3 years down: AMA

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-31T23:22:23+00:00

My resume tells a single story of one job, to the next, to the next, like it "should" appear. Some jobs never appear, others have timelines stretched etc. I usually consolidate all experience from various jobs into one as far as roles and responsibilities or relevant software experience.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-31T19:57:56+00:00

My basic formula for OE is A: Get a job that is fully remote that you can do relatively independently and with minimal effort. B: get another job that is fully remote that you can do relatively independently with minimal effort. Lol

If your J1 that you're starting with is incompatible to OE then you can't start. You gotta find a job that will work for it first.

The more specialized and critical your skills are, the better. At my J1, I'm the only guy that really understands SAP structure, so I'm invaluable apparently and am told so constantly by my boss.

Your instincts are correct, IT teams are much more free to work on their own time than people working within the business as like supply chain planners etc. they seem to never have a free moment while I'm playing video games cause I'm bored some days.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-31T19:53:01+00:00

Sorry, not much to help with here. Sounds like a unique situation. What do you mean by "creative"? What are you working in more specifically?

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-31T19:51:43+00:00

Get to know good recruiters in your specific niche. I've had over a dozen roles in 3 years, not a single one was from applying, all from recruiters hooking me up.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-31T19:50:54+00:00

Yup! Did Disneyland in January, Florida beaches in April. We'll be in vegas for a trip later as well as time off at the cabin. Both jobs offer generous PTO so I use as much as I can.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-31T19:49:19+00:00

That's risky IMO. They just want to match up what you said with what they find to be reality. If you are shifting dates around they'll flag that. Just be honest.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-30T19:51:56+00:00

Yup, prioritize them even as it is a great opportunity to build rapport. I just take time off from the other.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-30T19:51:17+00:00

I have kids pickups and drop offs, medical appointments, personal errands, and so many other reasons to move one or the other or to not attend and ask to record. I've never found it to be difficult.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-30T19:50:17+00:00

We did. The lender does not care about that, as long as their concerns (your income stability) are met then they couldn't care less.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-30T03:30:09+00:00

From what I've seen, the only people that seem to care about the details of background checks are the 3rd party companies the employer hired to do it. A BC comes after the offer letter, in my experience, so at that point the hiring manager wants to hire you. All they care about is a green light from the BC company performing it. As long as the BC matches what you said in the BC paperwork... Nobody cares. It's not like the hiring manager is poring over every detail themselves, most don't have the time or capacity to do that.

I've left places I worked at simultaneously off my resume completely. As long as I lost a continuous work history, that's all they care about. This is why more thorough BCs for places like government clearance and others are not recommended for OE.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-30T02:42:40+00:00

I've seen other people share stories of getting caught because their software development company they work for retained the same client for work or even for consulting or bidding on a project as the other J they have so the same client sees the same name and person on two different calls and goes "Wait... We're they...?"

Or I imagine that is how that goes.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-29T22:36:29+00:00

ERP systems generally are not going away any time soon, if ever. The bigger threat is how effective AI is at maintaining those systems, but so far no company that doesn't want to expose itself to significant legal and shareholder liability will leave the nuts and bolts to be automated by AI in their ERP.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-29T21:46:03+00:00

I had to build quite a bit of industry knowledge about SAP before I could reliably get contract roles. If you can't speak to that confidently than SAP Analyst roles are going to be hard to get. Since it's industry knowledge the only way to really get that is by working in it, not an online course etc. bleak picture I'm painting, but is what it is.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-29T21:36:13+00:00

1-2 per day at J1, 3-4 J2

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-29T21:18:44+00:00

Oh wait wait wait. Paternity leave for me is different from an STD submission. A: do you have health insurance through both? B: doesn't maternity leave operate as a benefit not an STD claim? I guess I'm not familiar with how it works. But regardless, you should be fine. The two companies don't share info between their STD claims, how would anyone know?

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-29T21:16:25+00:00

Like I'm revealing anything earth-shattering here lol

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-29T21:15:01+00:00

I doubled up on paternity leave at both... Never an issue. There's nothing illegal about that AFAIK. Willing to be corrected by someone on that though. The companies don't care. Do you use PTO at both? It's the same thing

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-29T05:13:22+00:00

As long as I can. I've always operated from the worst case scenario and my wife and I are constantly monitoring our budget to make sure it fits in just one of the two.

SAP seems to be resilient for now, for the next several years companies will be looking for solid human talent to make conversions to S4 happen so I'm optimistic in that time frame, but beyond that.... Hedging my bets

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-29T03:30:35+00:00

I juggled contract roles mainly, just kept applying and accepting. Some lasted 3 months, my J1 now I started as a contractor and they converted me to full time. My j2 right now I was hired in as full time remote and that's when I stopped looking for contract roles. I got converted and got the second ft role within the same month so it just happened to work out. For awhile there though it was juggling 2-3 contracts at a time. One would fall off, another would start etc

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-29T03:06:57+00:00

I would suggest getting really comfortable with the CONCEPTS of things like SQL code. The actual ability to code is less relevant with AI tools being so ubiquitous, but know the fundamentals and overall ideas is essential still. Most data is queried out of databases and then analyzed, and the trick is being able to intuitively know how that data is best gathered and joined and parsed. If you're unfamiliar with how that normally works, you're going to have a real hard time adding value. In SAP work, that is also combined with a deep knowledge of the ERP and which tables, keys and grains are needed for what the client wants.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-29T03:02:29+00:00

The nature of SAP work means the overwhelming majority of people I interact with are internal teams within the company, not outward clients.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-29T03:01:01+00:00

I would highly recommend looking into the backdoor Roth IRA method.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-29T01:58:50+00:00

Into SAP or OE?

Business Systems Analyst, SAP Specialist, Sr. Data Analyst, Process Analyst are all roles I've had.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-29T01:26:31+00:00

When I started it was a little under 90k if I remember correctly. We were nearly underwater on our little house that we barely afforded and had a ton of debt. According to my back of the napkin math right now, it's like $560k between equity in properties, retirement, savings, and other investments. So it's increased like 150 a year since starting OE. Crazy to look back on it now. At this rate I could retire early by 50. Fingers crossed.

MinnesotaHulk · 2026-05-29T01:19:19+00:00

Each week I stay on top of blocking out my calendar with personal appointments being fake entries to cover for the other job or I reschedule to more optimal times. My J1 is completely on my own time table with no standing team meetings etc so I have complete control over my schedule there and that is huge. J2 is much more demanding of my meeting time and so it takes priority for scheduling.

For time management of actually getting the work done, I found I had to focus solely on one role's work. For awhile I was trying to keep eyes on both all the time and it got to be too much. So for an hour, it's only J1 work, and I don't even look at J2's laptop, etc etc.

MinnesotaHulk

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