8 ms·

Don't sell yourself short, Vladimir. If you're going to work for free, try contributing to an open source project you find interesting. If you're going to work

Don't sell yourself short, Vladimir. If you're going to work for free, try contributing to an open source project you find interesting. If you're going to work for a for-profit company, you should be paid :)

futuremint 16y ago
He does say that after a few weeks he expects to get hired. But he should totally charge an hourly rate instead of free. I know people would pay for it.
- latch 16y ago
  he says after a few months. I generally agree with your parent that he ought to spend that time doing something that can showcase his skills and increase his chance to get hired. He can gain more exposure working on something in the open (a personal project, an OSS project) than doing some work for a single company.
- jarin 16y ago
  Exactly, there's a big difference between pro bono and paid work. And trust me, the people you do free work for will expect A LOT MORE from you. I would say the exceptions would be: a) it's a charity or a cause that you like, or b) you really need to improve a particular skill and it's more of an internship you're looking for. Either way though, I give you mad props for initiative.
v-t 16y ago
I am considering open source as good place to learn and to generate some value for people. I do love sinatra framework. I pull source and read diffs every couple days. But they have core team which fixes all bugs in seconds, so I cannot find application there. And my goal is more to make some contacts and to know people in this field. I always was a silent reader and now I want to communicate with intresting people.
- bad_user 16y ago
  Vladimir, open source contributions tend to suck unless you're scratching an itch for yourself. You don't contribute for the sake of contributing, that's not going to work. That's why you shouldn't work on Sinatra and other open source tools meant for developers. Instead, build an app for a much wider audience. Do what an entrepreneur trying to sell his app would do, but with open-source - i.e. the end goal being to have real users that appreciate your work. Here's the perfect example: https://github.com/michaeldv/fat_free_crm https://github.com/michaeldv/fat_free_crm
- yawniek 16y ago
  have you looked at http://padrinorb.com http://padrinorb.com its based on sinatra and has still open tickets.
codeslush 16y ago
It seems to me that what he's doing is rather smart. It gives him an chance to be exposed to more opportunities than if he was trying to get hired and he can pick those on which he wishes to take a risk. I would certainly change the wording a little to weed out the people who will just try to take advantage, but the overall strategy seems quite appropriate. This will work very well for a person who's confident in their skills, but maybe having a hard time finding income from traditional sources. Get in, kick butt, make a statement and earn income.
- v-t 16y ago
  My idea is to do exactly what you say.
- bad_user 16y ago
  Working on open-source has the same benefits, and while a good profitable gig coming from that would probably take longer than 1 or 2 months, the benefits of being a known open-source author will last for much longer and fare much better going forward. I swear, every time someone (with a known/useful open-source contribution) came to an interview for any company I worked for, everybody was drooling uncontrollably and thinking "how the hell could we please this guy to stay, after all, he's Google material".
- tomlin 16y ago
  Unfortunately, more often than not, this mentality is taken advantage of. To the pressured manager, Vlad provides an easy-out. It also sets a bad tone for the relationship between employer and employee. It's also a negotiation uphill battle to go from $0 to $50,000/year. Any looming economic crisis multiplies the battle, and in turn, valuable enthusiasm for the industry. His work is probably better than most, but his self-esteem regarding his abilities is apparent - especially to an employer.
  - codeslush 16y ago
    While I don't completely disagree with you, I think his chances of success are better than spending x amount of time applying for jobs trying to get an interview. I don't recall which company, but in the last two weeks, one of the big name startups put out a competition to solve a problem regarding log file parsing. It was an opportunity, basically, to get a job with them. Now, with this approach, the OP might be competing with thousands of others - and his chances of standing out are reduced. He's taken the inverse approach, and HE can pick the challenges he wishes to solve, with same end goal: income. It's not unique - it's what a lot of driven people have done in the past to get in the door somewhere.
mattdeboard 16y ago
This does seem to be a mantra on HN. I can't speak for anyone else, but where I live "junior developer" positions are looking for 3+ years experience, "Preferably" a masters degree in computer science, expert Linux, HTML and JavaScript, and so forth. While globally it is a hacker's job market, those of us who are not currently free to move to where the jobs are (I'm a single parent and don't want to uproot my kid again) sometimes have to try to get our foot in the door in this employer's market by begging for the chance to work even for free. Not trying to be a Debbie Downer at all, by the way. I moved from the valley to the Midwest (I know, I know...) so I know that there are tons of jobs for people like me (and Vlad, probably). However in my opinion "Don't work for free for a for-profit company!" isn't advice everyone is in a position to follow. I wish I could. (Disclaimer: I am a junior dev with Django/js experience in both personal and open-source projects, without a degree. So take my whining for what it's worth.)
- bradleyland 16y ago
  Don't sell yourself short either. If you can't get paying work doing what you're doing, take the startup advice and pivot.
  - mattdeboard 16y ago
    If I had a single great idea, I would :P Best I've done is build a pinboard clone.
    - blrgeek 16y ago
      There you go then! Just pick one, and start banging away :) http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+Dump+March+2011+Edition http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+Dump+March+2011+Edition http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+dump+February+2011+edition http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+dump+February+2011+editi... http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+dump+January+2011+edition http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+dump+January+2011+editio... http://jacquesmattheij.com/My+list+of+ideas+for+when+you+are+looking+for+inspiration http://jacquesmattheij.com/My+list+of+ideas+for+when+you+are...
    - 16y ago
Vivtek 16y ago
You can also do work for non-profits or charities. Sparked.com always has some Web-related work that you could easily do in a couple of hours at a whack and build up a portfolio. (Sparked.com being a site I learned about here, and I've done a couple of little tasks there.)
tmachinecharmer 16y ago
Do startups that are not making profit qualify as non-profit organizations?
- jat850 16y ago
  That's probably tongue in cheek, but in case it's not: No, absolutely, definitely not.
viralinfection 16y ago
while that's generally good advice; i think vlad goal is lead generation, he hit the top of HN, im sure he'll find gainful employment
- v-t 16y ago
  To be honest, I was looking at filled submit link form about 10 minutes, thinking that my offer don't worth people time. I hoped to get something like 3 comments. So much attention is amazing to me. This was not planned as clever lead gen trick.
paolomaffei 16y ago
I believe it is called an "internship"
- swecker 16y ago
  Many people have a misconception about this. An intern is a hired position (albeit temporary), and working for free is simply volunteering. There are unpaid interns, but there are probably more misconceptions about that. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html?_r=2 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html?_r=...

futuremint 16y ago

He does say that after a few weeks he expects to get hired. But he should totally charge an hourly rate instead of free. I know people would pay for it.

latch 16y ago
he says after a few months. I generally agree with your parent that he ought to spend that time doing something that can showcase his skills and increase his chance to get hired. He can gain more exposure working on something in the open (a personal project, an OSS project) than doing some work for a single company.
jarin 16y ago
Exactly, there's a big difference between pro bono and paid work. And trust me, the people you do free work for will expect A LOT MORE from you. I would say the exceptions would be: a) it's a charity or a cause that you like, or b) you really need to improve a particular skill and it's more of an internship you're looking for. Either way though, I give you mad props for initiative.

v-t 16y ago

I am considering open source as good place to learn and to generate some value for people. I do love sinatra framework. I pull source and read diffs every couple days. But they have core team which fixes all bugs in seconds, so I cannot find application there. And my goal is more to make some contacts and to know people in this field. I always was a silent reader and now I want to communicate with intresting people.

bad_user 16y ago
Vladimir, open source contributions tend to suck unless you're scratching an itch for yourself. You don't contribute for the sake of contributing, that's not going to work. That's why you shouldn't work on Sinatra and other open source tools meant for developers. Instead, build an app for a much wider audience. Do what an entrepreneur trying to sell his app would do, but with open-source - i.e. the end goal being to have real users that appreciate your work. Here's the perfect example: https://github.com/michaeldv/fat_free_crm https://github.com/michaeldv/fat_free_crm
yawniek 16y ago
have you looked at http://padrinorb.com http://padrinorb.com its based on sinatra and has still open tickets.

codeslush 16y ago

It seems to me that what he's doing is rather smart. It gives him an chance to be exposed to more opportunities than if he was trying to get hired and he can pick those on which he wishes to take a risk. I would certainly change the wording a little to weed out the people who will just try to take advantage, but the overall strategy seems quite appropriate. This will work very well for a person who's confident in their skills, but maybe having a hard time finding income from traditional sources. Get in, kick butt, make a statement and earn income.

v-t 16y ago
My idea is to do exactly what you say.
bad_user 16y ago
Working on open-source has the same benefits, and while a good profitable gig coming from that would probably take longer than 1 or 2 months, the benefits of being a known open-source author will last for much longer and fare much better going forward. I swear, every time someone (with a known/useful open-source contribution) came to an interview for any company I worked for, everybody was drooling uncontrollably and thinking "how the hell could we please this guy to stay, after all, he's Google material".
tomlin 16y ago
Unfortunately, more often than not, this mentality is taken advantage of. To the pressured manager, Vlad provides an easy-out. It also sets a bad tone for the relationship between employer and employee. It's also a negotiation uphill battle to go from $0 to $50,000/year. Any looming economic crisis multiplies the battle, and in turn, valuable enthusiasm for the industry. His work is probably better than most, but his self-esteem regarding his abilities is apparent - especially to an employer.
- codeslush 16y ago
  While I don't completely disagree with you, I think his chances of success are better than spending x amount of time applying for jobs trying to get an interview. I don't recall which company, but in the last two weeks, one of the big name startups put out a competition to solve a problem regarding log file parsing. It was an opportunity, basically, to get a job with them. Now, with this approach, the OP might be competing with thousands of others - and his chances of standing out are reduced. He's taken the inverse approach, and HE can pick the challenges he wishes to solve, with same end goal: income. It's not unique - it's what a lot of driven people have done in the past to get in the door somewhere.

mattdeboard 16y ago

This does seem to be a mantra on HN. I can't speak for anyone else, but where I live "junior developer" positions are looking for 3+ years experience, "Preferably" a masters degree in computer science, expert Linux, HTML and JavaScript, and so forth. While globally it is a hacker's job market, those of us who are not currently free to move to where the jobs are (I'm a single parent and don't want to uproot my kid again) sometimes have to try to get our foot in the door in this employer's market by begging for the chance to work even for free. Not trying to be a Debbie Downer at all, by the way. I moved from the valley to the Midwest (I know, I know...) so I know that there are tons of jobs for people like me (and Vlad, probably). However in my opinion "Don't work for free for a for-profit company!" isn't advice everyone is in a position to follow. I wish I could. (Disclaimer: I am a junior dev with Django/js experience in both personal and open-source projects, without a degree. So take my whining for what it's worth.)

bradleyland 16y ago
Don't sell yourself short either. If you can't get paying work doing what you're doing, take the startup advice and pivot.
- mattdeboard 16y ago
  If I had a single great idea, I would :P Best I've done is build a pinboard clone.
  - blrgeek 16y ago
    There you go then! Just pick one, and start banging away :) http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+Dump+March+2011+Edition http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+Dump+March+2011+Edition http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+dump+February+2011+edition http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+dump+February+2011+editi... http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+dump+January+2011+edition http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/Idea+dump+January+2011+editio... http://jacquesmattheij.com/My+list+of+ideas+for+when+you+are+looking+for+inspiration http://jacquesmattheij.com/My+list+of+ideas+for+when+you+are...
  - 16y ago

Vivtek 16y ago

You can also do work for non-profits or charities. Sparked.com always has some Web-related work that you could easily do in a couple of hours at a whack and build up a portfolio. (Sparked.com being a site I learned about here, and I've done a couple of little tasks there.)

tmachinecharmer 16y ago

Do startups that are not making profit qualify as non-profit organizations?

jat850 16y ago
That's probably tongue in cheek, but in case it's not: No, absolutely, definitely not.

viralinfection 16y ago

while that's generally good advice; i think vlad goal is lead generation, he hit the top of HN, im sure he'll find gainful employment

v-t 16y ago
To be honest, I was looking at filled submit link form about 10 minutes, thinking that my offer don't worth people time. I hoped to get something like 3 comments. So much attention is amazing to me. This was not planned as clever lead gen trick.

paolomaffei 16y ago

I believe it is called an "internship"

swecker 16y ago
Many people have a misconception about this. An intern is a hired position (albeit temporary), and working for free is simply volunteering. There are unpaid interns, but there are probably more misconceptions about that. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html?_r=2 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html?_r=...