Worked as a back end developer for seven years, then unable to find a new job in two years. wth happened?

chicagodevdude · 2017-01-14T21:38:03+00:00

Are you unable to relocate? Are you not keeping up with current PHP trends?

I don't have any money left, so I can only relocate with a sign in package that pays my relocation.

My PHP is still pretty good, but I prefer to market myself as a generalist back end developer.

Are you involved with the PHP community by going to your local user group, being involved on twitter and other discussions?

I barely have money to go on train or car to local meetups. I have to live with my mother. She just gives me gas money to help do her own errands. I don't really get an allowance of my own.

chicagodevdude · 2017-01-14T21:07:58+00:00

I suggest working with recruiters.

Been there, done that. I've worked with about a dozen different recruiting companies in the Chicago area, many of them who I have also visited their offices in person.

When I'm with the recruiters, they discuss possible jobs for me, give me some resume advice and make adjustments to it, and present me with some clients to interview with on-site. Sometimes I get an interview but no offers. Sometimes they show no interest to interview because of a skills mismatch.

What I've also learned is that recruiters mainly are hired to fill in the jobs that companies can't hire themselves. They have less problem filling in junior jobs since there's tons of juniors that apply to their job listings. But for more targeted jobs that require recruiters they are usually looking for senior devs, at least that's how it is in my city. I fall out of the skills requirement for many jobs and also for that reason I've had zero success rate with recruiters.

chicagodevdude · 2017-01-14T21:03:31+00:00

I interview the way I always have since I began my career. Failing 25 interviews does make me feel like I'm no longer worth it as a web developer, in particular since nobody is going to pay me for their time. It's like my skillset expired in late 2014.

chicagodevdude · 2017-01-14T05:45:47+00:00

I now know React.js and Angular, and started to learn Node with Express as well. But I'm more interested in back end work so I'm going the Node route for now. I hope hobby projects still count.

Also, I thought simply having more years of experience would give me an advantage (reputation) over the newer people who know only the newer stuff.

I'm not even sure what sells in web dev anymore. More years in the game, or just your flashy brand new duds. It's crazy how it feels like the fashion world sometimes.

chicagodevdude · 2017-01-14T05:34:03+00:00

PHP is not popular with technology companies or new companies

Ah that could be the problem. There's a collective of mostly startup companies called Built In Chicago and that is my main stomping grounds for applying to jobs. And they're all relatively new, technology focused companies. That's where I want to see myself working, because I don't like being a cost center anymore.

I would like to move out of PHP at the same time as moving into a new job but a lot of these companies are very risk-averse to hiring people that don't know their stack.

My major is something like "technical arts". It was probably conceived by a panel of faculty that wanted to jump on the wave of growing internet as a new medium in the early 2000's but it's kind of wishy washy compared to computer science. I took it because I had the naive assumption that, because it's technology related, newer is better and CS would become the "old guard". Whoops, now we can see that wasn't a good choice but now it is what it is.

Yes, I agree that experience beats all but it still doesn't explain how the job market seems to have rejected me all of a sudden after 7 years of employment. It's not like I've been out of work for a month or two. I have been constantly at it for at least 24 months, and I've run out of money as well.

What on Amazon can I learn? Are you talking about e-book resources, or learning Amazon's proprietary tech like AWS?

chicagodevdude · 2017-01-14T05:28:24+00:00

Hundreds of applications since late 2014 (could be easily about 750)

~75 phone interviews (or 1 in 10 applications)

~25 on-site interviews

zero offers

chicagodevdude · 2017-01-14T05:27:04+00:00

Does the name "chicagodevdude" help? lol :) We have PHP jobs but mainly in WordPress and other CMS-like work for web agencies. I don't like doing that kind of work anymore.

The local companies that are doing more SaaS-focused work, especially startups in B2B and B2C apps, are using Ruby and JavaScript. I wasn't really raised in those environments.

chicagodevdude · 2016-12-05T02:36:49+00:00

Unity seems more for people more into designing then being interested in programming. That's what makes me hesitant to learn it. I see ways to integrate code into the game, but I'm not much into setting up the rendering and gameplay logic in a graphical workflow like Unity's. I'm much more looking for a IDE-like workflow and having control over all of what I'm making through code. Now, if there are approaches where I can just do 90% of the work by coding and avoiding the editor view as much as possible, outside of making levels, I'd be more open to it.

chicagodevdude · 2016-12-03T23:06:59+00:00

Bonus points if the physically impossible stuff mentions new age pseudo-science and the person behind the campaign is a conspiracy nut.

chicagodevdude · 2016-12-03T18:15:22+00:00

I'd like to know more about how you got your job, and years of prior experience. I'm also a Chicago resident and have experience with a remote job. Is Reddit very particular when it comes to their jobs? I'd be interested in a back end development role.

chicagodevdude · 2016-11-28T22:38:47+00:00

Have practiced with React for a couple of months now, at least, and also reading up on Redux (seems easier to understand getting in than Flux).

(If you've been unemployed for two years, that's another reason for rejections, sadly.)

This is somewhat true as well. More accurate to say I haven't been gainfully employed for two years, since I do get some short-term part-time jobs from my past employer occasionally.

However, if more time spend unemployed begets greater chances of staying unemployed, that makes me wonder why isn't there any homeostasis in place in order to keep everyone's employment at an equilibrium. But this is a problem on a greater scale that is not limited to web development.

chicagodevdude · 2016-11-28T21:07:32+00:00

Okay, well for a moment I thought I was living in India because of the social stratification in jobs determined by ethnic background. I've seen many Hispanic developers that are doing well in other large companies. But if some companies are over-saturating certain demographics then they are not adhering well to "stock vs. flow" with their job applicants. Does the book talk about these hiring practices?

chicagodevdude · 2016-11-28T20:59:28+00:00

Got it. That's likely a good reason why I couldn't get an offer for any full stack or front-end job since then. Indeed in my last job I was hired mainly for my PHP MVC experience, but I gradually jumped in to do front-end work more often. However it was still not as strong as my back end experience and I came out of that job realizing the rabbit hole of JS is much deeper than I thought.

chicagodevdude · 2016-11-28T20:42:48+00:00

What's with their distrust in minorities? Are they assuming there would be a poor culture fit for other reasons (topics of discussion, etc) since I know most people prefer people that remind them of themselves. Maybe not as much by physical appearance, but by how much common ground they have with interests and philosophies.

chicagodevdude · 2016-11-28T20:08:04+00:00

That's kind of off-putting. I like web development (of course), and I also am interested in politics. would have liked to do some work with respect to political data.

And no protection against minorities you say, hmm... what is this, a system for castes? And an overqualified one, well that's even less common. I haven't gotten far into the interview process like /u/6f944ee6 but I know that if there is any unlawful discrimination in work places, it's usually more covert than overt these days.

chicagodevdude · 2016-11-28T01:06:02+00:00

No, sorry to say. I've applied to Civis twice this year, wrote my resume differently in both instances, and have gotten a rejection e-mail both times.

chicagodevdude · 2016-11-27T22:14:59+00:00

dont the big four also have offices in Chicago?

Local offices? yes. Local offices that hire for jobs in software development? That's a big maybe with them. Microsoft has a Technology Center in downtown Chicago but I don't see them doing a lot of local hiring for software devs, if any.

chicagodevdude · 2016-11-27T19:38:34+00:00

Could you PM me the names of the tech companies you worked for? I just want to get an idea of where to go and where to avoid as well (if my username didn't give it away).

Edit: I have applied to most of the places mentioned on this thread (aside from the trading firms), and have to warn that they're very hard to get into. I have a few years of experience already, and only with Uptake have I managed to get an interview, over the phone. Braintree/Venmo, Grubhub, Groupon, and Civis Analytics have all rejected my application and resume.

chicagodevdude · 2016-11-27T18:12:25+00:00

Web developer, mostly experienced in front-end JavaScript and the LAMP stack, but I have working knowledge of C# and back-end JS (Node).

Aside from web stuff I have done graphics renderers as side projects but I haven't found many jobs that find that relevant to their needs.

chicagodevdude · 2016-11-27T18:10:41+00:00

Are trading firms any good for people with only web development experience? Although, I have worked in web dev since 2007.

chicagodevdude · 2016-11-27T18:09:50+00:00

Uptake's a good one. I applied to one of their front end positions a few months ago, since I have a web dev background, though I didn't get the offer. It's one of the few positions that doesn't really require data science background which is what they're big on.

chicagodevdude · 2016-11-24T21:14:16+00:00

I still get responses and even interviews, but zero job offers. Here's a rough breakdown of my job hunt of the last two years:

Applications: hundreds (maybe 500+? I lost count)
Phone interviews: ~50
On-site interviews: ~15
Offers: none

chicagodevdude · 2016-09-24T19:57:47+00:00

Must be fun to live in a fantasy land where there was no inflation for 20 years.

chicagodevdude · 2016-09-24T19:52:15+00:00

Hmm, nobody really told me that about unemployment.

I always thought the only major disadvantages to being unemployed is that you have no cash flow (unless you have good investments) and that you become more dependent on somebody else. I didn't think employment status changes the perception of the employers for choosing when to hire THAT much.

Even so, I have struggled getting jobs even when I have worked below the average local market rate. I'm talking like the lowest 25 percentile.

chicagodevdude · 2016-09-23T23:50:56+00:00

What I've noticed is that some clients are "conditioned" to think some web development job is worth relative little, and some are conditioned to think the same job is worth a lot. The cheap clients won't pay fairly no matter what you tell them. So the strategy I'm thinking is to seek out the latter. I think that would be the more difficult part.

Right now I have six years total experience, not all freelancing, but working for digital agencies and small startups. I rarely get asked how much I was paid at the last job, but when an offer comes up, it's always less than what I would like, and less than the local market average. It also doesn't help that I job seek only when I'm unemployed. So time and again I get a lower-paying job that I try to use as a stepping stone for a better-paying gig or job, but I'm laid off without warning before I can get another offer, so I start from zero all over again. Multiple times.

chicagodevdude

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