💾 Archived View for gemini.sh0.xyz › log › 2022-10-03.gmi captured on 2024-07-08 at 23:49:19. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-01-29)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
After just going through the process of looking for a new job, having been a
software developer for 20 years, I always find the process both fun and
annoying. I've run international teams of developers in three countries. I've
done both software and hardware design and have production code in the wild is
at least a dozen languages. I've been an embedded developer writing operating
systems and application code, desktop and mobile tools in .Net, and been a full stack
developer on sites for some of the biggest brands in the world. I've been a
Sales Engineer, working directly with Marketing teams and customers to design
solutions for million dollar projects in the energy industry. I've given
trainings both domestically and abroad, done on-site support on top of a
mountain and in the desert. I hold a US patent and have started a business
doing technical writing and design for those with less technical expertise to
file their own. I've taught a class on Human Centered Design and revamped
software development processes to increase certification levels. I've been on
the editorial panel for a tech journal. And I've been the safety officer and
taught CPR and first responder classed for many years.
If you go to my Github page you'll find a cli todo.txt app written in
Haskell, a script for creating diceware passwords and my dotfiles. I don't work
in open source and with the crazy amount of hours I was working in my 20's and
30's I really didn't have time for side projects. But in the hundred
applications I sent out this year nearly all of them asked for my Github
handle. Some even asked for specific projects on Github that you want to
promote. It became a bit of a recurring speech explaining that most of the code
I have written is intellectual property of major corporations who had no real
interest in open sourcing any of it. The few times I have produced anything
that required publication per licensing has been superseded with later updates
or projects already in the works so besides my one personal app in Github, you
won't be finding anything I've written with a simple Google Search.
And yet I feel, and many countless recruiters have told me, that I have an
impressive background. I've worn so many hats and touch so many aspects of
development that I could fill just about any role. Sadly, I also had too many
hiring managers stop me early on saying they want to bring actual code to the
team to evaluate before moving forward and sadly I don't have it. I don't have
stars and follows on my Github page and they seem to think that is a red flag.
When they ask for my twitter (which I haven't used since basically when twitter
came out) or FB or any other social media and I say I don't really use any of
them, they just give me this strange look. So bizarre.
I just had to remind myself that this process is an exercise in the law of
large numbers. You send out tons of resumes, get a bunch of interviews, a ton
of rejections and a few offers you definitely don't want. Eventually you find a
good match.
$ published: 2022-10-03 21:20 $
$ tags: rant, programming $
-- CC-BY-4.0 jecxjo 2022-10-03