Ask HN: Need advice.My story:Once an $90k jQuery developer,now a “useless lamer”

First of all, calling someone a useless lamer is about as unprofessional as it gets. Next, don't get into an argument during an interview. State your points and if they don't agree, move on. Take some of what they say with you as food for thought. Take the interview as a learning experience and learn from it.

Next, you probably need to go back to the basics. Pick up an introductory programming textbook, in PDF form if you are cutting your expenses. Learn basic OOP, basic algorithms and data structures, runtime complexity, functional programming, understanding when you would choose what tool. There is nothing worse than a senior programmer who can only think in the paradigm of the programming language they have accidentally built their career upon. If you don't demonstrate a basic understanding of these things, and aren't able to speak to the above within the context of jQuery, then you are at a disadvantage.

Learning another framework is not the solution. It's a bandaid at best. You will just find yourself in the same position again in a few years when your tool of choice falls out of favor. Break the cycle by becoming a software engineer.

In terms of your living situation, congratulations on buying a place. If you run out of time or money then rent out your apartment and move abroad where you can live on a lower cost of living, but I think you can and should make your stand now against becoming a useless lamer.

Well, you've taken the first and hardest step by admitting that the hoodie CTO was 90% right.

The next step is to figure out what is hot and learn it. React is a good candidate. So is native app development, although native app developers are finding that the indie market is basically tapped out and most of the opportunities are in contracting. Rust may bring a resurgence of system programming & low-level development. Hardware is hot but I don't know if it'll last. VR could be big but who knows whether it'll actually take off.

You don't even have to lie about past experience. Just build a portfolio project that shows you're competent in the new tech, put it up on GitHub, and explain that you were a JQuery dev but have recently updated & modernized your skillset. Companies love employees who are willing to stay current on their own time.

Remember that you can't ever settle down in today's economy. Your classmates who are doing so will have their own rude awakenings in a decade or so. That doesn't mean life has to be miserable though; it just means learning and uncertainty needs to be built into your life. You're far from the only one without plans for life; indeed, oftentimes the ones with the firmest plans are the ones most adrift when those plans inevitably don't pan out.

Good luck.

Good advice!

The amount of 'advice' here about "Yeah, learn React." Or "You still have 1000 hours of productivity" are ridiculous and frankly curdling.

You had a bad interview that drove you to be sufficiently uncomfortable to reach out for advice. It happens, it sucks. I'd hate to be anywhere near the person that interviewed you, based on your description. An interviewer is a flagship/ambassador for a company.

Technically, I have no advice. Go your own way. Understanding a need and delivering a solution is far more important than choosing a particular stack to do so with. Because you've delivered a solution. Iterate, absolutely. Don't get all waterfall about what framework is best.

jQuery is far from dead. Indeed, it is 'cutting edge' in consumer finance. Stay with serious people, they're genuine. They may also wear hoodies, or sandals, or whatever they like, but probably don't carry 3 days of stubble because it's fashionable. Because doing a good job, and delivering a good product, is important, regardless of technology. Even PHP still rules the web!

If I were in your position, I would probably do these steps:

1. Make sure I know where do I stand with my personal safety net. Will I have problem with visa? What is my 'runway', i.e: when will I start having problems with paying rent/morgage? You say you have money until the end of the year.

2. Then I would plan for some sort of worst-case scenario, probably something along the lines "If I don't get decent contract in 3 months I am moving somewhere cheaper", and plan accordingly, probably selling the apartment, making sure all my paperwork is in order, e.t.c. Probably would start searching for positions abroad in 2 months time?

3. I would try to polish up my resume. Maybe find a way to pivot from "I an awesome jquery guy" to "My UX design is awesome and I can talk to the 'serious-people'" (Basically the main idea of patio11 http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pro...)

4. I would probably try to get at least some visible experience in something else than jquery. On one hand this would be to prove myself that if if I would want to pivot myself to "I am a UX guy and don't care about underlying technology that much" to try out if that is actually true. Second, to have a $NON_JQUERY project on my resume. I would probably try to call some of my friends (maybe at my local church) if they needed some landing page or something, and hopefully in a month I would have something like a "React landing page for $local-church-url" on my resume. Ok, might not be react, might be angular 2.0, or whatever. (Disclaimer, if somebody asked how did I get Xamarin experience on my resume, I wouldn't be that far from this made-up example :)l

Learn React. You are already highly experienced in web development and there's no need to throw that all away if you can simply replace jQuery with React and bring a few other things up to date (e.g. Node.js, build tools, etc.). React is easy and quick to learn, very powerful, and in demand in the employment market.

How to learn? Take a look at http://survivejs.com/ and then http://teropa.info/blog/2015/09/10/full-stack-redux-tutorial...

Here's my advice as a developer/manager/recruiter:

- get a great book on JavaScript and learn it well, including idioms

- for interviews (and to be a better programmer) take a data structures/algorithms course, there are many free online. I've got a big list of resources here:

http://www.madeupname.com/programming-interview-preparation-...

- React is getting more popular, but I do extensive research on the job market and in California at least, AngularJS has about twice as many jobs as React. I'll add that Node.js is an absolute juggernaut. But if you've only done front end, stick with it for now. Plenty of work for an AngularJS expert.

- if you can't get paying work, contribute to an open source project any way you can. That always impresses hiring managers.

Gonna echo what everyone else has said. My addition as a hiring manager is this: I'm far more interested in what you've learned recently than what you're an expert on. If your expertise directly contributes to my company's projects, that's a huge bonus, but I'd really rather hire a go-getter who is willing to take risks and learn new technology. In that light, my recommendation to you is to learn a new technology (React is a good one). Build an app to learn, then build a second one to apply the lessons you learned from the first one. If you're any good at Javascript, it shouldn't take more than a few weeks to get the basics of React, etc, under control.

My second piece of advice is to never let yourself get in this situation again. Continually research new tech as they come out. You don't have to jump on every new bandwagon, but when something piques your interest, set aside some time to learn it. Once you master React, you might think that learning a server side language would be useful, so you could dig into Go or PHP or Python. But no matter what, don't stop trying new things. Read documentation religiously. Pretty soon it'll be relatively easy to jump from one platform to another, since a lot of the concepts (MVC, OOP, etc) are transferable across languages and frameworks.

Finally, don't argue in interviews. You can have a healthy debate, but if you sense any pushback whatsoever, drop it and move on. If I'm interviewing someone and they argue (read: pushing back with the intent of "I'm right and you're wrong") with me about something, that's a big red flag that we won't get along and I won't hire them. Instead, perhaps another skill to work on would be to determine how to debate calmly and rationally and somehow learn the art of persuasiveness (I've never mastered this, myself). As one of my mentors told me recently, try to divorce yourself from the notion of "i'm right". It might be true, but it's not useful when making friends or impressing people in interviews.

Don't let it get you down. Good luck.

Just a quick note: The CTO you mentioned is an unprofessional amateur. Don't believe anything that comes out of his mouth.

Also: REALLY learn Javascript!

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Ok, so you just bought an apartment so decide if you want to stay where you are. Second decide if you want to keep your apartment, if you own it that could give you a really low 'run rate'.

If you like where you are, own your apartment I don't think moving is the answer. Moving is expensive. I think most developers can work remote.

So you have 6 months of run way right now till the end of the year. Cut back on spending and expenses to stretch that out and preserve as much of your savings as possible.

Network, network, network. Do you have any past clients who have a remote project you could work on? Or even a remote full time position. Even at a reduced rate that would extend your runway. Maybe improving or a re-write of an old project or app over to angular or react?

Should you expand your skills beyond front end? Learn Rails or Laravel with React, Angular or Vue on the front end to become a full stack developer or maybe focus on front end with backend skills.

You always need to be evolving/learning. jQuery is awesome but declining in use. So think about what you want to do next.

As far as your resume polish it up to show more specifics, UI/UX, front end engineer, then just a section on technologies you use rather than a showcase of jQuery this and that.

jQuery will always have a place in projects but It is waning. Also no arguing technology in interviews. If you're joining their team you're drinking their kool-aid and doing what they do as a team player.

I would spend the next six months getting some remote work and learning a new skill. If you could find a previous client/project looking for a re-write that might be a good fit as you can learn and make money (even at a reduced rate would work).

Do not worry about what your classmates are doing. Remember you are a successful developer, $90k/yr, just bought an apartment, moved to a new country. Maybe stay off Fbook the next 6 months till you have things sorted out.

Sounds like you have the skills, focus on getting work and learning expanding your skills.

oh, one more thing you mentioned mac. If you're not a mac user you should consider switching. It seems like a small issue but moving to mac definitely improved my development experience and helped me leveling up my skills. When you're learning Rails, Laravel even React/Angular/Vue most tutorials are OSX. Doing them on windows you always seem to run in to unexpected errors and issues when running through the tutorials. Then you'll spend hours tracking it down on your windows machine. Do the same tutorial on a macbook and you'll sail right through. So I think there is a huge value moving to OSX. A 13" macbook air is enough for a developer. I would consider making that purchase, they definitely pay for themselves in time savings.

And since you'll have a mac consider a hoodie too, it might help you with your networking. = )

Good luck sorting it out.

There is a lot of colorful talk in your post and replies about hipster behavior and hip languages. A successful IT career has nothing to do with where you drink coffee, which brand of personal computer you use, and whether your clothing has facilities for keeping the wind off your face. What really matters is you can deliver value to a business. Yes some companies (or hiring mangers there) don't value that and it is all about ridiculous signalling i.e. what frameworks are cool vs uncool and other such nonsense. In my experience (my Australian-European experience anyway) most companies just want developers who can solve problems reasonably quickly, fit in with a team, and appreciate quality.

Yes some jobs may require specific experience, like they want extensive React experience for example. If this they are this fussy they should pay more. Most companies will happily see evidence that you know JS well. My advice is to disregard anything a person who calls you a 'useless lamer' has to say as this person is probably not an authority and needs to grow up.

Instead keep learning on the intersection of what interests you and what will help you get hired. Go to more interviews and take note of the questions they ask you. As an example I was often asked about SOLID principles in interviews, so I took time to learn it. Actually it was pretty useful and I use SOLID in code review discussions now. (This is just an example and I am no sure it will apply to Javascript)

Learning OO is a good idea. C# and Java are probably to most popular and are quite easy to transition to from JS. In a nutshell fuck this douchbag who called you a lamer. I'd listen to a donkey's opinion before I take this guy seriously. Go to more interviews, find out where your knowledge is missing and fill it in.

Finally don't lie on your CV, you won't need to.

You have until the end of the year? That is over 1000 hours to put into learning a new skill, building 2-3 projects, and apply for jobs as you build up confidence.

Start today.

learn Golang . Its the language of future .Also it doesn't follow obsolete OOP concepts. Its easy to grasp. Once you grab a good grasp of this language you can develop web apps .But the main advantage learning Golang is it can also be used to program highly concurrent systems. This language is not just a "trend" its here for long game. People are already using to develop system programs such as os containers (Docker) , Databases , Network Systems etc. have a look https://tour.golang.org

Obvious troll is obvious.