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I find it interesting that the author doesn't mention anything about the product as priority during his job search. No mention of tech stack, product-market-fit

I find it interesting that the author doesn't mention anything about the product as priority during his job search. No mention of tech stack, product-market-fit, growth potential, or being convinced that a product is filling a genuine need. These are the things that I would prioritize when considering a job search. The author mentions as a priority responsiveness of the recruiter. Also: - How nice are the employees? - What’s the vibe in the office? Noisy? Quiet? - Do employees look happy? - How’s the food? - and so on and so on… Is this typical?

wayn3 10y ago
The author was a consultant before. Its usually our job to deal with the circumstances and to actively change them. We are not "good employees". We call bullshit and we get to call bullshit. We are not hired to help our bosses achieve things, we are hired to save their asses. We are hired because someone goofed up. We are hired because something went wrong and its our job to patch it up. We come in with the expectation of getting things back on track. We are meant to blend in with the "regular employees" but we never will, because we are free agents. We can walk away from this job and we WILL walk away if what had been promised does not happen. We will walk away unscathed because we have other gigs in the pipeline anyway. We do not conform. We come in with a plan, which we communicate in pretty clear terms - with the expectation that the person who hires us will, to some extent, play by our rules. Because that's what they brought us in for. That's the mindset. In some way, we are mercenaries. What remains is whether the people and amenities are nice. At my current gig, I'm fixing telecommunications software - highly concurrent stuff. Etching out another 20% of performance is actually important here. Today I've had an email about working for someone who wants to set up a new crypto currency and from someone who needs to port their badly engineered python code to awesome pretty shiny new Elixir code. They all know my rate and its certainly not cheap, but I'm going to reject most of them anyway. The average gig is 9 months but there won't be a week during which I don't have some kind of request in my inbox. And its all done remote. Most of my clients haven't even seen my face. Whether they've got product market fit is simply irrelevant. I pick the jobs that are intellectually challenging, because that's what I want to work on. Their business logic is irrelevant to me. Their stack is irrelevant to me. If their stack sucks, I'll tell them to switch technologies or I won't be available anyway. Sometimes I entertain the idea of working for some startup. Getting involved. But the reality is: 40 hour salary with a 60 hour expectation - no interesting work (we need to get this frontend thing fixed so heres your react native good luck not dying of boredom) - cramped office space; and I don't mean "crappy" office space, I mean cramped. Where you can't have a thought without someone being an idiot right next to you for no particular reason, etc. It just doesn't make any sense to be an employee in 2016.
- scsilver 10y ago
  What did you do that lead you into your kind of position. You are hitting every thing I want out of a career and as I take a corporate job in the city to validate my self taught skills, I'd like to be able to do what I can to work back out to being a contractor. I assume networking, excelling amongst your peers, and constant learning. Am I missing anything?
  - wayn3 10y ago
    I've played poker professionally, studied physics and mathematics, ran my own startup, etc. My resume is the opposite of a career. If you've got skills, just put yourself out there. Getting a contract is a whole lot easier than getting a job. Which doesn't make any sense, but its what it is. Sites like toptal and gigster can help getting the ball rolling. Gigster will probably not accept you because they pattern match against keywords or whatever. I don't know. Didn't accept me either. Not a big loss in my opinion. They just mostly do web apps anyway. Toptal makes you solve a bunch of challenges so if you've got the skills you'll get in.
    - mooreds 10y ago
      Definitely brush up on your algorithm skills before you apply with Toptal. I come from a non computer science background and flailed on the tests. But it did seem like a nice way to get lead gen. Also would suggest blogging and github projects, especially if you know a niche technology that you want to go deep in.
      - wayn3 10y ago
        Github certainly works. If you go that route, make sure you build things that can be deployed in reasonable time. Include your server configuration etc. A good github project that is meant for showing off your skills includes instructions on how to get it started. For example, if you do something javascript, bundle a minimal server that I can execute on my computer. React.js is doing this pretty well, for example.
- 10y ago
kellysutton 10y ago
Author here. I didn't mention those things because they were a baseline during my search. Product-market fit, growth potential, and solving a genuine problem are table stakes for me. The bulleted list was everything to worry about after those foundational goals are met. I've got an unpublished blog post of 100+ questions to ask before joining a company, and the points you brought up are definitely in there.
- sambrand 10y ago
  Gotcha! I figured that might be the case. I'd be very happy to hear more about those table stakes. 100 stakes is a lot tho =)
- sushid 10y ago
  Hey, Kelly. Enjoyed the article but it seems like someone edited over your Google Doc. Do you think you could restore it to the original version?
  - kellysutton 10y ago
    Hi sushid, What I posted is a sanitized copy of the doc with dummy information. Out of respect for the companies, I won't be posting my copy of it.
- rdoherty 10y ago
  I would love to read those questions, any chance you could publish them somewhere?
- FT_intern 10y ago
  What's interesting is that the satisfaction of those factors are evaluated in a binary way. From my experience and the experience of people I've spoken with, utility increases as those factors increase even after the factors reach a baseline requirement.

wayn3 10y ago

The author was a consultant before. Its usually our job to deal with the circumstances and to actively change them. We are not "good employees". We call bullshit and we get to call bullshit. We are not hired to help our bosses achieve things, we are hired to save their asses. We are hired because someone goofed up. We are hired because something went wrong and its our job to patch it up. We come in with the expectation of getting things back on track. We are meant to blend in with the "regular employees" but we never will, because we are free agents. We can walk away from this job and we WILL walk away if what had been promised does not happen. We will walk away unscathed because we have other gigs in the pipeline anyway. We do not conform. We come in with a plan, which we communicate in pretty clear terms - with the expectation that the person who hires us will, to some extent, play by our rules. Because that's what they brought us in for. That's the mindset. In some way, we are mercenaries. What remains is whether the people and amenities are nice. At my current gig, I'm fixing telecommunications software - highly concurrent stuff. Etching out another 20% of performance is actually important here. Today I've had an email about working for someone who wants to set up a new crypto currency and from someone who needs to port their badly engineered python code to awesome pretty shiny new Elixir code. They all know my rate and its certainly not cheap, but I'm going to reject most of them anyway. The average gig is 9 months but there won't be a week during which I don't have some kind of request in my inbox. And its all done remote. Most of my clients haven't even seen my face. Whether they've got product market fit is simply irrelevant. I pick the jobs that are intellectually challenging, because that's what I want to work on. Their business logic is irrelevant to me. Their stack is irrelevant to me. If their stack sucks, I'll tell them to switch technologies or I won't be available anyway. Sometimes I entertain the idea of working for some startup. Getting involved. But the reality is: 40 hour salary with a 60 hour expectation - no interesting work (we need to get this frontend thing fixed so heres your react native good luck not dying of boredom) - cramped office space; and I don't mean "crappy" office space, I mean cramped. Where you can't have a thought without someone being an idiot right next to you for no particular reason, etc. It just doesn't make any sense to be an employee in 2016.

scsilver 10y ago
What did you do that lead you into your kind of position. You are hitting every thing I want out of a career and as I take a corporate job in the city to validate my self taught skills, I'd like to be able to do what I can to work back out to being a contractor. I assume networking, excelling amongst your peers, and constant learning. Am I missing anything?
- wayn3 10y ago
  I've played poker professionally, studied physics and mathematics, ran my own startup, etc. My resume is the opposite of a career. If you've got skills, just put yourself out there. Getting a contract is a whole lot easier than getting a job. Which doesn't make any sense, but its what it is. Sites like toptal and gigster can help getting the ball rolling. Gigster will probably not accept you because they pattern match against keywords or whatever. I don't know. Didn't accept me either. Not a big loss in my opinion. They just mostly do web apps anyway. Toptal makes you solve a bunch of challenges so if you've got the skills you'll get in.
  - mooreds 10y ago
    Definitely brush up on your algorithm skills before you apply with Toptal. I come from a non computer science background and flailed on the tests. But it did seem like a nice way to get lead gen. Also would suggest blogging and github projects, especially if you know a niche technology that you want to go deep in.
    - wayn3 10y ago
      Github certainly works. If you go that route, make sure you build things that can be deployed in reasonable time. Include your server configuration etc. A good github project that is meant for showing off your skills includes instructions on how to get it started. For example, if you do something javascript, bundle a minimal server that I can execute on my computer. React.js is doing this pretty well, for example.
10y ago

kellysutton 10y ago

Author here. I didn't mention those things because they were a baseline during my search. Product-market fit, growth potential, and solving a genuine problem are table stakes for me. The bulleted list was everything to worry about after those foundational goals are met. I've got an unpublished blog post of 100+ questions to ask before joining a company, and the points you brought up are definitely in there.

sambrand 10y ago
Gotcha! I figured that might be the case. I'd be very happy to hear more about those table stakes. 100 stakes is a lot tho =)
sushid 10y ago
Hey, Kelly. Enjoyed the article but it seems like someone edited over your Google Doc. Do you think you could restore it to the original version?
- kellysutton 10y ago
  Hi sushid, What I posted is a sanitized copy of the doc with dummy information. Out of respect for the companies, I won't be posting my copy of it.
rdoherty 10y ago
I would love to read those questions, any chance you could publish them somewhere?
FT_intern 10y ago
What's interesting is that the satisfaction of those factors are evaluated in a binary way. From my experience and the experience of people I've spoken with, utility increases as those factors increase even after the factors reach a baseline requirement.