Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Where are you and where are you going?
zbigi
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by zbigi »

In coding, most managers don't ask this question in my personal experience. I suspect they know I don't give a crap about their company, it's products or mission (and so do they) and don't bother with forcing me to lie.

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

Post by TopHatFox »

@zbigi, I suspect that's because lots of tech companies in particular have shown that they will throw out swathes of their staff once the product is built without a second thought. If that's the case, it doesn't make any sense to invest your time into any one company mission or product, but to improve your skill over time so you can command higher pay at more companies.

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

Post by recal »

I have to say that I also recommend in-person. It's a less competitive job market and it's more likely to lead to faster learning. It's not impossible the other way around, especially since you do have a college degree, but I personally wouldn't do it any other way. The first 6 months at my current job that were in-person were irreplaceable as far as advancing my career and my skills.

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

Post by TopHatFox »

I e-mailed around 200 computer science alumni and have maybe 10 that responded like they may have something. Maybe I'll get one real job out of that set. I NEVER received a potential-job response when I e-mailed a combined total of 1500 alumni for finance, public administration, or geology. It's so clear that the field you choose and its inherent demand is huge in determining your success. Unless I'm so well off I don't need the money anymore, I'm never choosing a field with no demand ever again.

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

Post by TopHatFox »

I now have around 30 alumni that responded out of the 318 I e-mailed so far. Usually it was "look at the careers page of my company and lmk which one you want to vye for." I've never been told that before in the fields I've applied to in the past, so that was crazy.

The companies are all over the place both in content and location. Not really sure how to respond to the 30 alumni. I pimped out my resume and cover letter to make it as flashy and coding + software heavy as possible, so I can start by sending them that.

As far potential role suggestions, I was thinking of choosing the potential positions where I'd learn the most useful skills, such as full stack coding in flagship languages or fancy schmancy AI, and the companies with GlassDoor reviews that don't mention overwork, exploitation, etc.

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

Post by Ego »

TopHatFox wrote:
Tue Jan 24, 2023 6:27 pm
I now have around 30 alumni that responded out of the 318 I e-mailed so far.
Interesting. I have often wondered about your approach to using alumni connections in this way. I always thought it worked slightly differently.

The way I have seen it work is a groups of friends watch for appropriate openings for one another and, importantly, they vouch for one another to the decision makers. The person doing the vouching is willing to put their reputation on the line to help their friend get ahead. While the connection is important, it is nothing without the vouch.

I have never done it myself so I could be wrong, but this is how Mrs. Ego got her bigwig job a long time ago.

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

Post by TopHatFox »

@Ego, I don't think most people have friends, certainly not close ones and in their field. Best you can do is turn a good resume in an in-demand field + an alumni = job. It's either that or go through the hell of applying to 1000s of Indeed apps to get a handful of interviews that turn into 1 or 2 offers (if you're good at interviewing).

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

Post by mathiverse »

In tech, a weak, but positive referral can be the difference between getting an interview or not hearing back at all.

I'd predict that some, not all, of the alumni responses you received will result in a referral, some, not all, of those referrals will turn into interviews, and that none of the alumni will give you a job offer without a technical interview.

When I was in a position similar to yours (ie no SWE experience, unrelated education background, looking for entry level or internship jobs), nailing the interview was easy compared to getting the interview, so the referrals were still essential to landing a good gig.

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

Post by TopHatFox »

@mathiverse, I suspect your right. I'm just hoping I know enough to not bomb the few technical interviews lol. At least my resume looks nice.

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

Post by Dave »

Nice to see you back @THF.

Hope this job search goes well.

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

Post by TopHatFox »

Found an alum that sold his own AI startup after working on it for 6 years, and he's now a multi-millionaire. He got his PhD in a science that's not computer science, so that was interesting. He said the following:

1. Reach out to your audience directly as a tech consultant and ask them what they want, and also ask for money
2. Make what they want by hiring a developer or two and pay the devs less than what the audience paid you
3. Use the profit (what audience paid - dev cost) to make your own product
4. Sell product to audience until recurring income high
5. Sell company

He also said that working a job while founding a business is trying to have your cake and eating it too; you just don't have the bandwidth to do both well.

---------------------

I was thinking of testing his strategy by creating a tech-mining company and reaching out to all my old bosses in the mining industry, asking them what they need done tech-wise, and also asking for funding too. The alum did say to NOT code what they ask you to make yourself as it's too time-intensive; instead, you should focus on getting new clients. I'm thinking: "man, I don't want to be a useless, non-technical founder."

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

Post by zbigi »

TopHatFox wrote:
Thu Jan 26, 2023 12:48 pm

I was thinking of testing his strategy by creating a tech-mining company and reaching out to all my old bosses in the mining industry, asking them what they need done tech-wise, and also asking for funding too. The alum did say to NOT code what they ask you to make yourself as it's too time-intensive; instead, you should focus on getting new clients. I'm thinking: "man, I don't want to be a useless, non-technical founder."
The non-technical co-founder is far from useless. There are millions upon millions of people who can code; there are far less people who can actually sell novel code-based ideas to companies. That's why most coders work a job and not have their own business :)

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

Post by TopHatFox »

@zbigi, but surely you must understand code to be able to sell it well, and to have the respect of your co-workers. I’d have very little respect for a mechanic shop owner that didn’t know anything about cars, for example. The other thing I noticed is that the more coding tools I’ve learned, the more business ideas I’ve come up with, and the clearer the execution becomes in my mind.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Fox's Journey: And Onto the Sunlight!

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I had a friend who had both skills. He told me that his strategy was to hire developers and other contractors when they were going cheap, but otherwise do most of the work himself, up to and including very occasionally taking a W2 position. He could afford to not work at all for very long stretches, until he married a drug-addicted girlfriend experience escort who was much younger than him. Now, O believe, his only income is social security.

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

Post by zbigi »

TopHatFox wrote:
Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:44 pm
@zbigi, but surely you must understand code to be able to sell it well, and to have the respect of your co-workers. I’d have very little respect for a mechanic shop owner that didn’t know anything about cars, for example. The other thing I noticed is that the more coding tools I’ve learned, the more business ideas I’ve come up with, and the clearer the execution becomes in my mind.
Yes, sure, it's good to have at least general understanding how things are done. The engineering managers (a popular term nowadays for a boss of programmers) who never coded themselves are mostly complete muppets, for example. Also, depends what you want to do. 95% of startups these days are essentially just websites, and it isn't that hard to conceive what a website can and cannot do (I think?). If you venture outside of that realm though (say, with some scientific software for your mining companies), then the possibilities and limitations are much less obvious, and programming knowledge becomes much more relevant.

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

Post by mountainFrugal »

In a start-up you will have the respect of your co-workers when you sell the software. If your customers are not software engineers it might be an advantage to have a non-technical background in order to be able to do this. Experience in sales in the mining industry is going to go way further than any technical knowledge about the product that you are selling. If your customers are other engineers within the mining industry then this could be true, but they are unlikely the ones making the purchasing decisions for B2B software.

In other instances, say if you try to raise money, you will be at a large disadvantage if you do not have anyone who knows that world (aka not at all useless non-technical person). Unless you already have a killer business that is raking in cash, the terms will be against you and you will have to give up control slowly but surely. If you maintain the attitude that non-techincal people are useless and you raise money, you will soon find your company sailing on without you when the board fires you once they have majority of board control. These are few hypothetical examples.

Have a good technical base sure. But non-technical business savvy people count for way more if you are going to even have a chance to build a "unicorn" (from your previous posts above).

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

Post by zbigi »

mountainFrugal wrote:
Thu Jan 26, 2023 2:58 pm
Have a good technical base sure. But non-technical business savvy people count for way more if you are going to even have a chance to build a "unicorn" (from your previous posts above).
1000%. Zuck or Gates or Musk were good programmers, sure. But first and foremost, they were absolutely brilliant businessmen. Programming is not hard in the grand scheme of things. The business side (finding a market, conceiving a product for it, convincing people to buy it, securing funding, hiring a team that can execute, not getting swindled during any of those steps etc.) is very hard though.

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

Post by TopHatFox »

I don’t really want to build a billionaire business, a million is fine. I’m thinking I’ll do both, learn the technical chops and the entrepreneur chops. Honestly, I think the technical side is way harder. The business side is mostly optimizing your product’s industry and offering, warm e-mailing a bunch of people with money, having a bunch of meetings, successfully selling one or two people in those meetings, repeat. I’m scared I’ll run out of energy being an introvert, but yeah — It’s essentially applying for jobs but with a business theme.

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

Post by mountainFrugal »

TopHatFox wrote:
Thu Jan 26, 2023 3:21 pm
I’m thinking I’ll do both, learn the technical chops and the entrepreneur chops.
This is a good idea. Then you can be the leader that does both. I think you are still discounting how hard the non-technical side is because you will be dealing with people who specialize in that in the same way that you specialize in the technical side of things, but you will find that out for yourself in time. In the mean time, get after it!

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

Post by zbigi »

TopHatFox wrote:
Thu Jan 26, 2023 3:21 pm
I’m scared I’ll run out of energy being an introvert, but yeah — It’s essentially applying for jobs but with a business theme.
It's may be same on the surface, but there are way more unknowns. Jobs market is standardized, so you can know what to expect and know what to bring to the table to have reasonable chance of success. Whereas, in business, there are no guard rails. You can have those meetings till cows come home and don't end up with a single paying customer or investor. There are plenty of serial failed entrepreneurs - in fact, it's probably the most popular kind of entrepreneur out there.

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