

Hunting For A Tech Job In Silicon Valley - jwebster
http://ongig.com/blog/hiring/an-irish-blog-hunting-for-a-tech-job-in-silicon-valley

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patio11
Job sites are basically designed to exploit clueless people (on both sides of
the transaction). You're not clueless, or you are shortly to become less
clueless, so you should never be involved with a job site.

Draw a rectangle, where one side is the number of people with hiring authority
you've had coffee with recently and the other side is your attractiveness as a
candidate. As the area of the rectangle gets bigger, the number of job offers
you get will increase. (And, if you're savvy about it, the attractiveness of
them will as well.)

If you already have Google on your resume, increasing your attractiveness as a
candidate is probably not as good ROI as lining up more coffee dates. They are
really easy to arrange: start by knowing at least one person in Silicon Valley
who has hiring authority. (Your local Internet has a few hundred options.) Ask
for introductions.

The custom is for a short two-line email: "Hey Bob, meet Dave. Dave is a smart
chap, he previously worked at Google. You guys should get in touch." Dave then
sends Bob an email inviting him to get coffee. (There are other options: lunch
and dinner work, too, but asking someone to coffee is basically the smallest
imposition you could possibly make which still gets you face time and you want
face time.)

Or, if you're opposed to networking (which seems oddly common among
engineers), put on a T-shirt which says "I am looking for an engineering job.
Previous work experience: Google" and walk down Castro during lunch hour.
You'll probably get three offers.

~~~
timr
_"Or, if you're opposed to networking (which seems oddly common among
engineers), put on a T-shirt which says "I am looking for an engineering job.
Previous work experience: Google" and walk down Castro during lunch hour.
You'll probably get three offers."_

Yeah, except he didn't do engineering at Google -- he was a "data quality
evaluator" contract employee. He's also looking for a position in _"quality
assurance, data analytics, total quality management [or] desktop support"_. He
also never mentions code, engineering, or another hard technical skill.

That's not to criticize the guy or take away from his accomplishments -- he
could be a great potential employee. But just because someone worked at Google
doesn't automatically make them a gold-nugget hire. There are a lot of people
at Google who are doing grunt work. Even in an exceptional job market, I'd
hope that people aren't being interviewed simply because they have "Google" on
their resume without regard for context.

------
thurn
I was looking for a job in the Bay Area in September (similar situation, non-
US citizen). I never used a "job search" site, though, I just researched
companies I was interested in and applied through their sites. This worked out
fine... most places replied quite quickly to my application. I don't really
see any advantage to using a site like Monster.com. If I haven't heard of a
company, I probably don't want to work there.

~~~
digitalchaos
For all you guys targeting startups, do you have a recommended location for
finding them? There are plenty of amazing startups around that I have never
heard of. I feel like I just don't have the time to keep up or am unaware of
some magic resource that some of you must have.

I am mostly curious about companies specific to the bay area but a larger
scope would certainly be welcome.

~~~
smokinn
Tech meetups are a goldmine if you're interested in startups. Maybe you won't
find employees from the startup itself there but if you interested in say,
erlang, and go to an erlang meetup you can very easily ask people there if
they've heard of any interesting erlang startups. You'll probably find some
people who will say something along the lines of oh yeah, I recently heard
about company x who's doing y, it sounds pretty interesting actually.

Then you can do some research on company x and try to get in touch with
someone there.

~~~
MervynSF
Great advice guys. Thanks a million.

------
feydr
I shit you not -- if you are in San Francisco I can take you out partying and
you'll have a job you love the next day <\-- this is how retarded easy it is
to get a software job in this city -- EVERYONE is hiring

~~~
ticks
It's odd. All these businesses are fighting over a small amount of talent. Why
not just have a remote office in San Francisco and focus development elsewhere
in the country?

This happens a lot with agencies, where they locate their sales, marketing,
even designers in say New York or London, meanwhile the bulk of the company is
elsewhere - in locations with high unemployment and lots of developers.

In those areas you might have 20, 30, maybe 40 developers all applying for a
single position.

~~~
grofe
Because the valuations you would get headquartered in Silicon Valley seem to
be far higher than you would get elsewhere.

I've built up a (profitable) tech startup in Canada in the last few years, and
get valuations in the range of 20 times earnings or 2 times revenue.
Respectable compared to the S&P 500, but laughable compared to what seems to
be the norm in the valley (or at least what seems to be the norm based on what
I read here)

Not that i'm complaining, i love canada, but something to consider.

~~~
yewtree
any developer openings?

------
MervynSF
Hey guys, thanks for all the responses to my blog. Some sound advice that I
will definitely take on board. The idea of targeting IT startups is something
that I will get onto asap. I set up a linkedIn profile shortly after arrival
as it seems to be one of the biggest and most used methods on networking here
in the U.S.Here is the link if any of you are interested;
<http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mervyn-fealy/42/a28/388> . Feel free to connect
with me on there.

------
diego
In the Bay Area, high tech jobs hunt you (at least right now). Fill in your
LinkedIn profile like the first comment suggests, build your reputation
(GitHub, StackOverflow) and you'll start getting approached by recruiters.

~~~
shawndrost
If you want recruiters, just call them. You need a linkedin or a resume, but
the other steps are more useful to employers. (You can also email me,
sdrost@gmail.com -- I just worked with seven in my job search, and can pass on
the three I recommend.)

~~~
joshu
I'm just now at the point where I refuse resumes and calls from recruiters.

It'd be better to figure out companies you want to work for and figure out how
to get in touch.

------
donall
I actually have a pretty similar situation. I am Irish, living in California
after just finishing up in Dublin City University (I was probably one of
Mervyn's lab tutors at some point!) and I'm also on the J1 visa.

The difference is that I found a job before I left Ireland (made the visa
application a lot easier). I responded to a post on the "Who's Hiring?" thread
here on HN a few months back and landed a gig in an awesome startup in Los
Angeles called Factual.

HN is a truly invaluable resource for job hunting.

~~~
MervynSF
That's very interesting. I reckon I might have benifited from your tutelage at
some point. I am definitely going to use HN as a resource for job seeking.
Appreciate the feedback. How are you enjoying life in LA?

------
dustingetz
careers.stackoverflow.com, and the monthly HN "who's hiring" post.

~~~
MervynSF
Appreciate the advice!

------
diminish
Just wanted to use this opportunity to tell everyone; I setup an experimental
web site at <http://www.jobrupt.com> to help people challenge the companies to
create or open a job position for them by telling how they can add value.
Would love to see that it will be useful to at least one person on earth.
Except the design which sucks, I would like to hear if that will at all be
useful to anyone or how to modify it to make it useful.

~~~
MervynSF
That's a great idea for a website. It could be potentially very useful for job
seekers in my situation. It would be interesting to hear what companies
feedback is on this type of contact.

------
tibbon
Instead of hitting the pavement digitally, might I suggest mainly browsing the
websites of startups, checking here on HN (HelloFax for example is hiring!),
and then going to every event/meeting you can slide your way into. I think
that would pay off a ton more than any job posting site.

~~~
MervynSF
Thanks for the feedback on my blog. Appreciate the advice!

------
jurre
Cool stuff, I'm thinking of doing my internship over there (CS major from
Holland) so I'll be following this!

------
earl
I skimmed this, but then I saw Madison, WI jump out. Here's a warning: I'd bet
$100 the company was Epic Systems. They're a godawful employer [1]. Please
please please think multiple times and talk to previous employees before
accepting a job there. They're infamous for hiring devs on h1bs, refusing to
sponsor them for a green card, and working their asses off while paying as
little as possible and well under market. They also use, at least last time I
checked, the world's shittiest tech stack: tens of millions of lines of vb6
and maybe 30-50MM lines of M/cachescript/mumps. The world's shittiest language
by a damn long shot [2:4]. Undocumented and non unit tested (last I heard),
though they do hire, at least when I was there, one full time tester for every
two devs. At first you'll think wow -- they're dedicated to quality! No,
that's just the minimum it takes to make barely usable software there.

The other downside to their antiquated tech stack is after putting in a couple
years there, you will _still_ have no marketable skills because you'll be the
same as a brand new dev straight out of school. Everyone else will have two
years in on either the .net or the java or the web (rails/django/node/html5)
or the ios/android tech stacks. You'll still be starting at ground zero.

Further, my best guess is their devs have something like 25-35% annual
turnover. That is not a joke. The best part is if you try to leave, your ass
will be stuck in Madison WI. There's really not that many tech companies there
so you'll have to relocate. They'll brag about paid sabbaticals after 5 years.
So few people last that long I'd bet it's one of the cheapest benefits they
have.

Finally, they have a comprehensive NDA/noncompete and since it's Wisconsin,
it's very enforceable and they can and do aggressively enforce it.

Just don't do it. If you poke around the internet even a bit you'll see
legions of disgruntled ex employees.

I could go on; they have this theory that anyone can be trained to code so
your interview is pretty much just your gpa. They then put you through a 1-3
month internal bootcamp to train you to code. You can, um, imagine the sort of
code this churns out...

See also [5:6].

[1] [http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Epic-Systems-Corporation-
Re...](http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Epic-Systems-Corporation-
Reviews-E35163.htm)

[2] <http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/p/2417/60874.aspx#60874>

[3] <http://thedailywtf.com/comments/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS.aspx>

[4] <http://forums.thedailywtf.com/forums/p/2402/60158.aspx#60158>

[5] [http://www.indeed.com/forum/cmp/Epic-Systems/Epic-Systems-
Sa...](http://www.indeed.com/forum/cmp/Epic-Systems/Epic-Systems-Salaries-
Bonuses-Benefits/t12947)

[6] <http://epic-systems-rant.blogspot.com/>

~~~
vaksel
yeah, every company should be checked on glassdoor....will let you know if
it's a company that's a slave driver, or if they are pay below market rates or
if they expect you to work long hours

------
earl
protip: pick keywords for the tech stack you want to work in, whether {.net,
java, ios/android, web:{rails,django,node,js,html5}}. Hook up if this then
that (<http://ifttt.com> ) to your google talk account. Every 15 minutes it
will poll craigslist jobs looking for your keywords then im to your google
talk account; it's wonderful. I think they also support email endpoints and
maybe rss.

~~~
vaksel
that's fine if you want to go work at half pay...cragislist is one of the
worst sites when it comes to cheapskates

