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Ask HN: I have been unable to land a job in two years, does anybody
87 points by calebjosue 6 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 92 comments
... over here have something I can help with?

I have had all sort of experiences in my job search:

Sometimes I pass the interviews but companies goes with other candidates. I have failed some interviews too (Unable to solve the problem on the given amount of minutes by the interviewer). I have taken two take-home projects, ghosted. In my last interview after elaborating about my experience they told me: We have just been told the vacancy is no more. Also, I have been noticing that Spring have become synonym of Java (Most of the time when I apply for a Java Developer job they ask about Spring), I can grasp it on the job.

I need to refresh some Algorithms knowledge, I have devoted sometime learning Scala for example, and a little bit of Haskell.

I firmly believe I can help with something in a Software oriented company, even data wrangling or any other task nobody else likes to do.

Here's my website: https://calebjosue.gigalixirapp.com (Take a look at the lifelong learning section)

I am located in Mexico, so I am willing to do remote. And... (Please don't hate me for this [I know this put pressure on other country's citizens]) I don't charge that much.

P.S. I can't help thinking one of my biggest mistakes have been being too idealistic. Or neglecting reality, e.g. I have devoted these two past days entirely to Blender in order to produce a little sorta short-film. But any step I was thinking I shall study some Algorithms. But I really wanted to finish this Blender project, once down, I hardly will spend more than half an hour to it (Exception on the weekends of course).

Be the visionaries Steve Jobs have in mind when he said he was looking for a long-term relationship: _We will build great things on the next decade_ (IIRC)

I accept I've failed on focusing in a simple thing to build deep knowledge of a given computer science area. If you allow me to play the victim card: I am in need to buy some medicines for my skin condition. (Yes, I know you are not a charity but believe, I truly believe I can help you with something).




I wouldn't hire someone presenting themselves like this. My immediate energy is "disagreeable and difficult" and it fails the vibes test.

I know that's stupid but it's also real.

Use something simple like linktree and go way deeper on your blogposts if you want to use that. When I'm in a hiring manager role, I'm looking for works that express depth and competency.

Really, if I can find say, 100 or so lines of competently written code, I'm interested. As far as what that means, take https://js1k.com/ and click on any of them and go to the demo details. I just picked a random one: https://js1k.com/2019-x/details/4167 ... I see that code and I think "well this person seems to know what they're doing, it's worth a phone call".

Or let's take https://allrgb.com/ ... any one of them take pretty decent understanding and coding to do (here's a random one: https://allrgb.com/random-triangles) Make one, do a writeup on it, release the code and present that.

Another tactic: Any large software project. Let's take Libreoffice. Bugs from the last 7 days: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/buglist.cgi?chfield=%5BB... ... or the 1000 open tickets on wireshark: https://gitlab.com/wireshark/wireshark/-/issues start fixing them. There's plenty of work to do.

If your work is good, the jobs will actually come to you. Most companies are desperate for good, motivated, easy to work with engineers.


Disagreeable and difficult? If you look into OP's reply history on HN he seems perfectly agreeable, cheerful and helpful even.

The rest of your comment I don't have a problem with.


I'm sure he's a pleasant person and great.

If you've been unlucky enough to sort through hundreds of resumes and make hasty decisions on who to spend time on, as a constraint of time and the volume of candidates, you have to make ridiculously judgmental and often wrong decisions because you need to say no to over 95% of them.

A site like this would be ok if the domain was say blahblah.(mit|stanford|caltech|something-fancy).edu/blahblah and linked to their scholar page but outside of that, probably not.

If you want a personal page and you're not a designer, just use a template from a site like https://html5up.net/ and replace the images and copy. If the site was say https://html5up.net/astral ... not only do all my objections flutter away but now there's a small checkmark in the "interested" column.

Know what the people on the other end are tasked with and feed them what they're looking for.


Have you looked at their website? https://calebjosue.gigalixirapp.com

No offense intended, and of course I don't know OP at all and this is all 100% based on an initial gut feeling, but this is not the website of someone who seems like they would be pleasant to work with. I wouldn't be surprised if hiring managers got the same feeling and just moved on.

The garish green on black, the large prominent picture of their face, the odd English ("Hello there all", "and I do like to share the following with you"). Also, the odd domain.

Normally I wouldn't even mention any of this since everyone is free to have their own style, but if OP is looking to get hired it might help if their website looked a little more "professional". Or just don't plug the website.


It's interesting how impressions can vary so much. This is exactly the kind of site that would be a strong positive signal to me. To me it appears old school, friendly, straight-forward.


Yes, that was weird to say the least. The CV page is shockingly bare--there's no actual experience listed except a link (on the PDF to another PDF) to "More experience" in the Miscellaneous category which is the actual resume.

The main failure is to present oneself in the manner expected (and effective) to those hiring. Not many will spend time wading through such bespoke oddness, when the experience appears relatively standard.


Some professionals don't do web design, and pictures are common in some countries. The website looks ok, but could obviously be cooler (though, that should not matter too much). It is a strange domain indeed. There should be something more straightforward name that can be used. I think all that appeals more to programmers than HR types but idk.


I loved the green on black, it was very nice to read and didn't seem too ugly to me. But I am an engineer, not an HR person.


i don't know how you and GP can read so much into this.

sure, the website may look kind of ugly, but it is also very simple (and in fact green on black are old terminal colors. maybe just get an old terminal font and suddenly the website would look cool?), so i find it easy to look past that, but all that tells me is that this guy is not a designer. and the odd phrasing tells me that this is not a native english speaker. that's all.

if you are reading any more into this then that tells me more about your character than about the creator of the website.


Like I said, I think it's fine and people should have their own style. But if someone says they haven't been hired in 2 years and is asking for help I might as well be hypercritical.

And this is not about me. This is about all those hiring managers that may have seen this and been like "ick", closed the tab and moved on.


fair enough, but i think that can be worded less direct and more like a possible explanation. the way you worded it in the second paragraph makes it sound like you don't actually think it's fine for yourself. only the third paragraph contradicts that. that's how i read it anyways.


I mean I don't like it hence the observation, but usually that's completely irrelevant and I wouldn't bring it up or pay that much attention to it. You're right it could've been worded a bit more sympathetically.


The very same part of my brain that allows me to implement a disjoint-set forest tells me bright yellow text on a bright pink background is good design.


Unfortunately most hiring managers aren't old school programmers.

The non native phrasing isn't terrible, but at least spell Bachelor's correctly.


>Most companies are desperate for good, motivated, easy to work with engineers.

Is there currently a shortage of good, motivated, easy to work with engineers in this job market? It was my understanding that we are in an employer's market right now. Have things turned around?


> Also, I have been noticing that Spring have become synonym of Java (Most of the time when I apply for a Java Developer job they ask about Spring), I can grasp it on the job.

If you are applying for a senior Java role in a Spring shop, they'll be expecting you to already know Spring. The easiest way is to write some projects in Spring!

That is it, right there. If you can show off a nice professional website written in Spring (try to find a designer buddy who is also out of work and needs a portfolio piece!), and a link to the GH repo for the same site, you'll possibly skip a large portion of the interview process, or at least be put in the front of the line.


This 100%. If you are going to include a GitHub link, then you NEED to have at least one project that shows you know how to code. All I see is forked projects and themes. That reads to me as someone who is trying to BS their way into a job. I'd pass because I've got a stack of other candidates to review.

I understand that you usually can't share what you do in your dayjob publically, but in that case you need to create something yourself. Even while working a 9-5 you have enough time for that in a couple of weeks (I say that as someone who works longer than 9-5 and has young kids) - if you have been laid off you have no excuse.

I created an "Ask questions to your PDF" app (using OpenAI's APIs) as an example project that is public on my GitHub profile. There's lots of things that would need to be changed before I put it into production, but it demonstrates that I understand the fundamentals and backs up what my CV claims.

As a hiring manager, my biggest concern is we end up hiring someone who doesn't bring anything to the table, and just wastes everyone's time.


And, you don't grasp Spring, it grasps you.


I am the founder of Rezi - a really well liked resume builder. If you want, I'd be happy to provide you with a fully upgraded account for free. It's not much, but at least you'll feel confident about your resume


Please take up Jabob's offer above.

I don't want to be overly critical and I wish you the best of luck in your search but your website/resume is not helping you. Whether it's the 1998 Geocities UI/look & feel (hard to read) or the obvious spelling errors (Bacherlor's Degree), you are not putting your best foot forward. It is difficult for someone to determine where your experience is and what type of IT job you are looking for.

Suggestion: Revise your resume and have 3-4 people in the industry review/critique it honestly. Keep refining until you have something that is generating more interest.

Put yourself in a hiring person's shoes. You need to fill a position and are looking through a few dozen applications / resumes. You have 5-20 seconds to attract their interest. What changes do you need to make to engage that person and make them want to reach out for further discussion? Good luck - these changes are not hard and you can do it!


Totally agree. I just posted above my first impression was exactly 1998 Geocities.

That is probably priming the hiring manager to look for things on the CV they feel would also be outdated and then they are on to the next person.

I would honestly say no website would be better than this current version.


Tips, thoughts [as a hiring manager]:

1. Build a professional CV. The current one (CV_Late2022.pdf), with a black background, bright colored links, no useful information, it's off-putting and looks amateurish. I found your "real" one (CV_Mid2022_Frozen.pdf), not sure why it's an additional click away. Take the "frozen" one, and turn it into a good-looking professional one. Just put something like "2022-present Career break" at the end.

2. You probably should do lots of practice interviews [in english]. Get feedback on how you're doing. If you want to get a job, this is probably the highest leverage activity (other than fixing the CV), _not_ messing around with functional programming and Blender.

3. Pick some open source projects and try to contribute. If/once you're successful, put it on your CV.

Less important:

4. Make a showcase site that looks good. The website as-is looks like something on Geocities from the 90s, amateurish like the CV. Only show things that tell a good story. Also know that the showcase site is not that important, eg. recruiters don't look at it, hiring managers _maybe_ will see it.

5. You always mention the ACM membership, but it doesn't mean anything. It's just a membership, not a qualification/accomplishment.

6. Consider not having a big picture of yourself everywhere. Are you trying to get hired based on your looks, or your competence?

-

Note on asthetics, since some people mention it in comments:

A. I personally strongly believe that asthetics matter, because asthetics are a big part of Engineering in general, Software Engineering in particular.

B. If the person can't follow some sort of reasonable cultural style guide in your 1-page CV, will they follow coding style guides at work?

C. Eg. if somebody doesn't bother to align paragraphs, leaves commas hanging, uses inconsistent spacing, has typos, etc, ON THEIR 1-PAGE CV, THE MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENT FOR GETTING A JOB, then.. Will they indent their code? Will they follow style guidelines? Will they use good names without typos for variables and functions and classes? Will they write good comments and commit messages?

D. Having reviewed 1000s of CVs and done 100s of interviews, the above correlations exist. And picking CVs and interviews are about looking for signals.

-

Obviously I'm just one hiring manager in about a pool of a million (or more), my opinion is not universal, no reason to get too worked up about it!


Maybe have a separate website devoted to your professional career is what I would suggest.

Because honestly, I like your minimalistic looking website, and I even like the fact that you put a picture of yourself on it, there's an element of authenticity to it that is genuinely touching in an era where everyone is sporting the exact same SPA react site.


My first impression is that it looks like my Geocities website from 1998 with an even worse color scheme.

That is going to frame everything about the person as "outdated" and little surprise no one is hiring them.


Is there actually any measurable relation between the colors on a CV and work performance? If hiring managers drop candidates just based on this, then I assume there must be a really strong relation, but I've never ever seen one, or even seen anyone else talk about it.


I wouldn't be surprised. Deviation from established norms indicates that the person is either oblivious to the norms, or intentionally breaking them. Both are risky.


Nonconformity can be off putting, especially to neurotypical individuals


Then again, the best ideas come from constructive disagreements, not blind conformity.


unprincipled nonconformity is very jarring - at least for this one neurodivergent fellow :)


Hiring managers don't spend 30mins on each CV trying to find reasons to hire someone. They've got a pile of hundreds of candidates that they need to sort through quickly, so anything but a clearly positive impression gets immediately rejected.


But that implies there are a lot of good programmers among the rejected CVs.

I mean here in this example from OP - if he improves his CV visuals and then finds a job - that means he had the technical qualities to get the job in the first place, only the CV impression was causing the rejections. Which means the hiring managers are following a flawed metric, relying on shallow and easily manipulated visual factor. Every time I try to dig into this, the answer is along the lines "You need to impress the hiring manager in 10 seconds" which is a very different game than the technical skill and I don't see how would that impression translate into long term work performance. It's just gatekeeping. Nobody is quoting any statistical research, not even the hiring managers themselves, so I suspect there isn't much to back this practice. I hope someone can prove me wrong.


"You need to impress the hiring manager in 10 seconds" - I think this is a flawed view. The word "impress" does not apply here. The CV just needs to be good enough not to be thrown out. You don't get hired based on the CV. The CV is just looked at to select the people who start the interview process, to hire 1 good person in the end. Once you're in the loop, the CV is mostly irrelevant, you'll just do the loop, and get hired (or not) based on your performance in the loop.

It's like democracy. It's not a perfect system, but it's the best we've come up with so far [that scales beyond small teams].


> Make a showcase site that looks good. The website as-is looks like a website from the 90s

I liked it! But then again, I used the internet in the 90s so it’s nostalgia. You’re probably right


you make a lot of good points. Btu, delivering your message with compassion and empathy makes it even better. Please understand that people are from different backgrounds and cultures. They may not have the same clarity and logical thinking abilities as you. So please practice some compassion. Especially as a hiring manager.


This is actually the second version of the comment. The first version I didn't post because I thought it's too harsh. This is good enough, has a good element of tough love, but people sometimes need that.

"They may not have the same clarity and logical thinking abilities as you." - then I don't want to hire them :)


The OP was looking to find a job, someone is trying to help. You are not, ergo please refrain from commenting further.


[flagged]


I know because you created an account to come and patronize people who are trying to help


Sorry to hear about that. It's painful continuing to get rejected after investing time and effort into a companies recruitment process.

I've typically had pretty good success landing jobs and a lot of the time, it doesn't come down to the technical skills, but what I like to call 'the vibe check'.

Obviously, having the right experience is important, but I typically focus on a few things that might be missed:

- Analysing the business and understanding their brand and culture so you can speak their language during the interview - Showing interest in their broader business goals - When explaining technical challenges you've faced, describing how you took those learnings away and applied them to a problem you faced in the future

Not hard tips, but after doing this I definitely got more job offers.

(p.s. If the resume is lacking, just pay a professional to make one for you).


If Spring is popular, and you want a Java job, you should learn Spring. Not knowing Spring puts you at a disadvantage compared to other candidates. I wouldn't waste time learning Scala or Haskell, those aren't very popular in the industry — focus on something that can land you a job, check what languages and frameworks are the most popular in Mexican companies and learn those.


No! Learn what interest you - what you think is the best and most interesting technology. Then look for jobs that use those technologies! Or do it backwards - look for jobs that use the techology you want to learn, then apply for a junior position. Unfortulately our industry gravitate to whatever technology is the most popular at the moment.


> Then look for jobs that use those technologies!

There are very few jobs for niche technologies, you might end up not finding any you like or where you would be accepted. If you want a job, you must sometimes pick something that is less interesting, but actually used in the industry.

> look for jobs that use the techology you want to learn, then apply for a junior position

You would lose to a candidate who knows anything about the technology. There are tons of applicants for junior positions, and someone who doesn’t know a thing is at a disadvantage.


Most of the time, job postings don't care about the knowledge of tech X, but rather the past several years of professional experience using tech X.


For entry-level jobs, some knowledge is better than zero knowledge.


I wish you luck. Hopefully constructive critisism follows.

> Sometimes I pass the interviews but companies goes with other candidates. I have failed some interviews too (Unable to solve the problem on the given amount of minutes by the interviewer).

Reminder: during interview, you are checked not only for technical excellence. How you communicate and deal with difficult questions matters a lot. (Maybe even more)

Also as others have mentioned, if it’s spring position, knowing spring is mandatory. (2 years seems like a plenty of times to make something with spring)

Last but not least, your linked web page has link to CV, after opening it it became clear to me that you are looking for junior position, only couple of entries about training. (Then eventually I noticed the link to PDF; please understand how this confusion on my side is not beneficial to you; also nitpick regarding PDF, it lists “completed trainig required by the company”. It does not seem relevant to next employer unless its clear what the training was about)


Your point about communication and dealing with difficult questions is absolutely true. One of my best jobs came from a trial in which I failed.

They sent an offer the next day essentially explaining that this stuff matters as much as technical competence. My technical solution was wrong, but pretty close to the mark so not all that concerning.


I also cannot offer you a concrete job or anything, but maybe some advice as someone who is quite often looking at CVs as a "subject matter expert".

There are a couple of things I noticed when looking at your website and CV. You seem to have many interests and ideas. Maybe too many. This might be ok on a personal level, however on a professional level this is only good if you can actually follow through on those interests. Otherwise it might give the impression of a lack of focus more than anything else.

For example, you mention Swift as area of expertise and an iOS Developer nanodegree. Yet I don't see a single iOS app you made. You mention Cloud Developer using Azure, yet I don't see any demo or portfolio projects.

On the CV of 2022, you mention AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner (Coming soon). But I don't see this certification.

Now, don't get me wrong - I don't think you need to have all of this. But then there is no use in mentioning it. Show what you actually have.

In your blog, you mention something like this: "Explain the protected access modifier in Java, probably using Blender"

This could actually be very interesting and something unique! But don't talk about it beforehand - do it, then show it!

Don't put your TODO list on the Internet. Put your DONE list on the Internet.

Hope this has some value :)


I looked around and ended up on your resume, the older one with work experience listed. It seems like you ought to be able to find something based on that history alone, even without digging into the newer stuff.

I don't think your current website and current resume show off your employment history at all, and if you're applying to places with the new ultra minimalist resume I could see that being an issue. It might also be worthwhile to update your links and listed emails on your resume, website, and github so that they all point to your current website and contact info.

My friends and I have been part of the layoffs - SWE and SRE work. Everyone is job hunting and hiring seems to be way down. I know my most recent company had a hiring freeze for the last year and a half across most business units, but they still had job postings the entire time. That might be very common. And it seems like most places want the exact right applicant for their tech stack. Unfortunately this is the nature of remote work - there probably is someone with exactly the right expertise applying.

It's rough out there, but keep at it. Good luck!


Github is empty, only forked projects and courses.

This is like? Want me to build your house: I've taken a masonry course online.

Show me at least 4 walls that you've built and if your specialty is walls and these are your demo walls they better be state of the art, all best practices, explain why you used which technique for which wall.


I have a team at my company that is all Elixir. I'll ask around and see if they're hiring. We're all remote and we got some folks in Mexico already. I'll ping you on here if we have openings.


Hi there, I'm an aspiring Elixir developer, and I'm also located in Mexico City. If there are openings at your company, could you let me know too?


Instead of a full employment position, have you thought about freelancing for private clients, or building something and selling it?

We have such a reliance on hoping someone will give us a consistent, hourly rate rather than going it alone and doing something yourself. It's not easy - but you stop relying on others.


What's the effective way of freelancing - sites, tips to know etc


I suggest you ignore tech companies. There are many non-tech companies in need of IT people (programmers, admin, dba, etc). A lot of them dont know how to do tech interviews or even know what to advertise to look for IT people they need. Go for this kind of companies. You get a chance to be their CTO and determine their IT operations. You likely need to work more IT fields and longer hours. But in return less bureucracy. The down is mostly they pay about half lesser than what you would get but living in area with lower cost of living.


Hi Caleb, sorry to read. Noticed that your one page CV might be the problem, the 10+ year two pager is much better.

You seem like an humble person, in todays age the job market is very aggressive, there are many self titled senior devs with 3 years of experience and a lot of people who aren’t honest about their experience. My suggestion is to work on your CV to represent you better!

Nothing wrong doing other things, it’s actually important! I used to work in Blender since early 2000’s, I had the original book and always been a fan of Ton Roosendaal. I’ve been developing since Pascal and Action Script, or LAMP days, and still pushing work with any technology I find revelant. And that doesn’t stop me from time to time, to do creative work. I’ve done 9 music videos, for a punk rock project (Portuguese) in the last year. Including 8 pixel art, stop motion and 2d/traditional animation. I push a lot of work daily as a developer, including helping colleagues, mentoring people etc—literally product engineering/full stack, write the spec, prototype, devops, backend, front end, design, if necessary motion graphics, etc and always document everything.

It’s all a matter of empathy, so make sure you work on that CV and Portfolio. Make sure it represents you better!

I haven’t updated my site for a very long time now but hope it inspires you https://punkbit.com

Good luck!


> Also, I have been noticing that Spring have become synonym of Java (Most of the time when I apply for a Java Developer job they ask about Spring), I can grasp it on the job.

Saying you can learn it on the job is a meaningless statement if you have nothing to back it up with. They will not just take you on your word. You need to get ahead of their expectations and learn Spring.

> I need to refresh some Algorithms knowledge, I have devoted sometime learning Scala for example, and a little bit of Haskell.

Brushing up on algorithms can't hurt, but those languages have nothing to do with that. They will not help you with your goal of landing a job at all.

> I firmly believe I can help with something in a Software oriented company, even data wrangling or any other task nobody else likes to do.

Don't ever bring that line of thinking to any sort of an interview. Preferably don't even think in that way at all. Coming off as a beggar is the worst thing you can do.

> https://calebjosue.gigalixirapp.com/

First impression: the design is straight from the early 2000's. The first impression is all it takes, so you're getting disqualified immediately by anyone who opens your website.

Make a proper modern project that showcases your skills. An e-commerce website is generally a good choice, a copy of Amazon basically. User authentication, payments, nice repo on github with CI, all the best pracices, etc. Spend ~3 months on it and link to it directly from your CV.


Saw somebody in a coffee shop today with their resume taped to the outside lid of their laptop.


Hang in there tech is just caught up in something way bigger. I'm also in the same position but trying to get a non tech job and code for fun


That sounds awesome. I miss coding for fun. Doing it for work zapped all the fun out of it for me. Computers too, my only computer in the house is my work computer(well, and the kid's Chromebook).

In a perfect world, other jobs would pay as much or enough, and I could be a park ranger or something by day and code by night. Unfortunately though, not the way the world works.

Anyways, sorry for dreaming on your comment, and best of luck in your search.


This is the dream, isn't it? I think about starting a nursery or a tree farm and only coding for fun, creative expression, etc. every single day.


I've never had problem during job search, maybe I just lucky but anyway let me share some insights based on the post:

* outside of technical tests, the chance for you to be hired is 100% lies on presentation and communication (soft) skills. Confidence is a must, don't show any sign of desperation

* don't mention any past companies or blame them explicitly, for anything hiring or work-experience related. Keep it vague, maybe just say that you're unlucky or the market just isn't aligned

* talk about your skills, achievements or portfolio more, less about your opinion. Don't talk about weakness at all, and when asked prepare an answer that is positive, like "sometimes I aim for higher quality that development took a little longer"

* don't mention lower rate / cheap, that'll be perceived as lower quality. Do a market research and specify a rate if asked. Or just mention that your rate is "competitive" rather than "lower"

Sure the post is different than interview, so those points above are more like general guidance.


> I can grasp it on the job

Not if you ever get said job.

If that's what's in-demand, then spend time learning it with the time you have.


Yep. The industry is not the same everywhere. The high paying jobs on the US coasts hire for intelligence and general programming skills. Everywhere else, you're expected to have specific experience in their language and framework. Every job I've had, I've overheard applicants being dismissed out of hand because they didn't use the exact language we were using. It's ridiculous, but it's reality.

If you can learn it quickly on the job, you can learn it before you apply for the job.


You should even pay money to learn it if learning alone isn't your thing.

Pay for a course or even an actual teacher/tutor.


Just a few pointers:

- Where is your resume? If it is on your webpage I sure couldn't find it. Make it more prominent.

- If you want to work in software development, you need to have demonstrable skill at doing so (at least to the junior level). Code more and show off what you have done.

- Try to reign in the overly verbose way you communicate in (i.e long rambling posts with too much unrelevant information). This may come off as harsh, but it can pay off knowing when and how to communicate to different groups of people. (Suggest checking out 'bottom-line, up-front' or 'BLUF')

I agree with many of the other points already made by others so won't duplicate them.

Good luck!


Unemployment sucks. I know what you are going through. Unemployment leads to depression. You can beat it though. Keep doing the projects that give you rewards. Don't take any notice of persons that say you don't have the vibe . You can't possibly be expected to have goood energy all the time when you feel so rejected. You find your niche and concentrate on that. You will get good feedback in the long run when consistently produce amazing work! You can do it!


as someone who is also struggling to find work i feel quite fortunate that i am not facing depression yet. in part this is thanks to family and friends that i was able to find after moving to a new place with friendlier people. in part because i am a citizen of a country with a strong safety net so that i know i won't have to face homelessness even if i won't ever again find new work.

what frustrates me is that i don't feel i can combine working and job/project searching. it's either one or the other. when i am working on a project (either paid or a side project for myself) then i can't focus on searching work, and when i am out of work i feel that i can't afford work on a side project because i need to focus on searching work.

i mean i suppose i could rotate. but while i don't have work i always feel like i am not doing enough to find more work, and i can't code while i have that on my mind. even now while i have a paid project, while i know i should be looking for followup projects once this one is done, i can't do that because thinking about that interferes with my ability to code. coding takes 100% focus (and i do enjoy that) so while i am working nothing else gets done.


I don't know you, but given your words I can't really tell if your problem is your programming skills or algorithms. If I was hiring I'd look for these things

1. The person needs to be reliable, I need to be able to depend on them, they need to be able (within reason) to think for themselves and solve problems in a good, none-convoluted, well documented and future-proof way.

2. The person needs to be able to learn for themselves and master a topic. That doesn't mean this is a school test, sometimes the solution is: "Boss we would be stupid if we built this ourselves, there is this great open source project I found"

3. The person needs to be able to communicate clearly and honestly.

Notice how most of these aren't related to the programming at all? They are more about how you conduct yourself and what people can see in you.

My advice to you would be to work on one or two "bigger" projects to which you can point when you are sitting across in the interview. If you are clever and pursuing different topics is your driver, choose something where you can apply all of those skills. Maybe you find something that would involve Blender and Spring? Blender has a python API so you can remote control many things. The most important part is however that you get those projects to a good state.

The reason such projects are a good thing is because it would show me that you are able to organize yourself, you can get things done, you manage to combine your skills etc. and above all: Solving problems motivates you.

And even if you had those projects and you sit across and talk to me like all of that bores you I am not sure I'd give you a chance.


Hi, My team is hiring at amazon. i can refer you. If you can provide me your point of contact, i can message you directly.


Are you looking for a headcount to be Amazon-ed at the end of the performance review cycle?


Do you have anything valuable to add?


You are missing knowledge (Spring, in your example). But you are saying that "I can grasp in on the job" ?

Given a two years gap, you should invest the time and effort in learning whatever it is the market is seeing demand in.

Consider the employer's perspective. Given two equivalent candidates, where one of them know Spring, but the other needs a month or so to learn it. They'll go with the one that already knows that.

That attitude of I can learn on the job is likely hurting your prospects.

The CV in the website is also really bare bones. Basically, nothing relevant there. The old one appears to at least show the employment history.

The website link from GitHub is erroring. The website you linked looks bad, Geocities bad.

The GitHub profile itself is really bare bones. The first non-forked repository I saw was literally hello world (hidden by many layers).


Spring/JPA and other related APIs has lots of stuff to learn. It is like the modern Java EE. It will require at-least 50–60 hours to learn basic stuff and their history. Learning history like how XML configuration works might be required because some codebases might be still using it.

Otherwise, just learning spring boot, assuming some things happen "by magic" will take fewer hours.


i work at amazon and can refer you. Amazon has open roles in Mexico.


If you truly have the skills and are just looking for an opportunity to prove yourself, you should try solving some bounties on algora.io. There's multiple benefits to this, as you can earn some money, build skills, and be recognized for a job well done.


Serious question - does this work? I'd never heard of it before and checked it out, and it seems a confusing mess.

If I understand it, someone opens an issue then assigns a bounty. But clicking through a few, it seems to be a free for all. People asking to be assigned, other people making PRs, yet other people asking for clarification, yet other people asking if it's still open.

It's a cool idea, but I can't think of a worse implementation.


I've issued a few bounties on my repo [0], and it's worked fairly well from my perspective. I'm both the bounty assigner and the maintainer in this case.

Keep in mind that open source is always a bit messy, and a lot of people on all projects (even without bounties) never actually follow through with contributions that they plan to do for a whole host of reasons. The way I've approached it is once someone either has a track record of contributing or makes substantial (visible) process on a PR I assign the bounty to them.

[0] https://github.com/getgrit/gritql/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Ais...


Not sure if this is helpful but definitely have a look at your English writing and maybe look at doing some courses or just plain talking to fluent and "snobbish" English speakers. I can't put a finger on it but there is something off about the way you write English atm.

Also, wtf does Steve Jobs have to do with this? It's non-sensical and out of place. I hope you don't go off on such tangents in your interviews.


I `Tell HN` you rock!!!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40260862


Maybe you expressed some incorrect political views online. I suggest you use a fake name/identity when applying for jobs. Also, be sure to say that you're fully vaccinated if they ask. Never reveal your vax status or say that you're fully boosted. In my last job, I got baited by the CTO into revealing my vax status (after he said that he didn't want the vaccine himself but his wife made him do it)... Could tell it made him very uncomfortable that I wasn't vaxxed. I was fired a few weeks later for a phony reason in spite of exceeding expectations.

I haven't been able to find a job in over a year in spite of a stellar resume. Also I write a fair bit online anonymously.

Most of these tech people are control freaks so they probably snoop in on their employees with all kinds of special tools using text analysis.


> Maybe you expressed some incorrect political views online. I suggest you use a fake name/identity when applying for jobs.

I assume you meant "use a fake identity to express political views online", not "use a fake identity when applying for jobs"?


I meant both.


I guess it depends on location and culture, but using a fake identity to apply for a job where I live would immediately remove you from the application process once we find out (and we would find out during background checks).


You can give them your nickname instead of your first name and change a few letters in your last name (or drop part of it). Use a new email address, not your main one. For references, provide phone numbers of ex-colleagues you got along with (they'll refer to you by your nickname so it all ties nicely, no need to coordinate, makes it genuine). For university, they don't always check. If they do, you can say you changed your name as part of your gender transition, immigration, marriage, found out that you were adopted, etc... That should put the issue to rest. If they insist, you can provide your real name and hope (if it's a big bureaucratic corporation) that they already did your social media screening using your fake name before your background check came back empty and so they won't do the social media screening again with your real name...

When HR people are handling multiple candidates at once, they can forget to re-run certain checks in light of new information so that's a good opportunity.

I'm still trying to perfect my strategy. Hopefully I'll have a job by year's end. It worked well for my last job (lasted 8 months) until I admitted my unvaxxed status and they came across my Twitter somehow.

After they gave me full control over their infrastructure and database, I thought I'd made it and got sloppy. You can't ever let your guard down.

The problem when you tell half-truths is that, eventually, you start speaking in 60% truths, then 70% truths, then they'll realize that you're one of the good guys and you're out.

It's probably better to start with half-truths and work your way backwards as they get deeper into the fiction you created, it gets easier to fool them as they get more invested in your deception.


Two take home projects, in two years? Hmmmmmm.


As someone who recently for a software developer, I've been reading websites and resumes, and let me offer my two cents, for what it's worth.

I also want to mention that aside from hiring for my team, I've also previously worked with paid interns from Google Summer of Code, both in the mentorship and the selection process.

I'm not someone in a large company, so that made the process of hiring somewhat more open, but if someone send me your website or sent me your CV, I must admit that I don't think I would take it very seriously.

There are generally three things that I look for in a candidate:

1. Is this candidate already familiar with what I need them to do, or would this be a stretch of their skills?

Having the exact experience I need, with the exact tools, etc. is nice but not always necessary or the deciding factor.

2. Does this candidate have credentials that demonstrate their ability to do the job. This might be experience, a degree, of contributing to a FLOSS project in a notable way.

3. Do I think this person will be someone I want to work with?

This is very "fluffy" but demonstrations of both professionalism, and also good communication are key here, as well as harder to measure things like attitude.

Your resume links to a much better resume. The first resume on your website lacks anything "interesting" and if someone sent it, I'd simply pass.

The frozen resume is better, but still quite challenged. Drop the huge logos; they don't impress and they feel "scammy" to me.

I also think that there's some challenges with your English. For example "Backed by 10+ years of experience in the Software Industry." is off. It's not quite gramatically correct, or to be more precise, this gives off scammy vibes. :(

It's not a problem in isolation to have people whose native language isn't English, if you're aiming at an English speaking audience, your resume should be better- spelling, grammar and "culture"-wise.

Then in some of these jobs, describe what you did in a way that's more compelling. For example "Software Development internal to this State institution."

That tells me nothing about the work. Even if it's something boring, you could say "Developed a web based application to manage employee payroll."

My experience has been that when presented with a lack of detail, it equates to a lack of knowledge or participation, which is why I pass over such resumes.

I agree with other posters and suggest you get some coaching in this, both in the resume and perhaps in the interview process.


good luck man <3


it’s sad that your website is faster than the personal sites of most people i know who’ve gotten jobs as web developers

reflect on what you want, it’s definitely not a programming skill issue


minor nits:

1/ For coding interviews, you should be solving 4-6 leetcode problems per day which should take about 5-6 hours). The remaining 3 hours of bandwidth should be spent learning system design.

2/ If the jobs are you applying for learn Spring, go build a few apps on your own in Spring. Your github profile doesn't have much coding activity.

3/ your profile photos in github and your website aren't centered.

4/ I would remove the donate button on your website. it doesn't signal that you're a successful programmer. If you truly need to have a donation button, write more explaining why people should donate to you.


"leetcoding" 6 hours and doing "systems design" for 3 hours, totalling 9 hours of heavy cognitive math like work each day while job hunting?

Whev, i'd have an absolute mental breakdown over that. But maybe it's the kids and other responsibilities, how old are you?

I don't even think i grinded that hard in university, i've always only been able to do that kind of work 3-5 hours even when maxing out for an exam, and only for a few days at a time.


I found that the maximum number of hours I could do something productive was 6 hours while being in college. After this I was able to keep going but with diminishing returns. Nowadays it’s hard for me to find even a 6 hour block (while employed).

The best advice I heard is to treat interviewing like a full time job with lunch break and a defined end.


1 is terrible advice.

9 hours of heavy thought work? Yeah right.

Good way to mentally exhaust yourself and burn out


I’m just sharing what my friend did to get into FANGA. In China, they work 12 hours per day.




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