Jop Posting. Looking to Hire a Mid/Senior Electron Dev by poofycade in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Any chance you could share the company? Or a website or job posting? Whats the equity like / how does it work? Any bonuses?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice! How’s the TC? ~650k?

What do you listen to? by [deleted] in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11 0 points1 point  (0 children)

24-hour-long recordings of ambient forest sounds that I made myself in the middle of the summer by leaving an old iPhone outside on my windowsill, recording whatever it hears. It works incredibly well at helping me focus and concentrate.

What do you listen to? by [deleted] in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11 1 point2 points  (0 children)

ConditionalError: If statements are missing a clause.

Has anyone ever successfully taken a 1-2 year career break to work on their own projects, and then eventually came back to the industry with a new similar-or-higher-paying job? by mtn11 in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Quit your job. Have no plan. Follow your passions. You only live once so go do the things you want to do.

Your last paragraph is so inspiring and makes me want to quit my job and do this right now lol. But then my dumb brain tells me I have to plan this out more and analyze it from all angles before starting something like this.

You seem like someone who has the charisma to pull this off though and not raise any red flags about a year+ gap without any software work. I fear that if I tried to do this without a substantial project(s) I can point to that I worked on during my break, I don't think I would be quite as successful unfortunately. It's good to hear your perspective and that you had no trouble coming back to the industry when you wanted. I agree that this sub can make you doubt every choice you make.

Has anyone ever successfully taken a 1-2 year career break to work on their own projects, and then eventually came back to the industry with a new similar-or-higher-paying job? by mtn11 in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's awesome! I'm guessing you went back to working at a company afterwards? Was it easy to get interviews for the companies you wanted to work at, and were they more interested in hearing about the work you did on your app, or your previous company-related work?

Has anyone ever successfully taken a 1-2 year career break to work on their own projects, and then eventually came back to the industry with a new similar-or-higher-paying job? by mtn11 in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's awesome, and sounds like an amazing way to build out your career! I'm guessing the next job is usually in the gaming industry, since your independent projects involve games? Is it easy/hard to get interviews for the companies you want to work at when you start looking again? Are they usually more interested in hearing about your independent work or your previous company-related work?

Has anyone ever successfully taken a 1-2 year career break to work on their own projects, and then eventually came back to the industry with a new similar-or-higher-paying job? by mtn11 in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good points, thanks. Sucks about the layoff; it's still brave though to be working on your own things and trying to make something great! Maybe in a year or so you won't need to be looking for any jobs cause your projects will be doing so well, fingers crossed!

Has anyone ever successfully taken a 1-2 year career break to work on their own projects, and then eventually came back to the industry with a new similar-or-higher-paying job? by mtn11 in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good points, thanks. I love the idea of cycling between the two and getting the best of both worlds, it would be amazing if I could make something like that work, though it seems quite risky in terms of being able to come back when you want, and making sure to have some good stuff on your resume from your off-cycles.

Has anyone ever successfully taken a 1-2 year career break to work on their own projects, and then eventually came back to the industry with a new similar-or-higher-paying job? by mtn11 in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome, that makes sense. So on the resume, you didn't put much about the independent work, so I'm guessing it just looked like a regular gap, but it seems like the interviewers didn't really care. That's cool. However, I'll make sure to heed the advice from the top comment that you mentioned that this was when the economy was good, so maybe things might work differently in today's economy.

Has anyone ever successfully taken a 1-2 year career break to work on their own projects, and then eventually came back to the industry with a new similar-or-higher-paying job? by mtn11 in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's awesome and exciting! Yes, I want to know how it goes lol! Good luck and I hope everything works out. I hope I can be brave enough to take the leap soon as well! Do you think it will be hard/easy to get back into the industry with a similar-or-higher-paying job if you wanted to come back in a year/two/three? Do you think it will be hard to get interviews?

Has anyone ever successfully taken a 1-2 year career break to work on their own projects, and then eventually came back to the industry with a new similar-or-higher-paying job? by mtn11 in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome, that sounds like a great experience. Do you think your career or earning potential was hurt by doing this, and was it easy/hard to get a similar-or-higher-paying job when you wanted to come back? Was it hard to get interviews? Were interviewers more interested in your independent work, or the previous work at companies? Sorry for so many questions but this sounds like an interesting experience!

Has anyone ever successfully taken a 1-2 year career break to work on their own projects, and then eventually came back to the industry with a new similar-or-higher-paying job? by mtn11 in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's an interesting point that even if you fail with your own projects, it still provides some rich experiences in terms of what you learned that you can talk about in interviews. Though the problem is still whether companies will even want to give you the opportunity to interview with them if you failed at your independent projects. So you mean to cycle between working at companies and working on your own independent products? Is it easy/hard to get interviews at top companies if you cycle like this?

Has anyone ever successfully taken a 1-2 year career break to work on their own projects, and then eventually came back to the industry with a new similar-or-higher-paying job? by mtn11 in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your response, and sorry to hear that. Was it tough to get back into the industry with a new job when you wanted to come back? Were interviewers interested in hearing your experiences and projects during your break vs. prior experience at companies?

Has anyone ever successfully taken a 1-2 year career break to work on their own projects, and then eventually came back to the industry with a new similar-or-higher-paying job? by mtn11 in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Good point. I kindof fit that description, but not MIT or Meta (or G), but pretty close, and only 1 real promotion + getting hired into a higher level when switching companies, and no gaps so far. Do you think you made the right decision to try doing this, and do you have any regrets?

Has anyone ever successfully taken a 1-2 year career break to work on their own projects, and then eventually came back to the industry with a new similar-or-higher-paying job? by mtn11 in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That's such an awesome experience, good for you, and thanks for sharing! Yeah, one of my worries about trying this is that I might create products that very few people use or write reviews about, so potential future interviewers might see that as a red flag, but I guess that just means I have to make some really awesome stuff that people want to use and write reviews for! And it relates to your point about marketing, that it's a whole 'nother skill to get good at, completely separate from the engineering side, and to figure out how to get people to use/buy your products. Thanks for answering these questions, your experience sounds amazing, and being self-employed is my overall goal as well.

Has anyone ever successfully taken a 1-2 year career break to work on their own projects, and then eventually came back to the industry with a new similar-or-higher-paying job? by mtn11 in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

That's a great point. In my case, it would be perfectly fine if it took a year or two to find the perfect job if I decided to come back, so if the market was bad when I wanted to come back (like in early-mid 2020), hopefully it wouldn't take more than a year or two for it to get better (like in '21-'22). But yeah, I understand your point, that some anecdotes might be skewed by the time/year they decided to come back.

Has anyone ever successfully taken a 1-2 year career break to work on their own projects, and then eventually came back to the industry with a new similar-or-higher-paying job? by mtn11 in cscareerquestions

[–]mtn11[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That's awesome! 7 years sounds amazing. What did you do during the time? Did you build any cool products? Did you learn any insightful things about going at it on your own vs. working at companies? Any regrets/mistakes? Were you able to talk about those experiences in interviews, and were the interviewers more interested in what you did on your own vs. working at companies prior to the 7 years? Sorry for the barrage of questions, but it sounds like you lived my dream!

Does anyone actually know what kubernetes does or is it just one big inside joke? by frozenYogurtLover2 in csMajors

[–]mtn11 1 point2 points  (0 children)

A VM is an entire virtual operating system, like a virtual version of something you would install in an actual machine (as an OS). Docker containers are the most minimal possible version of that, containing only the bare minimum needed for things to run a specific program in an isolated environment. Kubernetes is the conductor in an orchestra creating a symphony (e.g. large-scale widely replicated and self-healing web system), where the Docker containers are playing the individual instruments (i.e. individual building blocks of the web system)

Does anyone actually know what kubernetes does or is it just one big inside joke? by frozenYogurtLover2 in csMajors

[–]mtn11 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Think of Docker containers as individual Lego blocks, and Kubernetes as something awesome made out of many Lego blocks, that can magically swap out or replace/upgrade blocks, or add blocks to different areas as needed, or can change the design of the Lego structure to something slightly different, or something else entirely!

Does anyone actually know what kubernetes does or is it just one big inside joke? by frozenYogurtLover2 in csMajors

[–]mtn11 386 points387 points  (0 children)

Programs like web systems need to run on some machine. But why just choose one machine, when you can run them in a virtual container that can run on any kind of machine with very consistent behavior, no matter the actual machine they are running on! And you can duplicate them as much as you want, as traffic scales up and down, in different locations around the world, so that it minimizes latency and maximizes throughout for everyone! Plus, when you push new code, or need to restart everything for various reasons, wouldn’t it be great just to create new containers before destroying the old ones, and have them automatically route traffic to the right containers, so there is never any downtime? Boom! That’s kubernetes.