jameshush (u/jameshush)

jameshush commented on Show HN: Fractional jobs – part-time roles for engineers fractionaljobs.io... · Posted by u/tbird24

jameslk · 14 days ago

As someone who's done freelancing previously for years and also has run an agency previously for years, it really depends. I've certainly seen freelancers at double or triple these rates. If you already have clients, are well known, or you're good at selling the value of your time, you can ask for much higher. If you're just getting started or you're going through an agency, these rates seem pretty competitive. Also macro economic factors will change the equation and what you can ask for.

For those just getting started, my piece of advice is to be OK taking a lower rate initially, and just keep pushing it higher until you find resistance. If you're good at what you do, you will quickly find that you will get referrals (make sure to ask!) and can charge a ton more. It's a lot easier as a freelancer/contractor than a salaried employee since the market is much more liquid (you spend less time at one gig) and therefore you can test the waters with a higher rate much more often.

Regardless, what these companies list as what they will pay hourly isn't necessarily what you have to ask for. If you think about it from a negotiation perspective (and you have the ability to sell yourself), these are simply just the lower bound of what you can ask for.

jameshush · 14 days ago

Great advice. Sometimes you need to take a step back to take three steps forward.

Referrals are the key.

jameshush commented on 'A black hole': New graduates discover a dismal job market nbcnews.com/business/econ... · Posted by u/koolba

Rover222 · a month ago

I know a lot of junior developers who just gave up on that industry over the last 2 years. It seems truly rough for them. But also that's comparing it to the general boom over the previous 10-15 years.

I have about 10 yrs experience, and just conducted my first job hunt in 5 years (I was with one company for a long time, then took a sabbatical for half a year after our dev team was off-shored). I was pretty concerned that it could take 6 months or more to find a gig. But I found myself interviewing with 6 or 7 companies within two weeks, and had 2 offers by the end of week 3 (I'm starting the new gig tomorrow). I consider myself a pretty average full-stack rails/react dev. I don't even bother applying to FANG (or whatever the acronym is now) jobs. So... I don't know if I just got lucky, but the job market felt pretty good when looking for senior roles. My interviews were a mix of referrals from previous coworkers, a couple recruiters reaching out, and (the job I accepted) from reaching out on LinkedIn to hiring managers posting jobs.

It feels like the AI wave is killing junior jobs, but driving demand for experienced developers to harness it, even if just harnessing it as a tool to speed up coding.

jameshush · a month ago

Referrals are the key to non-FAANG jobs. I also have over 10 years of experience, with six of those years spent working under the same supervisor across two different jobs. Four of those years were two different jobs, thanks to strong referrals from my previous boss and the one I worked with for 6 years before that.

I fumbled a bit early in my career and burned some bridges, but luckily, I smartened up after the first 2ish years.

I figured if I have 10+ years of experience and do not have at least 5-10 people I can call up to ask for a job who've worked with me in the past, I've screwed up. Investing in relationships has been the key job security hack for me (also a completely average React dev who happens to know an above-average amount about video and webrtc).

jameshush commented on The $25k car is going extinct? media.hubspot.com/why-the... · Posted by u/pseudolus

vel0city · 2 months ago

Lots of loan rates out there for <1% APR. Easy to get savings accounts at 4%+ these days.

I could pay off my car tomorrow. But I'll have more money in the end keeping that cash in the bank. Why would I pay it off early?

jameshush · 2 months ago

Your logic works out fine if you don't mind a dash of risk (e.g. from a job loss). But when I ran the numbers from my perspective it didn't seem worth it. (I might be doing my math wrong).

Let's say I get a car that costs $30k, I put $10k down, and I take a loan out using the numbers above rounded up just for napkin math (1% APR, 4% savings account).

After one year:

```

$30,000 x 0.04 = $1,200 from savings account interest

$1,200 x 0.33 = $396 in TAXES from the interest (assuming you earn over $145k/year in California)

$30,000 x 0.01 = $300 in loan interest

Total earned = $1,200 - $396 - $300 = $696

```

Don't get me wrong, $696 isn't _nothing_ but I personally would rather have the feeling of not owing people money then an extra $696 at the end of the year. Add in depreciation from getting a new car and it's almost a wash.

jameshush commented on MapQuest's 'Name Your Own Gulf' gulfof.mapquest.com/... · Posted by u/dangle1

ChrisArchitect · 6 months ago

Anyone else surprised to hear that MapQuest still even exists? It's like a culture-period reference point when in movies/shows a character looks something up on mapquest or prints a map. I mean it hasn't been a thing for about 15+ years. Assumed it got sold off/absorbed or something

jameshush · 6 months ago

I worked at the company that acquired MapQuest a few years ago. It's been bought and sold a few times, but their most popular feature is still the "print maps" button...

As you can guess it's mostly people over the age of 50 still using MapQuest lol

jameshush commented on Duolingo's Video Call Offers Realistic Conversation Practice blog.duolingo.com/video-c... · Posted by u/Tomte

p0w3n3d · 7 months ago

Quite expensive practice I must say

jameshush · 7 months ago

Unless I'm reading the wrong pricing page, Duolingo Max seems to cost $29.99/month. In my experience learning Chinese, it costs $15-20 an hour to find a decent teacher online with whom to practice via video call. A few teachers charge less than $10 an hour, but they are very weak. Seems pretty darn reasonable for me, especially since I'm guessing they have at least $10/month in costs just paying for the LLM.

jameshush commented on How to grow professional relationships tej.as/blog/how-to-grow-p... · Posted by u/Liriel

mkmk · 9 months ago

On the practical side of things, one important behavior that I see people frequently forget is the importance of following up. This is probably the biggest differentiator between relationships that languish in the early stages, versus those that progress along the author’s continuum.

It’s always a bit strange when you only hear from people once every few years, just as they need an intro or career advice or whatever- the beginning of those conversations is usually a bit of sheepish catch-up on what happened after you last spoke with them. Similarly, there have been times when I have felt like a dope after realizing that I failed to follow up myself after a call, and am again reaching out for another reason.

However, when you follow up with someone as simple as “Thanks for connecting me with so and so, we had a great chat” or “I tried that thing you suggested, here’s how it worked out”, you build mutual trust and enthusiasm for a successful outcome to the conversation you had. It’s a genuine and thoughtful way to grow your relationship.

jameshush · 9 months ago

I'll add to this: If you want to practice following up but are afraid of "bugging" someone, start by wishing 1-3 people happy birthday every day. I put every person I know birthday on one giant Google calendar and wish people happy every day. It's a super easy way to at least say "hi" to someone once a year.

jameshush commented on Ask HN: What job search strategies work for you? · Posted by u/Jabbs

vdvsvwvwvwvwv · 10 months ago

I love to see how this works in practice. Most jobs seem to be gated by various interviews and maybe panels. At lower levels it doesnt seem knowing someone is an advantage beyond avoiding the circular file. Smashing the interview seems key. I have seen at higher levels (higher EM levels) yeah people move as a tribe.

jameshush · 10 months ago

Anecdote from me: I jumped from leading an engineering team for an online virtual events company to working as a solutions engineer for a WebRTC vendor.

They asked for a reference from my previous CEO.

I had left on good terms (gave 4 weeks' notice) and was incredibly professional while working with the previous CEO, so I got a glowing reference. If I had been an ass, it'd be unlikely I'd have gotten such a great reference and got this job. ~6 months later, we even scored my previous CEO as a customer.

The tech world is SMALL. Especially if you niche down career-wise, it's possible to find yourself in a situation where only a couple hundred people worldwide have the same expertise as you. At that level, people would instead work with people they know or have strong references from people they know.

jameshush commented on 12 Months of Mandarin isaak.net/mandarin/... · Posted by u/misiti3780

chemmail · a year ago

This is nuts, if i learned Mandarin, i would probably move to Taiwan, where the CoL is almost 1/4th of where I am right now. I know some other languages, but loss the will to study anymore lol.

jameshush · a year ago

I'm a foreigner who's live in Taiwan over the past four years. You can move here tomorrow if you want :D. You can survive with English (though your life will be easier with Mandarin), and there are plenty of English teachers who never learned Mandarin who've lived here for 10+ years.

Highly recommend living here. I met my wife here. Life's chill. Nobody steals. If you've made at least $60k in salary at least once in the last three years you can apply for a Taiwan Gold Card (kinda like a Taiwanese O1 Visa) and come live/work here very easily.

The main reason I continue to learn Mandarin is because my mother in law speaks zero English, so it just makes everyone's live's more fun and pleasant if I speak some Mandarin. :D

jameshush commented on Why Americans Stopped Moving axios.com/2024/09/01/amer... · Posted by u/toomuchtodo

vundercind · a year ago

I bet mobility is part of why nursing and teaching remain ultra-popular for women. They offer more flexibility than normal for time off for raising a family, and both are remarkably good as a supplementary job to a higher-earning spouse, because of their relatively high mobility—every place has schools and hospitals, more or less, and if they don’t there are no other jobs there anyway. Good options for the do-both-career-and-semi-traditional-family-thing set, which is probably a pretty large proportion of preferences (not saying a majority, but enough to explain the high interest in those careers)

Nursing’s the better of the two from that perspective, but re-licensing as a teacher in a new state is usually not that bad, and once you’ve got that you will find a job if you’re anything but terrible at it.

jameshush · a year ago

My wife teaches Chinese, and this is spot on our situation. Schools and language centers are always hiring. She usually has 1-2 private online students she tutors (generally adults who are learning Chinese for fun). As long as she commits to a semester at a time and doesn't leave in the middle of her semester, she can always return to her job. If we have kids, she can go part-time or be a full-time mom for a few years. Every school teaches the same stuff, so it's not like she has to "keep up" like I do as an engineer and learn new things every few years.

Her income is a lot less than mine, but the extra cash is nice. We've set up our life so we don't NEED the money she brings in so if it ever goes away we'll never panic.

jameshush commented on Ask HN: Junior dev and I don't want to compete in this job market. Any advice? · Posted by u/thirdacc

jimmaswell · a year ago

I always felt discouraged from even applying to those. They usually say they're only hiring one candidate and I know a ton of other hackernewsers are applying to the same posting who have a good chance of being much more tryhard at fleshing out their github portfolio et cetera.

jameshush · a year ago

Over the last 10 years, I've gotten every job except one through Hacker News or a referral from a co-worker I met at a job. I got way more callbacks fresh out of school as a 21-year-old living in Canada (aka no USA work permits) via Hacker News than any other channel.

Focus on sending 3-4 _excellent_ applications a day rather than 3000-4000 AI-generated garbage ones. Also, go through your text message history and text every person on there the following:

``` Hi $NAME! I just saw you on $SOCIAL_MEDIA doing $THING and I thought about you? What's the latest with you? No rush to respond if you're busy.

wait for response

Great to hear! I'm currently looking for a software engineering job, do you know anyone who's hiring? ```

You do those two things consistently, you'll have three job offers within 3-4 months.

Now the tricky part is getting the confidence to ACTUALLY DO THE ABOVE. What helped me is going outside and getting involved in ANY club. In the past for me it's been salsa dancing, stand up comedy, and taking a cooking class. Replace those with any other activity you're remotely interested.

Good luck. You got this. The first job or two in tech is tricky. After 3-4 years it gets way easier.