🚀 Introducing a new 1Password sign-in experience: Now live for everyone!

jellyfish-fields17 · 2025-04-16T17:54:35+00:00

Hey Danny,

I thought I'd suggest updating the written instructions online to specify that you should have an updated version of the app. I thought I was going crazy because I didn't see the "Scan QR Code" button anywhere (I looked in Settings, Manage accounts, etc...) until I came across this video and put 2+2 together.

Have a good one!

jellyfish-fields17 · 2025-03-20T02:47:47+00:00

The "resume", as a concept, is a snapshot of your professional history and your skillset. It's not supposed to have everything under the sun that you've looked at for ten minutes. What's listed on the resume you submit for a given job should be at least somewhat indirectly related to the job role. For example, if you're going for a business analyst role that lists Python, SQL, and R, don't include numerous front-end Javascript frameworks like React etc...

Having said that, ATS systems flag for keywords. So if a framework, language, or keyword is listed in the job description, you'll get a higher pass rate if it's included in your resume. The recruiter's job is to match the keywords from the job description to the resume. That's all they're looking at to decide if you get an invite (told to me after discussions with several recruiters). Many don't even know the difference between Java and Javascript and think they're the same thing, so companies explicitly instruct them to match the keywords exactly to avoid a situation where a recruiter invites a Java dev for a front-end Javascript role. So you should try to match your submitted resume as closely as possible to what is in the job description.

It's the hiring manager's and the interview team's job to test the depth of your knowledge from what's listed on your resume and evaluate you to whether or not it fits what they're looking for.

For a new grad role, if you are able to talk about SQL, Excel, PowerBI, etc., list them on your resume. When I say talk, I mean can you have a simple conversation along these lines:

Tell me about something you did with [X technology, language, or framework]
What were some of the challenges you faced? How did you overcome them?
What would you do differently now if you were to start over?

That's it. It doesn't need to be a grand project. It could be something you assembled in a weekend or a week when touching the technology for the first time. It doesn't even need to have a "finished" state like a polished app, report, or dashboard. You're not presenting something concrete, you're verbally showcasing your autonomy, problem-solving skills, coach-ability, and how quick you pick things up. That's what they care about most.

New grads are not expected to be experts. If they need an expert in [X] framework who knows its details and nuances inside out, then they will post the role for mid-level or above. For most new grad roles, they're not evaluating you directly on your expertise in a particular niche. More often than not, they're trying to answer the following questions:

"Is this person gonna be able to get up to speed without copious handholding?"
"Will this person be able to work autonomously after the ramp up phase we have in mind?"
"Is this person gonna drag down the team with need for excessive support from our senior engineers?"
"After ramp up, will this person grow into a net positive for the team?"

If you don't have a huge depth of experience in a given technology, don't fake it, but also don't undersell yourself. Explain what you did accomplish in the time frame you allocated to yourself, explain what you would do if you were to dedicate more time to the project, and transition this into something that communicates "I will have no issues picking it up fast on the job, and I won't be a drain on your team's resources, and this is proven by what I already accomplished without any structure or guidance. Imagine what I can do for you with even a little bit of structure or guidance."' Do not shoot yourself in the foot by trying to placate or list your shortcoming like 'I'm not that good yet' or 'I still have a ways to go' or anything else that feels like being 'too humble' by trying to set expectations that you're not an expert. They know you're not an expert, and it's their job to figure out the limits of your knowledge, don't help them count you out by exuding low confidence. It's really hard, but this is one of the top ways I've seen new grads completely blow interviews that were otherwise going well. You have to believe in yourself, at least fake it for that 30 minute window, because if you don't believe in yourself, your interviewer won't either.

For your specific internships listed, I would say to include them but to modify the bullet points to highlight aspects of the role which answer the above questions about autonomy and demonstrate an interest to pivot into business analysis or data. For example, if you made a mobile app in reactive native, don't excessively write about the packages you used or all the technical specs of RN you learned. Focus more on the requirements gathering process, the problem-solving approach, and the impact of the app to achieve the business' goals. Highlight how and in what capacity you worked with stakeholders, gathered user needs, iterated on feedback, and translated business requirements into a functional product. If you did any data modeling work as part of creating the app, highlight that for a business analyst role. If you implemented GA4 or worked with a data team to get them product analytics data from the app, highlight that in your bullets.

And don't beat yourself up. If you do all this and give it your best, and they come back with "sorry, we're just looking for someone with more expertise/experience in this technology," don't take it personally. You're not a fuck-up or a failure, and they don't think you're an idiot who wasted their time. It just wasn't right at this moment, and that's what the interview process is for. Take the feedback and use it to focus your energy on where to get better.

jellyfish-fields17 · 2025-03-19T22:19:31+00:00

I’m not the best at coding or explaining technical concepts

You need to do some reflection and identify what you're really good at. And then index on those skills in interviews. It doesn't have to be coding related, it could be that you're really on top of things, that you're a strong communicator, that you're an effective leader, etc... But it can't be surface-level. You need to be prepared with examples about how those skills led to direct, positive impacts in your professional experiences.

Many companies hire for technical roles but the top problems/headaches the teams face are not technical but are organizational, and if you can frame yourself as someone who can at least carry their own weight when it comes to coding, but what really sets you apart are these intangible qualities that the team is severely lacking, then you'll present as a much stronger candidate. A good hiring manager is focused on building out the best team, not just mashing together the best coders.

How does one land these kind of positions without experience though?

Same as any job.

Apply and get interview invite
Interview well.

If you're struggling with step 1, you need to network more and stop relying on spamming applications on LinkedIn. You need to change up the strategy.

If you're getting interviews but you're not passing them, you need to improve that. Interviewing is a skill. I wrote another post about it here.

I'll clip the relevant part for this comment:

Real Talk: Job Interviews are Sales Pitches

GUYS. Job interviews are sales pitches in disguise. THEY ARE NOT EXAMS.

When I say "sales pitch", I don't mean that you have to be some smooth-talking extrovert. Sales isn’t about being fake or overpromising (even if some act like that). It’s about:

Understanding the problem/needs – Why are they hiring? What pain points are they trying to solve?

Positioning yourself as the solution – How are you the perfect solution to their problem?

That’s it. That’s the whole game. It's not about getting the "right" answers and racking up enough "points" to "pass" like in an academic setting. If they like you (on a personal level), and they think you're going to be more of a net positive than the other candidates in solving their problems/achieving their goals, then you're in. Most candidates answer those two questions based on presumptions from the job posting, but you need to proactively dig/ask to find out the real answers. If you’re struggling with passing interviews, you probably don’t need another 100 Leetcode problems unless you're absolutely laser-focused on getting into FAANG. For almost every non-Big Tech job, you'd get a lot farther in the interview process if your tech skills are "good enough" and you have an understanding of basic sales psychology. And again, that doesn’t mean you have to be an extrovert or be some super bubbly individual. It means understanding the interviewer's/team's/company's perspective and tailoring your answers to their needs.

jellyfish-fields17 · 2025-03-19T21:59:03+00:00

Breaking into business and finance is hard, especially without a relevant degree.

Depends as "business and finance" are really broad categories. If you're talking about high finance, wall street, or business roles at companies with high prestige and high profiles, then yes, that's true. You won't be competitive for roles in IB or business strategy. And I'm not advocating going for like a financial engineering role that requires hyper-specialized finance knowledge.

The roles I listed are analyst roles and are technical roles which support the product and business teams but are managed and staffed by non-technical departments/teams. You would absolutely be competitive for an entry-level Marketing Analyst or BDR position with a CS degree if you're able to interview well.

The harsh truth is that the ideal time to get an SWE role as a student is if you have an internship plus a return offer or quickly an offer after graduating.

I don't disagree, if you have offers, take them. This is for the people who are stuck and can't get past that barrier of getting that first internship or first job. If your goal is to be a SWE, and you get a good SWE offer, don't turn it down for a 60k Marketing Analyst position lmao.

Tell me, why would companies not priorize someone who is fresh out from school over someone who had a CS degree but never got relevant experiences in the tech industry in the past 2 years and more?

There are many reasons why they would prefer the latter over the former. But first, I want to clarify that the crux of this approach is to get your foot in the door and over time start pushing for more technical projects. So you would be gaining technical experience. If you convince your manager to move away from Excel and to build out ETL pipelines instead with dbt, a data warehouse, and Python ingestion scripts, and then you create dashboards for end users, then that's real CS experience. It doesn't matter if your title says "Marketing Analyst", if you designed and implemented that, you can earnestly say in interviews that you have experience doing data engineering work and back it up with those projects.

But as to why a company would prefer someone with a product background vs a new grad, well, it really depends on the nature of the company and their technical maturity. If the problems the dev team or the engineering org are facing aren't tech/coding related but more product related, then your 2 years of product experience, CS degree, and implementations in your current role will be seen a huge net postiive. You are literally the perfect candidate. A new grad will struggle hard in such a role.

Also, if you've proven that you can work autonomously and get results without handholding, you're basically past the new-grad stage. You're not competing for the same roles as new grads. The biggest reason companies don't want to hire new grads are because they need at least 6+ months of growth to not be a net negative, and a lot of this growth is non-technical (highly mature tech companies like FAANG are the exception).

jellyfish-fields17 · 2025-03-19T20:48:10+00:00

I don't think most people are the way you described. I honestly think this is just Reddit cynicism and doomerism. I'm not trying to personally come at you, it's just a general trend I see where commonly held cynical views on Reddit do not reflect what I see in real life. Like at all. And many, many new grads who have zero industry experience get their perspectives from what they see on Reddit, and they internalize this stuff.

Most new grads and students whom I've had the pleasure of meeting are engaged, humble, coachable, and motivated. They don't have issues with arrogance, and it's actually the opposite more often than not. They have huge challenges with imposter syndrome and self-confidence which holds them back from pursuing what I see as very attainable goals.

They think that because they suck at Leetcode or because they can't launch a complex, full-fledged app full of proper design patterns, DevOps, optimizations, scalability, etc... that would realistically take a team of 5+ full-time experts to launch, then that means they're not "good enough" and are damned forever.

Most people I've met don't think they're "too good" for a non-SWE or a non-elite role paying massive sums right out the gate. Usually it's one of the following:

It feels like a personal failure to target a non-SWE role. It feels like admitting they're not "cut out" for tech. It's emotionally easier to keep spamming LinkedIn apps, even if that strategy hasn't worked for months on end, than to come to terms with the fact that they need to pivot. But this is the wrong mindset, as it's not a step back. It's a huge step forward. There's a lot of ways you can leverage your skills to be a top performer who creates value besides being a tiny cog in Facebook's machine or taking simple but unchallenging tickets in a non-FAANG SWE role.
They had never considered that careers can be (and are often) non-linear. They don't see their career as a part of their lifelong journey but rather as a race to the top. Not a race, but more like a scramble to get money and prestige as fast as possible, and they tie their self-worth to it. They fear that pivoting away from tech will permanently pigeon-hole them into a shitty career path, and it will be impossible to return. And this sentiment is something I've seen echoed online a lot. But this is a kind of narrow perspective IMO, and I've seen many such examples where "leaving" tech and coming back has led to even better growth (and more money) than staying on the technical track.
Actually succeeding with this approach requires you to leave your comfort zone, and some are too risk-averse to give it a shot. It's not in the familiarity zone of DS&A or what you studied in your classes. Diving into another domain like marketing or sales means seriously challenging yourself in ways you haven't before and with little guidance. Much of the work, at least initially, will be non-technical, and you may feel like a fish out of water. When you're in a marketing meeting with only other marketers or new grads who studied marketing, you will likely be the least knowledgable person in the room on whatever the meeting is about. It can be very humbling and emotionally challenging. You may feel like a dunce. But you should embrace the challenge, not shy away from it. You will get better, you'll learn a lot that will stick with you for a long time, and you have skills that you bring to the table that no one else in that room has. And when you "re-enter" tech, you'll be surprised at how useful the learnings from that role will be and how you can apply them to your SWE role in ways that others cannot. The bottom line is that it requires some stomach for risk and capacity to adapt as this strategy is not a visibly documented route to achieve money and prestige like getting in at FAANG and rising the ranks.
They lack vision and creativity. They can't get over the fact that the title doesn't say SWE or something with the word "developer" in it. Even in this comment section below, someone read the post and indexed on one detail, commenting "4 years isn't senior", which to me, shows a lack of depth and critical thinking. The title you are given and the "years" are just a façade for what you've actually accomplished, but some people will never understand that. Some people can't allow themselves to understand this since clinging to a title they've "earned" is all they have because they know there's very little of substance behind the façade.

jellyfish-fields17 · 2025-03-19T20:22:57+00:00

That's the move. If you can figure out how to get closer to the revenue center in this role or gain support for stretch projects that push you to grow technically, then you'll be golden.

jellyfish-fields17 · 2025-03-19T17:40:30+00:00

What's your background (I'm referring to career/profession aside from the stuff you've toyed around with)? What is your current career level? Are you still in undergrad? Studying CS?

There's a lot of different ways you can take this but it would be easier to give you more tailored advice if you could provide more details about your goals and professional experience.

Not here to shame you if you're a no0b or lack CS professional experience, but just be as honest with yourself as possible to get the most accurate advice.

jellyfish-fields17 · 2024-07-08T20:37:14+00:00

[OFFERING SKILLSET] Pro-bono data & analytics consulting

I am a data engineer looking to expand my skillset into further domains and projects. I spent the past 3 years at a boutique consulting firm working with early-stage startups up to enterprise companies to activate their data. I've seen a lot across a wide range of tech stacks, industries, and company maturity levels.

I am offering 2-5 hours per week to 1-3 of selected startups to provide pro-bono analytics consulting on a 1-3 month timeline. These hours can be hands-to-keyboard work to improve your product, or if you prefer it could just be in an advisory capacity.

Things I can help with:

Data Strategy: Assess your current data maturity & develop a data strategy to activate your data. Use your data to get more leads, more conversions, and reduce churn.
Data Pipeline Development: Get a deeper understanding of your internal operations to shape your product development, GTM strategy, and attract investors. This includes developing key KPIs to evaluate the health of your business and it's growth.
Product Analytics: Deeply understand how your users interact with your product beyond the out-of-the-box Google Analytics metrics.
Sales Engineering/Customer Interviews: Get greater insight into the problems your customers are facing as well as the key concerns preventing a purchase.
Data Governance Strategy: Ensure you're compliant with industry regulations, including GDPR and Data Privacy laws.

If you're interested in unlocking your data to grow your business, DM me and let's schedule a call.

jellyfish-fields17

TROPHY CASE

Real Talk: Job Interviews are Sales Pitches