If I've learned how to code on my own but lack professional experience, what site(s) would I have the best chance of finding employment as a software engineer / QA / etc.?
I've been looking on Indeed, HN: Who is Hiring, and angel.co but have had zero luck this past year. I get that companies don't want to take on the risk of a potential bad hire but c'mon. I can't even get an interview.
If you have no experience as a software developer, it would probably be a lot easier for you if you have some other method of displaying your work. Extensive open source contributions, where I can read your code and see how you interface with other developers, is far more valuable to me when choosing a hire than even the recommendation of some other manager at another company that I don’t know and can’t really tease out what their inner team workings are like.
I have ten years of industry experience. To me, "extensive open source contributions" is synonymous with either deep industry expertise or academic research. It's the realm of people writing app frameworks, databases, and distributed software.
To be frank, "too inexperienced to get a job? time to contribute to open source!" is almost always a glib and unhelpful retort. If someone can't get recruiters to reach out, they probably don't have the expertise to build open source, and vice versa. Open source is not a dumping ground for inexperienced newcomers.
I’m not being glib, I was trying to be helpful. Open source shouldn’t be gate kept, if the person writing that wants to help and the patches that are accepted, what’s the issue? Or, do you think a formal CS degree and multiple years of industry experience should be required to submit to open source, so the maintainers don’t have to waste a couple minutes reviewing and commenting on substandard work?
That is certainly one way to treat someone willing to do free labor in service of something the maintainers love, but I don’t think it’s a positive way. If open source is to continue and grow, it will always need a fresh set of people to work on it, and bringing those people along is part of the work of shepherding an open source project, in my opinion.
What is your advice to the person saying they can’t get an interview?
I don’t have a bar, I interview everyone recruiting sends me. I’m a software engineer now, but a mechanical engineer out of school, so I was trying to give some guidance without just laying out my life story and saying do what I did, starting with jumping in a Time Machine.
You still haven’t given your advice. If you’re going to be critical of mine you could add something positive in counter.
I'm not sure I'd go that far. My suggestion there is generally work on something you use, want or otherwise need.
In general, getting something done counts for a lot. And many floss projects will welcome contributions. There will generally be feedback, need adjustments for testing etc. But there's room to do productive things.
You could pick up some contract work on Upwork. Set a really low rate and then work up. Pick a niche and specialize.
After you do some contracts and get some good experience under your belt, register as an LLC and give yourself a title - software engineer at your company.
It should be enough to get your foot in the door for an interview and from there as long as you are a good talker you will get the job.
Sorry, but no. The person you're replying to made some spot on points.
If a person wants to maintain some semblance of physical fitness then they are going to have to work for it. It's astounding that this concept gets lost on so many people, as if having a normal-sized physique should come naturally to someone who lives a sedentary yet gluttonous lifestyle.
Also, to their point about being fat having become socially acceptable. Yes, it is true, at least as far as women are concerned. So much that euphemisms are being used all the time: plus size, curvy, thicc, voluptuous, and so on. I've heard people even use the term "athletic" to describe a thicker person's physique.
> If people tried to follow normal dieting advice, and they failed, do we keep telling them to try harder?
Really depends on how hard they "tried". If a person is actually determined to maintain a good physique, then yes they have to work at it AND they need to be honest with themselves about how much food (as well as the type of foods) that they consume. If someone gives up after a week of dieting and exercise because they don't see significant results or because it's just too hard for them to maintain then that's entirely on them. If they want to then view themselves as a victim, then that just shows a lack of accountability.
If a person wants to maintain some semblance of physical fitness then they are going to have to work for it. It's astounding that this concept gets lost on so many people, as if having a normal-sized physique should come naturally to someone who lives a sedentary yet gluttonous lifestyle.
I am mostly concerned about health, rather than physical fitness.
Really depends on how hard they "tried". If a person is actually determined to maintain a good physique, then yes they have to work at it AND they need to be honest with themselves about how much food (as well as the type of foods) that they consume. If someone gives up after a week of dieting and exercise because they don't see significant results or because it's just too hard for them to maintain then that's entirely on them. If they want to then view themselves as a victim, then that just shows a lack of accountability.
Trust me, I am the first to sign up for accountability and looking over your health. I exercised fairly consistently and lost 30-40 pounds to the point of being almost normal BMI. Just need to lose like 5 more than I'll be happy.
People really do want to get healthy, and they spent prodigious amount of effort, and failed anyway. Maybe it's something wrong with our strategies/approach then it is something's wrong with the victim.
In the end, I don't really think it's an issue of gluttony either. I love food. I still eat a lot when I can, maybe even too much. However, I basically don't drink soda, or even artificially sweet soda, and excluded most sweets thing. Trying to make sure I eat veggies.
You think that would be considered acceptable in most Middle Eastern countries? And, indeed, many Asian countries are relatively conservative about public nudity.
JFC, what kind of mad, backwards world do we live in where people consider a photo of a naked baby to be CP? Every family out there has photos of their children naked as babies.
> In 2018, the Spacebuzz project was created so "children around the world can also get to experience the Overview Effect."[18] It was announced in a press release on December 20 by astronaut André Kuipers on the European Space Agency's (ESA) website.[19] Spacebuzz aims to give children an overview effect like experience using virtual reality (VR) in order to have the same insight astronauts have when seeing planet Earth from space. Spacebuzz is a project started by the Overview Effect Foundation backed by ESA and the Netherlands Space Office.[18]
> In late 2019 it was reported that researchers at the University of Missouri aimed to reproduce the experience, with an isolation tank, half a tonne of Epsom salts, and a waterproof VR headset.[20]
reddit should just be killed off at this point. The only good thing about it are the smaller subreddits. The self-proclaimed "front page of the internet" has become the "cesspool of the internet" catering to the lowest common denominator of people out there. Tiktoks, tweets, fabricated AITA posts and more of the low brow variety abound.
reddit (in general) has a clear and obvious political/social agenda apparent to anybody with a functioning brain.
I've been looking on Indeed, HN: Who is Hiring, and angel.co but have had zero luck this past year. I get that companies don't want to take on the risk of a potential bad hire but c'mon. I can't even get an interview.