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Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

This has not been my experience.

I have no real career prospects (it feels like just a job now). I'm burnt out and have basically zero marketable skills. Even out of college, I had to apply to about 250 positions. I have a masters from a better school now and it doesn't feel like it made any difference.

"I recommend broadening experience beyond the pure computer science to domains that leverage computers to build new things: medical devices, signal processing, sensors, computational biotech, satellites, audio; whatever looks fun."

I love learning about this stuff. I really love the synergistic aspect of doing what you describe. But at the end of the day, it means nothing. Who cares if you built simple apps, have a personal website, worked on personal audio processing projects, or built some homebrew IoT type stuff? Certainly hasn't meant shit for my career. They want people who have done this in an enterprise setting.

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> They want people who have done this in an enterprise setting.

This has been a question I've had too. How do you get to show you have experience in enterprise software/tech if you've not been given the chance to work in a setting that uses something like that before?

It's the chicken and egg problem. Companies are often more concerned with the candidate's experience in specific esoteric technologies for their sector, and will not hire anybody who doesn't fit that yet, instead of also hiring people who can definitely learn that tech pretty quickly based on their experience, or having shown they are experienced learners.

> This has been a question I've had too. How do you get to show you have experience in enterprise software/tech if you've not been given the chance to work in a setting that uses something like that before?

Personally, I believe the answer is right place right time, as disappointing as it may sound. A large amount of people I know working these sort of roles are there because Company X in the domain recruited them from University pipelines where they attended and that seems to be almost exclusively where the companies source “entry level” hires for these domains.

I still think it’s possible to get there from somewhere else, it just requires slightly different skill sets and a lot more work.

There are definitely data points different from mine. And apologies if I am offering advice where none is wanted, but I want to clarify what I meant above.

What I meant by "broadening experience" is not a hobby-level stuff you describe (still very useful on a personal development level) but gaining enough depth in another field to be comparable to an undergraduate with that specialization; or at least with a minor in that area. It is a higher bar, but someone with good CS background can master the equivalent of the 3-5 higher undergrad level classes pretty quickly.

I agree that software companies are not really interested in non-software hobby projects. But non-software tech companies often put a very high value on software as a secondary skill in their non-software hires and are willing to lower the bar for their primary tech competency. My 2c.

"not a hobby-level stuff"

Well, that's sort of a catch-22. Either you need a credential (major, minor, certificate), or you need work experience in it. But of course you need that work experience in order to get the job, so it doesn't really make you more employable. Plus, most would tend to lose career velocity as they jump from one domain to the next.

"There are definitely data points different from mine."

That was all I was trying to say. Certainly applies to me as well.

Linus did something that was definitely not hobby-level stuff at an obscure university in Finland with, on-paper, less prospects and at a probably younger age then you.

It would be less impressive if Linus did the same at age 27 after a Master's at a top tier US school, but likely still enough to get a nice FAANG job with solid promotion prospects.

That's likely what the parent meant, you need to show, something, in the 99th percentile among your peer cohort.

Are you really suggesting that new developers should simply contribute a Linux tier contribution to open source to be considered for entry level developer roles?

> It would be less impressive if Linus did the same at age 27 after a Master's at a top tier US school, but likely still enough to get a nice FAANG job with solid promotion prospects

I'm not sure how you missed 1/3 of my comment.

Clearly with such conditions it will not be an entry level job. Nor am I saying it's absolutely necessary. From what I understand a 99th percentile score on Leetcode will alone get you through the door.

Though a nice job (~40 hour weeks, good team, above average comp. package) with solid promotion prospects is about the maximum even a somewhat less impressive version of Linus could expect at 27-28.

> most would tend to lose career velocity as they jump from one domain to the next

Absolutely. Gaining expertise in another domain would also cost time and effort (and maybe money). So I would not do it first thing after graduation and would only pick an area that I really like, so the extra work does not feel like work. But if one gets to senior levels and does not want to go into management, having additional area of expertise opens a lot of doors.

> Either you need a credential (major, minor, certificate), or you need work experience in it.

This has not been my experience. IME the bar to cross is knowledge, being able to pass the equivalent of a code screen or a technical interview; few companies outside of highly regulated markets care about a piece of paper to substantiate skills. As always, just my 2c; YMMV.

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