It’s also funny because we seem to trust and select doctors by google reviews and assume they have a valid diploma and license to consult us for our lives, but we have to grill some poor software engineer previously working in faang with another 10 leetcode interviews to be ‘sure’ he’s a good fit. lol
Funny thing is that i had a negative experience helping someone who was laid off. I reached out, offered help, provided excellent reference for them, covid hit and hiring froze for that particular company, followed up a few times, ghosted, never talked again.
It's you last phrase, that's the way the world and people works. It's people with their own troubles, insecurities and character. The most important bit is be yourself. If you are "built" to think and help others, keep doing it. If not, whatever.
I understand this for a dry candidate pool. I have been there as a hiring manager, you need some signal with take home or live interviewing. But on the rare opportunity that you find someone who is willing to talk in details about a similar project you want to do, you skip the pipeline and if he indeed built it, you hire him.
Why put the blame only on candidates? Interviewers are equally bad to interviewees. I have been to both sides of the table and can guarantee that 80% of interviewers would not be fit for my job or the process of hiring.
Companies keep ignoring the historical interview point. I have been to a few occasions when companies needed the exact thing i built in the past (e.g. migration to clickhouse), but chose to put me into a random take home related to a different technology (e.g. some bigquery assignment) and eventually reject me. Go off script and ask me details about the project which might solve your hands, why do i need to talk about something else?
Tech became tighter to join 2 years ago and for the next years are going to play music chairs on the open seats as lay offs continue, executives think that AI can replace anyone and younger generation (with lower wages) joins the tech workforce.
It's not recession per se, these companies will continue to be crazy profitable, it's just a change in mindset. See also the famous "founder-mode" that came up recently for startups and scaleups.
I don’t know, the conflict of interest especially in saas is tricky. Let’s assume that I build some niche etl tool, my employer deals with data etl for a certain market, how can i safely determine that my side project doesn’t interfere with their business? Not even lawyers can determine this. And what about the working hours overlap? Who knows except my commits to my repo and myself?
I don’t know, side projects seem like a bad advice as they probably increase current job insecurity imo..
Are we even allowed to do side projects? What if our employer claims ownership or even conflicts of interest with what we are building? How will i even present it into hn or producthunt with my name and all my credentials while i am still working somewhere else? Any employer would fire us on the spot if they found out, wouldn’t they?
I had the same problem. Do any or all of the following:
- Seek professional help. This is the number one advice and will be extremely helpful.
- Remove all work-related accounts from you personal laptop and mobile. Try not to search for your work during your spare time. Search for something else, sports, books, tv series, anything.
- Find a hobby with a strict schedule to follow after work, and ideally a (short) goal-oriented one. Rock climbing is perfect because you have short term task to succeed (similar to your day-to-day tasks and tickets), but any of them can work. Just set a goal with your coach, e.g. play your first tennis match with an opponent in 6 months and so on.
- Move on. This is probably the hardest, but you really have to consider that this job or life style is not helping you and you need to change to something different. A different job, a non-startup job, a new house, a different neighbourhood, city, anything that can shock your system, help you relax and find some peace, and eventually strengthen your relationship with your partner.
- Instead of setting goals only for your work life, set some goals for your personal one, e.g. make a new friend within 2021, travel to Asia within 6 months and so on. Revisit them every now and then, and check how you are doing.