Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting jobs?

Re:Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting... by pjc50 on Monday January 23, 2017 @12:03PM (#13463635)

You need to get one of those two.

Which means getting the experience somehow. Unpaid work is one (expensive) way of doing it, but so is getting into a related position and working your way across. QA is potentially a good path for this: hired to do simple things without the degree requirement, move into test automation, move across into development. Then you have it on your CV.

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Re:Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting... by pmiller2 on Monday January 23, 2017 @01:06PM (#13464275)

It's actually pretty tough to go from QA to dev.

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Re:Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting... by strangetimes on Monday January 23, 2017 @03:04PM (#13465444)

Teach yourself test automation (Selenium, etc.). Shockingly few QAs know even the basics of scripting/programming.

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Re:Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting... by pmiller2 on Monday January 23, 2017 @06:01PM (#13467039)

It seems like that would be a ticket to a QA automation job, not a dev job. People say QA -> dev is a good way to get in, but I've seen very few people actually accomplish it.

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Re:Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting... by gregshap on Monday January 30, 2017 @11:22AM (#13522449)

I've seen it happen several times (my employer may be unusually prone to hiring jr devs as qa automation).

I agree that if you can hold out for a dev job, do that and save a year or two getting to the same place. If you really can't get a dev job and need the income, get a QA Automation job and start migrating early by asking to fix small bugs yourself, or work on the automation tooling.

At a smaller company, working on the build system and QA automation tooling might be more interesting and get more attention than what you would do as a jr software dev.

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Re:Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting... by user5994461 on Monday January 23, 2017 @03:17PM (#13465561)

Agree. Don't get into QA if you want to be a dev.

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Re:Ask HN: What sort of side-projects are useful for getting... by pjc50 on Monday January 23, 2017 @04:11PM (#13466077)

Yes, but it's also quite hard to get hired as a dev without either qualifications or experience. If you've got the qualifications you can go in directly.

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