homelessdev (u/homelessdev)

homelessdev commented on Ask HN: How to get web development career on track from being homeless? · Posted by u/pdxHomelessDev

homelessdev · 8 years ago

The rent laws are terrifying and slanted for the landlord. Here's how everything went down:

1. quit job for ethical reasons

2. run out of savings very quickly

3. run out of unemployment after that, can't afford rent

4. After being 3 days late on rent a notice was posted on my door saying that I had 5 days to pay in full or face eviction

5. After those 5 days were up, another notice was posted on my door that I had to appear in court the following week

6. Show up to court, make my way to the assigned room, multiple other people going through the same thing show up

7. Judge explains what is happening: you can speak to the plantif's lawyer to settle, and you can speak to some free lawyers who will help you sort your rights, and you can choose to settle that day or file a response.

a) settling with the landlord would have meant that I had to pay in full and then move out 1 week later but would not be evicted (basically self eviction)

b) file a response and take it to court a week later and then get evicted a week after that by a sheriff

8. I chose option B

9. In the meantime I signed up for a service (and ended up being approved) which helps with situations such as these by paying 80% of your rent (one-time service)

10. A few days before court I was able to pay rent and they dropped the case

11. sold some things to keep paying for rent and borrowed some money

12. finally got a fucking job

I was also slapped with:

1. $250~ in legal fees

2. $300~ in late fees

3. $100~ prematurely canceled rental insurance fee (rental insurance, utilities etc. are all in the same rent payment)

homelessdev · 8 years ago

why is my comment being downvoted?

homelessdev commented on Ask HN: How to get web development career on track from being homeless? · Posted by u/pdxHomelessDev

ccajas · 8 years ago

Are you the same person as the OP? Just checking since account names are similar, but different.

Your story hits close to me. I have never been homeless but I have been through excessive dry spells of no work (I think taking a remote job 5 years ago was a mistake in some ways because it killed my interviewing skills) and had to move back to living with one of my parents. At my mid-30s it feels like your life is a shit show. The jobs I get now have been via "non traditional" means, that is very informal chats instead of lengthy interview processes, and only for short gigs and not long term arrangements.

When I have been out of work for over a year, I too just stopped everything, shut myself in more, thinking that going into "silent mode" and avoiding most contact with friends was gonna help me concentrate more on the job hunt. But it doesn't.

I can tell you to continue what you're doing, building a network and finding ways that people can refer you.

You might think that referrals are a cheese way to short-list your way into an interview, but think of referrals as a trust metric- a quantity that convinces people that you're worth the words you speak.

Can you show us your portfolio site? Honestly I got some of my interviews just from things I had on Github that caught soemone's interest. But I believe they need some kind of novel quality to them- a rehashed tutorial app won't cut it.

homelessdev · 8 years ago

I am not OP, I'm the person who posted my own story several weeks ago that OP refers to in his own story.

homelessdev commented on Ask HN: How to get web development career on track from being homeless? · Posted by u/pdxHomelessDev

sigfubar · 8 years ago

Let's get real: it's 2018 and we're in the depths of a programmer shortage. No hiring manager has 20 capable people in front of them. A typical hiring manager will have hundreds of garbage resumes that came from people who aren't programmers, or from offshore outsourcing shops that rely on resume spam to get attention. Eventually, after lots of weeding and puffing, the pile is shrunk to maybe three people who are worth interviewing. Of these two lied about their experience, and the last is great, but is difficult to close because they're looking at four other offers all of which are more competitive and interesting. Outside of weeding out garbage, hiring managers spend most of their time in sales mode, desperately trying to close candidates.

In times like this, any reasonably competent programmer who doesn't come off as a total a-hole during the interview will have a job. It might not be the most glorious job in the world, but our OP doesn't seem to care because homelessness.

homelessdev · 8 years ago

Part of the problem is convincing people that you are legit. I face a few challenges these days

first off, I don't have a degree so that's one battle, but i'm an isolationist so that's battle #2 and its much harder to win.

During the first half of my career it was easy to find work because i was green and not charging much. towards the middle part i relied on a network of contacts and finding work was super easy. then i decided to isolate myself - i dropped all my contacts, deleted everything i had ever created (several websites that i ran for years), removed myself from social media and now work is very difficult to get. I didn't even realize this was the issue until recently.

In order to fix this:

1. I have started to rebuild my social network and have set up references

2. I now view social media apps as Personal Branding applications and use them as such

3. I built a portfolio site and added a bunch of my old projects to it

4. Look for little projects i can knock out in a few hours or days, work on them, and add them to my site

homelessdev commented on Ask HN: How to get web development career on track from being homeless? · Posted by u/pdxHomelessDev

cs02rm0 · 8 years ago

I am afraid if I apply and fail skills tests at too many places word will get around.

Word won't get around. You won't get a job you don't apply for though. And if they just do skills tests without any other consideration they're probably not an ideal workplace.

Everyone wants senior level guys in React and other frameworks I do not have. (Though I am currently teaching myself React and do know a good bit now.)

Of course they do. Everyone wants React guys with 20 years experience in it, Java guys with 120 years experience. And they'd like to pay in aspiration and a twice yearly packet of macadamia nuts. But they can only choose from those who apply with all their varying experience and salary demands.

If you've got 10 years experience you've got enough to apply for a senior role (arguably more than enough in many places) and if you've got your head around the basics of React you can tick that box too. Just be honest that you've looked at it outside of work, understand it but haven't had the chance to use it professionally yet. Senior roles may be preferable to you, where there's less emphasis on churning out code and more on getting the most out of the team as a whole, as well as rewards commensurate with your experience.

I saw a guy interviewing on YouTube the other day for a React job who didn't know the difference between componentDidMount and componentWillMount and the interviewer seemed to think he did well - so if you've got that far, you're good to go!

Just apply for enough roles and you'll find one that works for both sides. Don't be put off by barriers in your own mind, make employers tell you you're not the right fit and ideally why, then move on until you land one.

Good luck.

homelessdev · 8 years ago

> Just be honest that you've looked at it outside of work, understand it but haven't had the chance to use it professionally yet

I can confirm this is true - explained this exact thing to the place i'm working at now... also, react is just a framework. if you understand JS, then you just need to wrap your head around the way it is being used in this particular case... just build a few small sites with it and you'll be further along than a lot of other people.

homelessdev commented on Ask HN: How to get web development career on track from being homeless? · Posted by u/pdxHomelessDev

leesalminen · 8 years ago

I was just reading your original post. I’m glad you found work and were able to work a plan to avoid eviction.

I’m also in Colorado and have seen evictions happen in just days. It’s pretty appalling.

homelessdev · 8 years ago

The rent laws are terrifying and slanted for the landlord. Here's how everything went down:

1. quit job for ethical reasons

2. run out of savings very quickly

3. run out of unemployment after that, can't afford rent

4. After being 3 days late on rent a notice was posted on my door saying that I had 5 days to pay in full or face eviction

5. After those 5 days were up, another notice was posted on my door that I had to appear in court the following week

6. Show up to court, make my way to the assigned room, multiple other people going through the same thing show up

7. Judge explains what is happening: you can speak to the plantif's lawyer to settle, and you can speak to some free lawyers who will help you sort your rights, and you can choose to settle that day or file a response.

a) settling with the landlord would have meant that I had to pay in full and then move out 1 week later but would not be evicted (basically self eviction)

b) file a response and take it to court a week later and then get evicted a week after that by a sheriff

8. I chose option B

9. In the meantime I signed up for a service (and ended up being approved) which helps with situations such as these by paying 80% of your rent (one-time service)

10. A few days before court I was able to pay rent and they dropped the case

11. sold some things to keep paying for rent and borrowed some money

12. finally got a fucking job

I was also slapped with:

1. $250~ in legal fees

2. $300~ in late fees

3. $100~ prematurely canceled rental insurance fee (rental insurance, utilities etc. are all in the same rent payment)

homelessdev commented on Ask HN: How to get web development career on track from being homeless? · Posted by u/pdxHomelessDev

homelessdev · 8 years ago

I am the homelessdev poster from CO. pxdHomelessDev reached out to me for an update which I gave him, but here's a more detailed run down of what I did to start getting out of my situation.

I was able to avoid becoming homeless by using services the city offers (food stamps, a one shot service that helped with rent during the month it mattered most, unemployment until it ran out), borrowing a small amount of money from family, wife was able to get a part-time job -- this got us out of our immediate scenario of living on the streets or in a car but we were literally 1 week away from that happening.

Finally after months of applying for jobs I was able to land one a week ago.

What I have done to get back on track:

1. put together a good portfolio: i built a few react sites, made some 2d games and converted a few interesting problems found on hackerrank into little applications so that I would have some diverse projects to show off. created social media accounts to showcase my work as well and linked all of those from my portfolio site.

2. prepared mentally: with each job interview that I failed I paid close attention to what went wrong and what I could have done to prevent it from failing and then adjusted my next interview based on that information.

3. put in 15 resumes per day: there are lots of job sites (angel.co weworkremotely.com and remoteok.io to name a few) -- once i ramped up to 15 resumes a day I had at least 3 calls a week with prospective employers. I also didn't limit myself to CO -- i now have a remote job.

4. don't kill yourself or give up: for me this was the hardest part of the process. i suffer from bipolar disorder and was on the verge of suicide for the better part of this year. each failure during the process made me sink further into depression, though keeping my mind occupied with my own projects helped immensely. staying positive through this sort of thing, even if you're lying to yourself and faking it, seems to be one of the keys to success because other people can pick up on your mood.

---

I am assuming that you have very limited funds and thus might not know where to host a website for cheap -- this can be accomplished for 1 or 2 USD per month on AWS using a serverless infrastructure. You can also host free static sites on github pages with custom domains (get one on namecheap for $9 per year). Whatever you choose has the added benefit of being something you can talk about in a job interview and showcase on your site.

---

i don't know how your javascript skills are, but if you have extensive front end experience:

1. update your knowledge if need be to the latest JS syntax

2. spend a weekend learning react

3. start playing with node

javascript is in demand and i have seen Jr devs (1 or 2 years of react and node experience) being billed as either "fullstack developers" or even worse "senior fullstack developers". With your current skill set and a bit more knowledge you should be able to land a JS job pretty quickly.

homelessdev commented on Ask HN: How to survive as a homeless engineer? · Posted by u/homelessdev

homelessdev · 8 years ago

Apparently my post has been flagged for some reason. I attempted to post the following last night but kept getting a message that I was posting too fast:

Questions / answers thus far:

there's been a lot of good advice in this thread thus far and a few understandable questions.

I'm going to answer them all here as I can no longer edit the main thread.

first off, great suggestions - some of these were already on my mind (gym, library, camping specifically) and seeing them reinforced via comments is encouraging.

to answer some questions that have been raised:

1. > homeless in the USA? Just cannot understand how this would happen

I'm still trying to piece this together myself. I failed multiple job interviews that were very difficult, ran out of unemployment and am now facing eviction. it takes 6 to 12 months to get into government housing in colorado. unless i get a job before that, its the car, the woods or the street.

> 15 years full stack

I don't get it either.

2. > How resonable is the person/company you rent from to secure an agreement to stay on despite the late rent?

zero reasonable. they filed after 3 days and after i explained that i'm having health issues.

3. > Have you applied for unemployment?

yes, i was approved as my reason for quitting was appropriate, however it ran out quickly as rent is extremely expensive.

4. > Built In Colorado job

I am aware and use it, however yes the process is slow

5. > if he were a brilliant engineer he probably wouldn't be on here with this post

Define brilliant. i certainly haven't claimed to be brilliant, but i do claim to be an excellent employee, extremely fast learner and someone who has never been fired and who has always excelled at their job. I suspect some people think i'm brilliant and others do not.

6. > Why would 3 days late on your rent involve a court date and eviction?

Denver / Colorado is harsh as fuck, apparently.

7. > It'd be really shocking to me if this happened in the US without some prior history/grounds for eviction

then be shocked, my friend. its happening and i've never been evicted in the past nor has my wife. nothin but smooth sailing in my past. this is denver

In all of this i also forgot to mention that I was diagnosed as being bipolar which has helped wreck my life.

8. > How have you been an engineer for 15 years and still: Rent an apartment, Don’t have a few laptops lying around, Don’t have any savings while having no kids

This series of questions assumes that i have made sound financial decisions over the years. i have not. it also assumes i do not have a child whereas I do from a previous marriage. also, it assumes i've never owned a house, i have... doesn't mean i still do.

homelessdev commented on Ask HN: How to survive as a homeless engineer? · Posted by u/homelessdev

noarchy · 8 years ago

Thank you for letting OP know about the opportunity. I do hope your interview process is more streamlined than some of the horror stories we hear about on HN. OP is probably not going to be benefited by having to jump through many hoops.

homelessdev · 8 years ago

> jump through many hoops

this right here is why i don't have a job yet -- suddenly being a good programmer isn't enough, you have to be a good algorithmic competitive programmer. Code challenges with intensely difficult algorithms (i'm talking 3 to 8 per interview) are making all of you employers pass over good devs, and making me homeless. This is the new brainteaser and 5 years from now people will look back and realize its a terrible judge of someone who will be programming a fucking website.

edit: i'm not going to post my resume or portfolio here, but if you saw what i'm capable of and where i worked in the past you would be shocked that i'm having issues finding employment.

also i should note: i'm 36... but i'm sharper and know more now than when i was being paid 96 to 105k in my 20s.

homelessdev commented on Ask HN: How to survive as a homeless engineer? · Posted by u/homelessdev

bradgnar · 8 years ago

This story does not make sense

homelessdev · 8 years ago

which part?

homelessdev commented on Ask HN: How to survive as a homeless engineer? · Posted by u/homelessdev

bequanna · 8 years ago

With some exceptions (hostile work environment, etc.), unemployment typically won't pay out if you quit a job.

homelessdev · 8 years ago

unemployment approved me as the reason I quit was valid (HIPPA violations)