Part of the problem is convincing people that you are legit. I face a few challenges these days
first off, I don't have a degree so that's one battle, but i'm an isolationist so that's battle #2 and its much harder to win.
During the first half of my career it was easy to find work because i was green and not charging much. towards the middle part i relied on a network of contacts and finding work was super easy. then i decided to isolate myself - i dropped all my contacts, deleted everything i had ever created (several websites that i ran for years), removed myself from social media and now work is very difficult to get. I didn't even realize this was the issue until recently.
In order to fix this:
1. I have started to rebuild my social network and have set up references
2. I now view social media apps as Personal Branding applications and use them as such
3. I built a portfolio site and added a bunch of my old projects to it
4. Look for little projects i can knock out in a few hours or days, work on them, and add them to my site
> Just be honest that you've looked at it outside of work, understand it but haven't had the chance to use it professionally yet
I can confirm this is true - explained this exact thing to the place i'm working at now... also, react is just a framework. if you understand JS, then you just need to wrap your head around the way it is being used in this particular case... just build a few small sites with it and you'll be further along than a lot of other people.
The rent laws are terrifying and slanted for the landlord. Here's how everything went down:
1. quit job for ethical reasons
2. run out of savings very quickly
3. run out of unemployment after that, can't afford rent
4. After being 3 days late on rent a notice was posted on my door saying that I had 5 days to pay in full or face eviction
5. After those 5 days were up, another notice was posted on my door that I had to appear in court the following week
6. Show up to court, make my way to the assigned room, multiple other people going through the same thing show up
7. Judge explains what is happening: you can speak to the plantif's lawyer to settle, and you can speak to some free lawyers who will help you sort your rights, and you can choose to settle that day or file a response.
a) settling with the landlord would have meant that I had to pay in full and then move out 1 week later but would not be evicted (basically self eviction)
b) file a response and take it to court a week later and then get evicted a week after that by a sheriff
8. I chose option B
9. In the meantime I signed up for a service (and ended up being approved) which helps with situations such as these by paying 80% of your rent (one-time service)
10. A few days before court I was able to pay rent and they dropped the case
11. sold some things to keep paying for rent and borrowed some money
12. finally got a fucking job
I was also slapped with:
1. $250~ in legal fees
2. $300~ in late fees
3. $100~ prematurely canceled rental insurance fee (rental insurance, utilities etc. are all in the same rent payment)
I am the homelessdev poster from CO. pxdHomelessDev reached out to me for an update which I gave him, but here's a more detailed run down of what I did to start getting out of my situation.
I was able to avoid becoming homeless by using services the city offers (food stamps, a one shot service that helped with rent during the month it mattered most, unemployment until it ran out), borrowing a small amount of money from family, wife was able to get a part-time job -- this got us out of our immediate scenario of living on the streets or in a car but we were literally 1 week away from that happening.
Finally after months of applying for jobs I was able to land one a week ago.
What I have done to get back on track:
1. put together a good portfolio: i built a few react sites, made some 2d games and converted a few interesting problems found on hackerrank into little applications so that I would have some diverse projects to show off. created social media accounts to showcase my work as well and linked all of those from my portfolio site.
2. prepared mentally: with each job interview that I failed I paid close attention to what went wrong and what I could have done to prevent it from failing and then adjusted my next interview based on that information.
3. put in 15 resumes per day: there are lots of job sites (angel.co weworkremotely.com and remoteok.io to name a few) -- once i ramped up to 15 resumes a day I had at least 3 calls a week with prospective employers. I also didn't limit myself to CO -- i now have a remote job.
4. don't kill yourself or give up: for me this was the hardest part of the process. i suffer from bipolar disorder and was on the verge of suicide for the better part of this year. each failure during the process made me sink further into depression, though keeping my mind occupied with my own projects helped immensely. staying positive through this sort of thing, even if you're lying to yourself and faking it, seems to be one of the keys to success because other people can pick up on your mood.
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I am assuming that you have very limited funds and thus might not know where to host a website for cheap -- this can be accomplished for 1 or 2 USD per month on AWS using a serverless infrastructure. You can also host free static sites on github pages with custom domains (get one on namecheap for $9 per year). Whatever you choose has the added benefit of being something you can talk about in a job interview and showcase on your site.
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i don't know how your javascript skills are, but if you have extensive front end experience:
1. update your knowledge if need be to the latest JS syntax
2. spend a weekend learning react
3. start playing with node
javascript is in demand and i have seen Jr devs (1 or 2 years of react and node experience) being billed as either "fullstack developers" or even worse "senior fullstack developers". With your current skill set and a bit more knowledge you should be able to land a JS job pretty quickly.
Apparently my post has been flagged for some reason. I attempted to post the following last night but kept getting a message that I was posting too fast:
Questions / answers thus far:
there's been a lot of good advice in this thread thus far and a few understandable questions.
I'm going to answer them all here as I can no longer edit the main thread.
first off, great suggestions - some of these were already on my mind (gym, library, camping specifically) and seeing them reinforced via comments is encouraging.
to answer some questions that have been raised:
1. > homeless in the USA? Just cannot understand how this would happen
I'm still trying to piece this together myself. I failed multiple job interviews that were very difficult, ran out of unemployment and am now facing eviction. it takes 6 to 12 months to get into government housing in colorado. unless i get a job before that, its the car, the woods or the street.
> 15 years full stack
I don't get it either.
2. > How resonable is the person/company you rent from to secure an agreement to stay on despite the late rent?
zero reasonable. they filed after 3 days and after i explained that i'm having health issues.
3. > Have you applied for unemployment?
yes, i was approved as my reason for quitting was appropriate, however it ran out quickly as rent is extremely expensive.
4. > Built In Colorado job
I am aware and use it, however yes the process is slow
5. > if he were a brilliant engineer he probably wouldn't be on here with this post
Define brilliant. i certainly haven't claimed to be brilliant, but i do claim to be an excellent employee, extremely fast learner and someone who has never been fired and who has always excelled at their job. I suspect some people think i'm brilliant and others do not.
6. > Why would 3 days late on your rent involve a court date and eviction?
Denver / Colorado is harsh as fuck, apparently.
7. > It'd be really shocking to me if this happened in the US without some prior history/grounds for eviction
then be shocked, my friend. its happening and i've never been evicted in the past nor has my wife. nothin but smooth sailing in my past. this is denver
In all of this i also forgot to mention that I was diagnosed as being bipolar which has helped wreck my life.
8. > How have you been an engineer for 15 years and still: Rent an apartment, Don’t have a few laptops lying around, Don’t have any savings while having no kids
This series of questions assumes that i have made sound financial decisions over the years. i have not. it also assumes i do not have a child whereas I do from a previous marriage. also, it assumes i've never owned a house, i have... doesn't mean i still do.
this right here is why i don't have a job yet -- suddenly being a good programmer isn't enough, you have to be a good algorithmic competitive programmer. Code challenges with intensely difficult algorithms (i'm talking 3 to 8 per interview) are making all of you employers pass over good devs, and making me homeless. This is the new brainteaser and 5 years from now people will look back and realize its a terrible judge of someone who will be programming a fucking website.
edit: i'm not going to post my resume or portfolio here, but if you saw what i'm capable of and where i worked in the past you would be shocked that i'm having issues finding employment.
also i should note: i'm 36... but i'm sharper and know more now than when i was being paid 96 to 105k in my 20s.