Oldie Programming: Career Advice, Questions, Change of Directions

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Oldie Programming: Career Advice, Questions, Change of Directions

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

How much of an issue is having a gap in your work history? I've left my day job 3 years ago to try and work on a "dream project". That really didn't work out well, and now that I've finally shaken myself loose from the grip of sunk cost fallacy I just want to have normal boring job again. I'm worried about this failure reflecting very poorly on me though, and I'd rather avoid even bringing it up because I've come to really hate the drat thing. Certainly wouldn't want them to ask to see the code... Have I totally screwed myself over?

# ¿ Oct 23, 2014 15:23

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 18:40

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

Doh004 posted:

Unsuccessful endeavors are just as worthy, if not more, to me. Especially if you can pinpoint where things didn't go well and how you'd correct them moving forward.

Thing is, I think the issues that stumped me weren't even objectively difficult, it's just that I'm a huge incompetent idiot. I just found it harder and harder to motivate myself eventually sliding into depression and procrastination pattern. There isn't even that much code to show for it, and it's really crappy because it's all unrefactored experimental code to try out various things.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2014 15:56

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

I just don't know what to do. 11+ years of experience and I don't feel like I know anything. I'm terrified of interviews. I feel sick when I browse jobs and just look at requirements. I desperately need to get out of my country but I can't even imagine anyone hiring me and dealing with visas and helping relocate. I'm just having a mental breakdown at the thought I'll never manage to get out of Russia. I guess this is more of E/N post. I don't know.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2019 14:35

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

It is an E/N post, but your feelings aren't exactly uncommon. Practically everyone in this industry has impostor syndrome, hates interviewing, and finds job hunting intimidating. Having to deal with trying to get a job in a different country is a less-common wrinkle, but it's not exactly uncommon either; lots of my coworkers are immigrants.

It just seems you have to be exceptional to be picked up. I've been looking at jobs at https://relocate.me/ and it's all senior this and senior that, and I don't feel like anything senior except in years. I feel like I've already forgotten everything I've used in my past jobs. So like I have years of C# experience, but I feel like it's worthless because it's been so long, and because I was working with outdated winforms. Same with PHP. My most recent experience is with react and node.js, but I couldn't even begin to make a site from scratch because project I've been working on was just bootstrap throughout and I don't know poo poo about properly writing CSS. And if you give me algorithm question or coding challenge my brain will just freeze.

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

I sympathize with your anxiety, and don't have good advice for dealing with it unfortunately. But the concrete problems you're worried about are solvable. Can you find a counselor to you work through them?

Do you mean counselor as in therapist or as in professional counselor? Either way I'm also out of money due to poor life choices so I can hardly afford either. I've somehow convinced myself that while nobody will hire me I'll be able to single-handedly develop viable product that will sell and that money will help me move. Because I'm an idiot. I might have an option to go back to my old job, but I don't know if I can even live without hope of leaving.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2019 16:05

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

taqueso posted:

If you feel like you need to brush up on C#, do that. CSS, etc. If you can't make a site from scratch, then start making a site from scratch and learn how to do it along the way. I found games jams to be a good excuse to make something and you can choose the tech you use to match what you want to learn more of.

I know. I'm just depressed as poo poo at the best of times so it's hard to focus on something unless there's immediate need.

Edit: so there are posts like this, going "Personally, I don�t think that there are many techies out there who are honestly struggling how to find a job abroad as a software developer.", and then I look at a place like upwork and there are 50 freelancers applying for each job. I know it's not quite the same, but still, very dispiriting.

Forgall fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Jan 25, 2019

# ¿ Jan 25, 2019 16:28

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

Cuntpunch posted:

In my experience what you really want is references. People that can be directly spoken to is best, but even having a handful of really strong written recommendations(with contact info included) will go a long way.

My last job was being solo developer with a really small company that basically just folded more or less, and software I was working on never went to production, so I don't know how useful references from there will be. I can show them demo of what I've been working on but it kinda sucks. Before that there's 3 year gap in my resume. I can get reference from job before that probably...

Cuntpunch posted:

And then you've just got to get out there and network. The US is probably a bit messy right now - owing to the politics and business of H1Bs, but in Europe headhunters are reasonably hungry and in my experience are more than happy to talk to folks around the world if your resume lines up with the position they're trying to fill. Get set up with the big international firms, hunt around the job listings in countries you'd be looking to move to, *apply to everything*. You're going to get rejected a billion times, but what's the harm in it?

This sounds like hell. But so is Russia, to me.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2019 17:18

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

Cuntpunch posted:

And regarding jobhunting: the tough love answer is: do you expect a job in another country to just fall into your lap?

My last job was remote with tiny US company, hope was that once we get customers for our product they'll be able to sponsor a visa, or at least I'll have some income to move to a third country that's ok with remotely working expats. It was probably a stupid idea from the start. Anyway, it all fell apart a week ago, and since then I've been a complete wreck, barely able to eat or sleep. I don't know how I'm going to get better, as long as I'm stuck here, to be honest. Sorry, this keeps being very e/n.

Cuntpunch posted:

And somewhere in the middle are interviews and lovely questions like "So are you already in Germany?"

Am I not supposed to mention where I currently am in my application?

# ¿ Jan 25, 2019 19:32

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

taqueso posted:

I figured, I was in the same spot a few years ago. I hope you can find some help for that. I'd encourage you to try making something, it really does make you feel accomplished to accomplish something*. For example, the Love2d Game Jam is coming up https://itch.io/jam/love2d-jam-2019

I made a couple things for fun recently, it's just that I feel like unless it's directly helping me leave it's not worth anything.

taqueso posted:

* It took antidepressants to get me to a point where I actually tried doing something :/

Oh I'm already on several meds and they've been kinda working until recently. I might need something stronger.

# ¿ Jan 25, 2019 20:41

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Working on fun projects helps your mental health, which helps you deal with the work involved in leaving.

I'm even stressed when I work on "fun" projects because I'm not sure I'm doing things the right way, so I don't know if I'm learning anything. Especially considering things like error handling and testing. I'm never sure if I'm doing those right or enough. I've never even worked on a team that wrote tests properly... That's one of the reasons I feel so incompetent.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2019 14:22

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

That's a good advice, it just seems way out of reach of my abilitiy.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2019 07:45

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

The Fool posted:

Related, would love advice about how to find open source projects to contribute to.

There's this list: https://github.com/MunGell/awesome-for-beginners But it feels like it'd take me weeks or more of trying to understand codebase to make any change in any of those projects.

Forgall fucked around with this message at 07:57 on Jan 27, 2019

# ¿ Jan 27, 2019 07:54

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

Gildiss posted:

So pick one and start getting familiar with it. Day by day. Just like anything else.

No more excuses.

If I manage to sort out my mental health I'll give it a go.

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

You know what you have to do at jobs? Demonstrate that you can understand large, existing codebases.

Yeah that's fair.

I suppose putting some things I've made for fun on github wouldn't hurt, even if they are dumb?

Forgall fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Jan 27, 2019

# ¿ Jan 27, 2019 08:50

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

Doh004 posted:

You are much more capable than you give yourself credit and the only way to get better is by doing it more.

100% this, put it up there. Another tip:

Go out and make your own blog - there's a reason why it's every first tutorial - and do it in a technology/framework/service/infrastructure that you'd want to learn more about. I did this several months back so that I could learn React and GatsbyJS: https://github.com/BayPhillips/gatsby-blog . It's a stupid website that no one cares about, but it got me into a bunch of new tech (AWS, Serverless, Lambdas), got me to start helping contribute to a huge open source project that's really popular now and have I have a stupidly fast website out of it.

Cool, I recently made a slack app for my own use (it converts video links on streaming websites into direct stream urls so I can open them in video player on my tablet, and I've been changing it to run on lambda instead of heroku. What is that project you are contributing to if you don't mind me asking?

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I suspect you're doing something I do more often than I'd like: look for excuses why I shouldn't have to do something.

That might be an excuse but right now I literally can't keep any food down.

Forgall fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Jan 27, 2019

# ¿ Jan 27, 2019 18:33

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

Doh004 posted:

Gatsby! https://www.gatsbyjs.org/

Interesting, maybe I also can contribute. I don't have pms, but maybe you could drop me an email at vega234755 at gmail.com if you like, so I could ask you questions about that later?

# ¿ Jan 27, 2019 19:28

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

Is there irc channel or slack or something for folks from around this thread/subforum?

# ¿ Jan 28, 2019 19:55

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

Is whiteboard coding a common thing now or is it mostly at big tech companies? I've never encountered it and I don't think I could do that not matter how much I prepare.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2019 17:57

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

Jose Valasquez posted:

I think it is more common at SV-like tech companies than companies in other industries that have software people.

I don't have smarts or ambition to work at one of those anyway so that's good to hear.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2019 18:29

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

Infinotize posted:

What other industry has candidates with even 10+ years of experience perform tricks on a board as part of the hiring process, and what does it say about this process that the only meaningful way to succeed at it is to either practice things you don't do at work or give lots of interviews?

Yeah it's dumb but it's a prisoner's dilemma and we all gotta do it.

The bigcos tend to be the worst with this

This poo poo just makes me want to crawl into a hole and die...

# ¿ Feb 3, 2019 06:58

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

The Leck posted:

This has definitely not been my experience. Occasionally I'll get an interviewer where I can say "I don't recall the exact name of this built-in method , but here's what I'm trying to do", and it's fine, but it seems a lot more common to get "oh, you capitalized that letter when the library method name is lowercase" or "your indentation is a little rough".

God, are there really so many candidates for each position that employers can be this picky?

# ¿ Feb 3, 2019 15:26

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 18:40

Forgall: Oct 16, 2012; by Azathoth

Is it normal for NDA to cover things like client identities? Like, I'm working for company X and we make website for company Y, and in some future job interview I can say that I made website using this framework and that library, but I can't say it was for company Y and give link to site. That strikes me as kinda weird.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2019 17:02

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