Ask HN: What skills and projects should an unemployed software dev focus on? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What skills and projects should an unemployed software dev focus on?

5 pointsMITfather3 comments

My daughter is an MIT graduate and a junior software developer who’s currently unemployed. She has a solid academic foundation, but it’s been hard translating that into job offers in the current market.

I’m trying to understand what actually matters right now from a hiring perspective. Beyond brushing up on core CS, what specific skills should she focus on building? More importantly, what kinds of projects genuinely help at the junior level?

For example: – Are end-to-end projects more valuable than algorithm-heavy ones? – Are there particular domains where a well-executed project sends a strong signal? From your experience as interviewers or hiring managers, what projects actually make you stop and say, “this person is ready”?

The most important skills post-AGI is a "proof of a track record":

* Showing open-source contributions to respected projects shows you know how to code, reasoning your patches in code-reviews and the ability to understand how to solve the problem which is a very strong signal.

* Building something that makes a significant amount of money, makes getting hired optional and shows you are aware of market demand, identifying a problem and being able to monetize it.

* Publishing research papers proves your ability to go beyond academia and to build on top of other's research areas to advance the field or come up with something original to show in conference meet-ups (NeurIPS, SIGGRAPH, CVPR)

Unless it is a research career, the degree and where it came from matters far less.

When I hired people I looked for enthusiasm and passion. Devoting some time into things she's interested and personally invested in will make her stand out.

Even a fun COBOL program might make all the difference.

Try focusing on software architecture and organisation/factoring since AI is an incredible force multiplier for these skills currently and foreseeably.

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