Show HN: Senior meets junior – Connecting engineers over side projects | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Senior meets junior – Connecting engineers over side projects

smj.dev

11 pointsrememberlenny14 comments

I've noticed that people with really interesting side projects don't always have the bandwidth to execute at the pace they want.

At the same time, I find a lot of junior developers looking for opportunities to expand their craft. It's easiest to learn when you have something real to work on. But without opportunities that provide real world project experience, it's hard to get real world experience.

I thought it would be nice for junior developers to get opportunities to put their name on a project, while also seeing how something gets launched with real users works.

Really like this. I have a dozen ideas, and a lot of experience in back end / infrastructure, but no front end experience. I debated hiring college kids, but I don't have the money to pay a decent wage...

I didnt go through the whole thing, but is there questions for ownership considerations? Or questions to limit the country (for legal considerations).

This might only be a concern if there is "potential for money" -- but what projects dont have that, at least in ad revenue?

Just concerned about being paired with someone outside the US, and needing to find a lawyer to draft a contract correctly for 2 different countries

Im not sure this is the exact solution in your case. It sounds more like you are looking for labor, rather than a contributor.

I don't have answers around ownership/legal. In short, the idea should be that the project's owner is also the sole legal owner. If you write code for someone else's project, you don't sudden get a stake in the project.

Definitely something to work through.

I'm looking for a contributor, but I also know people are flakey... Especially the group I hoped to work with (college students).

I intend to do my share, how do I ensure a contributor does theirs and not make my life hell if we decide to put ads on the page after they disappeared several months prior?

Here is the summary results of the first 100 signups.

https://twitter.com/rememberlenny/status/1203752652905037827

Scrolling down pushes to the next view and then the back arrow leaves the application. This is very frustrating especially since this last question is free type in very large text.

This looks like a great idea though and I think it has amazing potential.

This appears to just be a form hosted by a third party survey tool. The OP isn’t responsible for the tech.

Noted! I‘ll see what I can do with changing the question size/text.

You should collection city as well. It makes a lot of sense to connect people who are in the same physical location, as meeting up can setup a bond for mentorship, that remote cannot as easily.

Yes! This is a great point. Right now, I'm talking with each person before moving forward with them, so I gather it later. I'm actually leaning toward connecting people who living in drastically different economic climates. Ie. global south-north.

Really cool idea. Does it matter whether the project is intended to ever make money?

Not at all. I think sharing code/collaborating on projects will have its issues that I haven't figured out yet. Of course people dont want their IP stollen, but also you might be able to make some kind legal bond. I definitely don't think this is open source only.

I had a talk with the first user and he seemed to understand this as a bridge to start working on Node.js. What he wanted was any concrete opportunity to work on anything, and didnt care about being paid. He signed up as a junior dev, but really is a senior contract engineer.

Yeah, I think my biggest concern (as a senior) would be negotiating ownership stakes in the case of an actual product launch. It could end up being tough to make sure the junior is satisfied with their stake but also realistic about it.

Not sure if you signed up yet, but would you be open to chatting about this?

This is exactly what I’m trying to hash out: https://calendly.com/rememberlenny/20min-smjdev

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