shawnfrompdx

thanks for the invite! i had to leave portland in 2020 due to the cost of housing and the humanitarian disaster of homelessness. I'm in New York state now which is also not great for other reasons. I hope Portland can improve things for itself.

@Auronis here are the updates I have in progress. this is bringing it back to something closer to what i had a few versions ago. any feedback? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_sxoyHpYjahnagfRhOlWsLEo...

i gave it a 1-year shot at running the cabin as an airbnb, but it is only profitable the peak couple of months a year because we are extremely remote with very harsh winters. i feel a bit stuck under that until the end of this year because i have a bunch of guests booked and i would hate to rugpull them in order to transition it back to a long-term rental. I do believe with more time and money it could be a profitable short-term rental. my county just rolled out a 4% tax on airbnbs for no reason, which hurts. the city house would be income producing with another 30k$ of renovations, but in it's current state (i ran out of money on the renovations) it is half-rented, covering the operating cost.

thank you, i appreciate it

4 or 5 of them told me they were in the same situation, highly regarded people i never thought that could happen to

thank you for taking the time. If i was petty i could share the past 5 versions of my website and resume i created in the last year which precisely followed most of what you recommended here. I had a completely vanilla narrative resume by version 3, and was getting nowhere. analytics and my own vibe check was making me think that all of that was too verbose and it wasn't being read. I was feeling unseen and began retargeting things to create an impression in 2 seconds, enough to hopefully hook someone to want to talk to me to learn more. the latest strategy was to try to emphasize within 2 seconds the point that im all about ai coding, while having a conventional cs/agency background at the same time.

Because you have taken the time to review this stuff and make these same recommendations that everyone else has here, i am going to refactor the site and resume yet again according to these recommendations.

I would love it if my career arc had one through-line narrative that made sense, but I'm afraid it doesnt necessarily. I started as a data architect and backend developer for the first many years, never touching front-end. I had to expand to tackle front-end to meet the changing market demands. in later years, the distinction of what were primarily front end vs back end tasks or roles has become a lot more fuzzy, as things have turned into "all-js-all-ts-everything-everywhere!" I've adapted, and been working full stack ts roles.

I often feel my data architecture / problem-solving skills are overlooked when my last few roles show that i've been developing with a vue ecosystem, pigeonholing me as a front-end dev, something i have never identified with.

I was just trying to become a homeowner. my first house in new york was about 1/4th to 1/5th the cost of a "starter home" anywhere in california. I was never going to be able to afford that

I am heeding and already doing all of the advice that has come up here and on the original thread, with the exception of 'move to where there are in-office jobs and try to get an in-office job' because that's not really feasible at this time

i have spent the last couple days responding to hundreds of comments on the substack piece. no new pieces of advice came up on this thread which were not already covered on the substack comments. advice which i have acknowledged. i was already about to do most of the pieces of advice anyways on my own as the next step, such as applying with a normie pseudonym. you don't know me. im not a victim and i don't have victim mindset. i am survivor.

ive done this with chatgpt and claude

if you read the original article i talked about how i got into this position. I originally had renters at both properties covering almost all the costs. they left shortly before losing my job.

I am the author of this piece, and i didn't share it to HN, I don't hang out here. I just gotta say wow, tough crowd. i wrote this piece from an emotionally low point after another fruitless day of applying to jobs. I didn't have a particular agenda in mind. I was voicing what i've been through and some of what I was experiencing with no expectations.

you'll notice in the comments section that the population of substackistan is much less FUCKING CYNICAL AND NEGATIVE than you guys, with many commenters saying they are in the same position. I heard from writers, designers, engineers, going through similar times.

my portfolio site is https://shawnfromportland.com, you can find my resume there. if you have leads that you think I might match with you can definitely send them my way, I will even put a false last name on an updated resume for you guys.

for those who are wondering, I legally changed my name to K long ago because my dad's last name starts with K, but I didn't like identifying with his family name everywhere i went because he was not in my life and didnt contribute to shaping me. I thought hard about what other name I could choose but nothing resonated with me. I had already been using Shawn K for years before legally changing it and it was the only thing that felt right.

i was just describing the all around comfort level of my lifestyle. if you drive a couple states away for a camping trip for a week, get a couple motels maybe, eat out, etc, it can be 2k$ pretty easily

just to offer a minor correction, the ratio was more like 800 applications for multi round interviews with ~10 companies (so maybe about 25 interviews). probably 25% of applications received a "no" response, while the rest ghosted

thanks

by 'advanced', i simply meant complex web apps that are more than CRUD / more than wordpress. to take one that comes to mind, i built this server job that synced with an old school phone center CRM for a home security corp, and it coordinated all these events and updates to happen at scheduled times for customers getting home security systems installed

i have a BACKGROUND in php in the caveman times, but i have been working fullstack typescript/GCP since 2017

while i have a BACKGROUND in php, i have not been seeking php work and havent been working fulltime in php since like 2017. Since then i've been fullstack in typescript. i've been seeking typescript roles in apps & vr.

i have not been trying the same thing over and over. I have been continually trying something new every month or two of the search, seeing what works.

I have landed some interviews which was hard as hell, making it as far as fourth rounds, but no offers. I think you did not read the article but its ok.

thank you.

i got words of encouragement but no one had leads

i applied at a web dev role at SU, in-office, making less than what i made in like 2009, with skills that are frankly below me. custom written cover letter. job been posted for months. they just hit me with the 'no thanks'

my parent corp let go many, maybe 20% of each of their various dev teams in early 2024, right after everyones productivity was starting to go 3-10x. instead of keeping everyone and dreaming way way bigger, it was more like 'get the same amount of stuff done with way less people.' now i have more experience and skills than ever before, but the ratio of applications to even getting a response much less an interview is lower than ever in the past. anecdotally, in my job searches in 2018 and 2020, roles that would say they had ~20 applicants within the first day of posting, now have like 1000+

thanks. this is the fifth iteration of my resume in this last year's search. im clearly trying to push for ai-coding, as i think i was often overlooked for being too 'trad'. in reality im all-in on ai.

I said what I said. it still beats going into in an office

ive had tons of in-office dev jobs, but have primarily been working online since like 2012. not only has it been way better for my health and sanity but my productivity is way way higher. the thought of going back to an office is PTSD inducing, a big step back

for sure it would be much easier if it was just me to consider in the picture

I will probably begin doing this but i will say-- in the past it was not a hurdle at all, and i got many interviews and a few jobs with this name. I have had about 10 interviews in the last year, going to 4th rounds, and nobody suggested it was a problem. my ratio of landing interviews per applications i put in parallels what I am hearing/reading from all other developers on the job market now. I don't strongly suspect my one-letter last name is a huge culprit here, but after a year on the job search and willing to try anything, i may begin applying with a pseudonym

just for reference about my amassed 'wealth', the combined cost of my mortgages is less than a studio apartment's rent in the bay area. i left the west coast for precisely this reason

this is a factor for me. I've always had to pick up new languages frameworks and skills on-the-job. but today hirers are seeking only really niched down specific experts, and i suspect i am filtered out automatically by not matching that, with no regard to the fact that it's not that big of a deal for an experienced engineer to pick up something new

i get where you are coming from. i tried 5 versions of my resume in the last year. talking to recruiters. shotgunning resumes. hand crafting one-off cover letters. I have tried many approaches. you can guage my resume for yourself. the current strategy is to pander to people who are mainly looking for ai-dev skills https://shawnfromportland.com/Shawn_K_Resume_2025-4.pdf