5 ms·

The advice from others is fine, but I think you're struggling because you only made it a year, 7 months, 11 months, and 7 months in your last four roles. Wherev

The advice from others is fine, but I think you're struggling because you only made it a year, 7 months, 11 months, and 7 months in your last four roles. Wherever you land next, you need to knuckle down and show some staying power or it's only going to get harder.

wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
It has been circumstance. When you work for small companies there are sometimes problems. At the BP subcontractor there was the OPEC collusion that year. I saw an entire floor of Westlake campus get fired. I was a contractor, and I started to get questions about my bill-ability. My next position saw a very large bill come in one day, from a bad rev of an older board. We had a party when I got laid off. My next job I was the last person remaining in the office during corona. All the other workers were in Turkey. I was severely underpaid. The boss harassed me and threatened me, forcing me to work overnight multiple days in a row, and the weekend. I did leave that job, and rightly so. He continued calling me for many days for over a month. The last 2 positions I had were for crypto companies. Those companies no longer exist. I am 29 years old. My career started really in 2016 or so. Stable corporate America simply hasn't existed for me. I could not have kept my jobs even if I wanted to.
- FreakLegion 3y ago
  The explanation doesn't really matter at this point. Recruiters will filter you out at bigger companies, and smaller companies can't afford to take the risk. But sooner or later you'll get some chances, and I'm advising that you optimize for longevity when those chances come. To get out of this hole you need to stay put for at least two years, ideally longer. All the other advice about how to represent yourself is good and will help you find that next role. My advice is for after you get it.
  - wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
    I think I was getting filtered out before regardless. Probably by machine.
true_religion 3y ago
I think it’s all just contract work. My partner was a contractor but on their resume all you can see is something like “9 years Booz Allen” because they only credit the agency as the employer. To the OP, if you has an agency then credit them and remove all your gigs that are less than 1 year. Also if you don’t have a degree, employers subtract 4 years from your experience. College isn’t totally useless. Lastly zero people will believe you are a ML expert without having a long background in a company or having authored a paper. ML isn’t web dev, it’s something that a more of an academic cutting edge now than what just anyone can pick up.
- wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
  A lot of it was contract work. Some of it I didnt even have a contract. I have no agency. If i removed my gigs less than a year then my resume is going to be almost blank. Secondly, on the ML front. I didnt just pick it up. Firstly, I practiced on and off for years. I failed to learn it handfuls of times, trudging through formal education resources about integrals and backprop and matrix math. Eventually on one of my unemployment stints I found this book called Grokking Deep Learning and drove across the country and went into the redwoods in california, and I studied it for months on end. No internet on my desktop, only my laptop for looking stuff up. With no distractions the amount I accomplished was great. Forgive me for getting angry but Im starting to get mad that people don't believe I could exist. I woke up at the god damn crack of dawn every day and studied ML, implemented autograd, my own little pytorch, and every architecture I could find, and read a zillion ml papers. And when I got bored in the afternoon I went and hiked up the mountain. Im a real human being. I am an RL expert. I dont think im special. I believe anyone else can do this too. People just don't know what they are capable of. They won't believe me because they don't even believe in themselves.
  - true_religion 3y ago
    I don’t think you don’t exist. I don’t think you didn’t work hard for your skills. I just don’t also think you are an ML expert. Yes, you know what you are doing and have some learning projects under your belt but so do university students. They even write formal papers and publish them under the guidance of people who lead the field. Yet they wouldn’t claim they are experts!

wegfawefgawefg 3y ago

It has been circumstance. When you work for small companies there are sometimes problems. At the BP subcontractor there was the OPEC collusion that year. I saw an entire floor of Westlake campus get fired. I was a contractor, and I started to get questions about my bill-ability. My next position saw a very large bill come in one day, from a bad rev of an older board. We had a party when I got laid off. My next job I was the last person remaining in the office during corona. All the other workers were in Turkey. I was severely underpaid. The boss harassed me and threatened me, forcing me to work overnight multiple days in a row, and the weekend. I did leave that job, and rightly so. He continued calling me for many days for over a month. The last 2 positions I had were for crypto companies. Those companies no longer exist. I am 29 years old. My career started really in 2016 or so. Stable corporate America simply hasn't existed for me. I could not have kept my jobs even if I wanted to.

FreakLegion 3y ago
The explanation doesn't really matter at this point. Recruiters will filter you out at bigger companies, and smaller companies can't afford to take the risk. But sooner or later you'll get some chances, and I'm advising that you optimize for longevity when those chances come. To get out of this hole you need to stay put for at least two years, ideally longer. All the other advice about how to represent yourself is good and will help you find that next role. My advice is for after you get it.
- wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
  I think I was getting filtered out before regardless. Probably by machine.

true_religion 3y ago

I think it’s all just contract work. My partner was a contractor but on their resume all you can see is something like “9 years Booz Allen” because they only credit the agency as the employer. To the OP, if you has an agency then credit them and remove all your gigs that are less than 1 year. Also if you don’t have a degree, employers subtract 4 years from your experience. College isn’t totally useless. Lastly zero people will believe you are a ML expert without having a long background in a company or having authored a paper. ML isn’t web dev, it’s something that a more of an academic cutting edge now than what just anyone can pick up.

wegfawefgawefg 3y ago
A lot of it was contract work. Some of it I didnt even have a contract. I have no agency. If i removed my gigs less than a year then my resume is going to be almost blank. Secondly, on the ML front. I didnt just pick it up. Firstly, I practiced on and off for years. I failed to learn it handfuls of times, trudging through formal education resources about integrals and backprop and matrix math. Eventually on one of my unemployment stints I found this book called Grokking Deep Learning and drove across the country and went into the redwoods in california, and I studied it for months on end. No internet on my desktop, only my laptop for looking stuff up. With no distractions the amount I accomplished was great. Forgive me for getting angry but Im starting to get mad that people don't believe I could exist. I woke up at the god damn crack of dawn every day and studied ML, implemented autograd, my own little pytorch, and every architecture I could find, and read a zillion ml papers. And when I got bored in the afternoon I went and hiked up the mountain. Im a real human being. I am an RL expert. I dont think im special. I believe anyone else can do this too. People just don't know what they are capable of. They won't believe me because they don't even believe in themselves.
- true_religion 3y ago
  I don’t think you don’t exist. I don’t think you didn’t work hard for your skills. I just don’t also think you are an ML expert. Yes, you know what you are doing and have some learning projects under your belt but so do university students. They even write formal papers and publish them under the guidance of people who lead the field. Yet they wouldn’t claim they are experts!