liquidcool

You want to keep out the bad recruiters, who won't read your FAQ. They don't even read the first line of my LinkedIn summary to find out we compete before trying to sell me their services.

What might be useful is some sort of recruiter CAPTCHA that asks them questions about the position. Recruiters need you to self-qualify because naught but a handful can do that (none if your LI profile is blank). This would automate that.

Keep in mind they might not have something like salary info because the hiring manager doesn't want to set a range for a high-need position.

But at the same time, it would filter out shockingly high percentage of recruiters who ask for "full stack" developers and think that's the whole thing. They literally don't know that there are different stacks. One asked if I could find her any since I run a Java user group. Turns out, she needed Node.js developers. This is common.

So just by asking the primary language and framework, you could filter out the ignorant ones. However, that won't stop them from messaging you in the first place

I'd like to think I qualify, but I really identify as a software consultant (coder/manager type) who also does recruiting/contracting. I'm happy to answer any questions about this.

I got into this because I'm very personable and have a large professional network. This is from running the largest Java User Group in SoCal, and now a tech interview meetup, plus attending many others. I'd been hearing (and experiencing) what you described for years, so I figured I could be the best recruiter in the area - kind of like the world's tallest halfling. To be honest, it's harder than I thought.

Obviously, most recruiters don't know anything about technology. They rely entirely on the candidate qualifying themselves and the hiring manager giving helpful feedback. So at a minimum, they should have a good relationship with the hiring manager. Internal recruiters are competing with you and may try to block access. I simply dropped a client that did that, but usually it's the hiring manager who brings me in.

I also don't know how recruiters do this for other cities, much less halfway around the world like the offshore recruiters. First thing I did was check to see if you listed a location, because unless I have a client who allows remote work (rare) it's hard to help.

Again, happy to answer any specific questions.

The finance domain, esp. in NYC, puts you on a much higher lifetime income trajectory.

If the role is well defined, that means you know how to succeed. If the tech is modern and sought after (and it damn well better be at a startup), that will position you well for your next job.

Biggest concern is if you think #2 has a weak engineering team and that with just 5 years exp. you'd be the strongest engineer with nobody to learn from. That would be a red flag. Otherwise, seems like a clear win.

Three sites dedicated to this are VolunteerMatch, Idealist, and Catchafire.

For freelancing, there's Upwork (formerly elance/Odesk), which expects you to be remote. Good luck!

Here's my advice as a developer/manager/recruiter:

- get a great book on JavaScript and learn it well, including idioms

- for interviews (and to be a better programmer) take a data structures/algorithms course, there are many free online. I've got a big list of resources here:

http://www.madeupname.com/programming-interview-preparation-...

- React is getting more popular, but I do extensive research on the job market and in California at least, AngularJS has about twice as many jobs as React. I'll add that Node.js is an absolute juggernaut. But if you've only done front end, stick with it for now. Plenty of work for an AngularJS expert.

- if you can't get paying work, contribute to an open source project any way you can. That always impresses hiring managers.

There is a very big difference between going to an info session/mixer with no intentions to join, and going on an interview. Companies I know want as many engineers going to network and learn about what they are doing. Things can change in the future, and these are casual events.

Going on a "practice" interview is a bad practice because everyone's time is wasted. There are lots of resources for practicing your interview skills without misleading someone.

So go, have some free food, ask questions and make friends.

Funnily enough, I was recruiting for a Python/Flask engineer not long ago. The best applicant didn't have side projects, but had a blog with over 150 articles on Python and Flask. He was rejected because they couldn't afford him.

I've written about side projects, and two best ideas are usually:

- Contribute to open source. I would contribute to the Flask project if that's what you want to use professionally. Either improve the framework directly, or write a useful extension.

- Make something that people will use, and preferably makes you money. People want to see evidence of production quality, not hobby projects. If that means shrinking the scope, do it.

Assuming you make $100K, $3,000 is your opportunity cost. Oh, plus $10.

That's ~100 coffee meetings (say $20 because it's fancy coffee and bread pudding) with managers and lead engineers at companies you want to work at, including gas and a LinkedIn pro account.

In 100 meetings, you're bound to at least find someone to mentor you, if not hire you right away. Plus make some real connections.

You could also drop a couple hundred on a resume designer if you like, but being detailed on your LinkedIn profile is probably more effective.

Full disclosure: I'm a software consultant who also does recruiting/staffing. But an exceptionally ethical one.

It is not common, but I do it for various projects, and have also worked part time for others. On the hiring side, the projects are in maintenance mode and there just isn't 40 hours of work a week, esp. if you split (say) front end and backend. I also do PM consulting, and can manage a number of developers working only a few hours a day.

You have problems if you hire people who are not professional freelancers, or those who can't manage their time. I once broke that rule and hired someone with a full time job. They were pressured into OT at work, quality on my stuff dropped like a rock, and he was grateful to be fired. So unless you're a full time freelancer, I won't hire you. Others might, though!

Definitely more rare. Yahoo famously brought in remote workers/telecommuters because they felt it wasn't working.

You might want to look for companies that believe in a ROWE: results-only work environment. These are the ones with unlimited PTO. Best Buy corporate was the first to popularize it.

I'm doing some recruiting for a startup that will consider remote if you've got very relevant experience (in this case, are a Spark committer). It can also be that way on the domain side of things.

For instance, I just told a friend who needs to find work fast to contact his company's competitors. In this case, there is no danger of IP theft (and I'd never recommend doing anything unethical) since they are botching up the tech pretty badly, hence the desire to leave. Would be worth it to snag a top technologist at your competitor, even if s/he's remote.

By remaining anonymous and leaving out important details, it's hard to give you pointed advice. Here's are some general options:

- get a MSCS at the best school you can get into, choose the thesis option for something you're excited about, and become a good networker

- take remedial CS courses (they're free, online, everywhere), start running through Cracking the Coding Interview, find a tech interview study group, practice daily

- contribute to a popular open source project; if you have to, start with improving the docs, answering questions on S.O, etc.

Rent controlled city with population >100K? Try Los Angeles, population 3.8M. From http://la.curbed.com/2016/1/27/10872448/rent-control-rent-st...:

...there are around 118,000 [rent controlled units] in play in LA right now, making up "about 85 percent of the city's rental housing stock"

It's a combination of fundamentals (although a couple require you already know them) and a specific stack (e.g., Rails + AngularJS). So assuming you meant BSCS/MSCS, the only reason you wouldn't just pick up some books or online courses and learn what you needed, was that you require the discipline and accountability of a formal, paid education.

I do recommend to everyone getting an MSCS that they take the thesis option and do a project relevant to their desired job.

That's a good point. For those unfamiliar, see:

https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm

Essentially, the intern has to be a burden to your organization. Granted, I've had coworkers who would qualify for that...

It's mixed, see here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8844848

If you're looking for a job, I'd want to know way more than percentages. Companies, positions, salaries, etc.

I do recruiting and have seen a number of boot camp grads, and their first job is usually an (unpaid?) internship. Boot camps are at most 6 months of study (often compressed to 3). That's not a lot, compared to BS or MS in CS. You may want to look at remote masters programs, like Georgia Tech's.

What is "Methode"? Google is no help.

It sounds like a two part problem: getting the job, and doing well at the job, and they are orthogonal.

There was an article about getting hired by a YC startup not too long ago, and the key takeaways were:

1. be focused on building products, not mastering technology, or at least say that you are. They don't want to hear about your desire to be awesome at <machine learning|scalability|etc.>

2. stay away from enterprise software companies. Doesn't matter if you're solving similar (hard) problems.

3. stay away from enterprise tech, like C# and Java, unless you're going after a specific company that uses those.

These are irrational biases, but pretty entrenched. My advice is to just get things done. Record what, how, and the material impact on your LinkedIn profile, at least quarterly. Network at start-upy events. They'll come to you eventually.

First, I recommend reading Dale Carnegie and Switch for tackling cultural issues with diplomacy. You're going to need this at every company.

How is DevOps? Is there room for improvement or learning there?

If you are going to switch companies because you see no way to fix things, how did you interview those teams to ensure they don't have similar problems?

It depends what you need them for, you're leaving out a lot of important details like task and budget. Contact me if you'd like to discuss, it's very likely I can help.

What pushes Java and keeps it thriving today are big data and Android. It also has an enormous library and framework ecosystem.

As for language progress, think JVM, not Java. I program exclusively in Groovy. You also have Scala, JRuby, Clojure, and others that run great on the JVM and are more feature-rich than JS (even ES6).

Job market is entirely dependent on your locality. I'm an expert on California's tech job market, and even LA and Orange counties have very different job markets, different still from SV.

That's a good question, it's tough. There are definitely fake jobs out there. Some lazy recruiters will cut/paste real job descriptions straight from the client, but change the city to one nearby to throw off competition or applicants. Others will have fake jobs to collect resumes.

I started doing recruiting last year (my background is dev/mgmt), and in my ads I make it clear who I am with a link to my company site and LinkedIn profile. I say what groups I run, so they can verify on Meetup if they wanted, as well.

When I get your application, I'll email you requesting a phone call (or a cup of coffee if you prefer), so your investment is very little and you can always hang up if it's not for you.

On a phone call, I'll tell you exactly who the company is, because I need to know if you applied before. Most candidates do a quick email search if they can't remember. Submitting you when you've already applied, and maybe even interviewed, makes me look bad and you look worse, and I don't want either. If the recruiter won't tell you the client, just walk away.

If I reach out to you directly, I'll tell you up front who the client is and give details about the position.

A number of devs come to me by referral because I've been active in the local dev community for 15 years. I hit a lot of meetups and code camps. If you ask friends, they may have a recruiter they recommend.

I agree poof has some good points. You don't really define "meh," which means you haven't defined the problem in detail. Or perhaps multiple problems, which you could prioritize and tackle individually. If the delta is too big, shrink the delta.

And I caution against making "passion" the goal. That's a myth. You just need people being productive. I know a few brilliant people who don't show any signs of passion or excitement, but they're prodigious without being egotistical, which is the best you can hope for.

I don't know your situation, but part of my problem was that best practices produce overhead, which feels like wasted effort if you're not getting yelled at for big errors or missed deadlines. And it's worse if you're not getting yelled at for big errors, but are getting pushed for deadlines. But then you're racking up technical debt, and there's a lot of material on that.

I wrote a very long, funny post about the frustrations you are facing. It's based around being a lead, but having no authority because you have no influence over salary and hire/fire decisions.

However, I never never published it because I'm afraid people won't read to the end where I realize you need to be able to show how management's problems are their problems, and likewise the solutions. And if you can't articulate in a convincing way why best practices are really best for your team, it may be time to revisit the source material. To be fair, I had to do this myself, but I came out way more confident in my knowledge of what makes a productive team.

My friend Or has the same problem. They often have to spell it 0r.

Few things. Are you on LinkedIn? If not, you are invisible to recruiters. It also suggests you're not doing much networking.

Most good companies don't require a college degree, but "entry level" often assumes one. You've been studying CS for 10 months and are competing against those who've studied it for 4 years, perhaps with job experience to boot.

Your best bet is to become a contributor to a popular open source project. In addition to that, I agree you need to network with engineers and managers because recruiters won't feel comfortable submitting you at this point.

Pick a stack, then choose an open source project in that stack to contribute to. You can start by contributing docs and tutorials, then try to understand the code base and fix small bugs. Work your way up to bugs and features with the most votes. That guarantees people are using your work, which managers appreciate. It also establishes authority in that software, which can lead to jobs if it's popular enough.

Does he not know the average salaries of developers in your area? Any recruiter will corroborate that.

Or does he think you should hire developers from lower cost of living areas?

Or is he surprised that labor is a high percentage of total expenses? In that case, you need only explain why the other expenses are so cheap (hosting, etc. isn't expensive with a small customer base).

canteburry may also have a point, a lot of people don't hire at level. Or they hire hard core computer scientists when application developers would be better.

Agree, we use it to coordinate dog care between housemates, but if they stopped all work on networking with dog owners and just made the damn thing sync more often, I'd be thrilled. I hate walking the dog at 1AM because it took 3 hours to upload the data so it looked like he never went.

I don't know Singapore, but I'm US-based and do some contingency recruiting. It sounds like you were talking to someone at the company, and they can be more hard nosed about that.

My goal is to see if your salary target fit's in the company's range. If not, I don't want to waste your time, although in some cases you may be interested in getting less money for stock options and, well, all sorts of good reasons.

Most people volunteer their salary because A) I'll keep it confidential if they ask, and will share market salary info with them, and possibly B) they are confident they are well paid and want to use it as an anchor. If they give me their current salary and their target, I only pass on the target since it's the operative number. I have good clients who have no problem with that.

In your case, truthfully, I would have shared just to hear what their offer was. They don't know your salary now, but you don't know if they would have given you what you wanted because you halted negotiation. If you were looking for a fair market rate and they advertise compensation as "competitive," that shouldn't be a problem.

IMO, if you're a junior developer you don't want autonomy, you want guidance and mentoring from fantastic senior programmers. I didn't realize it at the time, but that was a big win when I started my career.

Also, I managed a ColdFusion team. I didn't want to use it, but the company chose it before I took over because it was easy for non-programmers to pick up. Not coincidentally, I was managing developers with way more experience because I had more good practices in me after 2 years at JPL than most in that team. Smart, wonderful people! Just not serious coders.

Bottom line, find a company who's development team impresses you and learn from them.