Ask HN: How to get a startup job if you lack resume? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How to get a startup job if you lack resume?

13 pointselamje5 comments

I am starting to look around at jobs in several US markets. I’m primarily considering python and clojure jobs, even though my professional experience is .NET.

I feel a little trapped by the fact that I don’t have a lot of open source in those languages, nor have professional experience. For context I am 24, EECS major at reputable public university, Python experience from some small projects and a Django app in progress. Clojure experience with small wrappers and simple TODO list apps. 1 year of professional .NET web dev experience at Big 4 accounting firm. I feel like I’m a bit of a generalist as far as tech stack, but I would like to do more back end and work on something intensive.

Do you have advice for people in a similar situation on what your approach would be at maximizing odds of getting a good startup job in SF, Austin, or NYC?

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Your best bets are to network, and to do Open Source contributions.

Start hanging out in the chat channel the devs you aspire to be like hang out in, listen first, see how they respond and how they ask questions. Read through all the channel guides to posting. And then start asking questions. Once you feel comfortable doing so, start answering questions. Always give thought out, in depth answers.

Also, find Open Source projects which interest you and are of a decent size (subjective measure, but you want it large enough so you'll get exposure but not so large there are tons of new people already). Then do some of the work no one wants to do, but that they need done - testing, documentation, wiki gardening. This has two purposes - to teach you about the project in a good way, and to ingratiate yourself to the project committers. You want success, punch your ticket first. Once you've done that a bit, pick an issue that's tagged as a starter or mentored, depending on your project, and discuss how you'd approach it with the committers on Slack or Zulip or their medium of choice. Then execute, and finish it.

Do those two things well and you'll have no problem finding a job, assuming there's no culture fit issues when you do a face to face.

I appreciate the help! I will work on making those things happen!

The obvious advice is to go and talk to other python and Clojure developers in your area (find local meetups). Build something that you can show. Either your own projects or other open source projects.

Some Clojure specific advice.

Other than local meetups we have a vibrant online community. Join and participate in Slack Group @ clojurians.slack.com and in Discourse @ https://clojureverse.org/

If you like contributing to open source I highly recommend Cljdoc (https://github.com/cljdoc/cljdoc). We have a lot of beginners friendly issues. You will get a pretty good idea about the project from the readme and we can get you onboarded quickly if you drop by our slack channel #cljdoc. Here is a curated list of other open source project that you may find interesting. http://open-source.braveclojure.com/.

Godspeed!

What it comes down to is being able to highlight the experience you do have while building new experiences.

So it sounds like you've built a small portfolio and have 1+ year of professional experience. At this point, just apply to startups, you will probably hear back!

The general recommendations to get into a specific aspect of software are, as others have mentioned: open source contributions, personal projects that are relevant to the core business, consulting or contracting work that is relative, and meetups/conferences.

I mentioned a lot of these things in this article: https://www.algodaily.com/lessons/getting-your-first-softwar...

Here's what always worked for me when I was younger and in your position:

- When i find technology (or company) I love - I go ahead and built something cool using that technology to gain skills.

- Then i pimp my "cool thing" on social media everywhere.

- I add this to my resume as a "work done for XYZ", where XYZ was actually my own consulting Co.

Worked like a charm.

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