When responding to a comment that asserts your writing is not strong you'd want to read, re-read, and re-re-read your reply to ensure it is well written. You seem to have not done that, which lends credence to the parent's comment.

My take is you seem to have an inflated sense of your abilities. I've interviewed people who share this trait and it's a turn off unless they have a portfolio of work to back it up.

Perhaps try taking a more humble approach. Ask lots of questions as to what/where they need help. If they align with your experience then share concrete examples of how you've helped others in those same situations. If you haven't, make note of the challenges and see if you can identify patterns across interviews. This would provide hints as to what skill-building you could focus on in the interim.

Good luck!

Good point, but snakedoctor did set this in motion by asking for candid feedback. Ostensibly, he wants to receive and integrate feedback. Seems like the sort of thing a smart kid would aim for. Part of me feels like in a decade people will reference this thread in the same way we reference the shellacking of Dropbox back in the day. It takes a cosmic-sized ego to ask HN to give you advice about why no company will accept that your cosmic-sized ego is justified. But what if the kid is right in his self-evaluation, but has enough self-awareness to critically question his self-evaluation and ask others to do the same? That’s kind of a powerful combination.

Or maybe he just kills himself because he's close to being homeless already and a few hundred assholes just told him that he's a hopeless, narcissistic, uneducated "creep"?

Snakedoctor, I think this whole thread says a lot more about Hacker News and its penchant for armchair psychology and condescension than it does about you and your future prospects.

There's a few helpful posts here... take what you can and go out and seize the day! I am routing for you.

It’s actually kind of impressive to me that so many people want to try and help though. Even if their judgment and advice is wrong (which is likely due to the fact that we really know nothing about this guy), it still gives me a little bit of hope in humanity that people care about some random stranger they’ve never met. Most responses seem genuine rather than self-serving,

It's crazy how many people are unable to give constructive feedback on Hackernews.

It's also crazy how many HN users think calling this guy a sociopath is constructive feedback.

Thank you! My point exactly. This is ugly as hell. So many brilliant developers and tech minds congregating to judge someone going through a sad time in their life based on an emotional post to some web forum.

Calm down, I know plenty of talented developers at FAANGxyz companies who are less articulate and have weaker writing skills compared to OP (at least in the post you're replying to, I do agree the original post was a bit off, but clearly it was written in some type of emotional state.. you know with his calling himself unhirable and all.)

It seems that a lot of people replying here never understood the phrase "don't just a book by its cover". So many people are opining about OPs character in definite, and it's just unpleasant to witness. Sure, the whole calling VPs directly thing is a bad idea, and definitely inappropriate, but I can understand someone feeling like they're doing the right thing to advocate for an issue they see to be impactful. I wish I could CC this to all the people postulating OPs universal lack of empathy. I agree that he could benefit from therapy, because honestly we all can benefit from therapy; but all the posts implying he needs to be medicated or psychoanalyzed are reprehensible. I see someone who is upset with where they are, so they wrote a post conveying that in a slightly conceited way, yet so many talented minds in the field of tech are coming to this post to say that he has delusions of grandeur.

He is the book, and this post along with the comments he's making are the cover. You can give advice on what's presented without insulting his character.

Gentle tip: writing "shouldn't of" instead "shouldn't have" is one of those critical writing misteaks one should never make when communicating with educated people. Some others worth special effort to do correctly:

1. their there they're

2. its it's

3. your you're

A couple other writing tips:

1. don't terminate sentences with .. or ...

2. "bosses" is plural, I think you meant "boss's" for the possessive

I know it sounds elitist, and it is, but with these kinds of mistakes their going to relegate you to the "not one of us" bin when looking for a well paying job.

It's well worth the effort to purge them from you're writing.

> writing "shouldn't of" instead "shouldn't have"

For me personally, this is the #1 bugbear of writing mistakes. I'm willing to tolerate most of the other failures (especially when they're exceptionally rare), especially because several of them can crop up when you decide to change the sentence between initial mental conception and committing to paper or keyboard.

> I know it sounds elitist, and it is, but with these kinds of mistakes their going to relegate you to the "not one of us" bin when looking for a well paying job.

It's not so much the "not one of us" bin as it is a sense of "you clearly can't put in the effort, so why should we?" It's for similar reasons that you are advised to dress up for interviews.

The irony of correcting others when you yourself have several writing mistakes.

I shall have myself flagellated.

As is tradition on HN

Your right... I'm checking to see if he accidently out any words... two bad, I didn't notice any. (also... whoosh!)

There's no irony. Everybody makes mistakes.

All I can say is: whoosh!

> misteaks

Har har.

> 1. don't terminate sentences with .. or ...

Why not? 'Do you prefer C or Rust?' 'Would you like paper or plastic?' Perhaps I misunderstand.

Not sure where you got the question marks from, but he's talking about ellipses (two or three periods in a row, like '...'). It's actually a stylistic choice and there's nothing inherently wrong with using it, but it is generally considered unprofessional and overuse is extremely annoying for readers.

I misunderstood what the GGP was referring to. As far as I know, ending a sentence with ellipses is considered improper English except for some special cases.

their going

There a couple others, two.

It's interesting how focused you are on proving yourself right (I'll send you a college email etc).

And that seems to be the case with going over your bosses head ("I went above my bosses head because they did not remedy the issue, and weren't going to.")

Being right is great! But having a job is also great. Perhaps focus less on proving yourself right, and more on getting along with people?

Edit: reading further in the thread it sounds like you went over your bosses head 2 weeks into a job? That's really not a great idea.

It's a really tough lesson to learn but this is absolutely true: It is not enough to be right, you must also have credibility. You usually have to accept other people being wrong about things you're right about in order to build credibility.

> You usually have to accept other people being wrong about things you're right about in order to build credibility.

I don’t think this is the correct way to look at it. Rather than accepting other people being wrong, you should be very open to the possibility that it’s you who is wrong. Always doubt your own assumptions, and be willing to change your stance when new information comes to light.

I think my quote would be better if it said "often" or "sometimes" instead of "usually". But no, I disagree with your point here, I mean, that's true too, but it's not what I was talking about. I'm saying that in order to build up a lot of credibility, you have to be right, tell people the right thing, but actually not fight them when they disagree and go a different way. If you were actually right and they were actually wrong, they will know and remember and trust you more in the future. Doing variations of this for a long time in view of a lot of people is one of the places credibility comes from. But you actually do need to pick fewer battles and let more wrong decisions go, even when you are actually right. That's part of the lesson that has to be learned when you don't have the power. It isn't enough to be right, you have to be trusted by the people who make decisions, and for that you have to build credibility.

I think you absolutely need to be open to being wrong about things.

But that's independent to building enough credibility to be able to speak truth to power.

I can only speak to infosec roles. If that's the route you want to go I think you'll be fine once your experience and skills catch up with your demeanor and confidence. It sounds like you can be a bit of an asshole and create messes for your management, which is morally ambivalent but can interfere with your ability to collect income.

I'd recommend aiming a little lower and a little smaller in the jobs you're applying for. Maybe try entry level spot at a regional bank/hospital/edu and in the interim working on skilling up in more tangible ways (e.g. bug bounties, GitHub projects and it never hurts to pick up a specialty). You have no degree so think of this as a 2-3 year plan to substitute it with experience before going for what you're after.

Good luck dude. You've got some very valuable raw materials, they just need refined a bit and you'll be a beast!

You seem driven and interested which is good. Keep contributing to open source and you'll probably land something. I still think you need to rethink your strategy though.

Re: going over your bosses head: Where is your sense of self preservation? Also, why do you think nobody else will do their job?

Is the fraud system YOUR problem? Then do your due diligence, mark it as someone elses problem, and let it ride.

You gotta suck up to your boss a bit. Going over their head is provoking them!

> Not to be argumentative. But yes, I did attend college.

Your claim may be technically correct. I am willing to believe you did attend a college for some period of time. However, it is nonresponsive. GP was claiming that your writing does not reflect the skills in writing that you are expected to develop as a college attendee. This is understandable; dropping out during/after freshmen year does not give your writing time to progress.

I care about your education because of what you learned, not because your acceptance is an excellent proxy for your SAT scores. (This is the same reason that your short stint as an IBM developer means less than you seem to believe it does.)

It's not the argumentative nature of your post that would be a red flag to me, it is the complete misunderstanding of the issue being raised.

Having some code on Github is helpful when looking for a job.

I see the problem. Most entry level programming jobs today either require a college degree, or they're for very low level web programming. Now, if you're competent at making basic web sites and the front end or back end of a business application, that's a saleable skill. Although one that several million other people already have. Also realize that about half the job is figuring out what the customer (your boss, probably) really wants.

If you hung around a research environment, and you know a little programming, did some soldering, and know which end of a capacitor is positive, but didn't go to college, that's not really a saleable skill set any more. In 1980 it sometimes was.

Useful reading: https://daedtech.com/programming-job-without-degree/

The problem now is that you likely can't use either of those managers that you went over the heads of as references for future jobs (they may not say nice things).

Not trying to argue either. Contributing to an open-source project is a very different kind of activity from being a member of a team at a company. Programming is only half the job.

Hi Snakedoctor. I've been quite fascinated by this thread. I have a small piece of feedback for you, as someone who's interviewed about 200-300 engineers over my career I've talked to a lot of people and feel like I have at least something of value to add.

I hope you're not offering these sorts of hyperbolic "proofs" of your competency to your interviewers, like you've done here. I've seen a few comments from you like this. Anyone who feels the need to go that far out of their way to prove how smart they are... probably aren't as smart as they think they are. It also does come off as narcissistic.

I get that you have accomplished some cool things in your career so far, but you have to let people evaluate those accomplishments for themselves. They may be very impressive to you, but might not make the slightest difference in the context of the role you're applying for. If people ask about them, be ready to tell. If they don't ask, don't go out of your way to point them out, they're not pertinent to the role. They're on your CV, that's enough.

You do a lot of pointing these accomplishments out (I worked for IBM / I contribute to GNU / I went to college / I got this and that job), but... here you are. Unemployed. Which only leaves two possible explanations; You're either not being forthcoming about your accomplishments (exaggerating them or simply lying), or there's something else, something very negative that means that despite your achievements, you still can't hold a job.

So, you have to be brutally honest with yourself and ask yourself; What is that thing? Only you can answer that question.

Finally, I want to give you a reality check on those accomplishments. They might not be as large as you think. Big, noteworthy accomplishments take years to complete. Completing a masters degree, getting a PhD, working up to a senior position in a company, learning a language, raising a child, building a house. It sounds like most of your achievements did not require the investment of time, but rather are trophies to commemorate your greatness. Companies want people who persevere, and get stuff done, and stick with it. The type of accomplishments you've mentioned show none of that, and your career progression shows the complete opposite.

I hope you make something constructive out of my comments, and use them to improve your approach to interview. In short, I'd recommend a more humble approach, apply for a role suitable to your level, don't try to outsmart the interviewer, or your co-workers when you get hired, and fulfill the job you've been assigned, not the one you wish you had. So no level-jumping over your bosses to make smart comments; that won't help you... I speak from experience, and it took me a long time to understand that a good employee is just someone who makes their managers life easier, by completing their tasks and making sure stuff gets done.

What a great reply, needs to be higher up.

Out of curiosity, how would you view a younger candidate (myself) who dropped out of a similar T40 school junior year with a boatload of personal projects / companies under his belt?

I've had some success, and reached quite a few people, but I'm realizing I may need to settle down at a company sometime soon. I don't want to look unhirable (like OP, in my opinion) but just someone whose genuinely burned out of really trying to make a startup work, and is now ready to settle down in a junior position, and has the ability to do so. Thanks!

It's tough to read too much into this single paragraph. I think the key is why you dropped out of school. You need to have a narrative.

1. "I had some promising personal projects, so I quit during my 3rd year of school to launch one of them. I did {X,Y,Z} but ultimately couldn't turn the corner to profitability so I shut down / failed spectacularly. Now it's time to get my feet under me and learn proper engineering for a few years before I try again." --> This is a good story, but needs to be backed up by data regarding your startup failure.

OR

2. "I was tired of school and quit. I had a bunch of personal projects going and hoped to start one of them into a company but none of them really went anywhere." --> This is a bad story. If this is your situation, you may need to suck it up and go back to school to finish your degree. Otherwise you'll need to be incredibly honest with the interviewer about why dropping out was a bad decision.

OR

3. "I had to drop out of school for <personal reasons>. I've done a bunch of personal projects, so I have the passion and basic technical competence to succeed. I'd like to eventually finish my degree someday." (<--Note: doesn't matter if this is really true) "My focus now is to really engage somewhere for a few years to prove my worth and learn from other smart people." --> Another good story. Shows humility.

Your biggest risk here will be overplaying your past projects. From a Hiring Manager perspective they're interesting technical toys like a university project, but since they didn't go anywhere they don't mean that much. Not fair, but true. Also: stay FAR AWAY from the word "burnout", because this telegraphs "I have issues and won't be able to do my job."

Communicating that you made a mistake and now want to learn in a better environment for a few years helps de-risk you to the hiring manager and shows good self-awareness.

Ah thanks for the reply, and yeah that makes sense. I don't believe it was a mistake as of now, but let me tell my story a bit better:

I got funded by Tyler Cowen / Peter Thiel @ EV and some angels for my first real company (can't link here), and while it wasn't required, I was making quite a bit of money so I left school. (I had a 3.98 my first 2 years in dual Comp Sci / Physics before, so I left with a 3.35 GPA after tanking junior year due to the company)

The unit metrics didn't end up working out, so i've been working on various products since with ~10k users on my previous one. (On my profile, if you care) It's a social app without huge growth though, so i'm not optimistic.

I have one more company i'm building with a friend now in a regulated space before I start recruiting. If this doesn't work out, I need to focus my energy on recruiting for a space i'm passionate about. I've built and launched over 20 websites and IOS / Android apps, and i'm the fastest React / React Native developer I know.

Would that sound batshit insane to recruiters, or someone perhaps worth picking up? I've also done a SE internship at a F400, tutored Engineering Physics, and done some freelancing w/ a 5.00 rating on Upwork if that matters. Thanks.

Ok cool. With this write-up, you de-risked one area and added risk in a second area.

GOOD: High GPA, got funded, ambitious, quit school for valid and rational reasons. I'm excited to hire you.

BAD: Startup didn't work, I worked on some other ones, trying one more time before I get a normal job. Now I'm concerned that (a) you think you're hot shiz and won't accept an entry-level dev role and/or won't be willing to put the effort into that role, or (b) you think you're mid-level but can't pass the hiring bar due to team (not technical) deficiencies, or (c) you'll be awesome but bounce out to a new adventure in ~9 months.

I don't know you, and it's quite possible that you're brilliant with a steep growth curve and huge upside potential. And it's possible (maybe even likely!) that you'll be unhappy in any job and just need to keep pursuing your own thing. Awesome. But if you want a "normal job" I recommend shifting your approach slightly:

Remember that a hiring manager wants a person who can (1) do the job, (2) not cause problems, (3) stick around. You've got #1 nailed, #2 is an open question, and #3 is a big risk in my mind. So I'd suggest starting by making a personal choice regarding your next career stage and then actively believing and selling that vision. So if you decide that you want to work for a while, figure out what you want to get out of that time and push that narrative. Example:

"I got funded by... <rest of your credentials here>. I tried a few other ventures but failed to get traction. I've decided that for my next career stage, I need to spend some time working with other more experienced engineers to learn {large scale engineering, team dynamics, product prioritization, leadership, etc etc whatever}." --> With this narrative you're a very attractive candidate. A good manager will know that you're not signing on forever, but will throw challenging projects your way in the hopes that rapid growth will convince you to stick around for 2-3 years.

Note that your history of scrappy risk-taking will probably play better at smaller earlier stage companies.

Thank you so much for this reply. This is very helpful, I really appreciate it.

Just a suggestion, complete your degree even if it takes you years to do so. Consider continuing to take classes. I worked early in my 20s was doing undergrad simultaneously. It became exhausting and also wanted to have a free social life. I started making enough money and didn't feel the degree was actively helping me at the time. I'm glad I took the break I did, I think I needed it. Then I continued after a two years break and competed the degree p/t in the course of the next few years. Interesting CS courses and the slower volume made it for an even greater experience, I could enjoy taking 2 classes a semester while having a social life too. The college diploma may seem like a dead weight as it's not a bid deal as Undergrad education is not what it used to be but it is a clear differentiator in obtaining a job, if you and a potential candidate have similar skills, the one with the degree would get an advantage. Good luck!

Sir, an inquiring mind wants to know: have you ever hired anyone who had more noteworthy accomplishments than yourself? And what have your hires gone on to do? Do they excel in life or in just making their managers life easier?

There's a pretty good behavioral / soft skills interview question hanging out in your post:

"Think of a scenario where you find a security vulnerability [or crasher bug, or whatever], and you don't think it is being taken as seriously as it should be. How would you handle this situaton?"

There are a lot of good ways to approach this, but "escalate it to the SVP" is rarely one of them.