Clojurians Log v2
jobs-discuss
I feel that it's impossible to find a job in Clojure with 3 years in software and with 2 years of them being in Clojure. Also being Brazilian... Anyone could send me some advices?? 😢
That does sound good. All of my clients just want something done - they don't care about the technical aspect that much.
Interesting, so you are a Clojure freelancer?
I’m curious about handover, wouldn’t they find it difficult to find someone to maintain what you built?
TBH my dislike towards the term "freelancer" grows with each year. Or even discussion that mentions the word. :) It often implies that you're like an employee but with no fuss about hiring you and paying you more. Another common implication is that freelancers change their projects more often than they was their dishes and that they're interested in money and nothing else. I'm not sure what to call what I have. With every client I have a very friendly relationship with a common understanding that we'll work together in the foreseeable future. And I'm not there just for the money - I try to delve deeper into the applied part of it. I know a thing or two about statistics, genetics, breeding, music - not because my tasks required me to learn something but because I wanted to solve those tasks in the best possible way, and that can only be done with a bit of applied knowledge.
About handover in general - I don't think they would find any difficulty, even if we think past the fact that there are no foreseeable handovers. They're all open to 100% remote work with no time zone requirements. And it often seems that it would be much harder to find a good Python/JavaScript/C++/whatever-is-more-mainstream-than-Clojure developer than it would be to find a good Clojure developer. The world is inundated with unqualified workers, not only in programming, and the more mainstream something is the worse the ratio there is.
What you do sounds really cool, its like you’re a polymath that happens to use Clojure to solve problems!
Honestly, I think we're all polymaths to some extent. :) Some just haven't realized how interesting some particular area can be. I remember teaching my ex some basic calculus - how integrals and derivatives "work". And she had a completely humanitarian upbringing, albeit with a recent interest in programming. I had to iterate through quite a few ways to explain things just to find the right one, but in the end she was fascinated by the elegance of all that math and lamented all the lost time with horrible teachers.
As of myself - I have learned self-teaching. I'm autodidact in practically everything I know. Well, maybe except for swimming - I had a coach as I didn't want to drown. :)
Actually, that is true, I’ve worked in quite a few industries myself from research to tourism to logistic, and at every point I had to learn how things actually worked . Just never occurred to me make it a deliberate part of my stay there.
Do you have a set method for self-learning?
Alas, not really. But I've read quite a bit on the topic and I would definitely recommend Zettelkasten and spaced repetition. They're unrelated and do different things, so using both would make sense.
Ah yes, I’m kinda building my own Zettelkasten using Roam!
Hi @d.ian.b, have you tried reaching out NuBank?
yup, I've tried 2 times and It was in very bad times of my life, =( now these I've tried to send my curriculum and it was kinda ignored =(
@d.ian.b Hard to say why, but I wouldn't say it is impossible to get a job. I would suggest you start to contribute to an open source project, to beef up your visibility or stretch your contribution muscles, if you are not already doing it. It has the added benefit of adding experience to your resume, which some recruiters are kin on. Secondly, you could look for mentoring, or mentor other people. Local clojure (or other dev) groups come in handy, since these will give you visibility, and the same people you interact with might end up recommending you for some jobs (and that carries some weight). Finally, be active in applying for jobs, while at the same time aggressively learning. Ask questions, be active in #beginners etc. You could also start a blog, since this helps put word out there that you know what you are doing
You might also want to get some folks who are hiring managers to review your resume/CV and provide feedback that might help get you noticed more when applying for jobs. A lot of software developers have terrible resumes, even when they have great skillsets.
(if you want to DM me about that, I'm happy to review -- I've been a hiring manager on and off for about 25 years now)
Maybe try Flexiana - Kateřina Kostelecká has recently contacted me on LinkedIn about a job there.
Sorry to hear that. Anyway, I don’t think being Brazilian changes anything in a remote positions, best of luck to you fellow Clojurian!
And make sure your cover letter is specific to the job you're applying for. Generic cover-letters are a true turn-off 🙂
And the cover letter is your way of addressing any mismatches between the job you're applying for and your cv: "Even though you're looking for people with experience in X, I believe that my work at Company B where I used Y extensively should make the transition to X fairly simple, and although I haven't used Z professionally I've been interested in it for quite some time and read these books/blogs/whatever and have this little toy project here which uses Z"
Additionally, you might try to find a company where you could introduce Clojure to them.
Be aware that introducing a new language to a company is as much a social problem as it is a technical one
Simply "evangelizing" the language can be met with resistance. And introducing a new language often means dealing with all sorts of tedious work and frustrating bugs that can lower people's enthusiasm
I say this because introducing a new language with just three years experience may not be feasible for a number of reasons
I'll at least reiterate what Mark said in that I too had some visibility issues until open source
Yeah, it mostly boils down to having the chance to even have free time to spend on all those things.
As a hiring manager, if you provide me with links to your OSS work, I'm more likely to use it as a negative filter, excluding you as a candidate if your code is poor. I don't favor people who do OSS work over people who don't. There are all sorts of social and cultural reasons why a great candidate may not have any OSS work to show you.
(some employers forbid employees contributing to OSS, some people find the OSS culture to be toxic/unwelcoming, some people don't have a "development" machine at home, and/or they have other hobbies or calls upon their time)
Thank you for saying this. As much as I enjoy programming and contributing to OSS, it’s rare that I’m able to contribute. This is as someone who doesn’t has as many responsibilities as others (i.e. no children). Most likely there are many other people in that situation as well.
(also, if you provide me with links to your OSS work, I'm also going to hunt down comments you've made on your projects and other people's projects and see how you treat contributors -- and again use that as a potential negative filter)
Interesting point of view about OSS work @seancorfield. I have seen people who do contribute to OSS being very successful, but I don’t know how the correlation between one thing and another thing goes.
Maybe it’s not directly correlated, something to think about.
OSS is very difficult to maintain when you don't have a stable job or something like this 😢
thanks! @p-himik
also is very difficult to find a remote job that doesn't require visa or citizenship on EU/US
Sometimes we are pushed to work with tools that aren’t our first choice, take it on account.
@marciol I see quite a few hiring managers proudly announcing that they favor candidates with GitHub projects etc -- but it really means they are eliminating a whole class of potential candidates. Which is why I'm so vocal about this issue.
Great @seancorfield, sometimes people don’t have willingness/time to contribute on OSS. I include myself in this side of fence, but sometimes I feel bad and start to think that maybe if I contribute this can make a sort of change in job offers.