There is some interesting stories of how people achieved it
| here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fatFIRE/top/?sort=top&t=year
| mattkevan wrote:
| Every change in my career began as a side project or idle
| curiosity, from design to development, to product to UX, to
| whatever's next.
|
| Basically, what I'm doing now, when I should be doing what I'm
| paid to be doing is what I'll be paid to do in a few years' time.
|
| Experimentation and side projects are vital to stretch creativity
| and learn new things. Not all of my side projects have been
| successful, but they've all played a vital role in my career
| development, more by happy accident than design. It's all about
| following interests to see where they lead.
| soneca wrote:
| > _" He may not be smarter, but he has been hired by a company
| with a most demanding hiring process"_
|
| > _" As we all know, the interview process is broken."_
|
| I don't know how the author conciliate these two opinions.
|
| Other than that, I agree that being hired by a FAANG company is
| better for your career than any number of side-projects. The
| problem is that I don't think I will ever be hired by a FAANG
| company (as many many many others). It is not about not wanting
| to focus on leetcode and Cracking the Coding Interview (and I
| don't), but my resume would be rejected for sure much before that
| stage (as a self-taught developer with 41 years old and a degree
| in Eocnomics from an university in Brazil).
| polote wrote:
| so this guy starts by explaining that he doesn't want to work for
| any company and then complains to not be hired by recruiters?
|
| that doesn't make sense, why do you apply to jobs if you want to
| work for yourself?
| matthewhartmans wrote:
| I feel working on side projects actually helps boost my career.
| Having a diversified portfolio betters myself in other areas I
| didn't get an opportunity to do at work and employees love the
| creativity factor.
| hop655 wrote:
| That's about the right advice for folks who are still climbing
| the ladder. As an IC, if you're talented and lucky, you'll
| eventually stall at the "senior coder" at FANG level. That comes
| with a respectable salary of 500k/year and a hard glass ceiling.
| At that point doing even more IC work won't bring you any
| further. Most settle there, buy a house, start a family and
| continue doing their "senior coder" work till retirement. Nothing
| wrong with that.
|
| There are two primary paths from that level: middle management
| and senior management. If you like the first, learn to speak
| well, work on your image and build the reputation of a
| responsible and reliable person who takes the rules seriously.
| You'll get promoted and eventually you'll stall at the "director"
| level.
|
| The senior management path is about financial and personal risk.
| This is where you'll need to build a successful side gig, turn it
| into a multi million dollar business and negotiate a senior
| manager position, with very nice compensation, with competitors
| who will try to take you down in the process. A lot more fun,
| more risk and a lot more reward.
| siquick wrote:
| This is one of the most unrealistic descriptions of the reality
| of work & life that I've ever read.
| surajs wrote:
| Good advice, much needed
| throwaway7281 wrote:
| If I would have went deep on a weekend hack I did once, I would
| probably looking at $25K MRR or something like that.
|
| But article is good, nonetheless, everything needs a balance.
| monadic2 wrote:
| I've found that an effective way to bypass recruiters and
| advocate for employment with your personal projects is to a) aim
| at small companies and b) cold-email with a cover letter. YMMV.
| cryptica wrote:
| I've always had a side project (I enjoy it) but I understand the
| author's sentiment. When it comes to financial matters, working
| on a side project doesn't make any sense. Unless you're connected
| to big VC money or have a good business network, your side
| project has 0% chance of success no matter what you do. No matter
| how much better than the competition it is. On the other hand,
| corporations or hotshot startups are connected to big VC money so
| they have a very good chance of success and most of the founders
| of these companies don't fully realize how lucky they are and so
| it's easy to get a sweet deal from them... You can get a lot more
| money for a fraction of the work. You don't need to add any
| value, just support the status quo (which requires almost no
| effort).
| adflux wrote:
| "The satisfaction of seeing your career flourishing without you
| having to do anything will give you a valuable peace of mind."
|
| Without you having to do anything?
| djstein wrote:
| I believe they mean, you have to work either way and most
| people do as good a job as they can. You can either do this for
| a no name company or at FAANG. At FAANG, you'll probably do the
| same work, maybe a little harder in crunch time, but you'll
| find yourself in a far better situation five years down the
| line for virtually the same effort.
| watfly wrote:
| How do I downvote this?
| sytelus wrote:
| TLDR; Recruiters don't care about side projects. Side projects
| are often shallow and its better to use new tech in real job
| instead of side projects.
|
| I feel most of us would disagree with that. All new jobs in my
| career were result of learning something new on side projects.
| Recruiters show that as passion for learning. Many jobs don't
| allow for much exploration and you don't have leverage to call
| shots. It's usually uphill battle to even introduce any
| significant changes in large stable products. Also, side projects
| shouldn't be just for goal of finding new jobs and making
| recruiters happy anyway. It should be for passion for creating
| things, realizing ideas.
| peruvian wrote:
| > its better to use new tech in real job instead of side
| projects.
|
| Lol this is why so many tech stacks at work go to shit. Someone
| wanting to add another bullet point to the resume and instead
| of doing it at home, they force a new tool/language at work
| (when possible).
| jordan_curve wrote:
| I don't think the article ever suggests that you shouldn't work
| on side projects if it's something you enjoy as a creative
| outlet. It's saying that you shouldn't work on side projects as
| a way to advance your career.
| tylerchilds wrote:
| and also using new tech in a work project is often a terrible
| idea unless you or someone else on the team has intimate
| experience with it. it's either going to be betamax or legacy
| spaghetti 9/10 times.
| 0xEFF wrote:
| > Many jobs don't allow for much exploration and you don't have
| leverage to call shots. It's usually uphil battle to even
| introduce any significant change. Also side projects shouldn't
| be just for goal of finding new jobs anyway. It should be for
| passion for creating things, realizing ideas.
|
| You're right, but your point also indicates why business value
| side projects less than career projects. The skills and
| experience to complete the project don't overlap much between
| the two types of projects. The success criteria is usually
| quite different as well.
| lostmsu wrote:
| I turned a side project into a company, and recruiters contacted
| me non-stop during the entire journey. But maybe it is because I
| already had experience at Microsoft and Amazon.
| zolland wrote:
| I think there is a huge difference between what the author
| mentions as "shallow" side projects (where you are just trying
| to mess around with some new tech), and side projects where the
| aim is to develop a legit product. I imagine the latter, when
| seen all the way through, is much more attractive to
| recruiters. Although, I don't have any solid anecdotal
| experience with recruiting to validate that claim.
|
| I just think it's important to not classify all projects
| outside of your job as "shallow" side projects, and then
| completely discard them career wise like the article seems to
| be doing.
| binarymax wrote:
| Advice to my young self: put MORE effort into one of your 100
| side projects, and stop messing around with other stuff.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| If only you knew which one!
| [deleted]
| XCSme wrote:
| Doesn't matter, just choose one that shows potential and do
| it. The only thing that matters is that you have an end-
| product in mind that will provide more value to the users
| than existing alternatives AND that you actually implement it
| AND the user finds your product.
| filoleg wrote:
| >If only you knew which one!
|
| That one is actually pretty simple: pick the one that you
| have the most to learn from, because that's the whole point
| of doing a side project if you are trying to leverage it as
| something that would help your knowledge/career development
| (as opposed to doing a side project for some supplementary
| income, for example).
|
| And yes, I am aware that there are many unknowns, and when
| you are trying to pick a project with the goal to learn the
| most, sometimes the projects where you think you already know
| 90% of the solution end up being the ones where you know the
| least and have more for you to learn than projects that had
| initially more unknowns. But without the ability to know the
| future, picking the one that has the most "stuff to learn"
| (according to your first assessment) at the initial discovery
| phase is imo the most optimal strategy. It is fine if you
| discover later that the other project had a bit more to learn
| than the one you picked, because the goal is to learn a lot
| averaged down over a long period of time.
| maverickJ wrote:
| How would you go about choosing that one project?
| enos_feedler wrote:
| I would choose the one you can't stop thinking about. Or the
| one that many of the other side projects eventually lead to.
| If you feel similarly about all 100 side projects, probably
| none of them are worth doubling down on.
| gredelston wrote:
| This is the paradox of choice. In most cases, it doesn't pay
| to spend your time hemming and hawing about find the perfect
| project. It helps to just pick one, even if it's the
| stupidest idea of the lot.
|
| The alternative is to wind up as Burdian's Ass, who is
| equally hungry and thirsty, can't decide whether to eat hay
| or drink water, and so dies of hunger and thirst.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Yup. If you're really undecided, pick one at random,
| because at this point the marginal cost of thinking
| outweighs the marginal cost of being wrong.
|
| And if you choose wrong, you'll find out soon enough.
| Personally, I had a lot of projects I couldn't stop
| thinking about, but when I finally started working on them,
| I quickly realized it's a bad idea. The usual reasons were:
| a) I already found it done by someone else in a form that
| satisfies my needs, b) it became obvious that either the
| process or the outcome won't be as satisfying as I thought
| it would be, or c) after scoping it out, I realized I'm not
| in a position to invest the required amount of time and
| effort.
|
| Abandoning a side project early is not a bad deal. Your
| research and thoughts put into it stay with you forever,
| and it often happens that you'll get secondary value from
| them on some other endeavor.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Where did you get 100 ideas worthy of implementation? My
| imagination is so terrible, I can only imagine stupid ideas
| like Reddit clones.
| justinlloyd wrote:
| Thursday: I should build an API package for OpenWRT that will
| track bandwidth usage per device over a calendar period, e.g.
| past 30 days. wrtbwmon is all very nice, but it
| simultaneously tries to do too much (offer a UI) and not
| enough (track data usage for all time). Let me just write
| that down in my notebook.
|
| Friday: I can build a nice and simple API for OpenWRT that is
| API focused and provides easier access to the common
| functions that people want from OpenWRT, this would help
| mobile app developers create apps that talk to OpenWRT in a
| simple way. Let me just write that down in my notebook.
|
| Saturday: Let me just sketch out this new design for a
| workshop cabinet that will let me combine my tablesaw,
| bandsaw, chop saw and tool storage in a single location.
|
| Sunday: I want my security camera to combine all the detected
| motion in to a single multilayer video that lets me scrub
| through events like layers playing simultaneously rather than
| scrub through time. Let me just write that down.
|
| Monday: OpenWRT should have a "state" that is queryable via a
| curl request that determines if OpenWRT still needs to be
| configured. I can build that as a simple API and package it.
| Let me just write that down in my notebook.
|
| The ideas aren't the problem.
| read_if_gay_ wrote:
| It doesn't work if you sit down and try to think of
| something. Inspiration comes spontaneously, you always have
| to be ready to note any ideas you get. You'll accumulate
| ideas over time.
|
| Somewhat relevant, PG has a post on startup ideas
| http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html
| RIMR wrote:
| 100 side projects isn't "100 ideas worthy of implementation".
|
| 100 side projects is the chance at one idea worthy of
| implementation. If you have even one good idea, all of your
| bad ideas weren't only worth it, but amount to how you got
| there.
| davidivadavid wrote:
| Think about things around you that could be better. You'll
| get 100 ideas per day.
| throwaways885 wrote:
| Reddit clones can still be novel.
| chegra wrote:
| Hmm. What has worked for me is to solve problems I encounter.
| For instance, I was at a friend's house a couple of months
| ago and some walkers in the neighborhood shouted that a pipe
| was burst, and we should report it to the utility company. We
| called the utility company, and it was difficult to tell them
| the location of the burst pipe. From there an idea was born,
| what if we had an app that can report the gps location to the
| utility company.
|
| The hard part for me is to find the time to implement an
| idea. An idea for me just naturally flows from a problem.
| XCSme wrote:
| I personally get 1-2 ideas worth of implementation each day.
| I always get the idea while doing something and thinking
| "hey, it would be cool if...". Latest idea I had was when I
| was playing piano, then played in VR and realized it would be
| really cool to create a VR trainer/game/vizualizer for the
| piano to fully immers yourself in the music that you play.
| So, not only you can be told what to play but you could also
| shape the entire world/environment around you by what you
| play. So something like Tetris Effect VR but with you playing
| the piano instead of Tetris.
|
| Whenever I get an idea, I quickly note the main pointes in a
| note-taking app and usually never return to it, as the secret
| of creating actual useful products is to spend the time to
| create them well. Ideas are worthless if they are not well
| implemented.
| munchbunny wrote:
| It doesn't take imagination. Rather than trying to imagine
| the issues, try to develop an eye to see the problems that
| are already in front of you. And don't start with grand
| ambitions. Start with the problem in front of you.
|
| One way is to have hobbies, side hustles, volunteer work,
| whatever. As long as you're doing something that requires
| solving problems that are different from your day to day
| programming job, you will find a constant stream of problems
| that maybe you can improve with a bit of code.
|
| Some of my side projects are directly related to my work, but
| most of them aren't. I'm working on something right now
| because someone in my life needed advice on digital security,
| and it turned out to be not an easy problem to address.
| brotchie wrote:
| Generally I find that trying to solve problems begets more
| problems (i.e. side projects beget side projects). Choose a
| tech stack and start building a Reddit clone, and you'll
| quickly hit roadblocks and get ideas.
|
| Started a new side-project on the weekend (after a long long
| hiatus of just focusing on day job). Phase 1 was simply
| getting the stack up and running (PostgreSQL-backed, Python
| gRPC service taking gRPC-web through Envoy to a React front-
| end). Took some fighting through the setup to get a full-
| stack existence proof, ideas that arose during the working
| session:
|
| side-project TODO #1 - Write a blog post about getting this
| all setup using current versions and push a public github
| repo with the setup to help other out.
|
| side-project idea #2 - Build a micro-PaaS where a customer
| can define a gRPC interface, Python module implementing that,
| and with a single command, push this to a live serving
| endpoint.
|
| side-project idea #3 - I need a state machine as part of my
| application logic, TODO: write a Python non-ephemeral state
| machine library that, with a simple Python internal DSL,
| backs state machine persistence onto a PostgreSQL table,
| handle automatic schema updates as the state machine is
| changed / versioned.
|
| Literally not enough time to do any of these things though :)
| paffduddy wrote:
| The advice from the blog post is awful as general advice.
| Posting anon here for obvious reasons, but there are different
| types of jobs. Some jobs reward you with equity, some reward
| you with promotions, and some are _dead end jobs._ Even many
| senior positions are dead end jobs.
|
| I work at an A-round startup. Tons of people in FP&A, sales,
| accounting, and HR get promoted every six months. Engineers
| rarely get promoted. No refreshers. No raises.
|
| Guess what? Engineers are now clocking out at 4pm, they are
| working on side projects, and it is the most rational thing to
| do.
|
| On the flip side, I've worked at places where engineers are
| rewarded regularly for outstanding work. It makes sense to
| focus on your job.
|
| On size advice does not fit all.
| johngalt wrote:
| The free and accessible nature of the tech field is a gift that
| no other industry has, and side projects are the best possible
| way to take advantage of this. All the same tools that run F500
| companies are a click away. And it has never been easier to setup
| a test lab thanks to VMs/Containers/Cloud etc... Even if you
| never use it, you can gain perspective. Or just to learn
| something interesting.
|
| I'm a sysadmin who never programs more than one page of
| powershell at a time, but I did the Thrun/Norvig AI-Class back in
| 2011 and getting a 95% on the advanced track was a big confidence
| boost. More than any low budget project I pulled off at work. Not
| that I'll ever need to implement A* or compute eigenvectors.
| [deleted]
| 10-1-100 wrote:
| My side project over the last few years was more or less the
| deciding factor in me getting hired at my current employer and my
| previous one.
|
| Being able to demonstrate turning an idea into reality and talk
| about technical (and design) problems I encountered and how I
| solved them seemed to be much more interesting to interviewers
| than most of what I had done at my previous day jobs.
| marketingPro wrote:
| This _opinion_ can be countered with a single ancedote-
|
| I got a job because of my side projects and would be unemployed
| if I didn't work on side projects.
|
| Now, who's opinion is correct?
| tharne wrote:
| My experience is identical to yours. Both my first programming
| gig as well as subsequent advancements has been a result of my
| side projects.
| xenihn wrote:
| The best thing is to do both. Work at a top company, and have a
| side project that you can discuss with hiring managers.
| borroka wrote:
| If you think in terms of probability, there is no conflict. And
| that is also why "never do this if you want to get that" is
| often a necessary, but tautologically inaccurate,
| simplification.
| matz1 wrote:
| Both are correct
| gallamine wrote:
| First job or subsequent jobs?
| megadeth wrote:
| Leetcode is the new side project if you value a day job.
| actuator wrote:
| > First, most recruiters don't care about your personal projects
| or how many meetups you went during the year. What matters the
| most is your current company - and by that I mean the name of
| your current company.
|
| He is so much right here. Recruiters don't have the time to go
| through and understand your side projects, for that matter even
| engineers don't. Most interviews are 45-60 mins, you need to
| scope your interview such that the process remains same for all
| candidates. If someone is just beginning out then side projects
| matter a lot but for hiring experienced people, most won't care
| about side projects unless they got significant traction.
|
| Also, it is incredibly hard to judge side projects. Sure, I can
| go through your Github repo if it is open source, open 2-3 files
| to see code structure, see the automation suite you have setup
| but unless the project was complex there is not much to talk
| about. For experienced folks, there are other metrics you need to
| gauge them on which are absent in hobby projects.
| rconti wrote:
| I never understood why people cared so much about company
| "name" until a handful of years ago. It's not about "status" in
| terms of what kind of fancy clothes you wear, but it absolutely
| signals an ability to clear a certain kind of bar, produce a
| certain kind of work, and experience things on a scale that you
| wouldn't at a smaller shop.
|
| It doesn't mean one path is right or wrong for a job (I know
| many people who switch back and forth between bigcorp and
| startups), but if you only see BigCorp experience as status
| seeking/soul sucking experience, you're missing a huge part of
| the picture.
| wolco2 wrote:
| Doesn't it also mean the opposite? This person was at a
| better company now this person wants to work here. Why? What
| went wrong? Did big company make a mistake hiring. Vs this
| person seems to be on the rise. Each company is a bigger and
| each position is more senior.
| titanomachy wrote:
| I suspect "clear a certain kind of bar" is the biggest part
| of this.
|
| Imagine you're a recruiter at Facebook. You reach out to
| thousands of candidates, convince hundreds to come in for
| interviews, and almost all of them fail because the
| interviews are hard and test skills that need to be
| specifically trained. If you convince a Googler to come in
| for an interview, they probably have a nearly 50% chance of
| passing since they've already done it at least once.
|
| The recruiters are not exactly incentivized to bring in
| people who will be great hires. They are incentivized to
| bring in people who can pass the interview.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| If you can speak to the processes involved and have
| demonstrable knowledge about how to implement things learned
| from side-projects, what's the difference between having done
| it at work versus personal time? None in my opinion.
| actuator wrote:
| > If you can speak to the processes involved and have
| demonstrable knowledge about how to implement things learned
| from side-projects
|
| As I mentioned in my comment, no difference if the person is
| starting out or if the project gets traction.
|
| But for experienced positions like the post author was
| talking about. You don't get additional signals on the
| developer, like did the product scale well, how was the
| uptime, the performance optimisations he needed to do,
| evolving the product with customer feedback etc. Also, bigcos
| love to ask around conflicts within a team, working with
| other teams because it matters a lot to them.
|
| As an engineer I can admire the dexterity of a solution even
| if unproven but how do I verify it in an interview span.
| Easier to do this if I can attach it with a company name or
| some numbers.
|
| I hate this and I spent early part of my career trying to
| come up with methods that can make hiring easier and reduce
| biases like company name but I realised how difficult the
| process is with different stakeholders, each having his own
| criteria and biases.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| The counterpoint to this is the amount of resumes I've had
| to read and subsequent interviews I've had to sit on from
| "seniors" or "principals" that they themselves haven't gone
| fully into the weeds on whatever technology they've been
| practicing for 10+ years. The amount is staggering.
|
| You know my hypothesis why, because they don't have side
| projects. They have silo'd themselves into whatever niche
| project or have been on maintenance mode on a piece of
| software for years and never evolve. Sometimes it's not
| their fault, their company has pigeon-holed them into
| whatever software and they can't escape for whatever
| reason.
|
| They should have side projects (if they care to keep
| learning) or lest be left behind those in more dynamic
| companies or those that have side projects to evolve.
| vsareto wrote:
| >The counterpoint to this is the amount of resumes I've
| had to read and subsequent interviews I've had to sit on
| from "seniors" or "principals" that they themselves
| haven't gone fully into the weeds on whatever technology
| they've been practicing for 10+ years. The amount is
| staggering.
|
| You know this is a risk. If you went deep on something
| like Silverlight, you'd have just thrown away all that
| time. And then people will casually dismiss your 10 years
| away as not being relevant. And now you get to pick a new
| technology to maybe invest the next 10 years on, risking
| the same thing happening again. If a product dies, you go
| back to square one as a junior again on some new
| technology.
|
| Picking a long-lasting technology is hard. You're
| predicting the future.
|
| I'm really tired of people who think they have this
| industry figured out like it's easy to predict what will
| be around in 10 years so you can make safe choices about
| what to invest time into.
| waprin wrote:
| It's a little ironic that this is on "hacker" news since I think
| that the original "hacker" ethos wasn't that you built things
| just to impress recruiters.
|
| If your goal is career advancement, then it is fair to
| acknowledge that some projects won't be useful for that. But
| there's plenty of other reasons that people work on side projects
| besides just career advancement. "Just for fun" might be the most
| famous reason, that is I believe how the Linux kernel started.
|
| While maybe big companies won't value side projects directly too
| heavily, there's still a good chance that if you learn new things
| and try to build interesting stuff, that it might open new doors
| in all sorts of unexpected ways. But there's no guarantee.
|
| I also think that full time coding jobs can be a lot of work, and
| people shouldn't feel too pressured if they don't want to have
| side projects, because they have other things like a busy family
| life or non-technical hobbies. But for many people, programming
| can still be fun and interesting, especially outside of the usual
| corporate routine, and that's all the motivation they need to
| pick up a side project. That to me is really what a "hacker" is,
| not a leetcode grinder climbing the ranks at FAANG.
| Sodman wrote:
| I think the biggest advantage of side projects is for when an
| interviewer asks you an open-ended "tell me about a project you
| enjoyed working on".
|
| As an applicant, I can speak in great detail about any of my side
| projects, discuss any design decisions, trade-offs and
| compromises I made. Personally this usually involves some
| interesting trade-offs made on personal projects to optimize for
| AWS bill, vs decisions I'd have made at any company where a $100
| /mo bill wouldn't even register as a line item on a budget. It
| also is a great way to differentiate yourself if you're trying to
| make a move from eg an Enterprise Java B2B company to a consumer-
| facing SaaS startup using $NEW_TECH.
|
| As a hiring manager, I can see the candidate isn't being
| challenged enough by their current job, or they had a curiosity
| they wanted to satisfy outside their regular hours. Either way it
| shows initiative and a hunger to learn, both of which are good
| signals. Usually when people are talking about these projects,
| they are passion projects and you get a good feeling if somebody
| actually likes programming, as well as hints towards what
| specifically they find interesting. Did they spend 10 minutes
| talking about progressive enhancement techniques and bundle
| sizes? Did they talk about user feedback? Or maybe they focused
| on CI/CD, auto-scaling, or API design choices? This to me is far
| more useful than "Worked on team X and performed assigned tasks
| Y, Z".
| PankajGhosh wrote:
| The possibility of side projects to create future value or wealth
| is rather low.
|
| Instead, I have started shifting my focus to "side-gigs" rather,
| with the goal that they create future value for me in some sense.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| Yeah side projects shouldn't be a thing that you do to find a job
| unless that's all the experience you have. For example, if you're
| a junior new developer. Side projects are valuable though in that
| they keep you happy. You are in complete control and you arent
| tied down by deadlines or random whims of a senior manager five
| lev ls above you.
|
| As a person trying to break into the software world to get a
| software developer job, I feel like side projects are the only
| thing I can show.
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| One day you read that recruiters only look for people that do
| opensource every single minute of their free time, the next day
| that you better hide your side projects. Shrug.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| The only reason I have my job that I do now is because of side
| projects.
|
| How else are you suppose to learn different parts of the stack
| when you're (usually) only hired to work in one part? How are you
| suppose to learn DevOps/CloudOps unless you're on an Ops team?
|
| Many (most?) companies don't delegate full stack responsibilities
| to individual teams.
| bradstewart wrote:
| It depends. On company culture, your manager, and your role,
| among other things.
|
| If you're doing a huge career change, side projects may be your
| only way. But most companies (in my experience at least)
| recognize the value in having their application developers
| understand some Ops work, and vise versa.
|
| Many (most?) companies won't entirely "firewall" you from other
| groups. Even if you're throwing an application over the wall to
| ops, there's usually opportunities to learn from them, help out
| on specific tasks, etc.
|
| That said, learning at work is probably _better_, but I do
| think side projects with a specific goal (e.g. to learn a
| technology) are a valuable supplement.
| taylodl wrote:
| I think we need to differentiate between a "learning project"
| and a "side project." Those are two _very_ different things, at
| least to me.
|
| A learning project is a project you're doing with the express
| intent of learning a new technology. The focus is on the
| learning, not the delivered functionality.
|
| A side project is a project you're doing for the community.
| It's a labor of love. The focus is on functionality and meeting
| the needs of your users, not learning technology. You may even
| be able to grow it into an actual business.
|
| From a career perspective you want to focus on learning
| projects. As you've mentioned learning projects are very
| important for your continued learning. Side projects on the
| other hand have the risk of distracting you from your work and
| my advice would be to avoid them unless you're scratching your
| own itch or maybe even want to explore starting a side
| business.
|
| Bottom line - be clear with yourself on what you're doing and
| why you're doing it.
| dheera wrote:
| I disagree here.
|
| In the business world, delivered functionality matters.
|
| I think building something for the community that the
| community actually uses teaches you a lot about product
| management and building reliable systems and designing
| products people want. You learn a whole lot about the reality
| of the industry by doing something purposeful.
|
| There's a big difference, for example, in machine learning
| engineers who can train a model in a Jupyter notebook and an
| engineer who can both train and actually deploy a model like
| that on a self-driving car. Companies often very much
| appreciate having dipped into the practical aspect of things,
| where things like optimization, uptime, and consistency
| matter.
|
| Also, building things that give you a feeling of success make
| you more driven and motivated to learn and improve. Sometimes
| having a thousand users is that feeling of success that is
| the driving force for more learning.
| tasuki wrote:
| So we have three already:
|
| - learning project (focus on learning)
|
| - side project (focus on functionality)
|
| - cv-enhancing project (focus on optics, what the original
| article was mostly about and against)
|
| In my experience, side projects are by far the most fun. All
| of the learning projects I've done in the past had some goal
| to achieve, something I could show someone and feel proud. I
| find it difficult to learn just for the sake of learning.
| Perhaps this is why I struggled with schooling.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Yep. I didn't learn C# or Objective-C or Swift or Python at
| whatever job I had at the time, I learned them on my own, and
| then made a side-project with them, and was able to show that
| to future jobs and get hired that way.
|
| One job I got because my side project was a finalist in a
| contest and was shown off at a convention my employer attended,
| and they called me as a result and brought me in for an
| interview.
|
| Another job interview, I kind of stumbled on their programming
| test, but I was able to show something I made on the side, and
| that convinced them I knew enough to give me a week and bring
| me back in, and I refreshed my knowledge during that week, and
| I aced the test the second time and got the job.
|
| My current job is at least in part thanks to those side
| projects I worked on in the past. And my side projects I'm
| working on now are giving me skills that I am not gaining at my
| current job, and will hopefully help align me with my next
| shift in my career (and if not, at least I'll make a few bucks
| and some people will enjoy the product).
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Similar experience here. I can attribute all my jobs to side
| projects - it always so happened that the technology I got
| employed for was something I tried to write a game in few
| months to years ago.
| lsiunsuex wrote:
| Agree with this. At least 2 jobs (I've lost count) I got based
| on side work I did. Full time employment history helped, but it
| was the side projects that showed a certain skillset that they
| wanted.
| s1dewaysjects wrote:
| Yeah, I share your experience and I disagree strongly with this
| piece.
|
| If I had joined a good company and focused on that, I would
| still be comfortably building web services for them like I
| learned to in school, and I would probably continue doing that
| indefinitely.
|
| That's fine, it's a nice salary, but it was also boring and
| soul-crushing. When I started to see the damage wrought by
| mass-scale social media, my side projects made it easy for me
| to transition into a much more interesting but specialized
| field that I saw more of a future in, and that has worked out
| great.
|
| The author's main complaints seem to involve recruiters and the
| poor value proposition of shallow projects. But if you have
| deep projects and poke your nose around the industries that
| you're interested in, you won't have to deal with recruiters,
| and you'll often be able to avoid the technical side of
| interviews entirely. Talent is very scarce.
|
| Although, I write this from a USA perspective and I notice this
| is a .fr domain; the labor markets and hiring practices might
| be very different.
| ufmace wrote:
| Interesting post. I don't necessarily agree 100%, but I think
| it's a useful perspective in addition to the counter-idea that
| side projects and meetups will get you jobs.
|
| It's not every company or set of interviewers, but there are lots
| of interviewers and recruiters who don't care at all about your
| side projects. I've done plenty of interviews, and don't really
| ask about them much, or really have time to check them out in any
| detail before the interview.
|
| Lots of tech meetups are also jammed with aggressive recruiter-
| bros and newbies who need a paycheck and aren't all that
| interested in tech. Keep your expectations in check for finding
| good employers or employees at them.
|
| For side projects, I wouldn't say not to do them. But don't do
| "hello world" level side projects in a trendy language in the
| expectation that anybody will care or it will get you a job. Do a
| side project to accomplish something that you are actually
| interested in. If you don't feel like it or don't have any
| interesting ideas, then by all means do something else instead.
| Half-hearted projects to fill a perceived recruiting checkbox
| definitely won't get you anything. Doing something interesting,
| or even doing something kind of boring in an interesting way,
| might help. Or doing something and taking it into Production
| enough to feel some of the pain points of maintenance, uptime,
| marketing, etc.
| b0rsuk wrote:
| I think side projects are for fun and potentially for impressing
| technical reviewers in stage 3. Soft skills are for impressing
| recruiters.
|
| During the recruiter phase, they're not going to understand the
| projects anyway. The only value they have at this point is they
| boost your confidence and let you move on to next questions. Just
| list them briefly if asked what you've been doing recently. Most
| recruiters can't recognize a good programmer, so they approximate
| it by judging your confidence.
|
| The weapon of choice against recruiters is being prepared for the
| questions they ask. You pull out a lot of paper, write the
| questions down, and write answers. Ron Fry's _101 questions_ book
| describes them in detail. What the recruiter wants to hear, what
| she doesn 't want to hear. All recruiters have the same set of
| questions, and although it changes every couple of years it's a
| solved problem. Yes, I know telling a recruiter what she wants to
| hear is manipulative :-(.
| mekoka wrote:
| There was much I disagreed with in this post, but I had a hard
| time even addressing a single point, as I felt that it was a bit
| all over the place. I decided to first try to condense it a bit.
| In the end I realized that I understood the author a bit better.
| I still don't agree, but I get where he's coming from. Here's my
| paraphrased summary.
|
| So the author originally found much satisfaction in his
| exploratory, entrepreneurial, and hacking activities, as it
| offered a counter-balance to the corporate culture that he
| perceived as shallow and alien. It didn't matter that his
| ventures ended up as failures, he found something worthy out of
| the process.
|
| Sometime later he had a change of heart and decided to pursue a
| "career". He was then confronted by a clash of culture when he
| realized that all his tinkering didn't matter to HR.
|
| Now, he's a manager and he understand HR's perspective on
| reality. He gives you a glimpse. His time spent working on
| projects was a waste at best and a liability at worst. Companies
| don't need innovators or free thinkers, they're afraid of them.
| What they need are good soldiers unburden with ideas of freedom.
| Exploring new shiny stuff does not make you appealing to HR, your
| capacity to endure the grind does.
|
| The author offers some philosophical digression where he posits
| that side projects, much like the theoretical stuff that you
| learn in school, serve to expand your mind, but don't let them
| delude you into thinking that you can make that enriched vision
| serve you in the real world (of employment I suppose).
|
| True valuable experience comes from getting a first job and to do
| that you should brush up on your DS & algo theory and do coding
| exercises. Don't expects all your shallow side projects to come
| to your rescue at your next technical interview.
|
| The author concludes that if you want to make things easier for
| yourself, you should get a job. It will free you to be yourself,
| to go fishing, to have a life. If you still want to work on some
| side projects, you'll do so because they truly matter to you, not
| because you think they will be strategically helpful in your
| career. It will suck becoming dependent on a company, but it's
| the price to pay to be safe from the relentless competition in
| the job market.
| binarynate wrote:
| The most transformative change in my career was turning my side
| project into a profitable company, which I now work on full-time.
| This was a huge step change in terms of my personal happiness and
| wealth. So, I generally disagree with the advice of forgetting
| side projects.
| jennyyang wrote:
| The creator of homebrew flunked a Google interview because he
| couldn't invert a binary tree. Everyone at Google that he
| interviewed said they used homebrew and loved it, but ultimately
| it didn't matter. He couldn't invert a binary tree.
|
| So side projects or even real projects that are used by millions
| are literally meaningless.
|
| Study LeetCode instead to get a job and focus on your job at
| work.
| [deleted]
| diskzero wrote:
| Focus on building your reputation and technical network. Your
| network will be the source of the best employment opportunities.
| Recruiters have presented me with some of my worst career
| opportunities. Former co-workers, technical collaborators and
| those who have been exposed to my previous work gave me the best
| opportunites.
|
| Sure, if you do a good job with your employer, you will build
| reputation. But so do side projects, speaking at developer
| conferences and going to meetups. Build your network!
| yelloweyes wrote:
| This. So much this. Dear lord, so much this.
|
| 99% of the good jobs are filled through internal references.
| All the shit jobs nobody wants to do are filled through
| recruiters and cold appliers. Learned this one the hard way,
| lol.
| maverickJ wrote:
| Interesting article. The author has made an interesting
| conclusion and provided interesting premises to support it.
|
| In my opinion, it depends on what your career goal is and what
| you want out of life.
|
| If you are in a position where you use a technology you don't
| like or work on projects you don't enjoy, a side project on the
| weekends can be a way of addressing the gap. Not everyone has the
| chance of joining a great company.
|
| It also depends on what country or continent you reside in. It
| appears that in American culture, side projects are actively
| encouraged; A couple of silicon valley companies have come out of
| side projects.
|
| A different argument can also be made that doing multiple side
| projects would not make you a better programmer. Our culture
| tends to focus on quantitative factors for improving skills
| rather than qualitative factors. What if rather than doing side
| projects, one changes ones attitude in their current job? An
| excellent article on qualitative factors on excellence can be
| found in https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/what-is-
| excellence
| save_ferris wrote:
| > Continue to do as many side projects as ever, code on nights
| and weekends if you want too, but don't think about how they
| could be useful to you to get a new job.
|
| My experience has been different than the author. I suffer from
| pretty bad anxiety, which doesn't exactly come in handy during
| interviews and coding challenges. Side projects have been a good
| way to talk deeply and technically during interviews about
| concrete problems that I've worked on because I can't show a
| potential employer code I wrote for someone else's company.
|
| That said, I think there's limited value in showing an employer
| the product of some tutorial, but side projects that came from my
| brain alone never hurt in an interview context, and almost always
| helped.
| rektide wrote:
| > I've always been involved in my work, being proactive in
| bringing new technologies, mentoring the other developers,
| helping the team to grow, but I was doing this just because I
| liked my job. I was not considering this as something important
| in my career, simply because I didn't want too. To develop my
| career, I was spending a lot of time outside work reading
| technical books, doing toy projects, going to meetups, browsing
| Hacker News.
|
| This is a very good & important assessment, realization, & I
| appreciate the author's reassessment.
|
| > Secondly, I don't think that multiplying the side projects is
| useful unless they are substantial.
|
| A phrase that recuringly comes to mind when hearing of a lot of
| side projects is, "Dream no small dreams for they have no power
| to move the hearts of men."
|
| I very much want to see a world where computing is a good &
| sensible place, for scratching your own itch. But at the moment,
| just getting started on a modest web project is pretty hard. Even
| if you don't need user accounts, it's still a lot of grunt-work,
| gulp-work, webpack-work, and or babel-work. Oh you want users
| with their data? Now multiply the number of hours by 20x. Folk
| like hood.ie & UserGrid have attempted to lower the effort-to-
| start, Firebase & others are certainly selling themselves on
| trying to accelerate the mid-level lift here, the 200's & 300's
| level courses of "getting your app going". But it's hard. We're
| not great.
|
| So at the moment, scratch your own itch is hard to do well in a
| time effective manner. My take-aways are two fold: 1. on a macro
| scale, we should work harder to build a better systematic base to
| work from, and 2. a lot of side projects are over-invested in. As
| a chronic maker-of-side-projects, knowing how to put something
| down & walk away is a crucial skill. Unlike the author, I do
| think there's a quite considerable value in having some shallow
| experience, including with things you are not likely to use
| (understanding the meta-patterns of computing, seeing
| similarities across systems is where mature understanding
| starts).
|
| > I don't want to make this blog post a rant against side
| projects. In fact, I'm advocating the exact opposite. Continue to
| do as many side projects as ever, code on nights and weekends if
| you want too, but don't think about how they could be useful to
| you to get a new job. Don't do all the tutorials you find about
| Vue.js, but use this weird technology that you saw yesterday on
| Hacker News.
|
| An imo unfortunate & accurate statement of a dwindling spirit of
| the technical community! We have heavily industrialized[1] these
| days, & our hunger to explore outer bounds & interesting
| potential is much diminished. As a result, those of us who are
| pioneering by nature are less in demand, more settlers and town
| planners are needed[2]. For now, we are "technically mature", we
| believe we have "good solutions" to the problems that are common
| & identified. For this to shift, we need more cause for
| adventure, more sense that computing has bigger open
| possibilities than what we've settled down around. I for one
| continue to believe the future is still exciting.
|
| [1] https://daverupert.com/2020/01/the-web-is-industrialized-
| and...
|
| [2] https://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/03/on-pioneers-settlers-
| to...
| bt3 wrote:
| If one is not currently at a company with a "brand name", how
| else are they supposed to get noticed amongst a pile of other
| "brand name" applicants?
|
| Is the same true for educational backgrounds? If you don't have
| an Ivy League degree, what methods can you use to put yourself in
| the running vs those that do? Side projects seems like a good
| option in both cases to appear competitive.
| vkammerer wrote:
| It may be useful to remember that the author lives in France and
| has spent his whole professional life in France.
|
| As a French having worked in Germany, Canada and New Zealand, I
| can say that the recruitment process is very different in other
| countries, where side projects and open source contributions are
| really valued.
|
| In my opinion, his article should mention the geographical
| setting of his experience, and his advice should only apply to
| people living in France (and writing the article in French may
| have been more appropriate too)
| blocked_again wrote:
| I work on side projects on hope that I can one day make enough
| money from one of it and have financial freedom to do anything I
| want anytime. Hopefully soon and not when I am 60.
|
| If I die tomorrow and all I did was focus on my career that would
| be so sad.
| elorant wrote:
| My main job used to be a side project while my main job was
| working at some company. And I still have side projects because
| they keep my interest in programming alive even if they turn into
| total failures.
| echelon wrote:
| Boo! This is awful advice.
|
| I'm constantly commended on my side projects, and I excel at them
| _because_ I enjoy them:
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x034jVB1avs
|
| - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XTi-jf-ans
|
| - https://vo.codes
|
| - https://trumped.com
|
| The laser stuff made me wealthy, and that wasn't even my
| intention. People at the time told me it was a huge distraction
| from my academic career and a waste of time.
|
| My current side project is a real time voice converter (like
| Mission Impossible).
|
| Follow your passion. You'll deliver better results and open lots
| of doors.
|
| Your side projects will also usually be pretty novel. It's
| fertile ground for startup material.
| heleninboodler wrote:
| The laser stuff is cool. If you don't mind me asking, how did
| it make you wealthy? Do you sell it as a service for events? Or
| maybe sold/licensed the tech to someone? Or maybe it just got
| you a really great job?
| Nevaeh wrote:
| Vocodes is super cool and fun to play with, well done. I wonder
| if it's possible to turn it into a text-to-speech donations
| service for Twitch streamers? The current TTS voices are rather
| monotone.
|
| _P /S: Small typo on the first sentence on the about page._
| joshxyz wrote:
| That's the most stupid thing i heard lol, I'd rather drag my body
| across 87 miles of sharded glass and blades than do that.
| bluedino wrote:
| I can understand not letting your side project get in the way of
| your job. If you have a slow day at the office, it's not the time
| to be working on your side project - although many people do.
|
| However, if it weren't for side projects, I would never have
| learned Linux, virtualization, handfuls of programming languages,
| or so many other things I ended up bringing into my 8-5 job.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| If you use work materials to work on your side project, your
| employer can make a claim to it. This is why you should always
| have a separate personal computer for personal stuff, and a
| work machine you use for only for work stuff.
| asadlionpk wrote:
| I am who I am due to my side-projects.
|
| - They allow me to grow my skills and also test ideas in public.
|
| - Every code pattern or library I use in my main job has been put
| to test on my side-projects.
|
| If I had more hours per day, I would pour them all into my side-
| projects.
| hartator wrote:
| Well if your side project became a $1b company, you would have a
| very different story. A better advice: focus with no apologies on
| what really interest _you_.
| encoderer wrote:
| Side Business > Side Project
|
| A side project is a great way to get better at things you already
| have interest in.
|
| A side business is a great way to discover new interests and
| challenges.
| dorkwood wrote:
| I understand what the article is getting at, but to me side
| projects are not a means to an end, they are the entire point.
| They are the thing I would work on full time if I didn't need a
| day job to survive.
| dvt wrote:
| > First, most recruiters don't care about your personal projects
| or how many meetups you went during the...
|
| Why are you trying to impress recruiters? I mean, the entire
| point of the post is wrong, but impressing recruiters is
| downright stupid. Let's be frank: recruiters are bottom-of-the-
| totem-pole, lowest-common-denominator, bottom-feeders.
|
| If you aren't trying to do your own thing (which, let's face it,
| is the most exciting prospect), at least try to impress CEOs or
| product managers, or -- my goodness -- at least _hiring
| managers_. I heard a fun anecdote of Evan Spiegel attending an LA
| hackathon maybe 6 or 7 years ago. Some nerdy engineer showed him
| that he figured out how to get around Snapchat 's spam filter.
| Spiegel offered him a job on the spot. Could a recruiter ever do
| that? Hell to the no.
| kingnothing wrote:
| At any company of any decent size, your resume isn't going to
| get to the hiring manager if it doesn't get through the
| recruiter. The CEO of any large tech company is never going to
| meet you, much less see your resume.
| ch_123 wrote:
| I know quite a few hiring managers who will search Linkedin
| directly, and reach out to candidates themselves. This, for
| example, was how I was hired into my current employer (which
| is a company with over a thousand people)
| isoskeles wrote:
| This might be the case, but recruiters and sourcers can and
| do sometimes reach out with the first message on behalf of
| the hiring manager. It looks the same to the candidate.
| WikipediasBad wrote:
| I ran that hackathon. Can confirm it happened in 2015. LA Hacks
| at UCLA, Evan was the keynote speaker and stayed around to talk
| to hackers and builders after his speech. Snapchat, as a
| company, was at its hottest peak in 2015. Very cool event.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| How many people are hired through standard recruitment process
| and how many people are hired by impressed CEO?
| dnautics wrote:
| I've _only_ been hired by impressed CEOs (small startup
| CEOs), and have to date never gotten a job offer in software
| through the standard recruitment process (n=5 offers out of
| ~100 applications moved to interview, not counting
| applications seen but not considered via services like
| triplebyte).
|
| Well that's not entirely true, I did finally get an offer
| last week but it was downgraded from the advertised offer to
| "let's try out 3 months contract first".
| krisroadruck wrote:
| ^ Same. The last time I was out of work my wife was asking
| why I wasn't pounding the pavement sending out tons of
| cover letters and resumes and the like. I told her that in
| the 21 years I've been working, I've not gotten a single
| job via that route. It's always been networking. At some
| point about 10-15 years ago I just stopped even bothering
| with a resume at all. If I can't get in front of a decision
| maker, I don't consider it a viable opportunity. In
| contrast, About 75% of the time I've been able to speak
| directly to a department head, manager, or C-suite
| executive I've been hired on the back of a 30-45 minute
| conversation. I'll take a 3 out of 4 hit rate on a pair of
| conversations over sending out dozens of customized cover
| letters and resumes any day of the week.
| [deleted]
| tolbish wrote:
| That is directly proportional to the size of the company.
| robocat wrote:
| Inversely proportional not directly proportional? Nitpick,
| I know what you mean, but...
| https://byjus.com/maths/inversely-proportional
| shard wrote:
| The bigger the company the more its employees are hired
| through the standard recruitment process -- is that not
| directly proportional?
| dvt wrote:
| I guess I'm a fan of the old adage: "Dress for the job you
| want."
| arcticbull wrote:
| Indeed, I always recommend finding someone you know who works
| at the company and getting an in from the inside. Even if
| they just throw you to the recruiters, you'll be at the top
| of the pile and that's often the hardest part.
|
| This is also true, fwiw, of how I recommend switching teams
| within a company. Go sit with them, see what they're up to,
| establish a mutual fit, then ask their manager to sort out
| the transfer with your manager.
| polote wrote:
| How many developers tried to impress a CEO and how many went
| through the recruitment process? There are actually plenty of
| examples of people having landed a job thanks to a very good
| cover letter or something similar
| untog wrote:
| I feel like this is one of those moments that shouts "Hacker
| News is not typical". A _lot_ of people are employed through
| recruiters, including for Facebook, Google and the rest! Aiming
| to impress the CEO is all very well, but it's not common.
| rc-1140 wrote:
| This comment should really be more towards the top of the
| chain so more people are aware that the grandparent comment
| is one of those "HN is atypical" moments. Many HN users like
| the grandparent are _very_ disconnected from the reality that
| exists for everyone else, where plenty of people have to swim
| and trudge through the hellscape of recruiters who don 't
| know or care that LINQ is a feature in C# and not a separate
| language but who will ultimately decide whether or not you're
| qualified. They have to be appeased like everyone else if the
| applicant doesn't have the luxury of an extended network of
| people they can casually ping and go "hey pal i'm back on the
| market hook me up :)"
| jonathankoren wrote:
| As a hiring manager, I never cared about side projects, or
| Stack Overflow or Kaggle scores. The _most_ a side project
| github link would tell me if it was big or not. That's it.
|
| I'm not going to go through and read a bunch of random code by
| myself, when I can just ask a couple of questions, and get the
| same information quicker. They are just too many resumes to
| read.
|
| Seriously, all side projects tell me is that you spend your
| free time coding, instead of hiking, or some other hobby.
| cpursley wrote:
| What prevents someone from just BSin'g you in response to
| your questions? Code doesn't lie.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| That's what the coding screen is for.
| dvt wrote:
| Going to throw a bit of shade here, but there's a lot of
| irony in thinking that "hiking" is some exciting hobby while
| denigrating people building stuff in their spare time.
| hobs wrote:
| It's not saying its exciting, its that its equally boring.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| All hobbies are irrelevant.
| jokab wrote:
| I work at a company as a consultant. Devs here have been
| doing the same thing for 10 years. Webforms. Guess what?
| None of their hobbies include coding. Stuff like git is
| like fire to these cavemen.
| triyambakam wrote:
| I don't think the parent poster is giving any judgement to
| how people spend their time, only qualifying how.
| actuator wrote:
| I don't think he is denigrating it. He probably phrased it
| badly, but he meant you did side projects like a hobby just
| as well you might have done hiking in that time.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Not directly, for sure, but every decent company's screening
| process includes a segment roughly expressed as "tell me
| about something you built -- what technical challenges did
| you face, how did you overcome them." Sometimes, your side
| project is a more compelling answer than your day job. I've
| got some really compelling side projects haha.
| werber wrote:
| I have had great recruiters help me throughout my career. I
| didn't go into those relationships thinking of my career
| prospects but just letting someone buy me a drink or a meal and
| to chat and get to know them. Obviously they're trying to make
| money off your skills, but, a lot of them are really cool
| people just trying to get by and will look out for you if you
| let your guard down. Interviews are interviews, but meeting a
| recruiter is a first date
| actuator wrote:
| > I mean, the entire point of the post is wrong, but impressing
| recruiters is downright stupid. Let's be frank: recruiters are
| bottom-of-the-totem pole, lowest-common-denominator bottom-
| feeders.
|
| No matter how we feel, the process still goes through
| recruiters.
|
| In a company I used to work for, we built a way where we
| removed the company and uni name to remove biases from
| recruiters. Most recruiters flat out refused to use it and
| trust us because they considered that a very important signal.
| The decision is not upto just developers.
|
| > I heard a fun anecdote of Evan Spiegel attending an LA
| hackathon maybe 6 or 7 years ago. Some nerdy engineer showed
| him that he figured out how to get around Snapchat's spam
| filter. Spiegel offered him a job on the spot.
|
| I am sure we will all have our anecdotal examples like this and
| I am not against side projects. I agree with the post author
| that side projects are great, but don't expect them to count
| towards your next job. If they do, then great.
| shortlived wrote:
| > No matter how we feel, the process still goes through
| recruiters.
|
| That's right and they simply look for keywords on my various
| online profiles and send me the standard "I'm really
| impressed by your experience, I think you'll be a great fit"
| message, even though 50% of the time I'm clearly not a great
| fit. Why do they get this wrong? Because they are "are
| bottom-of-the-totem pole, lowest-common-denominator bottom-
| feeders" to quote the parent post...
|
| PS - I wish it weren't so.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| Is that a matter of competence, or a deliberate tradeoff
| regarding false positives and false negatives? Or are they
| just motivated to show high numbers?
| Groxx wrote:
| tbh I suspect it's at a fairly reasonable effort/reward
| point for them. There's so little you can _factually_
| learn from a short glance that confidence will always be
| low, and there are so many applicants (because applying
| is super low cost) that spending sufficient time to get a
| clearer answer is not worthwhile.
|
| There probably are some high-quality-only recruiter
| groups out there, but they're not what most companies
| use. Which is probably why referrals are so valued in
| many places.
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Almost universally these types of behaviors emerge from
| self-interest. So it's pretty safe to assume that
| whatever approach recruiters tend to follow, they do so
| because it is the optimum for them. That means either
| that the incentives are a problem, or that the seemingly
| foolish recruiting techniques you've been exposed to are
| more effective than you might realize, not being a
| recruiter yourself. Probably a mix.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| The problem is that sometimes what is "optimal to the
| recruiter" is not optimal for the applicant nor optimal
| to society. This is why applicants get frustrated or
| angry.
|
| I heard a recruiter once (socially) tell me that they
| ignore all resumes with foreign names for sales positions
| because on average their yield on such calls is too low
| to bother.
|
| Fair -- absolutely not.
|
| Optimal to recruiter -- probably.
|
| Good for the organization - no.
|
| Good for society - no.
|
| I'd love if there was something company _owners_ and
| operators did to prevent things like this which are local
| maximums but globally inefficient (as well as unethical
| and unfair)
| michaelt wrote:
| I suspect, much like women on dating websites, people
| receive many more low-effort messages from recruiters,
| because the subset of recruiters sending out low-effort
| messages send out far more of them.
| curiousllama wrote:
| > the process still goes through recruiters
|
| Does it? Idk, maybe it's because I'm not a SV SWE, but I've
| found all my jobs through my network.
| watwut wrote:
| And did that network care about side project all that much?
| jrumbut wrote:
| Yeah I would split the issue raised in this post along two
| axes. The first is junior vs senior positions. For a junior
| position a half-baked github project or a little meetup
| presentation does wonders for you. At the senior level
| unless you did something incredible or highly relevant in
| your side-projects no one cares, it can even be a negative.
|
| The other is how are you getting the job. Are you sending
| in your resume through a jobs site or are you calling your
| old friend the startup CTO to see if you can help out?
| Side-projects, failed startups, and networking will make
| the latter strategy easier for you but won't help much with
| the former.
|
| Looking for a senior role through an impersonal application
| process depends very heavily on your primary, full-time
| employment track record. Otherwise I think there is still
| real value in developing along other lines.
| westoncb wrote:
| That is very interesting, and would account for what I
| considered a mysterious experience of having a very hard
| time finding work this past year (while that had not
| remotely been an issue for me in the past).
|
| I've been doing freelance for a few years now, but when I
| was hired at two startups prior to that, in each case it
| was clear that my 'side projects' were the driving
| factor. (The first time, it was an offer directly in
| response to a ShowHN I'd posted; the second is harder to
| explain since it comes down to a series of calls/emails
| with the guy who hired me.)
|
| In any case, during that time I'd turned down many
| inquiries sent to me by people potentially interested in
| hiring me, and the only places I applied to I was hired
| at.
|
| More recently when I've tried applying for positions it's
| like my portfolio is irrelevant. Where previously those
| projects were met even with astonishment at times, and
| frequently with what seemed like genuine curiosity, now
| it seems like people are more interested in 'gaps in my
| resume' (where I was in fact working on more research or
| entrepreneurial software projects).
|
| What's strange to me is that I wasn't particularly young
| during the first phase I spoke of: I posted the ShowHN
| that landed me my first real startup position when I was
| 27 (I'm 34 now)--so it's not like people's reactions to
| my projects were about it being impressive 'for my age'
| or something.
|
| It seems like more and more the work I've done on my own
| on is irrelevant or even seen as a negative, while more
| traditional resume items take the forefront.
| helaoban wrote:
| My sister is a recruiter. I'll be sure to tell her that you
| think she's a bottom-of-the-totem-pole, lowest-common-
| denominator bottom-feeder. That'll brighten up her day. And
| when she doesn't take it to heart, I'll be sure to add a 'Let's
| be frank...'.
| krisroadruck wrote:
| Two things. First the "I know / am related to / am married to
| group" so you can't have a negative opinion about group thing
| is super cringe. I'm also pretty sure it's one of the logical
| fallacies. To put into perspective here is a rather extreme
| example: "My cousins an axe murderer, I'll be sure to tell
| him you think axe murders are bad, that'll brighten up his
| day". See how me saying I'm related to an axe murder doesn't
| actually change your opinion on axe murderers at all?
|
| Secondly, Bottom of the Totem Pole is actually the revered
| position[1]. Bit of an amusing cultural knowledge oversight
| on the OPs side ;-)
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totem_pole#Meaning_and_purpose
| dvt wrote:
| > Secondly, Bottom of the Totem Pole is actually the
| revered position[1]. Bit of an amusing cultural knowledge
| oversight on the OPs side ;-)
|
| Hah, this is super interesting. I'm almost certain that I
| heard or read the "bottom-of-the-totem-pole" saying before,
| but you're totally right that I may have reversed it!
| DataSciGuy_401 wrote:
| This is a great observation that is relevant for everyone who
| will serendipitously bump into the CEO of the company that
| makes the product on top of which their side project is built.
| Everyone else needs to be screened by a recruiter, though.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Why are you trying to impress recruiters?
|
| I don't know whether this is a flippant answer... but _to get a
| job so they can eat_.
| redisman wrote:
| Everyone should just do "x very specific thing that happened
| to work for me"
| chrisseaton wrote:
| If you can't impress a recruiter, you are going to struggle
| to get a job at most companies. That's the starting point.
| It's great to think about what to do beyond then... but if
| you can't get past the starting point you're going to fail.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| I mean, the REAL truth is that I don't do side projects to
| impress recruiters... I do them because of my intellectual
| curiosity. That said, they HAVE helped me make a pretty
| successful career shift.
| alkonaut wrote:
| This. Imagine the mental toll of working a full time job but
| then doing "side projects" you don't love doing, to further
| your career? I can't even imagine how soul crushing that must
| be.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| _impressing recruiters is downright stupid. Let 's be frank:
| recruiters are bottom-of-the-totem-pole, lowest-common-
| denominator, bottom-feeders._
|
| My friend, this isn't personal, but a fact: you're privileged.
|
| I sense you've never been in a position where you have $3,000
| in the bank, your wife is depending on you to get through
| college, and you _have_ to get a job or you lose your
| apartment.
|
| Out here dropping stories about Evan Spiegel; gimme a break.
| Most people don't know any CEOs, PMs, or hiring managers.
|
| The funny part is, I agree with your premise. You are indeed
| presenting the best way of opening doors. It's worked for me,
| and has opened many doors.
|
| But only when I was in a better position. Till then, it was one
| of the worst things I could have done. Focusing on playing the
| hiring game would have put me in a much stronger position.
|
| The comment you made is slightly out of touch. There's nothing
| wrong with that, but I think you'll maybe look back on it in 10
| years or so with a wince.
|
| In the situation I described above, where you absolutely need
| that job, all the people you mention have a good chance of
| forgetting about you due to day-to-day politics. Guess who
| won't? That recruiter. Because they get a cut of your salary.
| scythe wrote:
| >I sense you've never been in a position where you have
| $3,000 in the bank, your wife is depending on you to get
| through college, and you have to get a job or you lose your
| apartment.
|
| When I was at my lowest point I was delivering sushi rather
| than waiting for a job that would look good on a resume. Most
| of the people in desperate situations like that aren't (don't
| have time to be) padding their resume with side-projects, and
| therefore aren't the topic of the original argument.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Perhaps. But one rich person once gave me a tip: don't show
| weakness.
|
| It bugged me at the time, but I've come to accept he was
| probably correct. It's not a good idea to bring attention
| to matters that might work against you. Focus on selling
| yourself, and treat your business associates as customers
| (in the sense that you work hard to please them, in
| exchange for getting what you want).
| http://www.paulgraham.com/judgement.html
|
| It's important to know people in not-that situation open
| doors. Because you can play that same game, with crafty use
| of time and words. And you might have more time than it
| seems, even in the position you mentioned (though I would
| not ever say it's a guarantee): between Uber shifts, I'd
| park in a random store's parking lot and build things,
| partly to keep sharp, but partly to get a job at a certain
| place, since the work was related. I didn't get that job,
| but I gained so much knowledge that turned out to be much
| less obscure than it seemed; still use it to this day.
|
| You're right in general though. People on a strong upwards
| trajectory have different concerns.
| dvt wrote:
| > My friend, this isn't personal, but a fact: you're
| privileged.
|
| Oh man, only if you truly knew how off-base this is :) My
| parents moved to the US with $2000, two kids (I was 11), and
| two carry-ons. But I'm not here to compete in the Victim
| Olympics.
|
| > Most people don't know any CEOs, PMs, or hiring managers.
|
| Good thing attending a hackathon is free. Good thing you can
| interact with literal SV royalty here on HN for free. Good
| thing you can contribute to famous OSS projects with minimal
| investment...
|
| > In the situation I described above, where you absolutely
| need that job, all the people you mention have a good chance
| of forgetting about you due to day-to-day politics. Guess who
| won't? That recruiter. Because they get a cut of your salary.
|
| Yeah, I disagree with this. I've been "forgotten about" and
| "ghosted" by more recruiters than I can remember. Not to
| mention that half the time my area of expertise wasn't even
| lined up with what they were looking for, and as soon as they
| hear about a potential pivot (front end to back end,
| engineering to product management, etc.) they jump ship. But
| people I've impressed (old bosses, old PMs, people I met
| through hackathons, obviously old founding partners) are
| always willing to come up to bat.
| orange8 wrote:
| Kudos on making something of yourself from humble
| beginnings. You are now privileged.
| tylerhou wrote:
| > My parents moved to the US with $2000
|
| My parents also say this, except they say $40. But US
| immigration policies generally require immigrants to have
| some way of supporting themselves. While my parents didn't
| have much cash, they did have college educations and my
| father had been accepted to a PhD program -- which is
| privilege.
|
| I'm not trying to assume your parents' particular
| situations -- just that there are things we unconsciously
| take for granted.
| brailsafe wrote:
| It's an aspect of someone's life that may mean better
| odds of making more money or pursuing some intellectual
| path. Your parents' degree does not prevent them from
| being shitty parents.
| achillesheels wrote:
| Don't take offense, sir, but how did you wind up in your
| unfortunate position?
|
| "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in
| ourselves, that we are underlings."
|
| Your implication is precisely that recruiters are useful as a
| last resort. Wisdom beseeches to avoid decisions where that
| becomes necessary. Where, clearly, the recruiter is just
| using you and you are using them as a stop-gap measure.
|
| Yet wisdom is considered privilege now?
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| No offense taken! I have narcolepsy, which means attending
| a 9-5 job is difficult. I woke up at 2pm today, for
| example.
|
| It's an advantage to conceal that fact, and the one company
| I did disclose it to, fired me about a month later. For
| completely unrelated reasons that totally didn't violate
| any disabilities laws, of course /s.
|
| It was also partly my own fault, but in hindsight I wasn't
| able to recover until I even understood what was happening.
| I wrote a bit about it several years ago, shortly after
| being diagnosed:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10984478
|
| So my career progression has been more of a stochastic
| random walk. And I'm fine with that. :) Ended up being able
| to contribute one or two things to the ML scene, which is
| all I really wanted anyway. Just a scientist at heart, I
| suppose.
|
| There's nothing wrong with being used, and using someone,
| by the way, if it's mutually beneficial. Aligned incentives
| are how society comes together.
| achillesheels wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear that. This speaks to the generally
| lower moral behavior of our society today. It develops
| gross incompetency in ability to deal with unique human
| physiologies.
|
| Ideally people are able to work with each other's upmost
| abilities rather than view people as a threat to their
| own job security and career progression. :(
| winrid wrote:
| Impressing recruiters is easy. Doing that doesn't make you
| privileged.
|
| I drove from PA to CA when I was 19, working along the way on
| my own business, and got a job in SV on my third interview as
| a "software engineer" making 65k. Bottom of the barrel coding
| job.
|
| I'm somehow privileged now? Because I worked literally every
| day from the time I was 17 in high school until I got a full
| time job. Right.
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| >Why are you trying to impress recruiters? I mean, the entire
| point of the post is wrong, but impressing recruiters is
| downright stupid. Let's be frank: recruiters are bottom-of-the-
| totem-pole, lowest-common-denominator, bottom-feeders.
|
| Yeah, they are. They're also how most people find jobs before
| we reach the career stage of being able to call a friend who
| knows a guy who works at a place.
| jsmith12673 wrote:
| > recruiters are bottom-of-the-totem-pole, lowest-common-
| denominator, bottom-feeders
|
| Recruiters are just people just doing their jobs. It's a shame
| that you've labelled a diverse group of people so heavy-
| handedly.
| dvt wrote:
| Oh come on. Even as _engineers_ , it's important not to have
| delusions of grandeur: we're replaceable cogs in an infinite
| machine. Unless you're engineer #2 or work as a VP or a part
| of the C-suite, you truly don't really matter to the company.
| Thinking otherwise will only lead to heartbreak.
| jsmith12673 wrote:
| I'd argue that even as engineer 2, or VP of whatever,
| you're still replaceable.
|
| Outside whatever thin veil of prestige your job offers you,
| the larger world couldn't care less about what you do or
| what you make.
| aj7 wrote:
| You weren't wrong. You gave up too early, accepting the salaryman
| fantasy of steady growth if you just "work hard." If this works
| past 50, you are 80th percentile. Past 55? 98th percentile. How
| will you feel when you begin to be handed boring, or fix-it
| projects? When your salary doesn't keep up with 29-year-old
| versions of yourself? Layoffs? Perfectly acceptable or ignorable
| at 20-38. Lethal >48.
|
| You need to own the economic value of your output as early as
| possible. Read that sentence again. Side projects are about 10%
| effective here, if you get my drift.
| maverickJ wrote:
| Interesting comment. How do you capture value if I may ask?
| This article https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/dont-
| hinge-your-care... Uses Nikola Tesla ad an expample of not
| depending on your technical skills alone
| robocat wrote:
| > Past 55? 98th percentile
|
| Reference? Are you implying that developers over 55 are
| unemployed against their choice?
|
| I suspect sampling bias: Any half competent 55 year old has
| lived through some golden opportunities to make bank, or decide
| on a career change by choice. Also the intake cohorts results
| in not many over 55 as a % of total. My experience in New
| Zealand is that older devs are doing fine as a cohort, although
| I also can see poor performers who stuck with old tech who may
| have bitter anecdotes.
|
| > You need to own the economic value of your output as early as
| possible
|
| I disagree. I have plenty of 50+ acquaintances doing _very_
| nicely on their boring salary without the stress or risk of
| trying to get a slice of equity. Plenty of people do not have
| the traits required, or their personal circumstances are not
| flexible enough to allow for risk, or they just want a 9 to 5
| and a comfortable retirement (which they will get, and their
| rockstar friend might not).
|
| Edit: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The
| outcomes for the first cohort of developers is very unlikely to
| be anything like the latest cohort who you are advising - "as
| early as possible" doesn't apply to 55+ year old developers?!
| We haven't had 30 years of hindsight bias to know what the
| successful path for a current 20 year old will be.
| umaar wrote:
| I've been putting more and more effort into my side projects
| recently (all on GitHub). It's kept me sharp, passionate, always
| gives me something to optionally think about (e.g. when
| exercising), provides conversation pieces (with the right crowd
| of course), has taught me a whole bunch of new techniques and has
| kept me relevant in this fast moving industry.
|
| My side projects include:
|
| - An Air Quality Monitoring Dashboard
|
| - A leaderboard app built with redis
|
| - A WebGL globe to show live wikipedia edits
|
| - A web service to scrape any number of GitHub stars from any
| number of people
|
| - A node.js app which extracts 1 second of footage from your
| media library, and combines it into a '1 second everyday'-style
| video
|
| - An audio reactive image slideshow from instagram selfies
|
| - A visualisation dashboard to show stats about your blood from
| some diabetes bluetooth thingymajig
|
| - 3D renders of popular logos, like the GitHub logo
|
| - An Alfred workflow app to trim X seconds from the currently
| playing video from VLC
|
| - A script which downloads the top 250 websites to your drive, so
| you can then run other scripts upon them, as often as you want,
| without getting blocked
|
| - An augmented reality music website (where you can use the
| webcam to control audio)
|
| I'm really grateful I'm able to do such things and have no
| intention of stopping.
| rektide wrote:
| How do you feel about the author's conclusion?
|
| > I don't want to make this blog post a rant against side
| projects. In fact, I'm advocating the exact opposite. Continue
| to do as many side projects as ever, code on nights and
| weekends if you want too, but don't think about how they could
| be useful to you to get a new job.
|
| IMHO, that's over-doing it, but fairly on target. Like dating,
| one wants to be an interesting person. Your projects, to me,
| demonstrate that you are an interesting person, but as per the
| topics of collaboration & communication that the author starts
| with, while yes I want to work with interesting people, it's
| not what I've found to be the primary nor even all-that-
| distinguishing characteristic of hirees. Somewhat sadly; keep
| hacking! ;)
| keithnz wrote:
| heh, this seems common with devs who get to around the 10 year
| mark, they try and distil wisdom from their experience, but all
| too often it is quite rigid advice...I did it too, I would have
| plenty of advice for my "younger" self when I hit the 10 year
| mark. I'm at 40 years coding now, and I'd be hard pressed to make
| any definitive advice or claims about anything. Maybe my advice
| now would be don't buy into any strong claims about anything,
| instead, try and understand what underlying forces are shaping
| advice / claims
| cactus2093 wrote:
| Side projects remind me a lot of extracurriculars in college
| admissions.
|
| To the extent that they show that you have really accomplished
| something difficult they can be very impressive and differentiate
| you from other candidates. E.g. in terms of high school
| extracurriculars, if, say, you've reached the title of chess
| grandmaster that's impressive, if you went to chess club practice
| a couple times a week and were just decent at it that's not going
| to help.
|
| As a software engineer, if you've built a site with millions of
| page views or written an open source library that many engineers
| have heard of, that definitely opens doors. (Though even then,
| maybe not in the way you're expecting. Any given recruiter still
| might not care or might not be able to remove the red tape for
| you just because of that. But you'll likely have certain unique
| opportunities become available). If you've thrown together a few
| sites in your free time and then moved on to other things, it's
| not that impressive.
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