

Ask HN: Is 1 year of programming enough to work for a startup? - dglassan

I just came across the link on HN about how to land a job at a startup just out of college (http://www.jasonshen.com/2010/get-a-startup-job-out-of-college/) and it got me thinking. I grew up in Silicon Valley, went to college in Arizona, and recently got a job at an IT company in Kansas City after graduation. I know I want to move back to the bay area and work for a startup, maybe within a year, but I'm not sure if I've got enough experience.<p>I took some basic programming classes in college, enough to learn the concepts, but I had a hard time understanding how to put it all together into a complete application. It wasn't until I worked as a student web developer that things really started clicking. I worked for a year learning PHP and coding small web applications. Now I'm working at an IT firm as a consultant and doing some hacking when I'm not working 8-5. I'm working on a personal project right now...It's not any groundbreaking technology, just trying to automate a process for an industry that has, for the most part, not embraced the internet for their operations.<p>My question is, would 1 year of web development experience be enough to work at a startup? I feel like startups are looking for awesome programmers with CS degrees. I know there are other positions at startups but I feel like I just have a well rounded set of skills, nothing that really stands out. I guess I'd like to ask you guys if you work for a startup, what is your background and did you find it hard to get hired?
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anamax
> My question is, would 1 year of web development experience be enough to work
> at a startup?

Why are you restricting yourself to web development work?

> I'm working on a personal project right now...It's not any groundbreaking
> technology, just trying to automate a process for an industry that has, for
> the most part, not embraced the internet for their operations.

Why isn't that your startup?

~~~
dglassan
Well it is my startup, I guess I didn't say it directly. My partner and I have
been throwing around the idea for a few weeks and i've started coding it
recently. He's not technical at all so I've been building out the app by
myself and he's going to deal with marketing and business dev.

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exline
To me, attitude/personality is a huge factor when start ups are hiring. I've
been on both sides. When I was first hired, I had about 2 years part time work
experience. When I was hiring, we often looked for recent graduates that would
be our next rock stars.

If you can show that you learn fast and have the right attitude that should be
enough. You mention you have worked on several personal projects. This is a
huge plus to me, as it shows that you like to learn, that you like to code and
that you have initiative. I'd make sure to point this out and allow them to
see/review your projects.

All that said, it sounds like you are in the process of creating your own
startup right now. If you left your current 8-5 job for a start up, you most
likely would have to put your own project on hold. The description of your
market is the exact type of market to go after. Perhaps you should give
yourself a bit more time on your own project before looking for a job at a
start up.

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matthewphiong
You don't need to be a guru in programming to start a startup. You learn (a
whole lot more than reading programming books) while working on your startup
or projects.

Learning is part of startup and that drives you forward to be better.

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jacquesm
It sounds like you could do front-end work, maybe a bit more than that but you
would most likely still be working with someone that has a bit more experience
when the going gets tough. Otoh, who knows...

The best way to find out is to try. One way to hone your skills quickly and
mercilessly is to join some open source project that does something
interesting and eat your way in to an existing codebase. That'll teach you
quicker than any other course. Be prepared for a very steep ascent and fairly
ruthless critique by other coders on the project, but that's how you learn
fastest if you're open for it.

~~~
johnny22
Please lurk a little bit before starting if you go this route. I started by
hanging out in the support and development irc channels to learn the common
problems people had. This gave me a good idea where to jump in.

I got very lucky to get involved with some very nice people who were willing
to play along and review my code.

Distributed version control systems tend to make this even easier. ( We were
stuck with CVS)

PS: don't make them teach you how to use the version control system :)

------
antics
Do you have enough experience to do a startup?

Really the only way to find out is to actually go do it yourself. See, you're
thinking about it the wrong way, because skills are not a function of time,
necessarily. In my opinion, tenacity and drive matter a lot more. You could
start by building a project (that's what I'd do), but you could also
contribute to OSS. You have all the tools, and (I assume)no compelling reason
not to. Even if you don't, at the end of it all, you just might.

~~~
dglassan
Reading my original post I did make it sound like i'm looking at it the wrong
way. I do work on a lot of personal projects and have learned a lot more than
just by reading the books. I can actually write a decent app, I've written RSS
parsers, a threaded comment system, an online ticketing system for my
roomate's entrepreneurship project (no payment processing though), and right
now i'm working on a CRM system.

We're planning to launch the CRM system soon and market it to our specific
industry and i've actually learned a lot over the time i've been coding in my
free time, I just feel like I don't have the skills the be hired on as a
programmer at startup.

I'm leaning more towards finding a personal project that has big potential and
build a prototype using my PHP skills. If it catches on I figured I could then
find a more experienced programmer that could optimize the code and make it
scale as the user base grows. I feel like I could use my skills as a founder
and then bring in some awesome programmers to refine and enhance my app rather
than getting hired as a programmer.

