I am the author of this piece, and i didn't share it to HN, I don't hang out here. I just gotta say wow, tough crowd. i wrote this piece from an emotionally low point after another fruitless day of applying to jobs. I didn't have a particular agenda in mind. I was voicing what i've been through and some of what I was experiencing with no expectations.
you'll notice in the comments section that the population of substackistan is much less FUCKING CYNICAL AND NEGATIVE than you guys, with many commenters saying they are in the same position. I heard from writers, designers, engineers, going through similar times.
my portfolio site is https://shawnfromportland.com, you can find my resume there. if you have leads that you think I might match with you can definitely send them my way, I will even put a false last name on an updated resume for you guys.
for those who are wondering, I legally changed my name to K long ago because my dad's last name starts with K, but I didn't like identifying with his family name everywhere i went because he was not in my life and didnt contribute to shaping me. I thought hard about what other name I could choose but nothing resonated with me. I had already been using Shawn K for years before legally changing it and it was the only thing that felt right.
Yes, please ignore the cynical and negative folks. They are not doing you any good.
Like what a few other folks in this thread pointed out, your resume and your portfolio looks outdated and fragmented on my first glance. Most recruiters and hiring managers spend 5 seconds max during the first pass, so first impressions matter.
Here are the things you can do to bring your resume up-to-date: * "Key achievements" does not include numbers to describe impact. For example, "pre-screen and match thousands of patients a day" could be rewritten as "pre-screen n patients per day and match them to m healthcare provider with 99.99% uptime" sounds impactful. * Self-rating of your skills is not necessary. Nowadays your description of your impact is implicit on how you learn and work. In addition, "expert" for one person may not be the same for others.
On your portfolio: * Listing your education is no longer necessary after the first job. Putting this in your portfolio site makes you look inexperienced. (Leave education in the resume, however.) * The screenshots for Nike and LG look outdated, which contradicts "cutting-edge internet experiences".
> Here are the things you can do to bring your resume up-to-date: * "Key achievements" does not include numbers to describe impact. For example, "pre-screen and match thousands of patients a day" could be rewritten as "pre-screen n patients per day and match them to m healthcare provider with 99.99% uptime" sounds impactful. * Self-rating of your skills is not necessary. Nowadays your description of your impact is implicit on how you learn and work. In addition, "expert" for one person may not be the same for others.
I've seen this a lot online, but as someone who struggled to add this sort of data to my CV before, where exactly are people getting these stats?
Every company I've worked for either didn't know how changes affected things like uptime or conversion rate or page views or didn't share the information with the engineering team.
Do most people just make up these stats? Guess and hope it's somewhat correct? Work for companies that just happen to tell their engineering teams everything about the impact of their work? Actually go out and measure it themselves somehow, like throgh Google Analytics?
Just feels like it may be difficult for the author to show this sort of data, since they may not have access to it at all.
Most are making up these stats. Don't say 100% improvement, though, unless you can back it up but 30% with a process improvement should be easy to justify in an interview. The point here is to make your resume "skimmable" since no one reads text anymore.
In the cases of uptime and conversion rate, might you only implement the change after looking at the desired metrics and verifying that they've improved?
re GP comment: it's more about the tone -- one should seem confident and well-acquainted with what they choose to show -- than the actual numbers. If you told me that you improved conversion rates by 2%, or 20%, I would barely know the difference, but I would see both of those very differently than just "improved conversion rates". If you don't have numbers, I would try to be specific in some other area instead (e.g. technologies used, names of big clients). Similarly, phrases like "had creative input across the full stack" might give me pause -- what does that mean? It implies a low amount of impact; why not say something more attractive, like "contributed and assisted others across the full stack"?
The modern CV art is purely about how confident and fluent you are in answering anything on it. The actual roles and projects may be anything; you just base it as a biopic adaptation based on your life.
> where exactly are people getting these stats?
You can basically make them up - just make up something plausible for your field. It's not like everybody else isn't rounding up anyway.
The product management team, or whoever was pushing for the project in the first place, should have this data, and will often be very happy to share. They might not themselves know 100%, but they should have some estimate of benefits. It's not always widely shared, but you could certainly ask.
same here, i've never had any stats or measurements about any of the features i've built.
Then how can you know if building the feature made any sense?
> Like what a few other folks in this thread pointed out, your resume and your portfolio looks outdated and fragmented on my first glance. Most recruiters and hiring managers spend 5 seconds max during the first pass, so first impressions matter.
From the blog post, it seems the author already received that feedback multiple times, but somehow failed to act upon it.
It is also baffling how, after receiving feedback to showcase his skills in places like substack and YouTube, the blogger somehow opted to post self-comisorating content and even lambast anyone who ever interviewed him for the audacity if picking someone else.
The blogger's knee jerk reaction of attacking anyone expressing anything but support as being "cynical" and "negative" also conveys the idea of someone being unable to receive feedback and even handle feedback well without lashing back. Handling feedback is a fundamental skill to work in a team environment. Attacking those who give it with ad-hominems such as "fresh-faced bay area 25 year old with a Steve Jobs complex" screams out toxic personality.
And those are the good aspects the blogger cherry-picked expecting to portray himself as the victim. God knows what's the actual impression their peers got from him.
> such as "fresh-faced bay area 25 year old with a Steve Jobs complex" screams out toxic personality.
Well... that may as well be a very clinical observation; I've lost count of how many I've met in interviewing rounds, on either side of the table or in my own teams. It wouldn't surprise me a lot of tech people go through such a phase, at some (hopefully as shortest as possible) point of their early career. I probably have.
It reveals a mediocre mindset and likely self undermining too… since most of those types are in fact smarter than the ~80th-90th percentile.
So it would have even worse implications for anyone complaining against them, who isn’t clearly way beyond that threshold.
> It reveals a mediocre mindset and likely self undermining too
It could.
> since most of those types are in fact smarter than the ~80th-90th percentile.
But you’re skipping the very issue of this mindset. Being smarter along a very specific scale of evaluation doesn’t make one de facto « smarter » in general, neither properly adjusted to work and collaborate in an organisation.
Denouncing arrogance might not be the best move in some context, but it is not a show of weakness.
How would this matter to a random passing reader?
They’re not going to assume the author is any more virtuous/wise/etc… than the complained against, without some compelling evidence.
Why should people refrain from stating what they see? It's his blog, why should he refrain to express himself? Why should you decide in his stead, what does matter or not to him to express?
A minor signal is still a signal, that may, or may not, accrue to other converging ones.
How does this relate to my prior two comments?
I don’t see the connection to how any random group of HN readers perceive this or that.
> "Key achievements" does not include numbers to describe impact.
And that's perfectly fine too.
Don't make up numbers just to satisfy the quantitative-obsessed people/recruiters, who won't make satisfying customers/bosses anyway.
Not only does it make no sense to make up numbers, but straight numbers are definitely suspect, depending on how they are put forward.
Both quanti and quali are important, and in some jobs, even engineering ones (especially in the glue/soft/transverse positions) quali is much more relevant than quanti.
If you have precise numbers, and it matches the discourse you want to put through, go ahead. If you don't, if your strength is not in this particular corner, there is no requirement to bend yourself into a box that does not fit.
Do not put in the key metrics unless you can stand behind them.
Most AI resume review services tell people to do this and it's the first thing I ask about. When the people can't explain how they are measured it's an instant no.
100% this. I interview a lot of people for "performance engineering" roles, and ~50-80% of performance engineering is measurement. If you have a number on your resume, how you measured that number is often a lot more interesting to me than how you achieved that result. A lot of people have bad answers.
I also always ask how it was measured and if they published that anywhere. It's also informative to ask how it compares to other similar projects at similar companies and how (when applicable) it compares to state of the art in academia.
Company size matters of course but it is nice to see how a decision got made and how the results compared to expectations. Was this done thoughtfully and rigorously? If it's just made up that comes through really really quickly as well.
My advice for all getting hired is to try to skip the recruiting pipeline. Yes it's hard and there is no silver bullet but the standard pipeline is a brutal gauntlet to go through and I'd rather spend the time building rapport with a hiring manager or future peer instead.
The informal job market is very good to use. I got one internship through the cold-call process, but haven't been successful sending out resumes otherwise. Every job since then was a referral - all still involved interviews, but a referral is a nice way to bypass the resume shredder.
Ironically, every company I have worked for has said they get much better candidates/employees through referrals, too. Yet another sign that the "resume and a firm handshake" idea is broken.
Agree! The metric, even if it's an intelligent guess, justify why you did such tasks. It helps to bring a coherent story about your professional work. The tasks are not for vanity.
1000 times this! When I see a number in a resume, I don't care if the number is big or small, I care why they picked this number over any other. If they can give me a coherent explanation, that moves them highly up in my rankings. If it's clear they're bullshitting (and you really can't bullshit as well as you think you can), it's an instant no despite anything else they might have.
Putting his education on his portfolio is not why 900 companies didn't hire him.
I thought this piece really spoke to the landscape of software engineering in the present/future. Unfortunately discussions on this site are subject to a truly baffling mix of confirmation biases and messianic complexes.
Wishing you well and best of luck with your search.
Comments on your resume:
1. First line is "Using Cursor, Claude 3.7, and OpenAI every day". You can't win with this. You don't take weekends off? Red flag. You do take weekends off? Then the first line of your resume is a lie and I wonder what else isn't honest.
2. #1 skill is Vibecoding? Red flag. Your resume would look better without the left column of skills. None of your experience backs up those skills.
3. The experiences listed are all 1-2 years, with the longest one being your self-employed one. Why are they all so short?
> The experiences listed are all 1-2 years [...] Why are they all so short?
Presumably because employers don't want to pay more unless it's for a new hire.
I believe the IT market is very tough now. I was looking for last 3 months or so, until I contacted an old employer and he told me I could work with them.
Another ex-colleague of mine contacted me as well who's been freelancing for many years now and he asked me how I did find work, since emigrated to another country and he's also about to emigrate. Told him the market seems tough right now and he agreed. He will also be contacting some old companies / employers in hope of finding something new.
I am not sure AI is the cause - perhaps it's just cyclical. However, also reading Microsoft / Google laying of thousands of people, it just means many more people competing for the same jobs (and I'm sure ex-Microsoft / ex-Google devs will have an easier time finding new jobs than devs working for small companies).
I also find it funny, I got many messages from companies (through LinkedIn) that look for developers to train their AI models - it seems like a decent way to make some money on the side while looking for jobs. However, it seems all these companies end up at the same website and this website, for whatever reason, doesn't allow me to go through the registration process - the process seems bugged. But the support department doesn't seem to respond to email either. Makes me wonder who does the development and support there ...
Is the company DataAnnotation? I ask because the feeling I get from comments on the Internet is that they are not a real company - they might just be collecting people's contact information for their own reasons. Just my opinion.
Makes me wonder who does the development and support there ...
an AI obviously ;-)
I liked it, it's refreshing to read a developer blog post that was written by a human living an actual life. I remember being unemployed, I joined the work force later than most. Life outside the tech bubble is difficult and discouraging in the US. It will be ok; you'll find the next thing to do. All the best to you
There really is a few comments here with great suggestions for how to improve your resume and online presence. It seems like some of it can still be tried, or if you feel it was already tried but got rolled back, then they can be tried again altogether.
Unfortunately, there's also a lot of noise here too... As a start, I'd say these few comments have solid, specific, actionable suggestions:
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43978225
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43978405
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43981072
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43983905
But I also want to say... I sympathize and agree with you that it's tough now out there. There's ageism, offshoring, AI, end of ZIRP, economic uncertainties, etc.
I hope you get to a position you're happy with soon.
I thought most of these comments have actionable if not tough to hear advice.
Perhaps offering an opportunity for more humility and introspection. Instead you’re here doubling down on the victim mindset.
Wishing you the best.
Hey, sometimes people don't want advice. Sometimes they just want to kvetch.
Secondary: sometimes they've already been offered this advice.
I'm with you that there's a "rubber meets the road" place where you have to put in the work. But there should also be a place where we can offer sympathy and solutions, instead of only focusing on solutions.
I love this comment. Comments like this are one of the main reasons I love this site.
You are the kind of person I want to work with and who I’d like to have as a friend.
Thank you for sharing.
i have spent the last couple days responding to hundreds of comments on the substack piece. no new pieces of advice came up on this thread which were not already covered on the substack comments. advice which i have acknowledged. i was already about to do most of the pieces of advice anyways on my own as the next step, such as applying with a normie pseudonym. you don't know me. im not a victim and i don't have victim mindset. i am survivor.
Try not to hold it against people for not also having read hundreds of comments. Most people are going to respond to the just the article, which is going to result in duplicate advice, and that's fine. If you've already taken action for all the advice you consider actionable, great! That doesn't change how much of the advice is actionable in the context of the article though.
I haven’t read most of the comments here and none on substack, but looking at your resume, I’d spend some time making it look slightly warmer, throw some color in there.
I’d also consider re-working your job history, it “looks like a lot of bouncing around” which shouldn’t be a bad thing, but it can be if framed poorly.
Finally, I’d spend a few weeks with c++/java and slap it on the resume as a competency. Can’t hurt, and you’re just learning some syntax at this point.
Best of luck to you. Market is tough, and there are a lot of sw folks looking around right now.
> im not a victim and i don't have victim mindset. i am survivor.
Anyone who uses the kind "labels" to describe themselves probably wouldn't even be considered for a job where I work. It's a massive red flag to most HR departments, especially in tech. Not trying to be offensive, but this has been my experience. You will probably have more success not trying to describe yourself in terms of politically-loaded labels.
Genuine question but since when is being a "survivor" a politically loaded label? Is this an American thing?
It's not political, it's just melodramatic. Some people choose to frame their life as a story about "overcoming adversity". Most of the time the struggles they describe, while genuinely difficult, are things that most people face at some point in their life. But these people seem to expect some sort of social credit for it, as if carrying on makes them a hero.
This is an irritating habit that makes them seem whiny and self-important, but it is unfortunately widespread. Having such a "story" to tell about yourself has become almost fashionable in our modern culture.
To me it suggests that this person might be a bit overly dramatic and ready and willing to compete in the Adversity Olympics at the drop of a hat.
For me, I want to work with people who are just going to get on with their job without harping on about how they've faced this adversity or that adversity and how they're a survivor - just do your job please, I'm genuinely not interested in your personal life. kthx.
Hey Shawn
Tough times. You’re doing everything right (except perhaps reading too many of the comments which is probably not great for your mental health) - your break will come. The night is darkest before the dawn and all that.
Peace & love.
> I don't hang out here
From the OP:
> the other hundreds (thousands?) of hours of my time in the last year trolling [...] the YC message board
That's here, though.
> the population of substackistan is much less FUCKING CYNICAL AND NEGATIVE than you guys,
I took some time to offer some resume review tips here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43978225
This is a really difficult topic to address because it appears you're interesting in venting and commiseration, but it's mixed with pleas for job placement and opportunities. If you want some honest advice:
- Your resume still needs a lot of work. See my other comment with more details. After reading your Substack I see why you're keyword stuffing words like "Vibecoding" as your #1 skill, but I don't think you realize how much this is hurting you.
- I've read your resume and I clicked the link to go to your website. I still don't really understand what you specialize in or what kind of job you're trying to get. In a market like this one, you need to have a resume that tells a story of why you're a great fit for the job, not someone who has a couple years of experience 10 different times at 10 different things. There's a lot of vague claims about "award-winning state-of-the-art web experiences" but then you have everything from AI and Vibecoding to VR apps to teaching classes on your resume. Broad experience can be good, but I think you need to start writing different resumes tailored to different jobs because I can't make heads or tails of your career goals from the way it's all presented.
- I'd separate the Substack from your resume, personal website, and job search as much as possible. To be blunt, the tone is alarmingly cynical in ways that any hiring manager would want to keep away from their team. Phrases like "Generally, it’s the fresh-faced bay area 25 year old with a Steve Jobs complex" ooze a sort of anger with the world that people just do not want to bring into their company. Blaming everything on AI and "the great displacement" falls very flat for anyone who has just read your resume and seen "Vibecoding" as your top skill while trying to figure out what, exactly, you did at your past jobs.
- Consider sprucing up your portfolio a bit. It's a little jarring to read a resume about "award winning state of the art web experiences" and then encounter some centered yellow text on a black background in a quirky font that slowly fades into view. I would also recommend that you include screenshots of your specific work on each site and a short description of what you did for each. Random links and screenshots aren't helpful. Hiring managers aren't going to watch YouTube videos at this point of scanning your resume, either. Try to view your website like a hiring manager who wants to know what they're getting into. Seeing "21 years of experience" and then having the first large link on your website being a link to University of Oregon because that's where you got your degree doesn't make sense.
- To be more blunt: There are some major red flags that you need to clean up. Your portfolio links to the live nike.com/running website, but your resume says you last worked on a Nike website over a decade ago. This is the kind of thing I expect to see from fake applicants, not a real person. I would go so far as to suggest leaving your portfolio off of your resume until it can be cleaned up and modernized with specific information about your work. Use a template if you have to, but the site clashes with your headline claim of being an award winning web developer.
- Finally: Try to create a cohesive narrative in your resume and application process. If you're applying for full-stack web-dev jobs, your resume should show a career trajectory of starting with small websites and working up to more and more complex projects. Right now the top job entry lists "tens of thousands of MRR" as an achievement but a decade ago you were working on Nike.com. You need to find a way to tell the opposite story, that you've been working your way up. Unfortunately the substack article makes this even worse with talk of being a Doordasher now. It's okay to vent on Substack, but don't cross the streams with your application process.
thank you for taking the time. If i was petty i could share the past 5 versions of my website and resume i created in the last year which precisely followed most of what you recommended here. I had a completely vanilla narrative resume by version 3, and was getting nowhere. analytics and my own vibe check was making me think that all of that was too verbose and it wasn't being read. I was feeling unseen and began retargeting things to create an impression in 2 seconds, enough to hopefully hook someone to want to talk to me to learn more. the latest strategy was to try to emphasize within 2 seconds the point that im all about ai coding, while having a conventional cs/agency background at the same time.
Because you have taken the time to review this stuff and make these same recommendations that everyone else has here, i am going to refactor the site and resume yet again according to these recommendations.
I would love it if my career arc had one through-line narrative that made sense, but I'm afraid it doesnt necessarily. I started as a data architect and backend developer for the first many years, never touching front-end. I had to expand to tackle front-end to meet the changing market demands. in later years, the distinction of what were primarily front end vs back end tasks or roles has become a lot more fuzzy, as things have turned into "all-js-all-ts-everything-everywhere!" I've adapted, and been working full stack ts roles.
I often feel my data architecture / problem-solving skills are overlooked when my last few roles show that i've been developing with a vue ecosystem, pigeonholing me as a front-end dev, something i have never identified with.
It might be good to expand on your data architecture work more in your CV. Write a paragraph about the data architecture work you did at your last company. You could remove some of the older jobs to free up space.
@Auronis here are the updates I have in progress. this is bringing it back to something closer to what i had a few versions ago. any feedback? https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_sxoyHpYjahnagfRhOlWsLEo...
Not PP, but I'd remove year counts. They can do the math if they need to. The main question for the hiring manager should be: can you do the work?
I would probably rephrase your professional summary to focus on you (e.g. Full Stack Engineer specializing in..., Engineering Team Leader for ..., ), and perhaps active verb phrases describing your most significant activities and accomplishments.
I'd move education/degree to the bottom. Recent achievements, experience and skills are more important.
Experience section should provide evidence to support your claims when possible.
Also I haven't looked at your linkedin page but it should be comparable. Best of luck!!
This is the best advise here. OP, I'm sure that life is hitting you hard, but there's some valid criticisms. When we're in angst it subconsciously gets into everything we write, including resumes.
You need to sober up. Tailor your resume to each application, Cut excesses. Write simpler and make sure your experience covers what the position asks.
Also, consider talking to friends or doing therapy. Opening up with someone you trust helps a lot. Avoid doomscrolling. Things can look bad right now, but they can get better. Good luck.
> I will even put a false last name on an updated resume for you guys.
You’re doing no one a favor except yourself. What I mostly saw was constructive criticism and some comments about trying something different.
I am heeding and already doing all of the advice that has come up here and on the original thread, with the exception of 'move to where there are in-office jobs and try to get an in-office job' because that's not really feasible at this time
Thank you to be brave enough to write this blog post after another hard day. In the last six months, many people have posted here about their similar experiences.
> population of substackistan
Regardless of what people have said here my advice is simple:
You’ve been fishing for a job. You need to hunt for one.
And I’ll expand on this:
Fishing is sending out applications all over the place. This is casting your reel. Changing your CV over and over is changing your bait. Reaching out to your network without a specific request to recommend you for a specific job is fishing.
Work backwards a bit. Find a job at a company you want. Look up the recruiters and hiring managers. Send them a note. Look up people in your network, or people connected to your network, and ask them to recommend you for the specific role. Companies incentivize this. They’ll want spend 2 minutes to possibly win a few thousand dollars by getting you in. Incentives align.
Lastly there’s a lot of independent head hunters out there. Hire them like you’d a trail guide.
Great posts and helpful. It's about specialization. It always is. And a focused resume and communication that brings forward the skillset or personality that particular employer is likely to need.
ignore those addicted to negativity. for most people, their life is just reducing awareness to fit into their adlib structured arguments to assuage their insecurities. “Im so smart, i can ignore possibilities and unknowns and frame a thought construct that boosts my sense of ego and importance!”
As someone who recently went through similar experiences and ended up moving out of the US to get employed again - AI isn’t really the cause (as in AI making people redundant), it’s an excuse, and a different kind of cause - increasing confusion, fear, and automating the BS causing confusion and fear. It’s allowing weaponized FUD at a scale previously unimaginable.
The real cause is changes to numerous structural factors in short succession (widespread sudden allowance of remote work, changes in interest rates, changes in taxation methods, etc.) finally breaking the nearly uninterrupted 20 year up-and-to-right software Eng compensation boom. And once that ‘up and to the right’ line starts to look like it might down ‘down and to the right’? Everyone starts doing the math and the oh shits start.
It was similar-but-different in ‘01 as part of the dot-com crash, including referral only hires, some metro areas (including Seattle) being mostly dead for hiring, employers requiring absurd qualifications and then not hiring anyway, etc.
It’s a brutal mess, and anyone who already has some emotional damage? Doubly so.
Eventually, like ‘01, the smoke will clear and an entirely different landscape will emerge. Some people will have been lucky and have not experienced any issues at all, others will have been dragged through hell.
Who is in what group will have had little to do with skill set or qualifications, though everyone will have their own story spinning it one way or the other.
Overall, the industry will be much smaller. Some people will have kept (or made) fortunes, many will have lost the ones they had.
Remembering the dot-com crash of '01, when the tech jobs aint there, they simply aint there, and no amount of c.v / resume polishing will change that. No-one should take this personally. At times like that its maybe best to do something else to earn a living. 2001-3 I did a couple of ski seasons in a hotel, unrelated to tech. In early 2004 got a not-fantastically-paid-but-using-good-skills job with a startup, then mid-2005 a new job with a return to "proper rewards that recognised my skills". So, sometimes that market is down, and you gotta be flexible. People worry about forgetting all their skills. That didn't really happen to me, but I mucked about with Linux on the side, and that was useful for getting the next job. Not sure what today's equivalent is. AI muddies the waters here. Of course, when you have a family, being without tech compensation can be a problem. My answer to that is, its essential when entering the tech industry, to recognise it as a "feast-and-famine" / "manic-depressive" industry. One day it pays big bucks. Next day no jobs. So, manage expenses and financial commitment accordingly and put something aside.
Yup. The challenge I think a lot of people are having is that ‘01 was 24 years ago, so for a sizable percentage of the industry (80-90%?) it’s outside of their living memory. Certainly outside of their professional experience.
It’s a harsh change from the prior ‘always get a raise when you change jobs, barely have to interview, change jobs every year’ type bubble that has been expanding for a very long time.
Don’t let these morons get to you, ignore the noise from this nest of squawking seagulls, making a racket and shitting all over everything when something isn’t shiny enough to appeal to their Very Smart (tm) interests. They only know criticism and a kind word is foreign to most here it seems.
I know it’s hard right now, and I don’t have much advice other than keep trying to get what you want. Persistence is vastly under appreciated and most give up right before they strike it. Keep on!
>you'll notice in the comments section that the population of substackistan is much less FUCKING CYNICAL AND NEGATIVE than you guys
I still visit the site daily and comment often enough because it really can be interesting as hell right along with many of the comments..
But yeah, the common trend here is to have more than a few grossly humorless, pedantic, self-absorbed, bubble-dwelling, neckbeards shit all over anything they don't find precisely honed to their self-absorbed preferences and fetishes.
And don't even get me started on the blatantly idiotic system of letting any random asshole flag a post they don't like for whatever childish or ideological reason of their own, or perhaps worse in a more insidious way: the downvoting thing, and how it slowly erases often perfectly decent differences of opinion.
Rant over, thanks for reading.
Also, liked your piece, and sincerely wish you luck.
Cool of you to post here, and congrats on having an article blow up like this.
Substack commenters are maybe not as in the trenches? I don't understand how an engineer could use AI every day and feel threatened. The leap that would have to happen for a non-technical managers to cut out engineers and build/test/deploy software just using an AI is so astronomical it is impossible to even put a timeline on.
Out of curiosity, why didn't you update your name on Linkedin, especially that the banner just above advertizes K.
Having worked with various computer services, choosing a single letter name is a bold move :)
Not sure if it was mentioned, but times like it is good to have relationships with real human recruiters. The best play long game and give you feedback and just do networking.
As I mentioned in my previous comment on this post, my overall sense is that HN commenters often struggle with fear. It's a scary time to be a professional in this industry, and to be a human on Earth more generally. Sometimes, one of the ways people here try to manage their fear is through skepticism of, and/or hostility toward, accounts where someone has suffered through no fault of their own, which I believe is your case.
Without anger or judgment, I think our industry's culture has room to grow.
I wonder what happens now to workers, who never really thought of themselves as workers, discover themselves as such. 'Individual Contributor' just means _worker_. It's like calling the barista a Customer Happiness Officer.
When we remember how to be on each other's side, this will change; but for now, I'm afraid, we self-perceive, as Cory Doctorow put it, as 'temporarily embarrassed founders'. And we act accordingly.
While there are scepticism and hostility as a result of fear, I think HN is often so focused on trying to understand the world that it neglects to consider the people. I read most of the scepticism as being more about reconciling two conflicting bits of information. It's an impulse towards risk management, not fear management.
I've been helping a friend interview, as well as casually keeping an eye out for a new job myself, and we've noticed that the market is down, but we're still employed, still seeing messages from LinkedIn recruiters and positions on job boards, and my friend is still getting interviews. I got this job a year ago, got an interview for every position I applied to, and this was the top of my list. Meanwhile, Shawn K has applied to nearly a thousand jobs and is driving for DoorDash. What's different? Have things changed in the last 12 months? Are my friend and I also going to be in trouble? How do our resumes differ? What lessons can I learn? Am I safe?
The unfortunate reality of seeing a car crash is that the first thing we do is slow down our speed, tighten up our driving, search for hazards on the road ahead, and look to our own safety. Only after all that do we think "I hope they're okay".
I'm glad that's your experience -- as it happens, it's not my own; I am glad your luck has held. But my own more closely resembles that of the OP.
Thank you for writing this, and for your previous comment too.
You are the rare type of HN user I look for whenever I read the comments, which is not very often these days.
+1 My airplane convo with CD really reinforced what a visionary and near-future-predictor Cory is. Great person, and he sees through the usual social norms we've established to excuse these behaviors. Totally agree with your point people act accordingly, even to their own detriment.
the design looks a bit old fashioned, and then the first few projects look like they might be a bit old fashioned, the design later on after you have scrolled looks more modern and what people are used to, so I worry a recruiter first opening up and scrolling might think you have less skills than you evidently do, and then they don't scroll any farther.
On the website: Why is 'year' alone on a line in the opening sentence? Personally I'd give an indication there's more to scroll down towards when showing the copernicus image. I like to imagine every HR lady to basically be my grandma.
Not to be rude, but unless your portfolio site is nothing short of spectacular you shouldn't include one. In all likelihood, its doing you more harm than good.
Keep your head up. These are interesting times. Things will get back to normal at some point.
Well, its not really a hackernews- more a bruteforcenews now.. just grind or be ground down. The solutions of the past must apply to the present and if not -more pressure, more of the same.
Sorry you are going through this, both the situation and the responses you are getting from the 'tough crowd' folks.
I'm lucky enough to not be in a similar situation currently (I have a software development job that I enjoy) but I have a feeling that the majority of people who are dismissing your experience out of hand are probably also among the lucky ones who haven't yet been forced to confront a new reality formed over the past 1-2 years and are suffering from similar delusions as people who think their health insurance in the US is fine (because they haven't had to actually use it for something expensive and become a cost center for their insurer).
I've had a long and varied career in software development and the early 2000s dot-com crash (and the subsequent near-global-hiring-freeze that took place in the US tech sector) is the last time I've ever had even a temporary worry about being able to find a new job easily. While I haven't yet experienced it directly this time it feels like we're currently in a similar environment, except its a lot less clear that this one cycles out in the foreseeable future, if ever.
I am sorry that you're going through this. For what it's worth (not much, I'm afraid), I feel your pain. The difference for me, was that I had saved enough to be able to walk away from the rat race.
It's highly likely that some self-reflection could help, here. I have found it to be useful, but also extremely difficult and humbling (and very much worth it).
It sounds like the main issue, is getting past the "gatekeepers," whether AI, or the classic Clueless HR Droid. As far as your résumé goes, there's no difference.
So the obvious answer, is to figure out how to craft your CV to get past them. This was never something that I mastered, myself. I probably could have done better, if I had put the effort into it. In my case, I often got at least phone screenings. It was after that, that the wheels came off.
Upstate NY is pretty moribund. It is the ruins of an old manufacturing economy. Cheap housing, but there's a reason for that cheap. It sounds like any job would be remote, unless you got something in Albany or Rochester (the only two places up there that really use tech).
I would gently suggest that part of that "self-reflection," is to avoid public online polemics. They are probably not gonna help.
Sincerely, good luck.
Well, for what it's worth, I recognize a lot of what you're going through.
I barely thought I was going to make it through this time, but finally somehow managed to at least land another SW job; we'll see how far that goes.
HN is to large extents a bunch of spoiled, transhumanist AI fanatics, don't let them get to you.
Initiated a connect on LN, but wasn't allowed to send a note since I'm not a premium member.
Shawn from PDX, I'm also from Portland. I'm also unemployed. Let's be friends. Come to the next Rust meetup and hang out.
Is the rust meetup PDXRust or is there a different group? I have considered trying to create a professional network for awhile but haven't taken the plunge.
thanks for the invite! i had to leave portland in 2020 due to the cost of housing and the humanitarian disaster of homelessness. I'm in New York state now which is also not great for other reasons. I hope Portland can improve things for itself.
Not an American, or SE, or homeowner - I can't relate nuch. But just at a human level - good luck. It sounds like you're in a tough spot, and kudos for looking after your mother despite all that.
Fingers crossed for you, good luck finding a way out and up - I'm surely you'll make it.
this site is filled with hypercaffeinated steve jobs wannabes, so of course they're gonna blame the victim. if you're not a future billionaire like them, then it's your fault for not hustling (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o7qjN3KF8U).
don't sweat the cynics, bro. this AI shit is gonna come for them too. they won't be so smug after having their soul repeatedly annihilated by the job market.
i don't have anything to offer except "hang in there" and "don't let the bastards win". you're in a rut, but don't give in to despair. our brains are efficient irrationality machines, so it's gonna feel hopeless. the first battle you have to win is with our human tendency towards irrational doom and gloom. once you conquer that, you'll be unstoppable. i'll be rooting for you, bud!
The plural of anecdote is not data, but your personal experience definitely aligns with the "vibes."
AI will remove the need for a lot of tech worker cycles. Period. The idea that "some new work" will just show up to fill the void seems ludicrous on the face of it.
There will never be a need for "junior developer" type work, and "senior developer" types will be able to LLMs to generate working software that they can audit / maintain.
There's no new untapped market for "tech labor" that can plausibly emerge. Companies see this future, even if it's not here yet. Even if they aren't doing layoffs yet, they are downsizing through attrition, assuming the robots will replace the lost labor.
I've been in this field for 25 years. I consider myself pretty good at what I do. Although I can ask the robots to do more and more of my job for me to try and stay employed, I know I'll find little joy in that. I'm just hoping I can make it to retirement, or my spouse can support me.
As a society it's not fair to put people in this position where all their expertise and craft becomes worthless, but that is how capitalism works.
The Luddites knew it. Now it is our turn.
You're speaking with great confidence. In the medium-long term I agree, but my lived experience says you're wrong in the here and now -- we, for example, are still hiring juniors.
You're right, I'm thinking about the future. We're still in the window where the tools aren't really ready.
If you need to get shit done right now you have to mostly do things the old way with similar headcount. I assert though that on the margins the market is already shrinking - if for no other reason than employers with longer time horizons are looking to target future employment levels.
I'm not going to sugarcoat any of this.
Look at other developer resumes to get an idea of how people are designing their resume. Also view your resume from the viewpoint of the hiring company.
Since you graduated from UofOregon, have you contacted their alumni dept to see if they have any help to get alumni hired? Maybe other UofOregon alumni are hiring?
You have to imagine your resume as a brochure for you as a [insert desired job].
Comments based on Shawn_K_Resume_2025-7.
Github link - one pinned public repo - (4 public repos, 1 of which is AI-generated, so really only 3 public repos by you). Your activity dropped off substantially after 2024 March, only contributions to private repos since 2025 March.
If you put something on your resume, you're calling attention to it. What do you think your GitHub account tells prospective employers? Does that match what you want employers to perceive?
Goals section - remove it from your resume. You want a job - that's why you're applying for the job opening. The company is looking for a person with a certain set of skills (probably not Liam Neeson). Your goals can limit how the company perceives you.
Skills section. I'd say group the skills in appropriate sections - list frontend skills, then backend skills, then soft/personal skills.
You list Laravel framework as a skill, but not PHP? You list Vue and Vuetify. No React experience? see where the market is heading - https://gist.github.com/tkrotoff/b1caa4c3a185629299ec234d231...
"SQL & NoSQL". What particular SQL/NoSQL DB's have you used? Postgres? MySQL? sqlite? MongoDB?
In the comments to your post, you've stated that you've learned "30 or whatever" programming languages, but HR people/recruiters have to go through hundreds of resumes, so unless you've ticked all/most required checkmarks, you won't make it past the first cull. Decide on which languages/frameworks to learn and take a few weeks to learn/experience them.
You should list the tech that you used with each project so employers have an idea of the stack you're familiar with compared to their own stack.
Under first listed experience, "Lead Full Stack Engineer - framevr.io":
"Built and maintained maintained GCP infrastructure..."
It seems like you've repeated the word "maintained" again, unless you're trying to say that you "Built and maintained maintained-GCP infrastructure", in which case, the second maintained is redundant.
"Had creative input across the full stack." That sounds weird. How about "Co-designed full stack for project"?
For the second listed experience, "Sr. Full Stack Engineer - CIS.us":
you list "verizon, ATT, Tmobile". Those aren't the actual names that those companies use, "Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile". Is it Cisco and separately Meraki? A web search shows Meraki refer to themselves as Cisco Meraki, https://meraki.cisco.com/ .
Third experience, "Sr. Full Stack Engineer - shawnfromportland.com":
"... and match thousands of patients a day..." should be "... and match thousands of patients each day..." or "...per day..."
Fourth experience, "Web Dev Instructor - Thinkful.com"
"Taught about a dozen students JavaScript and web development fundamentals, one-on-one."
'about a dozen' is vague.
"Taught students JavaScript and web development fundamentals in one-on-one sessions."
Fifth experience, "Web Dev Instructor - Thinkful.com"
"Represented the backend voice of my agency in-person at Nike world HQ meetings."
What? You went to meetings? That's an accomplishment? If yes, explain why it's an accomplishment. I've never heard of attending a meeting for my team as "Represented the XXX voice..."
Hope some of this helps.
I read the post knowing it would likely remind me about all the times I read the handwriting on the wall and decided it was a message for someone else.
I hope you find a good place to land. I know it has been a while for you but you are still motivated and focused on the right outcomes. You will find a niche, maybe not the one you expected but you will drop into a groove and realize that things are looking up for you and your Mom.
I understand the whole home ownership angle where you could liquidate an asset but would have to absorb a loss in the process since the place needs some work and you can't afford to do it yet. Hang on to the houses, all of them. They can be your landing zone or safe spot.
We have a home that we have leased out for around 30 years. It has always been the best in the neighborhood because I did the work of maintaining and upgrading it myself, along with my wife and part of my family. I would sell it now but it needs siding and the bids for that are way out of my price range so that is one of the next DIY projects for me. I just need to get a tenant into it ASAP and that will allow me to make it happen. The materials to do it cost under $10k but like your property, we have had years where we made money on the house and years where we barely covered or lost money due to maintenance items or other ownership costs.
Leverage any opportunity to work with local contractors swinging a hammer bending nails or using a saw to shorten boards. That can be a path to obtaining scrap materials or unusable items that would go to a dumpster. Contractors have to pay disposal fees so anything that allows them to reduce the size of the load saves them money when the job is done. Warped or curled dimensional lumber can be straightened at home. Half sheets of plywood or siding nail up as tightly as full sheets. There is a place for all that if you examine your needs and keep an eye out for things that can be made to work.
My grandfather built a business as a home-builder by first building a home for himself and my grandmother to move into as soon as they married. He got the materials by asking around with locals who were working on their own places and inquiring about whether he could have the scraps and cutoffs. He ended up needing to buy nails and a few other small items but he built a house with materials that cost him the labor to clean up building sites. Once he finished the house a local man who had been watching the process offered to buy it from him. He sold that house and took the money and built a new house with new materials and moved in with my grandmother to a much larger, much nicer place than they would've had. Others who knew him and watched the process approached him about building things for them and in no time he was building houses, church buildings, sheds, etc all over the region. He built custom homes until he passed away about 60-65 years later.
Since it appears you may be up around Syracuse, Ft. Drum is right down the road. One of my brothers got the money to start his own business by driving for Pizza Hut. If you can get established as the pizza guy on a base like that you're on your way up. Soldiers tip well. Pizza is a huge seller. You do need a base pass but I think the pizza outfit sets you up. He would always bake the order and then bake several extra pizzas and carry it all onto base. By the time he had dropped off the pizza that had actually been ordered he had a line of soldiers hoping to get one of the extras. Pizza is great food option. Many of those guys became regular customers. He made great tips and sold lots of pizzas that otherwise wouldn't have been ordered. After a couple years of pie-hawking during which he was also mowing yards and trimming trees with a friend who had a local tree service, he took money he had earned and bought himself a new mower and chainsaw. That was 10 years ago now and he grossed $300k last year with one employee doing nothing but tree service. He has a bro-dozer truck with large dump trailer to handle the wood and debris and he rents other equipment as he needs it.
Pressure washing can be a real winner too. That's one thing my brother has mentioned branching into. Staining fences and decks. Cleaning gutters. Washing windows. Caulking siding and painting.
There are lots of services that people need that don't take much investment. Door hang flyers with contact info and let people know you are available. Visit a t-shirt printer or embroidery place and have them make a few shirts with a reasonably memorable logo or slogan and your name and contact info. Wear them to the grocery store and home improvement store and let people call you.
I have several gardens I built to help manage food costs. It is unbelievably easy and satisfying to be able to open my door and select a few herbs from my pizza garden while my pizza stone warms up. We have a wide selection of all the things we enjoy eating and some we want to try. Fruits, nuts, vegetables, herbs, berries. So many things are easy to grow. That can help you manage your food costs and improve the quality of your food at the same time.
Good luck to you. I don't think you need it though. Your heart is in the right place. All the other things will fall in line behind it.