New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: Self-taught roadmap to multiple big tech offers in a few years?
Ask HN: Self-taught roadmap to multiple big tech offers in a few years?
2 by djellybeans | 0 comments on Hacker News.
This question might've been asked a few times here, but I've added my personal spin to help be more specific. This is not a "I want to become a career developer after many years in an unrelated career" situation. This is "I tried building my dev career for 10 years and want to (almost completely) start over". I have held multiple jobs as a contract web developer, doing sporadic PHP and Ruby work. While I'm not exactly a stranger to cubicles and meeting rooms, my position as a temp worker really doesn't allow me to grow or make very meaningful contributions to a company. In addition, I don't get compensated well (US citizen for context). Most I've made in a single year is $55k gross. Almost all is 1099 work Back to the problem I want to figure out, I know I have a difficult road ahead, what with 2.5 years unemployment and sporadic contract work. Over a thousand job applications and zero offers. I have no interest in trying to run a business. My priority is financial stability (never had 401k or company health insurance) and having a more "mainstream" software engineer career. (I'll also need to rebuild my network almost from scratch as my former colleagues do not reply to my inquiries about jobs anymore. It's kind of difficult with lockdowns still putting IRL meetups on hold, but I'm part of a few tech professional chat groups.) The usual route for a CS student is to maintain good grades, participate in research, academic publishing and extracurriculars to help them get good internships, and one of them may convert to a FT job, all in a few years. I am trying to construct a similar "self-taught" version plan of that. Take those gradual steps over a span of 2-3 years. Complete some similar bodies of work that gets the large companies want to interview me, and hopefully get a couple offers lined up. I'm not asking for shortcuts. I just want to expand my options beyond just doing interview prep and digging into my network, which after 2 years without a single "yes", feels like I'm beating a dead horse.
2 by djellybeans | 0 comments on Hacker News.
This question might've been asked a few times here, but I've added my personal spin to help be more specific. This is not a "I want to become a career developer after many years in an unrelated career" situation. This is "I tried building my dev career for 10 years and want to (almost completely) start over". I have held multiple jobs as a contract web developer, doing sporadic PHP and Ruby work. While I'm not exactly a stranger to cubicles and meeting rooms, my position as a temp worker really doesn't allow me to grow or make very meaningful contributions to a company. In addition, I don't get compensated well (US citizen for context). Most I've made in a single year is $55k gross. Almost all is 1099 work Back to the problem I want to figure out, I know I have a difficult road ahead, what with 2.5 years unemployment and sporadic contract work. Over a thousand job applications and zero offers. I have no interest in trying to run a business. My priority is financial stability (never had 401k or company health insurance) and having a more "mainstream" software engineer career. (I'll also need to rebuild my network almost from scratch as my former colleagues do not reply to my inquiries about jobs anymore. It's kind of difficult with lockdowns still putting IRL meetups on hold, but I'm part of a few tech professional chat groups.) The usual route for a CS student is to maintain good grades, participate in research, academic publishing and extracurriculars to help them get good internships, and one of them may convert to a FT job, all in a few years. I am trying to construct a similar "self-taught" version plan of that. Take those gradual steps over a span of 2-3 years. Complete some similar bodies of work that gets the large companies want to interview me, and hopefully get a couple offers lined up. I'm not asking for shortcuts. I just want to expand my options beyond just doing interview prep and digging into my network, which after 2 years without a single "yes", feels like I'm beating a dead horse.
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