Ask HN: Advice on searching for a mid-career job | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Advice on searching for a mid-career job

4 pointsleafwein11 comments

I've been in technology for 15 years, mostly in HW, but with quite a bit of SW as well. I transitioned to product and project management 4 years ago, but the current company is not working out for me, and I had been searching for another job for almost a year.

Resumes sent to the big companies, even when it's through referrals, go into a black hole. I did get 2 job offers from startups, but they were only able to offer me half my current compensation package. With a family to support, I could not really take those offers.

I try to work on side projects, but with long hours at my current job, I basically have to give up spending time with my family in order to put in enough effort. I've been trying to fit it in by working late into the night, but I don't want to miss out on my child growing up.

So my choices are: 1. Keep working at my current job, where I feel no sense of accomplishment and no drive, have to warm the seat over 11 hours a day, but it's easy to work enough to keep my job. 2. Accept a dramatic salary cut at a startup, and subject my family to a drastic decrease in standard of living, for my peace of mind. 3. Quit completely, and work on projects until I find a sustainable project or run out of runway. 4. ???

My questions are: 1. For those of you in mid-career, how would you go about switching jobs? 2. I am currently stationed in a foreign country (Korea), does that affect my chances of getting a job in the US? 3. Am I overpriced? Based on Glassdoor, my salary expectations does not seem out of line.

Thanks for any insight you can give me. I'm feeling very trapped right now and getting a bit stir-crazy.

As others have mentioned, avoid startups, unless they are one of those unicorns. You have moved to product and project management. You know, every guy wants to transition from programming/coding/engineering (all those individual contributors roles). Where have they moved to: product management (if they got MBA from any school), project management (with PMP and CSM certified scum master). Some have moved to engineering leadership. Once you transition to these roles, you can't jump out the way a programmer can: you need to find another full time at an established company.

In many companies in the states I have worked as a consultant, product and project managers don't have direct reports. If I were you, I avoid becoming a project manager (PMP, SCM) like a plague, unless you see lots of upside financially in the short turn.

Even for a job as a product manager in the states, you will have hard time getting offers/interviews form established companies: these companies have lots of qualified local candidates for product manager roles.

If you were a graduate of an elite school, try your connections, thats the way to get your foot in the door.

I have avoided becoming a project manager: every mid-career guy without hands on is a project manager these days. Some have become consulting architects for VMware, Cisco, if they can talk tech. Others have got evening MBA from Columbia-Haas etc: even here, all these guys are planning to become C-level execs. But what I see now in the valley: Columbia-Haas MBA does not cut, except to become a senior product manager. Thats the case with Kellog, Chicago Booth, etc; I had seen a kellog MBA with prior experience as a product manager, working as a contractor for a startup.

Are you trapped? I don't know. What I can say is this: you have too competition to get a product manager role at top tier companies.

Thanks for the detailed answer. Are those top tier companies promoting product managers from within? They are advertising product manager jobs, so I assume they are looking externally. Or are they hiring overqualified people into those jobs since there is so much competition?

I used to work for an enterprise social company in 2011. I happen to find a folder of resumes for product manager and interview feedback--on a common windows share. And this enterprise social company is not top tier at: all those candidates had MBAs from US schools. Even this company was selective wrt which MBA one had: Kellog vs Cornell Johnson. What this tells me is this: the bay area market has too many MBAs (morning program, evening program, weekend program, etc). So, companies are selective when they got lots of candidates. GE Software in San Ramon is a good place to look for a product manager role. Their pay is not that great (no RSUs, just salary + bonus): it is a bad place to work for some people. But it is a great place for other kinds of folks. GE has too many CIO's, CTO's, Senior Directors, Directors, etc, compared to other companies: so, many guys called "GE boys" play all games to move up. They got too many leadership programs too.

You need to be local for these jobs or at least you need to have someone push your candidacy for the job, then come onsite for interviews.

Are they promoting product managers within? . Usually, Intuit has such a program wherein a fresh college grad can move from software engineer role to associate product manager role, etc. So, some companies do promote internally.

Option #3 (quit and work on projects) also seems to come with a salary cut (down to 0). If working for a startup would drastically cut your family's standard of living, so would this option.

Startups have other problems besides the lower salaries you were offered: the vast majority of all startups fail quickly, so there's no job security. If you take one of these jobs, you might be looking for a new job in a few months.

I'd suggest staying at your current job and continuing to look for another one, but not at a startup.

Also, you say that your current company isn't working out for you. Is it really the company, or just the job you have there? Would it be possible to change jobs within your current company?

I've racked my brain for months before starting my job search, even talking to coworkers and my manager. Basically it's a cultural issue, and I dont mean just company culture, but Korean culture. Not being Korean, I don't speak Korean fluently and I don't know the cultural norms. This means that I am unable to form any friendships or close relationships with the people I work with. Korean culture is heavily driven by relationships, and not being able to form them means it's hard to get things done. So it ends up that people route their jobs around me, talking to my direct reports or superiors instead of talking to me. Also, responses to my requests are slow or nonexistent, and I have to route my own requests around me also. These and other issues relegate me to the role of researcher and consultant, where I am on the periphery of the job I am supposed to be doing. If I had less ambition I might be perfectly happy to just coast here and collect the paycheck, but the lack of working towards something worthwhile is frankly giving me a mild case of depression.

> I transitioned to product and project management 4 years ago, but the current company is not working out for me...

Have you considered creating a new role for yourself inside your current company? Assuming you have a good relationship with company leadership, there may be a way to continue both your professional growth and help the company move forward with its agenda.

Here's an overview of the idea> https://www.themuse.com/advice/how-to-create-a-new-job-at-yo...

There's little visibility into what othe departments do in my company, so it's hard to create a new role somewhere else. The suggestions I've gotten are to go into sales or marketing, where my English skills can be leveraged, and I would be surrounded by more English speakers. Those suggestions move me even further away from technology, so I'm not particularly thrilled about them. But I'm starting to consider it since there doesn't seem to be many good options here.

Tech Background + Sales/Marketing + English is a very powerful combination of skills to have. The world will be your oyster.

I really share your sentiment, I've been going through the same thing and I live in Seoul too.

I was working at a startup, got accepted to a startup accelerator and cannot afford to participate as it's overseas. Have to work remotely and move back to my country.

Sold all of our furniture as we couldn't pay the rent (wife + baby). I have applied to companies in my home country (Australia), and have interviews set up. This might be the way to go for you.

Jobs in SK are really tough if you are not fluent in Korean.

Keep your head up high, things will work out!

As unpleasant as working with recruiters can be, at the very least they do seem to be able to get interviews consistently. You may want to give some of them a try (I'm sure others here can give you the names of a few good ones).

I tried looking for recruiters but maybe I am not looking in the right places, as I just found some sites with job listings, and no responses when I email the recruiters. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

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