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I posted in the December thread and was contacted several times over the next 6 weeks. Here is my learning from this: * Be unique. As a JavaScript developer

I posted in the December thread and was contacted several times over the next 6 weeks. Here is my learning from this: * Be unique. As a JavaScript developer I mentioned that I will not work on Angular, React, or other big frameworks. This immediately tells 90% of hiring companies to not waste their time with me and I am also not competing with many other people. * Be patient. I grew impatient and jumped on an opportunity outside of software. * Be careful what you wish for. The same failings and faults that apply everywhere else in software hiring will happen here too. Always be skeptical of the process, and ask good questions. * Keep your experience in mind. Mostly what software companies are looking for is experience. Education is a nice to have, but it isn't required to be a developer. Education is never a certification no matter how much you wish it were or how expensive it was. If you have no experience you should expect to start as a junior developer. * You don't need to be hired to obtain experience. Nothing is preventing you from writing open source software personal project and making mistakes that you are learning from. As somebody with a masters degree you are in a stronger position for advancing quickly compared to most other developers. After 20 years of writing software I am convinced that there are only 2 difference between a novice developer and an expert: writing skills and an advanced appreciation for data structures. Those are both skills that take practice to develop and the results a self-evident when reviewing code.

crystaldev 7y ago
OP talks about getting no response, so I don't think avoiding the 90% of hiring companies relates to their goals.
- godelski 7y ago
  OP is also looking in a niche field [0]. Maybe we should be talking about their resume and what they are actually trying to get a job in? Genetics or a general programming job. I think it is fair for recruiters to be wary of someone with a PhD in genetics that is looking to get a general software job or data science job. OP needs to tell a better story and I think that might be an issue here. Agree or disagree? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22468840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22468840
  - elliotec 7y ago
    Big agree
Nextgrid 7y ago
Just curious, what's the vanilla JS niche? Is there any particular reason a company would go with it instead of frameworks like React, etc (not saying I agree with those decisions, just an observation based what's happening on the job market)? Do you do server-side or client-side JS?
- username90 7y ago
  A lot of people don't want to set up a whole new environment just to run some javascript in their front end. I know you can put react and angular code in plain js files and serve those files directly, but if you hire a typical frontend guy chances are he will need to add a whole slew of dependencies and steps to deploy your solution. Take a simple site like HN, there is no need to make maintenance many times more expensive by doing all of those things when a hundred lines of javascript will do the trick while still being simple enough that any programmer could read it and understand how it works.
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    Then again, HN doesn't need a Javascript developer to maintain their 2kb of JS, either. I mean, by virtue of being a client-side Javascript developer, you're surely going to be working on client-side applications large enough to demand a client-side Javascript developer. Frankly, avoiding jobs that use frameworks seems like you're choosing for nothing more than legacy spaghetti-code messes, not some sort of back-to-basics enlightenment. But I'm not here to judge what somewhat likes. :P
    - username90 7y ago
      I looked up his post, seems like he codes complicated systems in Javascript rather than being a typical UI developer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20589013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20589013 I can see a lot of companies being willing to hire a person who can do that even if he doesn't want to use a specific UI framework. Just write down the javascript and you can integrate it in whatever codebase you have, so he is a lot easier to work with than your average JS dev.
kingkongjaffa 7y ago
what are you doing if not >I will not work on Angular, React, or other big frameworks.
- alexbanks 7y ago
  Homerolled frameworks with worse/no documentation.
  - austincheney 7y ago
    In my experience code written with frameworks is equally lacking in documentation. Writing to the DOM and maintaining state are tiny beginner things that don’t require much documentation since the DOM and web storage are standards and already well documented. It’s the actual code the developers are actually writing that needs, and lacks, documentation. When I mentioned in my comment above that writing is one of only two things separating a novice from an expert I wasn’t being clever.
    - alexbanks 7y ago
      I couldn't possibly disagree more with a person's post, but I'm glad you're finding success with what you're doing.
- ng12 7y ago
  Reinventing wheels, probably.
  - ferzul 7y ago
    not op, but i'm presently working on a project with a simple old school “no clientside deps, complex logic goes on the server” requirement, and i don't actually feel like i'm doing anything much different than when i work on react. the project is pretty simple, and modern js is significantly improved, so the notion that you have to reinvent the wheel seems false.
    - 7y ago

crystaldev 7y ago

OP talks about getting no response, so I don't think avoiding the 90% of hiring companies relates to their goals.

godelski 7y ago
OP is also looking in a niche field [0]. Maybe we should be talking about their resume and what they are actually trying to get a job in? Genetics or a general programming job. I think it is fair for recruiters to be wary of someone with a PhD in genetics that is looking to get a general software job or data science job. OP needs to tell a better story and I think that might be an issue here. Agree or disagree? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22468840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22468840
- elliotec 7y ago
  Big agree

Nextgrid 7y ago

Just curious, what's the vanilla JS niche? Is there any particular reason a company would go with it instead of frameworks like React, etc (not saying I agree with those decisions, just an observation based what's happening on the job market)? Do you do server-side or client-side JS?

username90 7y ago
A lot of people don't want to set up a whole new environment just to run some javascript in their front end. I know you can put react and angular code in plain js files and serve those files directly, but if you hire a typical frontend guy chances are he will need to add a whole slew of dependencies and steps to deploy your solution. Take a simple site like HN, there is no need to make maintenance many times more expensive by doing all of those things when a hundred lines of javascript will do the trick while still being simple enough that any programmer could read it and understand how it works.
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  Then again, HN doesn't need a Javascript developer to maintain their 2kb of JS, either. I mean, by virtue of being a client-side Javascript developer, you're surely going to be working on client-side applications large enough to demand a client-side Javascript developer. Frankly, avoiding jobs that use frameworks seems like you're choosing for nothing more than legacy spaghetti-code messes, not some sort of back-to-basics enlightenment. But I'm not here to judge what somewhat likes. :P
  - username90 7y ago
    I looked up his post, seems like he codes complicated systems in Javascript rather than being a typical UI developer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20589013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20589013 I can see a lot of companies being willing to hire a person who can do that even if he doesn't want to use a specific UI framework. Just write down the javascript and you can integrate it in whatever codebase you have, so he is a lot easier to work with than your average JS dev.

kingkongjaffa 7y ago

what are you doing if not >I will not work on Angular, React, or other big frameworks.

alexbanks 7y ago
Homerolled frameworks with worse/no documentation.
- austincheney 7y ago
  In my experience code written with frameworks is equally lacking in documentation. Writing to the DOM and maintaining state are tiny beginner things that don’t require much documentation since the DOM and web storage are standards and already well documented. It’s the actual code the developers are actually writing that needs, and lacks, documentation. When I mentioned in my comment above that writing is one of only two things separating a novice from an expert I wasn’t being clever.
  - alexbanks 7y ago
    I couldn't possibly disagree more with a person's post, but I'm glad you're finding success with what you're doing.
ng12 7y ago
Reinventing wheels, probably.
- ferzul 7y ago
  not op, but i'm presently working on a project with a simple old school “no clientside deps, complex logic goes on the server” requirement, and i don't actually feel like i'm doing anything much different than when i work on react. the project is pretty simple, and modern js is significantly improved, so the notion that you have to reinvent the wheel seems false.
  - 7y ago