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I've been in the industry nearly 20 years and I always take breaks between jobs. I've worked for startups, Google, Dropbox, non-profits, etc. Between jobs I've

I've been in the industry nearly 20 years and I always take breaks between jobs. I've worked for startups, Google, Dropbox, non-profits, etc. Between jobs I've pursued personal growth, traveled extensively, re-tooled my CS skill sets in new directions, gotten healthy, done extensive open source work, and more. I highly recommend it to others in the industry if you have the ability to do so; it's only helped my personal and professional career not hurt it. Live your own life and don't let others tell you how you're supposed to exist.

automatoney 8y ago
I'm just starting out so I'm really curious how long the breaks you took between jobs were, and if you had the next job lined up before you took your break? Also off topic but what was it like working for non-profits, and what sort of work did you do?
- bradneuberg 8y ago
  The breaks were anywhere from one month to a year. I never had the next job lined up before hand. All my work with non-profits involved doing open source in collaboration with them as a consultant. It was great :)
biscottigelato 8y ago
Any tips for companies to take your open sourced work as experience? I've mostly just been thrown the book at doing algorithm puzzles and such... Got rejected for not 'technically competent' despite polished complex app on both the App Store and on Github. It's insulting to the point I want to start cancelling processes with all Unicorns...
- coaxial 8y ago
  > Got rejected for not 'technically competent' despite polished complex app on both the App Store and on Github. It's insulting to the point I want to start cancelling processes with all Unicorns... Because "how do we know you didn't copy paste it from a tutorial and claim it as yours?" It is insulting, and frankly discouraging. As if the only one true way to tell whether you know your stuff or not is to check if you can solve some silly riddle/puzzle under the gun. One solution is to only apply to companies without a broken hiring process, but sadly they're very rare.
  - biscottigelato 8y ago
    Like a few hundred thousand lines of code copied from tutorials into a unique working product. Open sourced with a year worth of commit history. I'd hire that guy, but maybe that's why I'm looking for employment and not the employer? LOL
- paranoidrobot 8y ago
  > Got rejected for not 'technically competent' That sounds a bit harsh. Unless you're going for a role that requires some kind of explicit/specific knowledge - and you're clearly not able to demonstrate any skill in that area - I wouldn't put too much stock in the interview processes of Unicorns actually being indicative of your true skill. I've been told, during an interview, that I was clearly incompetent and the interviewer terminated the interview. This was because I stumbled on doing a series of whiteboard exercises to solve some obscure brain-teasers. I ended up getting the job anyway (I had worked with people there, and they vouched for me) and learned that to many of the interviewers, they found great delight in finding the most obscure and weird problems, trick questions and coding challenges. It didn't help with selecting for competency, and the product the company was shipping wasn't exactly ground breaking or needing of someone who could on the spot solve arcane bullshit.
  - biscottigelato 8y ago
    I demo'ed my work up front. And then did their algorithm puzzles. I don't think I aced them all. I have an answer to them all and demonstrate that I can tackle these kinda problems. But it seems they want people that have studied for months and probably have seen the problem before, so they can go thru all the possible optimizations and come up with the best answer in 45 minutes. Basically they are hiring an 'Interview Cracking Engineer'. Not a developer... I thought it used to be that they look at your resume and they ask you questions to confirm that your resume is real. And that's that. Now it's basically just an exam, period...
- dorchadas 8y ago
  Same. I had a website that I was fairly proud of that involved DjangoREST and Angular and such, and was basically told "Anyone can do that" when I applied for a junior job. It was horribly demotivating, and I don't know if I've seriously applied for a coding job since, which is sad as I'd love to shift into programming and still do it on my own.
  - ioddly 8y ago
    Interviews & job applications are not a fair evaluation of your skills, they're a giant and terrible filter. Don't let it stop you from continuing to apply for jobs. If you have written a Django/Angular site from scratch you are more than qualified for a junior position.
    - dorchadas 8y ago
      Thanks. I'm gonna keep working on some of my other projects, and get back to applying to what I find open involving those technologies and others I know. It was just a frustrating thing hearing that and, since I have a steady job (even if I don't particularly enjoy it), it was hard to make myself apply for programming ones after hearing it. Just need to move on and keep doing it.
  - biscottigelato 8y ago
    I think a lot of employees feel that since their company have a great website, a great product, a great business, they conflate it as their own and that 'anybody can do it'. In fact they have only done a tiny portion of anything themselves. It's not until they get thrown out on a blank canvas they'd learn to appreciate how hard it is if all they have is their own pair of hands. Unfortunately the people interviewing are often going to be life-long employees that are expert of climbing the corp ladder, not so much the entrepreneurs who found and own the business.
dunkelheit 8y ago
On the surface this is an obvious thing to do, but somehow this is not the default (and not only because of monetary reasons, the societal pressure is real). But it is inspiring to know that it is possible and you have found success on this path.
bob_roboto 8y ago
I can second this. I always take 3-6 months off between jobs for travel and personal development (given I stayed there ~2 years). I'd say I technically progressed about the same during these periods as I did during the preceding employment (minus the real world experience) because I actually really enjoy it. I have never once gotten a negative response in an interview because of it.
0n0n0m0uz 8y ago
Americans are chained in economic slavery and are so brainwashed and dependent on the wage that most are afraid to even take the measly 10 days they are given. The system is designed to keep you living paycheck to paycheck with nothing important except work and conspicuous consumption. Please, quit the job you hate, take as long as you need and don’t apologize. We need a culture change and that will come by more people just doing it. I love work and have no issues working 7 days a week 12 hours a day for about 6 months. At that point I need about 3 months off to live, have fun, get lost and find myself again. I guarantee you in those 6 months, I am more productive than 3 employees milking the clock thinking about their 5 day break in December. I know I need to be a freelancer and some kind of “supertemp” but It’s easier said than done. I believe the AI revolution will eventually force more flexibility into our work arrangements because the assembly line, Henry Ford, work, buy, die, treadmill just is not optimal for many.

automatoney 8y ago

I'm just starting out so I'm really curious how long the breaks you took between jobs were, and if you had the next job lined up before you took your break? Also off topic but what was it like working for non-profits, and what sort of work did you do?

bradneuberg 8y ago
The breaks were anywhere from one month to a year. I never had the next job lined up before hand. All my work with non-profits involved doing open source in collaboration with them as a consultant. It was great :)

biscottigelato 8y ago

Any tips for companies to take your open sourced work as experience? I've mostly just been thrown the book at doing algorithm puzzles and such... Got rejected for not 'technically competent' despite polished complex app on both the App Store and on Github. It's insulting to the point I want to start cancelling processes with all Unicorns...

coaxial 8y ago
> Got rejected for not 'technically competent' despite polished complex app on both the App Store and on Github. It's insulting to the point I want to start cancelling processes with all Unicorns... Because "how do we know you didn't copy paste it from a tutorial and claim it as yours?" It is insulting, and frankly discouraging. As if the only one true way to tell whether you know your stuff or not is to check if you can solve some silly riddle/puzzle under the gun. One solution is to only apply to companies without a broken hiring process, but sadly they're very rare.
- biscottigelato 8y ago
  Like a few hundred thousand lines of code copied from tutorials into a unique working product. Open sourced with a year worth of commit history. I'd hire that guy, but maybe that's why I'm looking for employment and not the employer? LOL
paranoidrobot 8y ago
> Got rejected for not 'technically competent' That sounds a bit harsh. Unless you're going for a role that requires some kind of explicit/specific knowledge - and you're clearly not able to demonstrate any skill in that area - I wouldn't put too much stock in the interview processes of Unicorns actually being indicative of your true skill. I've been told, during an interview, that I was clearly incompetent and the interviewer terminated the interview. This was because I stumbled on doing a series of whiteboard exercises to solve some obscure brain-teasers. I ended up getting the job anyway (I had worked with people there, and they vouched for me) and learned that to many of the interviewers, they found great delight in finding the most obscure and weird problems, trick questions and coding challenges. It didn't help with selecting for competency, and the product the company was shipping wasn't exactly ground breaking or needing of someone who could on the spot solve arcane bullshit.
- biscottigelato 8y ago
  I demo'ed my work up front. And then did their algorithm puzzles. I don't think I aced them all. I have an answer to them all and demonstrate that I can tackle these kinda problems. But it seems they want people that have studied for months and probably have seen the problem before, so they can go thru all the possible optimizations and come up with the best answer in 45 minutes. Basically they are hiring an 'Interview Cracking Engineer'. Not a developer... I thought it used to be that they look at your resume and they ask you questions to confirm that your resume is real. And that's that. Now it's basically just an exam, period...
dorchadas 8y ago
Same. I had a website that I was fairly proud of that involved DjangoREST and Angular and such, and was basically told "Anyone can do that" when I applied for a junior job. It was horribly demotivating, and I don't know if I've seriously applied for a coding job since, which is sad as I'd love to shift into programming and still do it on my own.
- ioddly 8y ago
  Interviews & job applications are not a fair evaluation of your skills, they're a giant and terrible filter. Don't let it stop you from continuing to apply for jobs. If you have written a Django/Angular site from scratch you are more than qualified for a junior position.
  - dorchadas 8y ago
    Thanks. I'm gonna keep working on some of my other projects, and get back to applying to what I find open involving those technologies and others I know. It was just a frustrating thing hearing that and, since I have a steady job (even if I don't particularly enjoy it), it was hard to make myself apply for programming ones after hearing it. Just need to move on and keep doing it.
- biscottigelato 8y ago
  I think a lot of employees feel that since their company have a great website, a great product, a great business, they conflate it as their own and that 'anybody can do it'. In fact they have only done a tiny portion of anything themselves. It's not until they get thrown out on a blank canvas they'd learn to appreciate how hard it is if all they have is their own pair of hands. Unfortunately the people interviewing are often going to be life-long employees that are expert of climbing the corp ladder, not so much the entrepreneurs who found and own the business.

dunkelheit 8y ago

On the surface this is an obvious thing to do, but somehow this is not the default (and not only because of monetary reasons, the societal pressure is real). But it is inspiring to know that it is possible and you have found success on this path.

bob_roboto 8y ago

I can second this. I always take 3-6 months off between jobs for travel and personal development (given I stayed there ~2 years). I'd say I technically progressed about the same during these periods as I did during the preceding employment (minus the real world experience) because I actually really enjoy it. I have never once gotten a negative response in an interview because of it.

0n0n0m0uz 8y ago

Americans are chained in economic slavery and are so brainwashed and dependent on the wage that most are afraid to even take the measly 10 days they are given. The system is designed to keep you living paycheck to paycheck with nothing important except work and conspicuous consumption. Please, quit the job you hate, take as long as you need and don’t apologize. We need a culture change and that will come by more people just doing it. I love work and have no issues working 7 days a week 12 hours a day for about 6 months. At that point I need about 3 months off to live, have fun, get lost and find myself again. I guarantee you in those 6 months, I am more productive than 3 employees milking the clock thinking about their 5 day break in December. I know I need to be a freelancer and some kind of “supertemp” but It’s easier said than done. I believe the AI revolution will eventually force more flexibility into our work arrangements because the assembly line, Henry Ford, work, buy, die, treadmill just is not optimal for many.