Help HN: Developer laid off 5 days before Christmas, have kids | Hacker News Reader

Help HN: Developer laid off 5 days before Christmas, have kids

224 pointsup_and_up127 comments

Hello HN,

I was just informed that a key investor pulled support for a startup I am working fulltime for. Thus, people are being laid off 5 days before Christmas. Bummer.

I am reaching out to the community as I am on the hunt for Developer-related position.

About me: Berkeley Grad, 7 years of development exp, 4 years at startups. Held titles: Developer, Sr. Developer and Lead Developer. Great team-player, active communicator, can step into leadership as needed.

Skills: Ruby, Rails, Sinatra, MySQL, Postgres, SQLServer, API's, JS, HTML5, PHP, Python, Linux system admin (AWS, Linode etc), DBA, Product Development, Team leadership

Experienced in domains: Ecommerce, Saas, Social API's, Analytics, Finance, Health IT

Currently Learning: Objective C, Node.js

Seeking: Remote Fulltime opportunity, willing to travel occasionally. I am great as a technical co-founder in early stage scenarios, helping to define product and rapidly build it. Also great as part of a dev team. Open to possibilities.

Shoot me an email at: prgrmr75@gmail.com if you have any leads or want to talk about opportunities.

Thanks and Happy Holidays!

EDIT: I am located in the Midwest about 2.5 hours from Chicago.

I greatly appreciate the heavy response to this. This is a great community to be a part of.

View on HN

Not sure why you are concerned. A cursory look at your past experience tells me you'll have no issue finding work.

Enjoy the time off for the holidays, spend some time with the kids, and start looking for work in January.

Having kids will do that to you :)

Likely

>>> Remote Fulltime opportunity

he's not in the Bay Area

OP's spouse may be somewhat less confident. "See honey, HN doesn't think I'll have a problem! Look at all these emails! We'll figure something out."

Such demonstration is especially important if said spouse was skeptical about the start-up foray in the first place.

N.B.: Perfectly valid motive for posting. And not one that invalidates the inquiries.

My thoughts exactly. I think the fact that we're in holiday season makes the worry that much more acute, since it contrasts so sharply with the happiness and comfort that we're supposed to be feeling.

edit: forwarded this link to friends who work at startups where a significant part of their team is remote.

And start-ups can feel that much more volatile. They aren't, really, I was once laid off by a huge bank two weeks after Christmas, and that with my wife on bedrest for complications in her pregnancy.

I'm at early days with consulting but I feel a lot more secure with my skill set than I ever did at some large company.

But the advice elsewhere about getting to six month's expenses is realllll good advice. I'd keep the spending thin until hitting at least that point -- and yeah, that can take a while.

Funny story, so when I left Google I was thinking, I am going to take a break, maybe take the summer off, recharge the batteries, Etc. My wife says "Well we are in a recession and who knows if there even are jobs out there? At least let your network know you're available." And I did, and that was how I met Rich Skrenta and got to talk with him about his amazing insight into the problems of search and why those problems were killing Google's product and what we could do to capitalize on the post-exponential growth world of the web.

So I find myself agreeing with both the 'take time off' and 'let people know' advice. Opportunities flick in and out of existence all the time, so letting people know is good, taking time off really helps you restore balance if you can afford it so taking a break is good too. If you have CORBA so you can keep your benefits uninterrupted, then recharging has a lot to offer.

s/CORBA/COBRA/

Or, "you know you're a programmer who was alive in the early 2000's when...."

Both are equally daunting and ultimately expensive.

... I make that mistake all the time. I thought I was the only one.

Wow. You called it exactly. Just showed my wife all the emails and it cheered her up. Thanks everyone!

This is not my first rodeo. Take the advice about keeping spending lean and building a cushion. Keep an eye on her stress, and what you're doing to push _her_ dreams forward. Remember nonverbal signals are frequently more important than verbal.

If any of those dimensions are in deficit for any sustained period of time, make adjustments up to and including a "real" job.

Do this. I know things.

Listen to this guy. He does know things. As someone who has been down this road many times, take his advice.

I get the feeling this is the most valuable advice I'll get this year. Thanks!

All values are relative. But by my lights, yeah, I paid a pretty high price for it.

This guy will have no problems finding work. But as a hot life pro tip for fresh grads: keep 6 months expenses in the bank. Minimum. Don't spend on any ++ till you're set with this base safety net.

Also, startups are more financially risky in unexpected sudden failure than most big-company jobs. Startups generally don't pay severance. There might be nothing to pay out.

Additionally, if you are unemployed you must get at least 45 minutes of exercise every day, and spend at least 4-6 hours on something career focused (skill building during the annoying latent periods of job searching) as if you were FT employed. Depression can turn what should be a 21-day gap into 21 weeks.

Additionally, if you are unemployed you must get at least 45 minutes of exercise every day, and spend at least 4-6 hours on something career focused (skill building during the annoying latent periods of job searching) as if you were FT employed. Depression can turn what should be a 21-day gap into 21 weeks.

I didn't exercise. I don't regret it. I was unemployed in St Louis for 7 months. It was the most intellectually creative period of my life. I chose to pursue physics of my own accord and with no prior experience. I now have a clear idea of what, precisely, I want my life to be, and close to a six-figure salary. I'm saving up money for at least 6 months while I study very hard in my free time to get high marks on ACT/SAT and (hopefully) earn scholarships to attend a decent undergrad university, with the long-term goal of attending a graduate program at a top university. It's doable with about six years of work, which is no problem at all now that I know who I am and what I want out of life.

It's important to realize that it isn't necessarily best to choose to continue to work regardless of what you could be doing with those extra 50 hours per week. More than that, realizing that "choosing to work" is, in fact, a conscious decision rather than a given, is liberating. It has a way of making your life come into focus.

Your advice is good. I just wanted to share an alternative viewpoint.

It's also important to note that I was incredibly lucky to have the opportunity to not-work without becoming homeless. (On the other hand, it was because I had saved up enough money to do that. And if I can, then you certainly can. Consider it.)

>I'm saving up money for at least 6 months while I study very hard in my free time to get high marks on ACT/SAT and (hopefully) earn scholarships to attend a decent undergrad university

This tells me you're young. Depression didn't creep in on me due to a sedentary lifestyle at that age either. Our bodies age, and as you get older if you don't exercise or eat a healthy diet (for a very strict definition of healthy) you'll find lethargy creeping in. You'll have a harder time staying up, you'll find your body takes sleep when it craves it. When I was 18, I used to be able to stay up for 2 straight days and it wasn't a big deal. I'd spend a whole night coding, then go to work, no problem.

Those days are over, though. Now if I stay up all night coding, I have to crash for a couple hours before I start again.

Good point. Thank you for your insight.

The key isn't exercise so much as it's constant, positive activity. Exercise is one of the most reliable and fundamental forms of this, but there are plenty of non-physical ways to do it, too.

> And if I can, then you certainly can.

Be very stingy with this platitude. It is highly audience-dependent and false for a surprisingly large number of audiences.

The best advice I ever had was: do something physical, something mental, and something spiritual every day.

For the physical, that can be as much as walking the dog at night or taking a brisk walk at lunch.

For the mental, you probably already have that covered since you're likely problem solving all day as a developer.

For the spiritual, you don't need to be religious, just take a few minutes out every day and either meditate, think about things, or, and this is my personal favourite, self-hypnotise [1].

[1] Since I have eczema I learnt about self-hypnotism from this book: "Skin Deep", http://www.amazon.co.uk/Skin-Deep-Mind-Program-Healthy/dp/09.... I'm sure there are plenty of others books that probably describe it better.

EDIT: P.S. Great blog by the way Michael. I don't agree with everything you say, but it gets me thinking every time.

Along the same lines, a little web app that I've found pretty useful for tracking all of the above (and thus helping to stay motivated) is http://tdp.me

Good advice. Even better is to save 40-60% of every check with no intention of ever spending it.

I always thought it seemed too aggressive a policy until I hit my first round of financial hardship, and then it seemed so stupid that I hadn't abided it before.

Meanwhile, a friend of mine who does abide this rule just paid for his wedding and first home entirely as a cash transaction and hasn't incurred any debt beyond the credit cards he pays off every month.

Especially in today's day and age, stability is more and more precious.

I save about 60% of my paycheck with no intent of spending it, and I've found that it has the added benefit of keeping my life simple and helping me keep a distance from material possessions that I don't actually need (but would certainly be gravitated to if I had all this cash just lying around).

For me at least, I've been enjoying my relatively simple life of hiking/cycling with friends on the weekends and reading/learning from online resources and books from the library after work :).

"and first home entirely as a cash transaction"

Separately, and depending on when one buys a home that might not be the best strategy. I have the cash to pay off my home but I choose to take advantage of a low 3.25% mortgage rate to keep the money available for something else. Mortgage rates are very low now (once again I don't know when your friend did this) so it makes sense to take advantage of that.

Ironically that's the same advice I gave him. He bought shortly after 9/11 originally, and the rate was a ridiculously low 2.75% (which I think he paid down points to get).

I should probably clarify that he originally financed the home, just so that when he paid it off it would look great on his credit (though he already had near perfect credit at the time) -- he put 30% down, another small percentage in buying down points, then made the first few payments and then just paid it off because he preferred to just own it outright.

It's also worth noting that he could have, on paper, afforded to pay cash for a house that cost three times as much as the one he bought (which means he could have bought three of his same house and paid cash for each), so having the money available wasn't a big factor, though optimizing its dollar performance could definitely have been a factor.

Getting way off topic here, but paying off a loan early (especially that early) will often hurt your credit score more than help it, particularly if it it the only active personal loan you have on record.

I hadn't thought of that, but I doubt he cared terribly much, as he pretty much hates credit as a practice. I learned from that though, but I'm not exactly money-savvy, as I tend to care very little about it.

Yeah for the guy you're talking about it makes no real-world difference if he takes a minor credit score hit. But people who need to optimize their credit score for whatever reason should keep in mind that there are all sorts of events that may impact your credit score in ways that seem odd at first but make sense when you consider the scores aren't just about how likely you are to pay off debts, but a combination of how likely you are to pay off debts while also giving the credit issuers a enough profit off interest to make it worth their while to loan to you.

Absolutely top advice.

I'd recommend it in Europe too - even though the social safety net is much better, it still pays to have savings.

Want to have more freedom with your career? Save more. The freedom you get from being financially independent is well worth the effort of saving.

Would you change that suggestion if the fresh grad had near 100k in loan debt, some of which was private and high-interest? The benefit of 10k sitting in savings when it could pay off a savage Chase loan seem less great.

(To be explicit, that person is me, and I tend to throw all buffer money right at student loans before they grow like a hydra, faster than I can kill them.)

Even if you have expensive debt, you should aim to have some ready cash for whatever situations life presents. Paying down ten percent of that 100K will be the opposite of helpful if you find yourself unable to go grocery shopping or to cover a co-pay for X-rays on your twisted ankle.

X-ray a twisted ankle?

Sure. At the margins, people make adverse health care decisions when they have no money, even if they're insured. Call it the flip side of moral hazard: co-pays, co-insurance, multiple deductibles, and all the other methods insurance companies have invented to be sure everybody has "skin in the game" and ensure economically rational decisions.

I have "good" health insurance, yet I'd have to pay a $150 "advanced imaging fee" for any X-ray (and, I believe, $1500 for a CT or MRI). What's the economically rational decision when you badly twist an ankle and ought to have it examined, but you expected to use that $150 for groceries?

Probably meant sprained. I had a pretty rough ankle sprain a few years back, mobility still isn't 100% of what it was.

The 6 months is what you need to cover expenses until you hit another payday.

If you have an in demand skillset like OP or can run to mom and dad for rent free living then you can reduce the total required with little additional risk.

I did the damn-the-emergency-fund-full-speed-ahead loan repayment plan myself. You're basically gambling that you won't suffer a cash shock. That can be a reasonable gamble if you are e.g. well-insured, have very stable employment, have family support, have other income streams, etc etc etc. Otherwise, you'd consider the marginal 10% APR or whatever you're paying an insurance premium against a cash shock.

There is no circumstance where student loans will grow when you are actively making scheduled payments on them. Your balance will decrease monthly if you make your normal payments. Just mentioning that for sake of clarity -- some smart people I know don't necessarily have a lot of personal finance knowledge. Your loans will only grow if you either default on them or do something like triggering one of the income-contingent payment plans (which are a lot less good of an idea than people usually think, BTW).

Unsolicited financial advice: go to the institution you deposit your paychecks in and ask about consolidating student loans. (Another option, if you've been diligent about building your credit history, is taking a CC cash advance for a year, or take an unsecured loan. I'm getting unsolicited offers for either "1% fee, 0% APR for 12 months, then normal interest" from my CC at BoA or "9% interest, no fees" for signature loans from Discover at the moment.)

Thanks for the advice. Honestly, being that I work in startups, am a year and a half out of grad school, don't have to well-to-do parents, and support my partner, I think you've helped me realize it's definitely not so smart to be bufferless.

Honestly, part of this mania began when I looked at my statements for just one provider (Chase) and realized the minimum payments they were asking for (~$300) covered ONLY the monthly interest. That sort of freaked me out, and I got spooked at the prospect of allowing that bank to rent-seek on my back for the next few decades, while I lack any sort of consumer rights to even ask a court for bankruptcy protection.

"don't have to well-to-do parents"

Statement like this (details that is) prove what I am always saying about advice you read online. When I read your comments my first thought was what other safety net you had. If you had reasonably secure middle class parents I would give you different advice then I would if you had no safety net at all.

The answers to all these questions totally depends on details and when people are giving general advice there may be something that is left out that could change the advice greatly.

As an example, I generally fill my gas tank when it is down to 1/4. But if I hear a storm is coming I fill up no matter what the level.

"I'm getting unsolicited offers for either "1% fee, 0% APR for 12 months"

Lotsa fine print in those offers as far as what happens if you miss a payment (interest rate could jack up and retroactive things might happen). May or may not be the case in the one you received. I remember always getting offers of free financing on things for a year and if you don't pay off at the appropriate time you owe all the interest retroactive.

In any case, someone wanting to follow that advice really would need to read all the fine print and understand all the fine print before making any decision. I wonder how many people could do that.

Indeed; these teaser rates make money for the banks when most people who take them snap up to the higher rate (by error or simply keeping the balance after the promotional period).

It's best to only take them when you can set up an automatic monthly payment, and zero the balance before the higher normal rates return.

(Personally, I'd also make it illegal to advertise "0% for 12 months" if accompanied by "3% transaction fee" on the insider/fine-print. That makes the effective 12-month rate about 3%, which should be the headline. But banks, lotteries, and perhaps even government schools have an interest in keeping most people from being too good at time-value-of-money/expected-return calculations.)

My first downvote! Thanks for the constructive feedback, stranger.

Seconded, though these days I advocate a 9-month emergency fund.

I'd love to keep 6 months in the bank, but my first job out of school was at a startup and I am not making a whole lot. At the moment I am lucky if I have 1 month in the bank, and it is not that I spend my money quickly, I simply live pay-check to pay-check at the moment.

Do note that about 40% of my pay check goes to paying off student loan debt, 50% to simple living expenses and costs, the last 10% goes into savings, generally so that I can afford a once a year trip back to Europe to see my grandparents/dad/cousins/uncles/aunts/siblings. So at the end of the year I have quite a bit saved up, and then I purchase a flight back home... that really hurts.

Is that 40% your required payment for SL? Especially with almost no safety net, you gain very little (and stand to lose quite a bit) by over-paying student loan debt unless you have a preposterously high interest rate.

The interest rate on two out of the three student loans is extremely high. My loans weren't government backed due to being a foreign national, so full private student loans. I am paying the minimum on two, and the highest one is getting paid about $200 more than minimum to get rid of it ASAP.

Consolidating wouldn't help, it would actually hurt me in the long run. So for now I just suck it up.

That makes sense. It sounds like you've got your stuff in order, but just in case I'd recommend running the numbers on that extra $200 to see if there's any place it could do you more good.

My approach is to always pay myself 10% first, then bills (mortgage, taxes, auto), then rest of budgeted items by priority.

Everybody enjoys a good Christmas story so after you get that new job somewhere early next year, as seems a given, do come back here and tell us where you ended up :)

Sending an email now -- I note that you didn't state your location, so not all of it may apply.

Edit: Acchile0 is probably right. I doubt you'll have a tough time finding meaningful employment, but I completely understand the nerves that come along with having just dumped a ton of money into your Christmas shopping at probably the worst possible time, as people are generally not hiring at times like this.

Christmas is a lot more enjoyable when there's a steady paycheck at the end of it, for sure, but try not to let this ruin your holiday. Take a couple of hours a day and pursue employment as you can, but try to relax if you're able.

people are generally not hiring at times like this.

In finance, January is a great time to go job searching. People collect their bonuses and some percentage leave, and that opens up spots.

January, yes. December, no.

Like I said, I doubt he has cause to worry, but I know that I've had similar circumstances where a loss of income source occurs immediately after a big expenditure, so I know how poor the timing is.

January's a new month, a new year, and is likely to be rife with opportunity, but in the interim, there's to be a few missed checks that could be important.

You know, I have all the sympathy in the world to up_and_up, and I wish him luck. If I would know about a remote position I might even had done something about it.

But this seems fishy to me for a few reasons, and out of place. HN has a job board up there, job posts every month and there are more than enough places for someone to find a few leads. I would be less suspicious if there was a location mentioned and not just a cryptic "remote" or a link to a site, github or something that makes this a real person.

Maybe I'm just a cynic, but it's hard for me not to feel skeptical.

Skeptical of what, that OP isn't actually unemployed and looking for work?

What, exactly, would the angle be besides a person who is looking for job leads?

A recruiter phishing for hiring managers maybe? But I would suspect this is legit and totally above-board. This is part of what online communities are all about.

Maybe skeptical is not exactly the right word, but I feel like having a post like that should not be part of HN.

Yes, I'm sure it's a massive conspiracy to defraud us all of our hard-earned ...???

...leads.

Admittedly, it's incredibly unlikely that this is some sort of recruiter scam, but it's not as if what he said was incoherent.

> it's incredibly unlikely

why?

Because the difficult problem in software developer recruitment is finding candidates, not finding jobs.

" it's incredibly unlikely that this is some sort of recruiter scam" "Because the difficult problem in software developer recruitment is finding candidates" ?

Am I reading this right?

"Maybe I'm just a cynic, but it's hard for me not to feel skeptical."

Sorry to disappoint, but nobody is being trolled here.

You are trolling, and here's why:

1) Your writing style is eerily similar to that of a person based in India (and yes, I've seen enough people claiming to be americans but actually from India to know the difference)

For example "helping to define product and rapidly build it" is not a natural phrase to use.

2) I highly doubt anyone here needs to see something like "API's" under skills. It's not like people here aren't aware of many of the APIs that you know.

3) If you really spent 7 years working and have experience in "Ecommerce, Saas, Social API's, Analytics, Finance, Health IT" you either jumped many times between jobs or you worked for a contracting company

4) A person with your level of experience, especially in areas like javascript and HTML5, should be able to throw together a sample or a portfolio. Do you have such a sample?

Other than the single phrase you pointed out, nothing else in his post jumps out to me as being similar to the typical Indian style of English writing. Until very recently I used to work for one of the big outsourcing firms so I've exchanged more than my share of emails with offshore devs. This one just doesn't strike me the same as those emails.

I'll give you (2) and (3) but he may also just be overreaching. Analytics could equal throwing Google Analytics on a page. Ecommerce, a PayPal integration. And who hasn't grabbed some data from the Twitter API when testing out a new framework or library? I'll agree that that's a very broad range, maybe.

Overall, however, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that he's not an overseas dev trolling for leads.

on point 1:

"API's" <-- this could be sampling bias, but I've never seen an american write it like this (though, to be honest, I've never seen a resume include the abstract assertion that the person is familiar with APIs)

"Social API's" <-- If this person used the Twitter API then he or she would say it.

"Experienced in domains" <-- This phrase didn't strike you as odd?

"I am on the hunt for Developer-related position." <-- That could be eastern european, but struck me as Indian.

on overreaching: ostensibly this person realized that the community has many technically competent people. Overreaching makes sense when talking to a recruiter. When you are talking with other technical people, just get to the point! No need to say "Health IT" or "Finance" without going into what exactly you did. Finance is particularly bad, because there are many ... for lack of a better term, mindless roles in the major investment banks.

But the fourth point really bothers me. If I wanted to be hired as a web dev, I would have a sample up. Something that would show I know what I'm doing. It's not that hard, and the prevalence of free micro hosting like AWS or github pages or nodejitsu renders the economic argument moot. Hell, even a simple twitter bootstrap site would say that he or she knows that it exists.

What if he is...gasp... A person from in India who moved to the U.S. and is now looking for a job after doing all the stuff that he says he did. Is it that big a fucking deal or is that tin foil hat of yours permanently stuck?

7 years working (assuming US) + some positive number of years in school is enough time to slough the indian style english quirks. You would be surprised how many people born in india that have moved to the US actually speak american english (even if there is an accent). I've yet to see any evidence that this person is not an overseas developer fishing for contract work.

And yes, I've dealt with enough people that claim to be based in the US but turn out to be in India that I take everything with a grain of salt. And if you haven't, you probably haven't tried to find an employee or contractor.

Sorry niggles, but you are smoking something.

Born in Minneapolis MN. Polish/German American Boy.

You need a long form birth certificate or something?

Yes, I have plenty of samples. Trying to remain anon here.

Shoot me an email.

Just for the record, my point wasn't about people born in India. I was pointing out that, in my experience hiring employees and contractors, many remote developers (especially in India) masquerade as US citizens who want to work remotely (and the truth is revealed only when I offer to fly them to NYC for a meeting)

First of all I hope you do get a job out of the leads here, you indeed sound like a normal real person.

Niggler below did a good job of specifying some of my concerns of why I am skeptical, but I hope the biggest point I got across is that in my opinion HN isn't the place for this. It feels like you are in the middle of a party and you stood up and yelled "I need a job" - you might be serious and smart, but I'll still feel skeptical about you because you can't fit your message to the audience.

The thing is - the audience here mostly did offer advice and leads, so I might not really know what it wants, so I'm just speaking for me :)

I know you said remote, but where are you located? We're global and have a presence across the US, so what you think is remote might actually be local.

It's pretty common for people with young children to seek true remote or at least 2/week office work.

I am sure you will find a new gig. I am also looking, similar profile as you but I live in Beijing, China and my wife is pregnant.

Great all-round developer, http://gbraad.nl/resume/ and http://linkedin.com/in/gbraad email: me at gbraad.nl to get in touch.

Let us all have a great new year. Happy holidays!

Check out App Annie, our Beijing office is hiring lots and lots of engineers: http://appannie.com/jobs

Thanks for the suggestion. Will certainly get in touch with them.

Pinged you. Mozilla is always hiring talented devs, remote is absolutely, pathologically supported here :-)

Good luck!

Do you get referral bonuses @ Mozilla?

You may want to browse the telecommute jobs from careers stack overflow: http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/telecommute

I can't do anything for you from Pakistan other than praying and wishing to have a wonderful holidays with a new job in hand which you will be going to start from Next year.

Best of luck Bro!

We have lots of openings here in Seattle. tpearson@microsoft.com. Send me your resume.

Sorry to hear your news.

When people say 'remote' do they generally mean 'in the US'?

I am based in the UK, about 3 hours from London. I know I have a fantastic skill set (Ruby, Rails, Postgres, APIs, Semantic HTML, Heroku, people management and Accenture consulting experience) but I have never found a single company in the UK willing to consider on remote working.

Such a shame for both sides as I don't want to move my young family to London.

There are like 20 startups in Miami that would hire you as technical co-founder right now. p.s. miami is nice and warm right now :-)

He mentions being remote. I imagine this makes one less desirable - though not entirely.

Send me an email and I will consider it.

Sent your info along to our hiring manager - he'll be in touch.

Your skill set is strong and in demand, you have nothing to worry about. Enjoy the holidays and treat this as unpaid time off, I suspect you'll be employed before the end of next month.

What region are you in, or is remote work a requirement? Most interviewers like an in-person at some point, just a thought.

Take up Buddhism, that'll make Christmas much cheaper. ( other religions available )

Economically-motivated religious conversion. I haven't heard this one before.

Many Somalis pretend to be Christians to receive church aid, or qualify for refugee status.

I think saraid216 was joking. There's plenty of examples in history for people changing religions for non-religious reasons.

Good luck, man.

Nothing about this post has any urgency outside of "i have to buy presents". FFS. You aren't the first person to have to tighten it up during holiday time, and you sure won't be the last.

Stop the crybaby nonsense. "have kids" ... who cares?

> Stop the crybaby nonsense. "have kids" ... who cares?

More people than those that care for you, apparently.

Now that is an interesting post. Pay attention kids while I break it down for you:

"Good luck, man."

Clearly this guy has a heart, saying that to a stranger is nice, but adding the "man" adds a friendlyness to it that is hard to come by on the internet. This is what we call a bait, as will be seen by the things to come.

"Nothing about this post has any urgency outside of "i have to buy presents". FFS. You aren't the first person to have to tighten it up during holiday time, and you sure won't be the last."

Now here, because the original poster did not state that he had immediate financial problems, somehow this suddenly is not that big a problem for him. The time honored mantra of "someone else has it worse, so you cant have it bad" is strongly indicated with Mscasborough reminding him he is not the first person to be in a bad place just before christmas. The optimistic "and you sure won't be the last" leads us onto the next golden nugget of communication.

"Stop the crybaby nonsense. "have kids" ... who cares?"

There we have it! Full "Dick!". It is rare to see in real life, but more omnipresent on the internet. The first sentence indicated that the original posted might not have complained enough while the "Stop the crybaby nonsense" indicates that he in fact was complaining too much. But the piece de resistance, the ode to the world of dickishness and the absolute pinnacle of human dickishness is encapsulated in the words "'have kids' ...who cares?"

Personaly I hope the original poster will get a job as soon as possible. The feeling of being unemployed just before christmas must be very hard indeed.

Isn't your comment rather hypocritical?

"Pay attention kids while I break it down for you"

What is that?

You "hope the original poster will get a job as soon as possible", and you hope what for the commenter? A lump of coal in his stocking?

Why do people make such a big deal about being unemployed before Christmas? Can't buy presents? Oh well, consider yourself lucky: you just got an easy way out of the empty consumerist scam that is Christmas in the West. I grew up without Christmas my entire life, and I turned out fine. I celebrated it once a few years ago with an ex's family and it was a terrible, contrived experience. Now I consider myself fortunate that we don't celebrate it; I feel sorry for the people who run around malls getting stressed out about which useless piece of junk to waste their hard earned money on for people they rarely get to spend time with.

Xmas/New Years is not that bad of a time because nobody else is working, anyways. You know you aren't going to find anything so you can take a break from resume spamming. Then, after the New Year, there is a flurry of hiring activity as people settle back in and take care of things they've put off since Thanksgiving.

The worst time, I'd say, is in the dead of summer. July/August. Really bad time to try to find a job.

Seriously, if you really want to work, you should have no problems finding work, provided your description is accurate. It sounds like you just freaked out.

I would suggest being a little flexible on your side in terms of location, as Chicago is full of awesome opportunities, and then don't grab first thing, but look for something you would enjoy doing. Like, hit LightBank and other accelerators and see what they have. Have first relaxing holidays, then chase work, as others suggested.

Happy Holidays

The company where I currently work at (Etsy) is really good at allowing remote work. Could you send me your resume to my HN username @folksonomy.com ?

Hi There, I saw your post via Twitter and decided to respond on behalf of Modis. Modis does both permanent placement and contract IT staffing. email me at matilda.anderson@modis.com and I can put you in touch with the right person in your region who can help you find a position that's the right match. Thanks!

It's clear from this thread that a seasoned developer with your skills is in demand- my question is what motivates you to choose one company over another?

I am making the assumptions it's not just salary- benefits, stock options, vacation days, culture? Curious on your thought process for selecting a company?

If you're still looking, I might be able to find you some temp contractor work asap, as well as introduce you to people looking for more permanent (or at least medium term) remote devs. michael@munchery.com

Another startup? Same risks, could get laid off at any moment (e.g. 5 days before Independence Day, 5 days before Yom Kippur, its always 5 days before something). Glutton for punishment?

Best wishes this holiday season. Enjoy the time off with your family, and I'm sure (along with everyone else here) things will turn up in 2013 with a little work searching... :)

Why am I getting impression that startup people are ruthless?

Man, you are awesome. Just like everybody told you: enjoy the holiday and look for a good opportunity.

I bet you will find a even better job, you are hot for the market now!

The title sounds as if it's the end of the world.

Oh, wait a second...

We could use a senior dev on our systems engineering team. Just contacted you--good luck!

Sent you an email, good luck!

check your email - sent you some openings from my company & my gf's

right on! nice to see folks lending real support at this time of year.

Be sure to collect unemployment during your time off.

Email sent. Subject "HN Amigo"

Email me (michael.o.church at gmail) and I'll put you in contact with some recruiters in NYC who'd love to work with you (although I don't know if they have remote options). With your CV, I doubt you'll be unemployed for long.

If you're interested in finance, Wilmott and NuclearPhynance are also good places to find headhunters.

Sorry to hear about the startup. Good luck!

On Christmas day 30,000 children will die around the world from preventable diseases.

Think about that while you stuffing turkey down your pie hole.

Protip: don't have kids.

Advice your parents could have used...

If you have kids, you shouldn't be working at a startup. This will happen to you again.

If you don't have kids you should not be working and enjoying the single life.

I have kids, and am in a start-up, just takes planning.

"If you don't have kids you should not be working and enjoying the single life."

This doesn't even make sense and I feel like you only posted it to be contradictory.

"I have kids, and am in a start-up, just takes planning."

This guy obviously didn't. Startups are generally risky. I've worked at many startups and have seen it all. A non-startup isn't a guarantee, but your job isn't always dependent on the next round of funding.

If you don't have kids don't tell people with kids what to do just because they have kids.

I'm not the one out of a job after working for an obviously risky company (Startups are risky).

I'm also not the one posting to HN BEGGING for a job (and pointing out that I have mouths to feed).

Quite true. You're just the one judging others based on criteria you apparently know little about. Come on, man - loosen up a bit.

If you don't know that startups are risky going into a startup, then you are greatly misinformed. That's the chance you take. The analogue is someone investing the last dollar in his bank account in a lottery ticket. If it's a win, that's great! If it's a loss, then you lost (and I highly doubt you'd have the sympathy for the fellow who put his last dollar in a lottery ticket)

As someone who has not only kids, and a mortgage AND was let go from a startup last week (in Australia, resume's here http://resume.oliyoung.com ;)) all I can say is … no.

Startup work may be a little more financially risky than "traditional" work, but it's sure less risky emotionally for some people. Like me.

" but it's sure less risky emotionally for some people. Like me."

Could you explain that a bit deeper?

"Startup work may be a little more financially risky than "traditional" work, but it's sure less risky emotionally for some people. Like me."

You are the exception to the rule. In my experience, startups are more risky and much more stressful than a traditional job.

Working for a startup has about the same risk as starting your own company. It can be done, but you need to have savings and be able to handle things like getting laid off when funding doesn't come through.

The majority of people aren't prepared for this and shouldn't even be thinking about working for a startup if they are married/have kids.

working for startup is far riskier than starting your own company, because you have the same risk exposure with limited upside and little control over your fate (e.g. the founder louses up or takes a really shitty deal which screws over the employees -- has been chronicled many times here)

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