Comment by randompass | Hacker News Reader

Comment by randompass | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I'm in my early thirties, and I have been applying to remote jobs since this pandemic started. I still have not landed a single interview.

I was an active "reverse code engineer" around 2005-2011, I worked on reversing popular software protections on both Windows & Symbian, and was involved with a certain famous (at the time) team that released tutorials on those subjects under pseudonyms.

That was back when I was in high school and early years into college.

I live in a third world country, and in my early twenties I dropped out of college to support my family.

I built a business that's unrelated to tech and the pandemic put an end to that, so I started thinking about applying to remote jobs thinking that I can easily land an interview and ace it.

Well, the problem was getting an interview.

I worked extensively with x86 ASM (MASM, FASM), wrote packers/unpackers in C back in the day, wrote extensions for IDA at some point. When I built the family business, I had free time so over the last few years and I've learned and used a few other languages (Golang, Rust).

I've been doing LC and LC-like problems over the years, so I can comfortably solve most DSA problems that I've seen thrown at FAANG candidates, tackled system design questions as well, so I'm familiar with SW architectures of modern software.

However, since I don't have a college degree, nor an active online portfolio (github and the like), I don't meet any requirements for any of these jobs which I can do better than a large portion of the SWEs complaining on Blind about their 6 figure TC and how awful WLB is at Facebook. I could do their jobs at a fraction of the TC.

Unfortunately, I was an idiot and dropped out of college.

I'm not sure how to phrase this in a blameless manner but the problem almost certainly is not the fact that you dropped out of college. In my experience (and the experience of most people I know who've applied for remote roles), implicit location/time zone requirements have been a way bigger disqualifier than education.

I'm also from a third world country (and not one with the best of reputations). I don't have a degree either and have way less work experience (or experience of any kind!) than you do. But I've found and held remote jobs, not with ease, but I did it. I did go through a period where it seemed I could not get a single interview, and what I eventually realised after feeling very sorry for myself was that I needed to both package myself better (my CV, while nicely formatted and free of errors, was pretty bad at conveying my strengths) and target my job search better. There are companies out there that are actually remote-friendly (or even remote-first), are open to hiring people outside North America and Europe, care about experience over tertiary education, and compensate well. Yet I kept applying to roles I knew I didn't have an equal (or any!) shot at largely because the companies were popular.

For me, as a hiring manager, the part that sticks out is "I live in a 3rd world country." That's going to make it hard for the majority of companies to hire you. They don't have a business presence there, they don't know the laws, taxation, etc. You're also not going to have timezone overlap with the rest of the remote team you might work with. Very few companies will even look at your resume because of that.

And lack of higher education and professional experience makes him ineligible for any kind of visa.

Yup, really, that's the only thing that matters.

Not a single interview? That’s got to be a incredible amount bad luck because it’s a pretty hot market right now for SWE.

Like I’m a high school dropout who also doesn’t have an active online portfolio and I currently work as a SWE at a tech company but I’m on a search for a new remote role in the last month or so and have done multiple interviews for remote roles. Even FAANG recruiters have reached out for interviews. A lot of job postings don’t even list a degree as a requirement or nice-to-have.

Are you only missing a degree when you look at job postings? Because while I do think there are companies who filter out candidates who don’t have degrees, I don’t believe that it’s a hard barrier nowadays to not even get a single interview.

If you’re missing all of the requirements how do you know you can do better than most of the folks who have the role? Seems odd to bring down the folks who have the roles you’re trying to get

Would you mind sharing an email/point of contact so I can ask for some tips?

Sorry about your situation. I would suggest doing two things. 1. Build a github profile. Do some interesting side projects that shows you can code. They don't have to super complex, small scripts that are useful or a CRUD web app is fine. 2. Make a linkedin account, add a bunch of recruiters, people from FAANG and start ups, start sharing your side projects on linkedin.

Do cold reach outs to recruiters on LinkedIn. This is all a lot of work obviously, but it will work. Don't worry about college degrees, no one really cares tbh. Good Luck!

Your advice is pretty good but it only really applies to junior level roles.

If you’re applying for mid level up and the only relevant experience you have for the role is a github profile with side projects, thats not going be enough to get an interview. Recruiters who screen candidates won’t even check out github profiles let alone evaluate their content.

Degrees are not really a hard barrier nowadays to get interviews. What’s important is relevant experience. OP doesn’t sound like they have relevant professional experience to the roles they’re applying for. which is probably why they are not getting interviews and is incorrectly blaming their lack of degree as the reason

I have a portfolio site and had several interviews recently. Zero page views

I'm looking for people that match the background you have. Email me.

That sucks, I'm sorry. It sounds like what you really need is a network. You get interviews from ex-colleagues and friends when you don't have a reputation that speaks for itself.

If you are based in India please email me: hn@arunj.net.

We are a small bootstrapped SaaS looking for backend engineers.

My advice for you... lie and say you have one. (Or just get one from a diploma mill)

This is a terrible advice, please don’t do this. If found out you will not only be blacklisted by the company but also by all the companies of recruiters network. Not worth it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com