Peretus

In addition to the cost of paperwork, there's also the issue of paying out unused PTO. In many cases like mine, this can add up to many thousands of dollars per employee.

Well, that depends. On the one hand, maybe it means that they are expecting to be able to survive long enough to bring everyone back and are wanting to cover insurance benefits a bit longer. Or perhaps it means that they are trying to use the current bank account balance (presumably a few months worth) to stay solvent a bit longer, hanging on to the point where they have absolutely no money left-- when of course everyone's unused PTO would disappear.

I don't know anything about your situation, but unless you have 9+ months of living expenses saved up, joining a startup sounds like it might be a bad idea. If you _do_ have that kind of runway for yourself, there might be other opportunities with that cash that come up as the market tanks. As always in a downturn, cash is king.

Andrew, thanks for commenting and I'll definitely be getting in touch. Can you post a few lines about what kinds of skillsets you folks might be looking for, or what your tech stack is?

I would absolutely be interested in this and will check out your site.

I've actually considered something like this. An idea of my own is creating a true marketplace for talent where everyone starts at a $1/hr for contract remote work, but the rate goes up by $x/hr for every hour that's booked in advance. Things would eventually balance out where there would be a balance of the rate with the 'pre-booked' time. Even if a person were to start at $1/hr, their hourly rate would either stall out or reach $40/hr by the end of the week.

If anyone would like to work on this kind of thing with me, feel free to get in touch. Who knows, it might actually get some traction.

I'm so sorry to hear that happened. Good luck, and I'll send folks your way if I come across anything.

Thanks so much! This is fantastic advice.

Thank you so much. I do indeed have experience with Typescript and will be getting in touch.

I've considered this myself-- investing my time in my own projects while trying to lower expenses to the absolute minimum.

It makes sense, in a way. If the market is valuing your labor less than it was yesterday, your opportunity cost is lower and it might make more sense to invest in yourself.

Wow, these are fantastic insights that almost exactly match the language that was used during the announcement at our company. They were planning on a raise in the next few months and this hit them pretty hard. I don't blame them for for the steps they've taken as, frankly, it's the only thing that makes financial sense.

Thanks again for this comment, and I'll absolutely be subscribing to your newsletter.

Thank you so much for this comment and the fantastic insight that you shared. Actionable advice like this is gold.

I've been causally preparing for a market downtown for about six months, but I wish I was in a better position than I am. That being said, I'm in a lot better shape than a lot of folks are and I'm hoping things can turn around with as many lives saved as possible.

Thank you so much! I'll pass this along to some of the members of the programming team at my company who just became available, and I'll also be submitting an application myself.

It's fantastic to see some of the responses here indicating that companies are still hiring. Even though though the retail and entertainment industry have been hit hard, it seems some portions of the job market are still going strong.

I had a decent amount of contracting work going before accepting the position that I had most recently, so I will probably start offering that again, depending on what kind of response I get from the applications I submit. This most recent job I got from posting in the monthly `Who's Hiring` thread back in 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17205867

As far as frameworks, I'm quite familiar with React and React Native (app in Google Play and App Store), Redux, Angularjs, etc. I haven't worked with Vue yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it now that I've suddenly found myself with some free time!

The remote team that I have been working with most recently are all updating our resumes. A portion if the fully-remote engineering team is located in Europe while a couple of us are located in the USA.

If you or someone you know is hiring, feel free to send me an email at the address in my profile and I can put you in touch with a few fantastic remote developers who I happen to know are available and who do great work.

Thanks! And fantastic job on increasing both your salary (by 2x!) and your job satisfaction.

Absolutely. I posted a message on a 'Who wants to be Hired' thread and was contacted about a month later by a lead developer who was hiring for a fully remote front-end developer position. After a few video chats and a 2-hour take-home coding exercise they extended an offer that I accepted.

I've been there for about 10 months and it's been a wonderful experience. Working remotely has literally changed my life, and the team members I work with are all fantastic people.

There are great companies out there and it's definitely worth posting. Good luck!

  Location: Alabama, USA
  Remote: Yes
  Willing to relocate: No
  Technologies: Javascript, React, React Native, Angular, ES6, Typescript, Redux, Bootstrap, etc.
  Résumé/CV: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vAIMwVB9QIN1z9KfMM2B45dh_BnDr9Se/view?usp=sharing
  Email: See Resume for Phone/Email

I am a front-end developer with 5+ years experience developing software for small and medium-sized businesses. I'm available immediately for contract work or a full-time position with the right company.

Location: Florence, Alabama

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies: JavaScript, TypeScript, React, React Native, Redux, Angular 1, Angular 2, mobile app submission process, some experience with Rails, Express, Node, and Firebase. I am of course proficient in all the basic tools of the trade: HTML, CSS, SASS, Bootstrap, HTTP, RESTful APIs, etc.

Résumé/CV: Hi, I'm Casey. I've spent the last 5 years or so leveling up my programming skills working full-time as a software engineer at a few different companies-- from startups to medium-sized businesses. I primarily see programming as a way to provide value at scale and am pretty pragmatic about software; I'm a big advocate of using pre-built tools whenever possible to save time and minimize distraction and always recommend building only what cannot be purchased for a reasonable price.

I'm passionate about:

- Providing excellent customer service

- Radical transparency and the benefit of providing open, honest, candid and kind feedback

- Trading more verbose code for more readable and easily-understood code

- Keeping an eye on the business goals of a software project and doing my best to balance engineering trade-offs with the business purpose of the project

Here's my LinkedIn, although it's a bit light on info: https://www.linkedin.com/in/casey-mcneil-a5625b11/

I hope some of the above info gives you a little bit of background info and might give you a starting point for any questions you might have for me.

I am open to contract, contract-to-hire, and full-time positions with great teams.

Email: caseymcneil@gmail.com

Phone (give me a ring if you'd like to chat!): 405-565-7527

Sure! We operate in the toys and games space, but regardless of the space I'd follow the same process: 1) Locate a mid-popularity product with a ranking of < 4.3 stars and what appears to be profitable margins 2) Look over the neutral and negative reviews looking for improvement suggestions and complaints customers have 3) Figure out an improvement or a way to fix the issues

People will tell you what they want in the reviews. The hard part is figuring out a way to fix it for a price they are willing to pay. Price wins on Amazon every time, unfortunately, so you have to be prepared to sell for less or equal to the competition while at the same time having a superior product. We sell a product for around $20 when the competitor is priced around $18. Our product is 4.9 out of 5 stars with ~400 reviews while the competitor has significantly more reviews but only around 4.5 stars. It's obvious to customers that they're paying a slight premium for a better product when they purchase from us, so we're able to compete. That being said, there's one direct competitor that sells a 3.8-star product for $12 that outsells us 4:1, showing once again that price wins on Amazon's platform.

If you have a superior product, the rest will take care of itself. The marketplace may change and the market may change, but if you have a great product and you offer amazing customer service you'll be fine.

Of course, I'm glossing over tons of details here, but that's the gist of it. You're welcome to ask questions here or follow up with a PM. I'll be glad to help in any way I can.

I completely agree with your opinion on the FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) crowd being the same boat. It's not a great feeling to have your business built on someone else's platform and I'm doing everything I can at the moment to reduce our reliance on Amazon.

I'm surprised that you felt that selling things via FBA is scammy. I have a full-time job but I also own a business that (currently) grosses about $150K on Amazon. I can honestly say that I don't feel like we've out-manipulated anyone or have done anything but create a very competitive product that we're able to sell at a competitive price.

I agree that it quickly turns into a very painful race to the bottom when dozens of vendors are selling variations of the thing (e.g. silicone grill gloves or meat claws), but it's completely different when you're able to take the time to create a really great product. It's been a rewarding experience; I highly recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind answering the occasional support email and is completely committed to excellent customer service.

It's true that they will have some vetting-- All products that Amazon sells itself are evaluated through becoming a seller through Vendor Central. Just because a product is labeled as 'Ships from and sold by Amazon' does not mean that it's not a private label product; Vendor Express is available for exactly the purpose of getting vendors to sell directly to Amazon. I am a mid-volume seller on their platform and I probably see 2-3 offers a week from them encouraging me to list my products with them.

Another trick for the best price is to not always go with the buy box by default. Amazon doesn't give up the buy box unless the competitor's price is significantly lower than theirs. It's always worth taking a look at what else is listed in the 'Other sellers' box, especially on products where Amazon is the vendor. It's likely their the cheapest, but that's not always the case.

Would you mind describing what part of this is deceptive?

Amazon offers its own product-to-review system called Vine that is invite-only. Not all sellers can participate in the Vine program as it's available to Vendor Central sellers, meaning that Amazon purchases the products directly and lists them as 'ships from and sold by Amazon'.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/help

Additionally, on each review, the reviewer is required to explain that they received the product in exchange for a review.

How would you recommend getting reviews for a product, apart from offering them at a discount?

Edit: Added link to Vine FAQ

I can second this.

I design, import, and sell products on Amazon, and when launching a new product I offer them for free or at a deeply discounted price to people who agree to provide an honest review. From my experience, across hundreds of transactions, I can say that reviews that are solicited with free or discounted products are much tougher than those received organically. Most people participating in these review groups are so concerned about being viewed as biased that they move far, far in the other direction. If your product can earn decent ratings with incentivized reviews, you'll do very well with organic reviews.

If anyone is interested in making graphene yourself, Robert Murray Smith, a chemist in the UK with an amazing Youtube channel, posts some tutorial videos on making graphene at home. He describes this specific method here: http://youtu.be/QMp-RP8DcOc

The structure is highly focused and project-oriented. There isn't really an occasion where one would be likely to ask "Ok, so how am I going to use this in the real world?"

In the beginning, the day is usually split into two parts: frontend and backend. Each day there is a 'microproject' that covers what you learned that day, and each Friday there is a project that covers what you have learned up to that point. There is very little theory, though the instructors are constantly recommending books and other reading material for things they gloss over. Towards the end of the course, the frontend and backend lessons are integrated into projects that students complete while pair-programming.

The schools usually charge somewhere between $6,000-$20,000, with most falling somewhere around $8K-$12K. The Maker Square has cohorts of around 40 students, split between two buildings, with multiple instructors in each room who help students as needed. We start at 9:00am and leave the space around 5-7pm every evening. We don't have class on the weekends, so those usually end up being study days.

It's true that they cost a great deal. I've had pretty long conversations with the founders about the fact that there is very little likelyhood that someone without significant means could and come up with the tuition. That being said, I was making $35K at my job before I left, and that was the best job I had ever had because I wasn't working outside or serving food. I was accepted on a Thursday, and I quit my job with DeVry University (I was a teacher's assistant) the next day. I financed the tuition on a credit card and essentially moved all my chips to the middle of the table. Yes, it's risky, but if my risk tolerance goes down over time, the riskiest time of my life should be now.

Now that I've attended this school, I can pick up books about code and not feel completely overwhelmed. For this reason, I believe that if it's an option, a bootcamp is the way to go.

I also believe that the only requirement for 'fitting in' to one of these schools is to be easy to get along with, and be able to take the stress without becoming a jerk. This is more difficult than it would seem, as the course is pretty intense.

I cannot speak to how it differs from a CS curriculum, as I do not have a CS degree, but I vouch for the fact that a bootcamp can teach you way more than you would imagine you could learn in such a short amount of time (usually 10-12 weeks). I am currently enrolled at TheMakerSquare in Austin TX, and knew virtually no programming when I applied. I didn't even know HTML or CSS and now, just a month and a half later, I'm spending my evenings generating rails apps and fiddling with code. It's a pretty impressive change that I most likely wouldn't have been able to do alone, or even with a good mentor.

I tell them to apply to a developer bootcamp. Schools like this are popping up everywhere because there really are people who are willing (and eager) to hire the students once they graduate. I'm currently attending (and about to graduate from) a developer bootcamp in Austin TX, and I can absolutely recommend this route. Yes, it's impossible to learn everything in such a short amount of time, and attending a bootcamp may not be for everyone, but if one is serious about learning to code, it's a pretty efficient way to learn a new skill.