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Comment by algaeontoast | Hacker News Reader

Not really, I’ve been looking for work for about three months after my team at a FANG was let go due to a legal fuck up by my boss.

I’ve been leetcoding but have only passed 3/7 tech screens only to be ghosted for the on-site after a pass or passed up after the on-site.

Starting to question if I was ever creative or really good at this profession - but don’t think I’m skilled enough or have the energy to do my own startup.

I have 2yrs experience, but scared my prior work history will make it look like I jump jobs or can’t hold a job down.

Fortunately, my health and mental health are in check and I have a place to live in the US that’s relatively cheap.

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If it makes you feel better, for my first four years, I hopped around jobs about once every six months...Quit the first job, fired from the second, company went broke for the third and fourth, quit the fifth job, and fired from the sixth, company went broke for the seventh, did a bit of contracting work, then started staying at jobs for a bit longer term.

In my particular case, it was later determined that I am manic-depressive which I think contributed to my firings, but I haven't ever told an employer about this and don't plan to. Typically I find that a lot of people are pretty forgiving of younger people hopping around a lot early in their career.

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My point is, try to not get too upset over it; I'm sure you'll find something soon, and I wouldn't worry too much about a slightly spotty work history in your first couple years.

Thanks for your kind encouragement :)

I've seen fairly few companies in the Bay Area (sorry if that's not you, assuming from FANG) that actually care that I've only stuck around most places for a year.

I've only been in this field for 5 years myself, but I've climbed this job-hunt mountain before if you want a good pep talk. I've taught people how to get their first job, which is a lot harder imo.

Totally up to you, wish you the best either way

I'm not the OP, but I feel I'm in a place where this would be helpful to me, if you are open to that.

You'll land back into something. I know being out of work is stressful and very hard on people, but there are a lot of open positions, more if you are flexible where you work.

What type of employers are you targeting? How many resumes have you sent out? Are you trying to target a single geographical area? Open to moving? All those can drastically effect your prospects. Have you tried more traditional enterprise or non-tech companies?

If you want some resume feedback, shoot it to me, my email is in my profile.

I’d really appreciate that :)

How about some freelancing? PM me: gardner _|at|_ hiredinsight _|.|_ co

I'm not the OP, but I sent you an email anyway, if that's okay.

Which prior company?

I could swing a referral for you if it wasn't Amazon.

I'm not saying at all that OP doesn't deserve it, but is it common practice to refer someone that you don't know?

We have a concept of networking referrals and personal referrals. Networking doesn’t require strong prior knowledge.

May or may not have been a startup acquired by AMZN, and my team was all let go via PIP before we could transfer internally. Not sure if this is common practice or just bad faith to do damage control around our boss' mistake?

Thanks for the offer though, means a lot.

Can you try teaching at your local university meanwhile?

I have zero interest in teaching or entering academia. I can get interviews, just struggling to find a way that I can improve fast enough / perform at a necessary level to pass interviews it seems. Idk, maybe I’m just not trying hard enough.

I doubt you're not trying hard enough. Are you interviewing for large or small firms (or combination)?

> ghosted for the on-site after a pass

Not sure if I'm misreading, but are you saying interview was cut short / you had an interview lined up that just got pulled at the last minute? If that's the case -- don't worry about it. This is like organizational maturity level of 0, I had this happen exactly once in my early career and it screwed me up for a little bit. So if that's what happened and I didn't just misread -- don't spend any time taking it to heart.

Check hackerrank.com - practicing there should help.

I have a bit of dumb question on this...is it easy to just get a job teaching at a university? I thought those jobs typically require a bunch of degrees and were pretty competitive?

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EDIT: The reason I ask, this is something I wouldn't mind doing but I've never really considered due to a lack of credentials.

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