Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Where are you and where are you going?
AnalyticalEngine
Posts: 949
Joined: Sun Sep 02, 2018 11:57 am

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

My personal experience since I am in this industry: I have a remote software dev job with about 10 years of industry experience. I currently make $150k+ for about 20hr/week of work. My coworkers and manager are all easy to work with. My current role is absolutely ERE-Salaryman easy mode.

The main pitfalls of this approach have been the years of experience requirement, the fact I have had jobs that have been less than great, and the fact you almost make too much money to the point frugality starts to feel pointless. That being said, remote work is an absolute ERE godsend because you can do the same amount of work in about half the time and with a fourth the effort and get paid the same. This frees up energy you can start to spend on building up other ERE forms of capital. (Health, relationships, skills, etc)

Note that I have always taken "unsexy" software jobs in stuff like finance, insurance, whatever because those tend to be cushier and have better work life balance than the "sexy" silicon valley jobs.

That's just my story though and it may or may not be easy to replicate. Ultimately the path you choose depends on your goals and how you feel the choice is going to align with them.

TopHatFox
Posts: 2322
Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2013 10:07 pm
Location: FL; 25

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

@analyticalengine, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I don’t think it’s beneficial to work at Silicon Valley or for startups. Usually they just expect you to be the founder for not that much pay per hour. Then they fire you when they’re out of founding or if the leadership made bad choices for the employees. I noticed that as well with remote work, you end up getting paid more per hour because you eliminate all the socializing in an office (which ultimately is worthless, as those ppl don’t talk to you after you quit).

I think working a job like what you have, or the less-well paid version, along with working on your own startup, is the golden ticket.

My biggest concern is that I won’t be able to get a coding job period given my Geology/mining background, so in that regard it seems I don’t have much of a choice but to start my own thing.

Do you guys know how to tell if a company will work you to the bone during interviews? Usually I try to research the company or catch phrases like “competitive atmosphere” or “must hit the ground running,” but that research is hit or miss once you’re actually working there.

& what skills are in-demand btw? I’ve been doing HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, and SQL, but I want to learn React, AWS, PHP, and eventually AI-related concepts.

AnalyticalEngine
Posts: 949
Joined: Sun Sep 02, 2018 11:57 am

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

Hiring for entry level developers has gotten tighter in this economy, but it's still possible to break in if you're persistent. What I suggest you do is start attending the meetings of professional organizations or hobby groups inside of software and network with the participants there. You can find out if the companies people work for are hiring and what the working conditions are like because interviews are not always transparent.

I'd ask in interviews questions like "tell me how your last release went" or "what software development workflow does your company follow?" The red flags you are looking out for here are companies that are not ran well because that's how you can end up in a bad situation. So if they start talking about developers having to work on a lot of tasks outside of dev (QA, devops, testing, etc), that can be a red flag. Also if they start going on about how everyone was up until 2am with the last release, that's also a red flag.

Developers are so expensive to hire that many companies do want to avoid turnover. Nevertheless, you do want to watch out for the "we hire people, work them to the bone, then just replace them when they burnout" mindset. Workaholism is more common the "sexier" a company is, with industries like video game dev being the worst offenders.

AnalyticalEngine
Posts: 949
Joined: Sun Sep 02, 2018 11:57 am

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by AnalyticalEngine »

TopHatFox wrote:
Thu Jan 05, 2023 10:47 am
& what skills are in-demand btw? I’ve been doing HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, and SQL, but I want to learn React, AWS, PHP, and eventually AI-related concepts.
I'd suggest a balance between front end and back end stack. HTML/CSS/Angular or ReactJS/SQL are all great. For the back end, I suggest Java or C#. PHP and AI are niche skills you will be less likely to use. For example, I have a MS in machine learning and have never used it once but always get hired because I know C#.

AWS and automated testing methodologies (look into Selenium) are something employers look for, but I wouldn't worry about them until your other skills are solid. You're looking at build/deployment/devops with those, which I'd say are outside of the needed skills for an entry level dev.

TopHatFox
Posts: 2322
Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2013 10:07 pm
Location: FL; 25

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

@AnalyticalEngine, sounds good, I'll list all of those coding languages on my resume as well as changing all the bullets and job titles in the work experience section to be more coding-related. Maybe I'll leave out my majors in the education section as well, just leaving BSc and MSc + GPA + School names. Do you think they'll take someone with a STEM MSc in a different field, once they inquire at the interview level?

I was thinking of reaching out to the 200 college alumni that majored in CS and seeing if they may have a coding job available. All the previous alumni I reached out to over the years never offered a job, but maybe with coding it's different since there seems to be more opportunity. Aside from that, just blanket applying on Indeed or googling recruiters to privately dm is what I've done in the past. Usually only the recruiters result in job interviews/offers, and that's after I've perfected my resume for the specific industry over a year or two of trial & error.

zbigi
Posts: 978
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:04 pm

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by zbigi »

You specifically mentioned going for an unicorn (defined as a business with say $10b+ valuation). This requires a very particular type of business, has extremely low chance of success and the valuation often comes from exploiting the greater fool principle (see Tesla, Uber etc.) and not from the tech itself, thus giving the whole endevaour an extra slimy feel. That's why I wrote I wouldn't bother with it.
If, on the other hand, you aim for something smaller, it makes more sense, if you have the stomach and temperament for it (it will be years of harder and stresful work for reward that may never come - some people are perfectly fine with it, many/most aren't).
If we high IQ, high work ethic technical ppl can’t build a business or freelance practice, who can.
Actually, most other professions have it easier than programmers, at least for starting companies (freelance is another matter). That's because, most other businesses are local, whereas software is global. So, there's a need for only one (or, at most, just a couple) apps for making birthday cards, scheduling appointments, processing geophysical data etc. As an app maker, you're competing with super talented people from across entire globe. If one of those people's apps is just 25% better than yours, chances are it will dominate the market, while everyone else ends up with nothing. It's a winner take-all market - marginal cost of producing and selling an extra unit of software is zero, so it's easy to completely dominate the market if you have a better product and/or better marketing [1]. Whereas, as for example an average car mechanic with a busines inclination, if you create a garage in your city, you'll only be competing with other garages in the near vicinity AND, even if they happen to be 25% better than you, they won't neccessarily have the capacity to take over all your customers anyway.

The solution that many software people see to the above problem is to try to create something so niche that the amount of money coming in will be small enough to not entice anyone to copy you and take over your lunch. It's called a lifestyle business. Even if successful though, it may or may not bring in more money than a job.

[1] That's not even mentioning network and software compatibility effects, also very specific to the software market, which have allowed companies like Microsoft or Facebook to absolutely own giant markets for themselves.

TopHatFox
Posts: 2322
Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2013 10:07 pm
Location: FL; 25

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

@zbigi, Oh, yeah, for sure, billion dollar companies are probably impossible to start. I’m definitely happy with selling one for a few hundred thousand or even earning $20k/yr with good hours ‘:D. I didn’t know there was a different interpretation of unicorn, I thought it just meant: you start a company, and you get a “big payout” of some amount at the end.

I think I’m ok with the risk-reward of entrepreneurship. Thus far I haven’t earned anything, but I have learned a ton. If the rest of my life is like that, plus some earning for food & shelter eventually, that’s ok. Since I don’t want kids/marriage, business/learning sounds like a good alternative.

The winner take-all effect is interesting. It’s the same for content creation, or any other digital business. Even physical-product businesses are suffering the effects, as they’re competing globally on Amazon. I think the way I’ve been thinking about it is that you only need to be on top long enough to earn material revenue/savings for your life, or to be bought out by the competitor. I wonder if this will cause a boom of the trades as smart entrepreneurs realize that physical, local businesses have less competition. Tbh, it’s all a moot point cause I don’t have the capital to make a physical business. Only recourse is to compete globally, digitally. Maybe I can make apps in obscure languages/for populations developers usually don’t make apps for lol.

I’ve noticed for apps that usually the top 3-5 for a theme (say a hiking app) get the customers, and all the others suck/have bad reviews. The top 3-5 then basically emulate one another to try and stay on top for as long as possible.

Are you saying that freelance is therefore generally more profitable, more quickly? Wouldn’t remote work cause the same effect, with only the best remote programmers getting most of the work? Even in mining, mines can afford to fly in the best geologists to the site, so world (usually national due to govt regulation) competition is expected.

Haha, what a time to be alive. The internet has made it so one must aim to be world class at anything to compete. The same thing is happening in dating, digital businesses, physical products sold online, remote services, education, etc. My guess is that this will lead to better services and products overall, but a much larger chasm of inequality b/w very rich/unemployed.

TopHatFox
Posts: 2322
Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2013 10:07 pm
Location: FL; 25

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

Reached out to ~100 computer science alumni and received 2 responses with potential leads to a coding role, so that's encouraging. Gonna reach out to the remaining few hundred and see if that results in anything. It'd be really nice to get a remote role. If this fails, I'd imagine I'll have to take whatever mining contract job and continue coding on my own.

zbigi
Posts: 978
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:04 pm

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by zbigi »

I'm somewhat sceptical that remote is a good way to start a coding career. You're going to need a ton of help in the beginning and being able to just ask questions and discuss things in person will be much less stressful. You will definitely learn much quicker by just being around experienced coders.

User avatar
Viktor K
Posts: 364
Joined: Sat Jul 30, 2016 9:45 pm

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by Viktor K »

you can do full stack Javascript starting out. If you do that you do not have to worry about learning another coding language. then you can focus more on job readiness and code fluency.

this can set you apart from other self taught or recent grads (bootcamp or otherwise) as you’ll likely end up more competent in JavaScript and development than they are.

depth vs breadth approach

biased since this is what i did, but its just an option. plenty people learn full stack and 2-3 languages in a bootcamp and still get jobs

TopHatFox
Posts: 2322
Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2013 10:07 pm
Location: FL; 25

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

@zbigi, honestly, no one irl has ever had the desire or the time to teach me stuff long-term at a job, whether it’s mechanics, house repair, languages, finance, mining geology, or coding. And I get it — sr. co-workers or bosses are too busy with their own job, corporate doesn’t want to spend money on training, etc etc. What’s worked is me finding YouTubers, cheap courses online, or just googling stuff. Maybe your experience has been different, but I’ve concluded I essentially have to teach myself, and probably ‘till I die since the modern world changes so quickly every few years. IOW, whether I have to commute and upend my life or not, I’ll likely still have to teach myself.

@Victor K, that’s smart, full stack is the goal/requirement, as it’ll let me build my own startup too. Probably HTML, CSS, JS, Python, and SQL.

———

On another note, I’ve been pretty bummed out that life is still so boring post-HS and college. I’d say the most fun I’ve had post-school has been road trips and doing things with the gf, but those obviously cost money to be able to do them often and the gf is just one person (IOW, limit as to new conversation topics/beliefs/etc.). I think socializing socializing would solve this, but it is hit or miss as most people work a lot to get by. Best I can come up with is just teaching myself things I think are interesting. I dunno what extroverts do to stay happy in increasingly individualized western nations. Work doesn’t really solve it either as most people at work can’t be genuine as they work there, and the pool is usually small anyway. IOW, at school you had 1-3k ppl to pick and choose from, at work maybe 1-100. I suppose in that regard I’m glad I’m introverted.
Last edited by TopHatFox on Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

zbigi
Posts: 978
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:04 pm

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by zbigi »

It's not about somebody teaching you - no one has time for that and, as you wrote, you're expected to learn yourself. However, just by being in physical proximity of senior coders will decrease the friction to asking them question about codebase/infrastructure/architecture/requirements (aka the company-specific things you can't learn via googling). From a certain type of developer, you will also get free sermons about code organization, quality, style etc. (even over lunch and other informal opportunities)- those will be very valueable in the beginning. Overall, those conversation will be vital and can make a difference between failing and succeding in a job. For seniors, this is less important, because a lot of the company-specific stuff can sort of be inferred (guessed) from previous experience.

That's not a fringe opnion btw - a lot of people in the industry believe that juniors shouldn't start their careers in remote capacity.

TopHatFox
Posts: 2322
Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2013 10:07 pm
Location: FL; 25

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

@zbigi, That’s interesting, and those things can’t be asked via Slack or a Zoom recording? I remember in my grad courses, it was nice to have a recording of lectures, because you can watch them as many times as needed for the complex info to sink in. It was honestly way better than irl lectures, as your notes suck compared to a clear video recording. I’ll be more open to in-person opportunities then, just maybe not in Uber expensive places like NYC or SF. The othering thing is, you don’t really know if you’re gonna flunk or keep a job/industry till 3-6 mo, so often you move for nothin’

mathiverse
Posts: 788
Joined: Fri Feb 01, 2019 8:40 pm

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by mathiverse »

TopHatFox wrote:
Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:06 pm
@Victor K, that’s smart, full stack is the goal/requirement, as it’ll let me build my own startup too. Probably HTML, CSS, JS, Python, and SQL.
I believe Viktor K's point was that you can focus on Javascript, HTML, CSS, and SQL, then use Javascript for frontend work and backend work (eg NodeJS). This would mean learning one less programming language (ie no Python needed if looking at your list) while still developing full stack skills. The full stack JS stack is common enough in industry that you can find a job with it. You can use the extra time saved by not having to learn Python and related frameworks on job readiness and code fluency as Viktor mentioned.

TopHatFox
Posts: 2322
Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2013 10:07 pm
Location: FL; 25

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

That makes sense, one less language to learn. Still want to get better at Python tho, as it’s used in ML/AI a ton, and there are a lot of opportunities there for entrepreneurship

zbigi
Posts: 978
Joined: Fri Oct 30, 2020 2:04 pm

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by zbigi »

TopHatFox wrote:
Tue Jan 17, 2023 12:22 pm
I wouldn't compare it to lectures. It's more like, sitting in the same room with a professor, and being able to pull him by his elbow to your monitor to ask a question basically at any time. You can do that via Zoom too and it's fairly effective, but many people intentionally don't respond too quickly (to train you to look for help elsewhere first), whereas they can't hide from you if you're in the same room :) You'll also participate in spontaneous conversations and overhear a lot of stuff being discussed, so your learning will be accelerated. Additionally, I think it will be easier on you emotionally - when starting out, it's common to feel overwhelmed - being around colleagues (assuming functional human beings and team) helps with that, vs being alone in a room with a mountain of unfamiliar code for 8 hours a day. Lastly, people will like you much more if you work with them in person (assuming you're generally likeable) vs when you're just a face in a Zoom tile. This will translate into people willing to help you out more, perhaps downplaying the mistakes you've made etc.

As for moving - yeah, that's a tough one. I guess it makes sense to perhaps pick a city large enough to have many backup opportunities (should the original one not pan out), but which still has reasonable rent. To my knowledge, places like Atlanta, Houston, some Midwest cities have plenty of opportunities without the rent being obscene.

macg
Posts: 174
Joined: Tue Mar 31, 2020 1:48 pm
Location: USA-FL

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by macg »

I understand where @zbigi is coming from about being in person, and in many instances I agree. But I would also say that it is not true in all instances, and in fact the majority may be trending the opposite, where remote is just fine.

Even before the pandemic, my last two jobs were 100% remote. This latest one that I am still in now I was basically a newbie, at least in a sense that I was coming in to cloud computing not knowing a lot, although I had been in IT OS work for a long time. I was able to learn and be guided by people that were already there through slack, zoom, etc.

So it may come down to the company you work at, or even the area you end up in. I know that's not super helpful, I just wanted to be sure you knew that there are options out there for remote work as a newbie, and you shouldn't be afraid of experiencing it.

Best of luck!!

TopHatFox
Posts: 2322
Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2013 10:07 pm
Location: FL; 25

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

Found an alumni that built several AI startups and I told him I want to build one with him, even if it means lentils for the foreseeable future. He arranged a Zoom call. Trying not to get excited as most of my working world experiences have been bad, but this could honestly be really good.

A few other alumni are interested too — one even suggested a job in South America — but they want to see a resume. I think I’m going to need to switch all of my Geology-themed resume titles and bullets to be more coding-themed before sending out the resume to anyone. Maybe I can also omit the major, but I don’t know about that. I doubt any coder or AI-person cares about Geology. Maybe I can say Geology w/ a data analysis focus.

Also trying to find a reason to why coding. I’ve been thinking because I did some coding on my job and became really interested in the subject. Or because I realized I wanted to make my own startup, and it’s still one of the best ways to make a scalable business with minimal capital risk

User avatar
Slevin
Posts: 626
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2015 7:44 pm
Location: Sonoma County

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by Slevin »

TopHatFox wrote:
Wed Jan 18, 2023 11:21 am
Also trying to find a reason to why coding. I’ve been thinking because I did some coding on my job and became really interested in the subject. Or because I realized I wanted to make my own startup, and it’s still one of the best ways to make a scalable business with minimal capital risk
As a guy who used to interview 50+ people per year, say pretty much anything except "I wanted to join the profession that gives the most money for the least effort" and you should be okay. Just make it sound halfway believable, like you started using the tools to do data analysis or geology or whatever and realized it was way more fun coding than doing the data analysis, etc. Be prepared for some small follow up question about what you were working on there.

TopHatFox
Posts: 2322
Joined: Thu Oct 17, 2013 10:07 pm
Location: FL; 25

Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by TopHatFox »

@Slevin, yeah, it's funny that during interviews one can never say "because I want da moneys to buy the shineys, and you have heaps and heaps of da moneys." My go-to is always "because I'm really interested in the subject and how it can help make xyz part of society quicker or better."

Post Reply