
London Hacker News February Meetup - ayers
http://www.meetup.com/HNLondon/events/104568542/
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danmaz74
OT: I'm thinking about moving from Rome to London in a couple of months.
During the first months there I'd like to work part time as a programmer: I'm
very experienced with Ruby on Rails and Javascript/CoffeeScript and I would
like to see from the inside how it works in the London startup scene, while I
also work on my side project for which later I'll be looking for investors.

Any suggestions about how to start looking for contract or temporary work
while not residing in London? Of course I'm willing to travel to interview
and/or make arrangements, but I can't leave my current job immediately.

~~~
CWIZO
I'm in a similar boat as you :) I'm from Slovenia and I've been searching for
a full-time job from here. It really isn't a problem since most companies are
doing phone/skype interviews these days. I'm actually coming to London today
to do a couple of face-to-face interviews and I already have one offer. So
really, the fact that you are in Italy shouldn't be a problem.

Look here for jobs: <http://careers.stackoverflow.com/>
[https://jobs.github.com/positions?description=&location=...](https://jobs.github.com/positions?description=&location=london)
<http://workinstartups.com/job-board> <http://www.3-beards.com/jobs>
<http://www.cwjobs.co.uk/> <http://jobstractor.com/> linkedin ...

Also check out the monthly hiring thread here on HN (and you can use my
bookmarklet to make it a bit easier :P
<https://github.com/janhancic/hnHiringFilter>)

I can also hook you up with a good recruiter if you want (my email is in the
profile).

~~~
danmaz74
Thank you! How long did it take to get these interviews?

~~~
CWIZO
Depends, some companies responded in matter of hours, some in a couple of
days. Some didn't respond at all (or they will eventually). So after that we
usually setup a quick phone chat the same or next day. And if all went well we
continued from there.

You really should first decide when you'll be moving. If it's in 3 months then
I think it's a bit too soon to start searching. But once you do start
searching things should start moving rather quickly. Just make sure you'll
have the time to answer all those emails and calls :) And try to send a large
batch of applications at once so you can have as many interviews at once when
you'll come to London (it's not really cost effective to come just for one
interview).

~~~
danmaz74
Yes, my main problem is having to give a 2 months notice at work. I'll try
find employers (or clients) that are comfortable with that.

Thanks again

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Peroni
Here's a longshot: PG, when are you going to grace us with your presence and
come give a talk? (we have pizza & booze)

~~~
lifeisstillgood
+1 for sheer chutzpah :-)

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dmitri1981
In case people are interested, the talks from previous events are online at
<https://vimeo.com/hnlondon>

~~~
buro9
Hey Dmitri, a couple of questions...

Will you be reducing the involvement of sponsors now you're raising £3k per
event?

What are the additional events and projects now in the pipeline as a result of
the extra funds?

Having just got back from San Francisco and seeing a lot of the pay-it-forward
culture in action, I'm glad there is a fee at it means that we're able to
contribute to something that can help build something larger and be part of a
difference in the London startup culture. So I'm really keen to hear about how
those funds are now going to be invested to make that change happen.

~~~
Peroni
I'll let Dmitri give his own response but one thing I will mention is the fact
that the cost of putting on the event each month is in excess of £2k and
that's not taking into account Dmitri's time & efforts (or mine for that
matter).

Dmitiri's plans for improving the event are solid but it's not my place to
reveal them.

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rvkennedy
I enjoyed the last one of these I went to, but it's not much of a networking
event. You can get a bit of meet-and-greet in between the speaker talks, but
everyone pretty much left after the last one, as the venue closed down. Anyone
who wanted to network had to move on to a nearby pub, and few people made the
effort, or knew where to go.

~~~
dmitri1981
Several people have made the same comment and it's especially important for
people who are new to the scene and don't know many people. It's something
that I would definitely like to improve and welcome all suggestions. I'll post
an update with pub details on the event page too.

~~~
rvkennedy
I also attended some HN meetups in Munich and those worked very well. You show
up, you talk to people. The organizers set aside a short time for anyone who
wanted to talk about their project to do so, apart from that it was just a
meetup, focused on the attendees rather than pre-prepared content.

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lifeisstillgood
And conflicts with the other decent grassroots event in London - find-a-tech-
job-in-London meetup - aaargh

I am sponsoring that one ! :-)

Slightly weird coincidence.

~~~
ig1
There's absolutely no-way to run a tech/startup event in London without
clashes now. There's multiple events running pretty much every single day.

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EnderMB
Out of interest, how many people from outside London go to these meetups?

I'm in Bristol, so a bit far to travel.

~~~
ig1
Not sure numbers but there's definitely people who travel a couple of hours
from outside London to get to it.

Alternatively why not setup a local HN meetup for Bristol and the south west ?

~~~
estel
I'm unconvinced that Bristol (or any other region of the UK, especially those
commutable to London) has the critical mass necessary to support one. Perhaps
a worthwhile experiment though.

~~~
EnderMB
London will always be the exception, but given the number of user groups
already held in Bristol that manage to get around 50-100+ people in a month
with ease I think that Bristol would be the natural choice outside of London.

Whether a HN meetup would be successful or not is another story. It'd be
entirely down to who would choose to organise it and what they could offer to
local HN members.

~~~
estel
Yeh, South West Founders seems to be consistently pretty popular. Don't get me
wrong, it's definitely something that I'd love to happen.

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phatbyte
I'm going to miss this by a week =(

