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Yeah, I have a CS degree from a well known (non ivy) four year university in Boston. I've had mixed experience with HN who's hiring. Frankly I'd be uninterest

Yeah, I have a CS degree from a well known (non ivy) four year university in Boston. I've had mixed experience with HN who's hiring. Frankly I'd be uninterested in working for anything earlier than a series C startup. I'd frankly rather work for a company with steady and strong revenue and a culture that's sustainable. Not looking forward to the leetcode nonsense, but it would probably take a few months to get up to speed where I could pass interviews. Given my resume is sort of all over the place (many 1yr stints) curious of your thoughts on where I should look? I'm tempted to primarily aim for product roles since pure IC roles just make me dread working at this point.

gedy 2y ago
> pure IC roles just make me dread working at this point Thanks for info, is this part of your challenge? You stated you want a normal job and tech salary, but is it that you really don't want or enjoy coding? In either case, I'd recommend prioritizing your wants, e.g. location, technologies, role to help you narrow a list of potential places. The market does suck but there are jobs and with CS degree and some experience I honestly think you'll be just fine. Don't worry about the short stints and just have a reasonable explanation about this if asked.
- Benjamin_Dobell 2y ago
  Not the OP, but I can definitely relate. Pure IC roles terrify me. I've been CTO and Head of Engineering of several start-ups, also made some money when one sold — yeah, I'm a lot like the OP. But leetcode is deplorable to me, when I hire (which I've done plenty of) I never made candidates perform such nonsense. Not wanting a pure IC role definitely doesn't mean you don't enjoy coding. It usually means you don't want to be stuck building things that are unimportant. When you're working at a company that's making mistakes and you've the experience to know better, it's painful just sitting idly by. I know a lot of people can switch off their care factor, but some of us can't. For example, I love coding, in the past 3 months I built an unofficial companion app for The Bazaar, an upcoming game. I built a back-end (Next.js, Vercel, Cloudflare, Supabase, PSQL), front-end (React), insight platform, packaged Windows and macOS desktop apps (Electron), reverse engineered the game (C#/Unity) and its networking layer. I was processing 300,000 player events a day. https://bizarre.gg/runs/00493ccf-5b96-523c-beb4-06e8154cc158 https://bizarre.gg/runs/00493ccf-5b96-523c-beb4-06e8154cc158 (view on desktop, click on the right) https://bizarre.gg/meta https://bizarre.gg/meta I was recently forced to shut down this project by the game company (as were other 3rd party devs working on stuff for the game). I was offered a role at the game company, which they reneged on at the last moment. Perhaps because in my role acceptance email, I wrote about how I am keen to take ownership (in the accountability sense) and get involved with developer advocacy, tech blogs etc. I suspect this spooked them because they "don't hire beyond Senior", which is obviously an absurd practice that's typically put in place by inexperienced/insecure leadership. Typically companies justify this with "we promote within", which is a massive disservice to your staff, because it just means your staff never have access to mentors to help them grow.
  - gedy 2y ago
    Makes sense, though if the OP says he's tired of startups and wanting a "normal job", might have make some tradeoffs in the perfect role.
    - mertleee 2y ago
      More than willing to make tradeoffs. It doesn't have to be fancy or new.
deedub 2y ago
The one year stints hurt a little, but have you thought about consulting? After 4 startups with one of my own fails in the middle, I was burnt out. I ended up getting a consulting / little bit of managed services gig at a large company. The consulting gig was on the tech one of the startups I was at 6 years prior... Large enterprises were starting to adopt. They sold my hours in 12 month contracts, all my clients renewed year over year until one just bought up all of my hours. They loved me and it was pretty much 20 hours a week of effort. I could have sat there for another 5 years easy without any discomfort, I assume. I took a 4 year time out there and now I'm back at a startup. I think what I'm learning now is if I can survive a couple of years and pack my brain with a bunch of new shit I'll be able to get a very nice and chill consulting gig until I retire, if I want that. People want your beautiful and experienced brain and a lot of the shit you potentially have worked on or thought about is more relevant in the current and the future than in your past. A lot of the world is slow AF, you might be ahead.
- cdelsolar 2y ago
  how did you find consulting gigs?
  - ggernov 2y ago
    Yeah, I feel like you need an abnormally strong network to just wing it in consulting?
  - deedub 2y ago
    To be clear I did not say start my own consultancy. That job was actually completely out of network and was me reaching out and applying. Start looking at big companies that have professional services orgs and find where the tech aligns.
    - mertleee 2y ago
      Curious what you mean by "professional services" orgs? seems like you need a referral to get into these?

gedy 2y ago

> pure IC roles just make me dread working at this point Thanks for info, is this part of your challenge? You stated you want a normal job and tech salary, but is it that you really don't want or enjoy coding? In either case, I'd recommend prioritizing your wants, e.g. location, technologies, role to help you narrow a list of potential places. The market does suck but there are jobs and with CS degree and some experience I honestly think you'll be just fine. Don't worry about the short stints and just have a reasonable explanation about this if asked.

Benjamin_Dobell 2y ago
Not the OP, but I can definitely relate. Pure IC roles terrify me. I've been CTO and Head of Engineering of several start-ups, also made some money when one sold — yeah, I'm a lot like the OP. But leetcode is deplorable to me, when I hire (which I've done plenty of) I never made candidates perform such nonsense. Not wanting a pure IC role definitely doesn't mean you don't enjoy coding. It usually means you don't want to be stuck building things that are unimportant. When you're working at a company that's making mistakes and you've the experience to know better, it's painful just sitting idly by. I know a lot of people can switch off their care factor, but some of us can't. For example, I love coding, in the past 3 months I built an unofficial companion app for The Bazaar, an upcoming game. I built a back-end (Next.js, Vercel, Cloudflare, Supabase, PSQL), front-end (React), insight platform, packaged Windows and macOS desktop apps (Electron), reverse engineered the game (C#/Unity) and its networking layer. I was processing 300,000 player events a day. https://bizarre.gg/runs/00493ccf-5b96-523c-beb4-06e8154cc158 https://bizarre.gg/runs/00493ccf-5b96-523c-beb4-06e8154cc158 (view on desktop, click on the right) https://bizarre.gg/meta https://bizarre.gg/meta I was recently forced to shut down this project by the game company (as were other 3rd party devs working on stuff for the game). I was offered a role at the game company, which they reneged on at the last moment. Perhaps because in my role acceptance email, I wrote about how I am keen to take ownership (in the accountability sense) and get involved with developer advocacy, tech blogs etc. I suspect this spooked them because they "don't hire beyond Senior", which is obviously an absurd practice that's typically put in place by inexperienced/insecure leadership. Typically companies justify this with "we promote within", which is a massive disservice to your staff, because it just means your staff never have access to mentors to help them grow.
- gedy 2y ago
  Makes sense, though if the OP says he's tired of startups and wanting a "normal job", might have make some tradeoffs in the perfect role.
  - mertleee 2y ago
    More than willing to make tradeoffs. It doesn't have to be fancy or new.

deedub 2y ago

The one year stints hurt a little, but have you thought about consulting? After 4 startups with one of my own fails in the middle, I was burnt out. I ended up getting a consulting / little bit of managed services gig at a large company. The consulting gig was on the tech one of the startups I was at 6 years prior... Large enterprises were starting to adopt. They sold my hours in 12 month contracts, all my clients renewed year over year until one just bought up all of my hours. They loved me and it was pretty much 20 hours a week of effort. I could have sat there for another 5 years easy without any discomfort, I assume. I took a 4 year time out there and now I'm back at a startup. I think what I'm learning now is if I can survive a couple of years and pack my brain with a bunch of new shit I'll be able to get a very nice and chill consulting gig until I retire, if I want that. People want your beautiful and experienced brain and a lot of the shit you potentially have worked on or thought about is more relevant in the current and the future than in your past. A lot of the world is slow AF, you might be ahead.

cdelsolar 2y ago
how did you find consulting gigs?
- ggernov 2y ago
  Yeah, I feel like you need an abnormally strong network to just wing it in consulting?
- deedub 2y ago
  To be clear I did not say start my own consultancy. That job was actually completely out of network and was me reaching out and applying. Start looking at big companies that have professional services orgs and find where the tech aligns.
  - mertleee 2y ago
    Curious what you mean by "professional services" orgs? seems like you need a referral to get into these?