
Ask HN: How do you pivot your career when jobs want years of exp in a stack - milofeynman
Learning frameworks and platforms through udemy and pluralsight.
Side projects on github.
What did you do to get a response back from jobs you&#x27;ve submitted an application to?
Did you apply to junior roles when you were a senior in the other stack?
Thank you.
======
tristram_shandy
Don't write anything on your resume that would indicate "number of years
experience" \-- list your jobs, explain key achievements, don't distill
anything down to a number. Your resume should NOT explain who you are, or go
into real specifics -- it's an advertisement for you, as simple as that. If
they want details, they'll have to schedule an interview.

Once you have the interview, you can talk about your experiences, why you're a
good fit, what you do in your spare time, etc -- they will not tally up years
of experience or record your answers directly into an Excel spreadsheet.

Also, don't say you're "pivoting" your career. Just don't.

~~~
quuquuquu
>"Also, don't say you're 'pivoting' yout career. Just don't."

I tend to find such polemics unhelpful. Usually when someone tells me "just
don't", I end up really wanting to know the mechanism behind what is causing
such a stern warning.

For example, if I asked someone, "should I jump out of an airplane with no
parachute",...

and someone says...

"just don't, because unless you have lots of luck and can defy lots of laws of
physics, you will most likely be killed"...

then they have revealed a very clear and concrete reason, which strengthens
their assertion of "just don't".

I see no such evidence for or against using the word "pivot", and I can
imagine scenarios where the word even resonates with certain types of people.

~~~
infinii
Startups "pivot" because they failed in some way.

Pivoting your career can be construed as having failed somewhere and needing
to find something else.

In the context of a career, phrase it as evolving your skills to match market
demand. The very people who "pivot" resonate with will immediately associate
it with failure.

~~~
caseysoftware
Pivoting sin't because they've failed. It's because the path to their goal has
changed or isn't what they previously thought. Basically, they're adjusting to
new information (market, industry, etc) just like the rest of your definition.

Yes, it's an overused term but it's _NOT_ a sign of failure.

~~~
aptwebapps
I think this is bordering on a no true Scottsman argument, although maybe
unintentionally. But whether that's true or not, I think lots of people take
it as a euphemism for failure.

------
patio11
_What did you do to get a response back from jobs you 've submitted an
application to?_

Round an unsolicited job application down to a no-op; this is not how the
majority of jobs get filled. Instead, you should find someone with
decisionmaking authority in the company, talk to them, and get them interested
in you.

The "N years of experience" thing not a requirement. It is a polite fiction.
It was put there by someone who may not even be associated with the team that
is doing the hiring. But if you come through the front door, there exists a
team of people who will aggressively filter on that fiction because if they
don't filter on it then the larger organization will ask "What is it, exactly,
that you do here?"

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to only have these people
involved to schedule the interview that a decisionmaker has already committed
to giving you and/or collect the resume that they need for their records now
that you're hired.

Senior engineers applying to junior roles are selected against fairly
aggressively. This is an unfortunate shibboleth, but it is a widely used
shibboleth.

Senior engineers should apply to senior roles; the vast majority of hammers
swing in approximately similar fashions and as you get more senior you're not
being hired to hammer in nails-per-hour. You're (hopefully) doing things like
helping younger employees understand the difference between screws and nails,
pushing back on the person who asked for 100k nails on a house that has been
uninhabited for 6 years, developing processes to avoid wood rot around your
nails, etc etc.

Incidentally: Serious software shops are largely aware of this. If a company
thinks that a Pythonista with 5 years of Python experience cannot be a Rubyist
in single-digit weeks, that company is probably not a great place for software
people to be.

~~~
milofeynman
Hah. Thank you for this post. You have a way with words.

------
saluki
I would focus on learning the stack/framework you want to find employment in.

Do an initial project creating an app to do something for you. Use that to try
to find another project/app you can create for someone in your network as a
freelance project. Become active in the community for that framework. Blog,
write tutorials, reach out to others in the community to build relationships.

When applying for jobs I would list your job title, company and years. Then
have another section for the languages/technologies you have used. I never
match them up one to one. They will ask how many years experience you have
with what they are using. With new frameworks a year to a few years is good
enough to get in the door.

Becoming active in the community is going to open more doors than resumes.
Once someone knows you and that you are capable it's easier to land a position
if they can recommend you.

Good luck with your pivot.

~~~
milofeynman
Thanks for the insight.

------
christophilus
The number of years thing is bogus. Just ignore it and apply. I remember
seeing posts asking for more Rails experience than DHH himself has. Something
like 8 years of Rails experience when Rails was only 6 years old. Those
requirements are almost always written by some of the least competent people
in the company.

~~~
kelnos
Yup, agreed. On my resume I have a list of my jobs and the things I
accomplished at those companies, and I don't mention tech stack or language
unless it's relevant to the accomplishment. At the bottom I have a "keyword
list" of the frameworks and languages I've used and feel competent in, without
saying anything about years of experience. (I've found this is useful to get
through the recruiters who filter by keyword.)

Just apply to jobs, and talk about what you've done, and how you did it.

------
Vendan
I treat the "we want people who know stack X" kind of thing as a "Here's what
stack we are using" and nothing more. I don't lie and say that I know the
stack, but I don't want to work for a company that doesn't understand that a
good programmer can switch to a new stack in a very short time frame. On the
other hand, you need the ability to pick up a new stack easily.

~~~
scarface74
I hire contractors. I don't have time for people to ramp up on the job. I need
them to come in knowing the stack we are working in.

If I were hiring full time devs, I would take a chance but I would expect them
to meet deadlines as if they were fluent in the stack - meaning if they have
to work weekends or more than 40 hours a week to be just as efficient as
someone who knows the stack, they should do it.

I put myself to the sane standards when I'm an FTE. If the company advertised
they wanted a proficient React developer for instance and I was honest with
them about my lack of experience and I convinced them that I was willing to
learn, I would make sure I produced 35-40 hours worth of productive work even
if it took me 60 hours to do it.

I'm not putting in extra hours necessarily for the company, I'm doing it to
further my own career.

~~~
learc83
Hiring contractors is a different, but if you skip over an experienced
JavaScript developer for a W-2 position because they aren't familiar with
React, you're going to miss out on a lot of great employees.

You'll miss out on people like me who refuse to play that game. I don't expect
to be fully productive for the first few weeks on the job and I'm not working
through the weekends to try to be. I also don't expect anyone I hire to be
fully productive until they get familiar with our stack.

It's completely absurd to put the burden of training completely on the
employee. Culturally we need to stop accepting this.

~~~
scarface74
_It 's completely absurd to put the burden of training completely on the
employee. Culturally we need to stop accepting this._

Why is that so absurd? Part of the culture in tech is that there is no loyalty
on the side of the company or the employee -- I'm okay with that. The company
can lay me off at anytime but I can also change jobs and take the skills I
learned with me and probably earn a higher pay anytime. What incentive does a
company have to train employees in that environment?

~~~
learc83
Much of what you learn to get up to full speed doesn't directly transfer and
is more beneficial to the employer than the employee.

>What incentive does a company have to train employees in that environment?

The normal incentive is access to a larger employee pool and cost. You have
access to a much larger group of applicants if you're not looking for 100%
productivity on day 1.

Also if you are willing to spend a bit of time training your employees, they
are less likely to leave. Give them raises equal to what they're worth on the
open market and most of them have no reason to leave.

Reducing employee churn is worth a lot of money. No employee is anywhere close
to 100% effective on day 1, and from experience, training goes a long way
towards improving employee retention.

Not providing training because you're afraid an employee will leave sounds a
bit like a shop owner who is so scared that someone is going to steal a few
pieces of candy that he locks down his store so tight no one wants to shop
there. Sure a few people will take your training and run, but that's just the
cost of doing business.

------
acangiano
Four suggestions:

1\. Don't obsess over the specifics on an ad. See if the role is in line with
what you have to offer, but don't worry if you don't have the exact number of
years of experience they request or one of the many skills they added to what
it's essentially their wishlist.

2\. Provided you have a solid foundation with some standard skills like
JavaScript, Python or Ruby, etc, specialize in a relatively new stack. No
reasonable employer expects you to have 10 years of experience in Elixir or
React.js. Note also that I used the word stack. You want to become competent
enough to become useful to a team that adopts the same stack. Depending on
where you live, you might go more or less niche in terms of the stack.

3\. Start a blog and advertise the fact that you are looking for a junior
position. Document your experience, post about what you are learning, what
excites you, showcase your pet projects, etc.

4\. Attend meetups. Let people know that you're available.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Re: #4. I currently live in a city that has virtually no tech scene. I work
remote and my office is a thousand miles away. What are some ways to get a
similar experience, but online? I don't particularly like social networking
online (in person, sure!), so I've never tried looking into tech related
social scenes.

~~~
johndalton
I've been working remotely for ten years, in a city with a very small but
friendly tech scene. A lack of local meetups doesn't always indicate that
there's no tech scene, either - when I first started working remotely I was
the only person I knew who was doing it, but just by being vocal about it I
quickly found others. If there are no meetups in your field then starting one
is a brilliant way to tick a bunch of boxes here:

\- You will bring people out of the woodwork who are in similar positions, but
haven't taken the initiative to start such a group themselves.

\- You'll gain contacts in your scene, both locally and in other cities.

\- You'll gain experience and profile that will help you in a search for
remote work, as you can point to community engagement activities that say a
lot more about your dedication than a couple of udemy courses in some
particular stack.

If you really don't want to start a local group (or if there's no nearby
community large enough to support this) then look for user groups with active
online communities (mailing lists definitely count) and try to make some
occasional trips to other cities for meetups and conferences.

------
Swizec
I have had great success with saying things like “I have 10 years of web
engineering experience and have been looking into X for N years/months”.

Engineering skills translate well between stacks and framework/library skills
are only good for a couple years. Can you break down a complex problem into
estimatable chunks that can potentially be delegated as well? Can you design a
system that solves a business problem? Awesome! Nobody will ask you about
framework du jour.

Honestly I’d say that if you’re talking at the level of which
libraries/frameworks you know, you’ve already lost. That’s junior/midlevel
engineer stuff.

Senior engineers solve problems. Junior engineers code in frameworks.

Most code that’s used in production has so much custom stuff anyway that it
might well be its own framework.

~~~
thegayngler
I guess I'm different in that I care that people understand the pluses and
minuses of the various frameworks. I think anyone can pick up a framework or
solve a problem. However, can they understand why and when to use x framework
to solve a problem and back up why they chose to solve the problem in the way
they chose to do it.

Additionally I want someone who can be passionate about the tech stack and
frameworks they are using or plan on using. Otherwise, I've got a code monkey
who may get things done in the short term but their code and problem solving
abilities actually has negative implications in the future when it comes time
for maintenance and to add additional features to things.

I don't understand why people label others who care about their craft and the
tools they use as junior/midlevel. I think that's lazy. Many times there
really is a best way to solve a problem or a best framework for your
particular situation or problem. All engineers should care about the tools and
what is being used and why it's being used.

I guess its just not enough for me to have an answer so much as to understand
why its the answer and under what conditions assumptions can fail. To me that
is more valuable when hiring someone who is switching careers than being able
to solve a problem in a generic sense.

~~~
Swizec
>I don't understand why people label others who care about their craft and the
tools they use as junior/midlevel.

Because we’ve gone through 10 different frameworks already.

I’m not a jQuery engineer or a Backbone engineer or an Angular engineer or a
React engineer or a Redux engineer or a MobX engineer or a Node engineer or a
Rails engineer or a PHP engineer or a Python engineer. Yes I’ve used all od
those to deliver real world projects that made money for my clients/employers,
but they’re just a tool I use. Many such tools have come and gone since I
started building stuff for the web in the early 00’s and many more will come
and go before I stop. I love building stuff and I have a deep understanding of
the web, but tools are just tools, they don’t define me.

Yes you want a carpenter with a good understanding of hammers and nails and
you need them to know which to use when, but do you really want to hire a
carpenter who identifies themselves as “Expert hammerer of 5 inch nails”?

Ultimately, if you _are_ looking for an expert hammerer of 5 inch nails, I am
not a good fit. And that’s okay.

------
cbanek
Frankly, I think the most important thing is to have a good resume. Apply for
jobs where you don't have all the skills, chances are they'd be happy if you
knew half of the things they listed, but would be willing to learn the other
half. (Don't even get me started on job descriptions asking for skills that
don't get used later, this happens too frequently.)

Also, apply for jobs with different frameworks where you have experience
solving their type of problems. That knowledge is much more valuable on a long
term basis.

Ask questions like "are you actively making contributions to this framework?"
If so, you probably want to know it. If not, just remind them that it will
most likely take much longer to ramp up on their (non-public) codebase, but
your skill is learning things and solving problems. If you're not employee #1,
a lot of the framework plumbing is probably already done for you.

~~~
acomjean
I second this.

I had good luck with suggested resume format of company project I worked on
description, and what I did for them on said project. I put together a
"portfolio" of screenshots of things I worked on with a description of what I
did as some projects were behind a login and the public didn't have access (I
created this graph of power usage using highcharts......)

highlight the problem solving skills.

I have to sort through a lot of resumes at my current job and sometimes I
honestly can't tell what they worked on. If I sense enthusiasm, and some
experience with what we're looking for, they go on.

------
moron4hire
As with the vast majority of jobs: network. Get to know people, you will get
to know where they work, and they will get to know you and how you work.
Eventually, if you just go through life as a helpful person, one (or several)
of those people will make the connection for you, "hey, we need someone who
does X. You do X, right?" You'll say, "yeah, totally, but when I saw that job
listing, it said they wanted Y years of experience." And they will say, "well,
I know you, you do great work, forget about that."

~~~
lucaspiller
This comment seems to be downvoted which is disappointing, as this is one of
the best pieces of advice here. Apart from when I was a fresh graduate, all of
my jobs and contracts over the past 10 years have been from networking.

I'm definitely not a people person, and you don't need to be, you just need to
keep up to date with what people in your network are doing. If there is anyone
now in a management role, try to meet up with them for a coffee once a year
just to chat. Maybe they are looking for someone with your skills (that's
happened twice for me). I've also been in the situation where they aren't
actively looking for someone, but knowing that I'm available and that I do
good work they've made a position just for me.

I've only worked at smaller companies, so I'm not really sure how this would
work at the scale of something like Facebook, but other than them having to
navigate HR I don't see why it couldn't work.

------
nate_martin
It's a little annoying when companies put framework names in their job titles.
Asking for a "react engineer" or a "boost programmer" will likely turn away a
lot of people who would actually be a good fit for the role. My suggestion is
to just be open with the company and tell them what you do know and how
quickly you can get up to speed. Something like: "I haven't used React on a
paid project before, but I have a lot of experience with other frontend
frameworks like x/y."

~~~
WalterSear
Chances are that the gatekeeper won't know enough to be interested.

~~~
Kluny
You have to get past ignorant gatekeepers. Do some google stalking to find out
who's in charge of the team you want to join, and reach out on social media to
let them know you'll be applying. Then include "so and so is expecting my
application" when you send it to HR. Or something like that.

------
NumberCruncher
You should read this:

[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-
pro...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/)

Patrick may have a skewed view of reality because of his experience but this
(and his other posts) brings you in the right mindset.

~~~
milofeynman
Thanks for the read, it was... interesting.

------
richardknop
Yes, you should get involved in technologies you want to pivot to and be part
of the open source. And it doesn't mean just creating a quick hello world app
and sticking it to your Github profile.

Side projects which are basically a "hello world" in framework X are not
impressive so don't waste time with polluting your Github with N hello world
examples.

Instead create something more substantial, either contribute directly to the
library/framework which is core of the new tech or build some useful new
addition to the ecosystem.

Write some blog posts along the way as you learn and become more and more
familiar with the technology and different edge cases.

This, from my experience will get you a lot of interviews.

Also, during the interviews, don't say things like you are pivoting, instead
tell them that you are expanding your expertise in a new direction or making a
next step in your career. Or that you want to work with this new tech on a
daily basis and this job would allow you to do that.

------
hackermailman
Try recruitment tests like this one
[https://triplebyte.com/](https://triplebyte.com/) (read faq:
[https://triplebyte.com/candidate_faq](https://triplebyte.com/candidate_faq))
or even some remote dev factory type stuff like TopTal to start out otherwise
you get that HR phone screen demanding your X years of experience with X
stack.

Another method is find a company you want to work for, find where they keep
open source projects, and work on them. When they have a job opening you'll be
the one they contact usually. Databases, frameworks, Docker, ect are all good
for this. Mailing lists and open source projects is how I usually get work and
avoid the phone screen demanding X years of exp.

~~~
milofeynman
I appreciate BOTH of your points. Did not think about either of those.

------
alkonaut
Don't apply for jobs that have a laundry list of technogies you should be
experienced in. Look for positions where they realize that tech will change
every year and people will need to learn. That is the kind of place where they
don't see you as replacable labor that needs to deliver on day 1 because they
expect you to be gone within a year or two. Find a place that hopes and thinks
you'll be there to see a few tech stacks come and go.

A broad technology such as having experience with "databases" or "functional
programming" or whatever might be appropriate, but if an ad says "need N years
experience with Framework-X" etc. then run away.

If your first contact with the company is a non technical HR person screening
you for the appropriate buzzwords: also run away.

~~~
martijn_himself
I think this is one of the most sensible replies. You only need to look at a
HN 'who is hiring' thread though to see these kind of companies are pretty
nonexistent.

~~~
alkonaut
This is probably true, but I think companies represented on HN's "who is
hiring" is a very small subset of all companies. It's very tilted towards the
US, and even there it's very tilted towards the startup scene.

------
paulsutter
You are a senior developer, so you have worked with other people. Make a list
of them, see what they're up to. At least half of them will be at companies
that are hiring. This is your shortest path to the job you want.

------
koolba
Lie.

Specifically to get your foot in the door enough that they'll hear you out. If
you're truly experienced and capable of picking things up quickly, it shows in
an interview (at least when I'm the one doing the interviewing).

~~~
mathgeek
Unless you're a true gambler, better to omit than to mislead.

------
Retric
Nobody really cares the number of actual years you have just how well you know
something.

In terms of not lying on your resume. Side projects/join a company/team that
uses both your stack and what you want to use. Remember, your new company does
not actually know how specifically you spent your time at your previous jobs.
Was it 50/50 or 95%/5%.

Remember you can learn things a lot faster than n-years experience. So, spread
that out over a few years and you do have n-years experience.

------
khitchdee
Take a pay cut and start on their stack at a junior position. With your
experience, you should quickly be able to ramp back up to your own grade/pay
level on that stack. Be upfront about your plans. There are companies where
your manager can retroactively increase your grade/pay level based on a
performance review. This way you are betting on your own abilities while
reducing risk for the hiring manager.

------
jorgemf
What do you mean to pivot you career? It is not the same moving from front end
development to backend development than from front end to data scientist. If
the pivot is "highly overlaped" you can try to pivot in your own company, as
it probably does both things. If it is something where your past experience
means nothing then you will have to start from scratch for the new career. But
probably you will progress faster because the way of thinking to solve
problems helps a little. Also the experience dealing with people helps, as it
is not the same to be a young developer who is eager to eat the world and
probably highly unaware of his own skills than someone who knows the limit and
how a company works.

When I did a small pivot in my career I basically had to start from scratch.
So I sit by myself and start working on a project learning what I wanted to
work for. Once I was a bit comfortable I apply to mid-level and junior
positions.

~~~
milofeynman
I'm at a small, dying startup doing Xamarin mobile development and I'm looking
to pivot out of xamarin/mobile and into web and data. I am learning online and
doing a side project on github, but I don't have experience making this kind
of transition. I've thrown on an infrequent job application not expecting much
and gotten 0 responses. So I am curious what others who have made that sort of
transition do to get noticed. My previous job I found through a local meetup,
but it was a framework/language I was familiar with so they wanted/needed me
badly.

~~~
jorgemf
Moving to web should be easier than data. When you do mobile development you
do a little of front end and back end (I was Android developer before).
Learning a high demanded framework would help in your case. Data will take
more time but you can do it if you start as a data engineer developing the
data pipeline. But in this case you probably should aim to bigger companies
and be hired would be more difficult without experience. For web a small
startup will be fine.

~~~
milofeynman
Thanks. Yeah data is a much steeper climb. I am going the web route(I have
some experience here already) and will look for a company that does data as
well, that way I can learn and get started a little easier.

------
TheMagicHorsey
I would just demonstrate that you can pick up a new stack easily by putting up
some code on Github that uses the stack. It's not a perfect solution, but we
have hired people before with no work experience in the stack we were using,
but with Github code to prove they were comfortable with the tools.

------
eugenoprea
I am going to write this from the perspective of a potential employer.

Personally, I don't look at the years of experience someone has, but at the
projects that the person worked on and how good that person is at answering
some technical questions (to weed out people that lie about their experience
and knowledge).

If you are good at what you do, then have some projects to show your
expertise. And there are a few options to get them:

1\. help a non-profit for a lower pay or even for free 2\. contribute to open
source projects 3\. create a project of your own where you can show what you
can do

> What did you do to get a response back from jobs you've submitted an
> application to?

When applying don't talk about years of experience, but about what projects
you completed and how you managed to get them done.

~~~
kbart
_" 1\. help a non-profit for a lower pay or even for free 2. contribute to
open source projects 3. create a project of your own where you can show what
you can do"_

What's wrong with projects from previous full-time jobs? My most complex and
interesting projects were done during paid hours and since I usually was the
only person working on these projects, I can proudly call them "mine", despite
being owned by an employer. From the perspective of an employee, if you
_demanded_ to have non-paid projects I would thank you for an interview and
say "goodbye", even though I have some of these.

------
zn44
If possible you can try to find company that uses both stack you have
experience with and stack you want to learn. Apply for position with stack you
know and let them know you want to help and learn in different areas. That
worked for me when moving from mobile to backend.

------
ChuckMcM
When I hear this kind of comment I wonder about the mention of "junior" and
"senior".

If I may suggest that the title 'junior' or 'senior' is artificial and
generally unhelpful in the sort of quest you are on. If that sounds harsh I
apologize, when I see development resumes I don't see "levels" I see strengths
and weaknesses.

A developer that can pick up a frame work quickly and be productive in it is
"strong", one who continually re-factors the problem so that they can re-use
the framework they already know is "weak." A developer who can discuss the
trade-offs between multiple frameworks in terms of solving the needs of
performance, manageability, or resource usage is "strong", one who only knows
the trade-offs and pitfalls of the framework they are most familiar with is
"weak." Developers who are working on improving their understanding and craft
are "strong", developers who are don't understand why their particular
framework does something the way it does are "weak."

That is a lot of admittedly contrived examples but I hope they illustrate the
kind of developer I look for when I'm hiring. If you have 10 years writing
code I want to see a wide understanding of a lot of different systems, if you
have 2 years writing code I want to see you understand the key design elements
of the systems you are using, and have some idea of why those design decisions
were made. It is the difference between being able to code, and code fluency.

So to answer your question, if someone wants "years of experience in a stack"
then they may be using that as a filtering mechanism to get rid of people who
are unsure of their abilities. I remember reading advertisements in 1998 for
people with "5 years experience in Java" when Java had really only been
released (early alphas in 1995). I wondered if they were just trying to hire
folks who were part of the original team (which went back to 1991 :-). Talking
to recruiters though, they were really looking for people who were so excited
about Java that they had done an in depth dive on their own. Perhaps you are
seeing something similar.

My advice to you is to lead with your strengths. If you have examples that
demonstrate those strengths or projects which demonstrated them put them in
too. Be honest with yourself about your weaknesses and think about ways to you
can eliminate them. Be the strongest developer you can be and always work one
ways to develop additional strengths. The rest has, in my experience, taken
care of itself.

------
tastyham
Pick a new stack. If the technology has only been around a year, then everyone
is a senior.

------
groby_b
Nope. If you're a senior developer, you're a senior developer. You've
developed the _thinking skills_ you need for that level. Places that need very
deep experience in a very specific technology are quite rare.

One of the skills you have as a senior dev is that you can come quickly up to
speed on a new stack in whatever your field is. You understand the underlying
problems, learning the new incantation to make things work is comparatively
trivial.

Note: If you entirely switch fields this does not necessarily apply.

------
FennNaten
Everything depends on your experience, but in my opinion, companies that would
only hire based on tech stack aren't worth working for anyway. And marketing
yourself on your stack is a bad idea. Ask yourself, what kind of problems are
you able to solve? Which domain do you know? When you find the answer, sell
that. If you know really well how to solve some issues, you can solve them in
any language. And you're not paid for the code you produce, but for the
problems your code solves.

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thiggy
There are companies like the one I work for that are willing to hire
experienced engineers and then train them on their chosen technical stack. The
job engineering descriptions on the Rover.com career page include "Rover’s web
app is written in Python and built on the Django framework. Nevertheless, we
are willing to train people in Python and Django, so first and foremost are
looking for good engineers who are eager to learn."

~~~
scottporad
I think there's another aspect...which is that there is the job and the tools
to do the job. The framework is the tools...the job is, in Rover's case,
building a web site.

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eli
A lot of the time "Requires 2 years experience with foo" is just another way
of saying "we want someone with intermediate-level knowledge of foo." If you
can demonstrate you have that equivalent ability with e.g. a side project on
github, that's probably fine.

In general, don't take job d requirements too literally. Research the job &
the company and write a nice cover letter and I think you'd do fine. Worst
case you don't get the job.

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s3nnyy
What is your problem? Firms not following up or what? If yes, the reason might
be that HR is overworked and you should just follow up every 5 days or so to
see how far they are with your application.

I run coderfit.com, a niche tech recruiting agency in Zurich, Switzerland. If
you look for Bay Area salaries in Europe, shoot me a mail!

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jondubois
If you feel confident with a new stack because you've used many other similar
stacks in the past, you should just lie and tell the recruiter that you have 6
months or 1 year of experience with it. Recruiters don't want to hear about
messy reality - So if you're qualified for the work but not experienced, lie.

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kangnkodos
Yes. Apply to junior roles, even though you were senior in the other stack.

Any fancy wording will not hide the fact that you do not yet have work
experience in the new stack. In fact, you should make your situation clear, to
save you and employers time and effort. The sooner you find out you are not a
match, the better. That's probably what has been happening. The companies you
have been applying to are probably looking for specific experience, and you do
not qualify. So they do not reply at all. Each non-response brings you one
step closer to finding a match. You know another company which is not right
for you right now.

Recruiters are paid by the company to bring in people with specific
experience. With no work experience in a specific stack, recruiters are
probably not the way for you to grab the bottom rung of the ladder.

You have to talk to people. Lots of people. Ask each one, " Do you know one
company which is currently hiring junior people with little or no experience
in a specific stack?"

Look for a company which WANTS a junior programmer with little or no
experience in a specific stack. They are much harder to find, but they are out
there. It's not easy, but it's possible.

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robot
Great question. One way is to learn abstract skills such as managing others
and finding and executing the critical path to a solution.

If you have these skills you can apply them to different software stacks or
technical problems. A high-level and decent understanding of the subject is
sufficient.

Steve Jobs had no expertise building computers.

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jimjimjim
"Number of years required" are pointless meaningless values.

prove that you have experience with a topic rather than years.

build a portfolio of _working_ stuff.

or

skunkworks something at a current job and if it is successful use that as a
selling point in your resume.

and don't use the word pivot. ever.

~~~
WalterSear
IME, everyone advises portfolios, but nobody looks at them.

~~~
jimjimjim
i do.

~~~
WalterSear
I will use you as an excuse to keep working on my portfolio when I should
really be whiteboarding out fizzbuzz minesweeper in O(logN) time right now.

~~~
jimjimjim
glad i could help

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heedlessly2
side projects are just seen as simple toys from employers.

I instead started a software dev side-company that specializes in minimum
viable products for very early-stage entrepreneurs. I fish around Linkedin for
clients who pay me anywhere between $1000 and $3000 (i honestly just eyeball
the amount). For the most part, I pick the stack or look for clients who want
a specific technology so i can learn it. This counts as professional
experience since I got paid for it.

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AlexCoventry
> What did you do to get a response back from jobs you've submitted an
> application to?

This is a seller's market. How much trouble are you having getting responses
back?

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seanwilson
Fundamentals and related experience are more important than highly specific
stacks that you can learn in a few weeks.

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1ba9115454
Choose a very new stack where no-one has a lot of experience.

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saifur25
This is a good idea. Carry on. You will be able to do.

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simonhughes22
At dice.com we just released a free career path tool that shows you possible
transitions from your current role based on our years of profile data in the
tech sector. It will also show you what skills are typically required in each
role. Hopefully this can help you explore some options while you decide how
you want pivot - url [https://www.dice.com/career-
paths](https://www.dice.com/career-paths)

~~~
renaudg
Small bug on your site : the "years of experience" field doesn't work on non-
US keyboard layouts that don't have numbers on the top keyboard row. It's a
quite common (and annoying) issue on US sites for us europeans.

