This is a very unfortunate event,
On another topic, I shall reconsider using bus over train for my trips.
671 karma · joined January 29, 2017
On another topic, I shall reconsider using bus over train for my trips.
I'm aware how bad it fills to put your heart on filling an application for the perfect role just to get nothing back out of it.
Unfortunately, I can't offer a solution but want to share that you must keep going, this process must eventually pay off.
I'd encourage you to leverage your connections, reach out to any past manager/coworker, reach out to friends; referrals is the simplest way to land an interview.
Besides this, I'd suggest to try going over the monthly "Who wants to be hired?" posts, after referrals, that's how I landed most interviews.
Good luck.
More or less, I did:
- Avoid unnecessary work
- Don't boot more often than needed
- Parallelism in tests
- Caching rules
My post has an ongoing live survey with ~570 responses:
- 30% says 5-15m
- 26% says >30m
- 23% says 15-30m
- 13% says 2-5m
- 8% says <2m
It is insane.
Location: Spain
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: Prefer remote, open to travel and occasional onsite
Technologies: Scala, Java, Kotlin, Go, Python, Ruby, Rust, TypeScript/React, Postgres, AWS, GCP
Résumé: https://alexitc.com/resume
LLM-readable résumé: https://alexitc.com/llms.txt
Email: alexis+hn@alexitc.com
I use Claude Code daily on real production work, generate-and-review, and build my own AI tooling. If you want a fast read on whether I fit, paste my llms.txt into an LLM with your job description and ask where I match and where I don't. My site has an "Ask AI" button that does the same.
Available immediately and used to working on US timezones. US C-Corp for contracting.
Location: Spain
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: Scala, Java, Rust, Go, JavaScript/TypeScript, React, Ruby, AWS, Postgres
Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexis-hernandez
Email: alexis+hn@alexitc.com
AI is central to how I work now: I use it like a junior I delegate work to, but I always validate its output. I've also built AI tools and apps myself, so I know where these tools excel and where they quietly add risk.
I believe in using the right tool for each task. Strong infrastructure background (AWS, cloud-native, distributed systems).
I've attempted to bootstrap products myself so I understand what it takes beyond writing code. I take full ownership end to end, I don't wait to be told what needs solving.
Available immediately and used to working on US timezones. Open to senior IC or tech lead roles. US C-Corp for contracting.
GitHub: https://github.com/AlexITC
Latest tech talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJxEXAkxD3I
Testimonials: https://alexitc.com/testimonials/Market seems better than the last few years but it still does not feels right to me,
We have got multiple people reaching out but the majority of the roles are in-office or hybrid while I work fully remotely.
I posted on LinkedIn, with the help from friends I got quite a lot of visibility (most viral post I have ever had) but still, out of the ~10 recruiters that reached out, only 2 are remote roles, I also got a few offers to work for equity only.
I posted on the monthly "Who's wants to be hired?" thread, it has lead to a few offers to work for equity only + shady people that want me to attend calls and "delegate" the work to them while splitting the revenue.
I also got the people reaching out with promising offers with the intention of getting me to run their malware hidden in coding challenges + recruiters that magically have a role that hasn't been published yet but they use a gmail address, these ones just keep requesting more and more info like an Executive Summary.
I have also got a few referrals and even for these, they are moving slowly.
To put it in perspective, years before I'd easily get 10 recruiters in my inbox per week.
Market seems tough and I can't imagine what junior people are passing through while trying to get a job.
Location: Spain
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: Scala, Java, Rust, JavaScript/TypeScript, React, Ruby, AWS, Postgres
Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexis-hernandez
Email: alexis+hn@alexitc.com
I believe in using the right tool for each task. Strong infrastructure background (AWS, cloud-native, distributed systems). US C-Corp for contracting.
I've attempted to bootstrap products myself so I understand what it takes beyond writing code. I take full ownership end to end, I don't wait to be told what needs solving.
Immediate availability because my whole team was laid off recently, I'm used to work on US timezones. Open to senior IC or tech lead roles.
- GitHub: https://github.com/AlexITC
- Latest tech talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJxEXAkxD3I
- Testimonials: https://alexitc.com/testimonials/
P.S: I also have decent experience leveraging AI to speed up my work, not vibe coding but holding AI-hands like I'd typically do with junior devs. I also have built multiple AI integrations.
I was asked quickly about my experienced and he shared that I was a perfect fit, immediatelly I was asked for my github username, then, I was asked to share my screen, I ended the call to not waste more time but my guess is that I would be asked to do something with the project live.
I haven't dig into their malware approach (yet) but this pattern is too frequent to easily recognize it.
If you look at the post history, there were barely any "SEEKING FREELANCER" messages which is likely the reason why this auto-post was stopped.
Location: Spain
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: Scala, Java, Rust, JavaScript/TypeScript, React, Ruby, AWS, Postgres
Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexis-hernandez
Email: alexis+hn@alexitc.com
I believe in using the right tool for each task. Strong infrastructure background (AWS, cloud-native, distributed systems). US C-Corp for contracting.
I've attempted to bootstrap products myself so I understand what it takes beyond writing code. I take full ownership end to end, I don't wait to be told what needs solving.
Immediate availability because my whole team was laid off recently, I'm used to work on US timezones. Open to senior IC or tech lead roles.
- GitHub: https://github.com/AlexITC
- Latest tech talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJxEXAkxD3I
- Testimonials: https://alexitc.com/testimonials/
P.S: I also have decent experience leveraging AI to speed up my work, not vibe coding but holding AI-hands like I'd typically do with junior devs. I also have built multiple AI integrations.
For context, I'm running multiple agents and each of them is isolated with its own token.
Market seems better than the last few years but it still does not feels right to me,
We have got multiple people reaching out but the majority of the roles are in-office or hybrid while I work fully remotely.
I posted on LinkedIn, with the help from friends I got quite a lot of visibility (most viral post I have ever had) but still, out of the ~10 recruiters that reached out, only 2 are remote roles, I also got a few offers to work for equity only.
I posted on the monthly "Who's wants to be hired?" thread, it has lead to a few offers to work for equity only + shady people that want me to attend calls and "delegate" the work to them while splitting the revenue.
I have also got a few referrals and even for these, they are moving slowly.
To put it in perspective, years before I'd easily get 10 recruiters in my inbox per week,
Market seems tough and I can't imagine what junior people are passing through while trying to get a job.
EDIT: I forgot mentioning the people reaching out with promising offers and the intention of getting me to run their malware hidden in coding challenges.
Location: Spain
Remote: Yes
Willing to relocate: No
Technologies: Scala, Java, Rust, JavaScript/TypeScript, React, Ruby, AWS, Postgres
Résumé/CV: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexis-hernandez
Email: alexis+hn@alexitc.com
I believe in using the right tool for each task. Strong infrastructure background (AWS, cloud-native, distributed systems). US C-Corp for contracting.
I've attempted to bootstrap products myself so I understand what it takes beyond writing code. I take full ownership end to end, I don't wait to be told what needs solving.
Immediate availability because my whole team was laid off recently, I'm used to work on US timezones. Open to senior IC or tech lead roles.
- GitHub: https://github.com/AlexITC
- Latest tech talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJxEXAkxD3I
- Testimonials: https://alexitc.com/testimonials/
Getting started is the hardest part, like many are saying, its simpler when you can rely on your network.
Everything is about trust, by this, start reaching out to people who already trust you, there is a chance that this will get you either a project or a referral. Once you build a portfolio, you will keep getting these referrals.
In my case, I have got most of our contracts by sending cold emails, I have got a few customers through the "Who's looking for freelancers" posts + many others by just talking to people.
Lately, market is flooded with AI-generated stuff and fake job seekers which is causing people to distrust others, it seems harder to get contracts through cold outreach and the referrals we have got have done wonders.
In my own projects I have stayed the longest with Ansible, once the scripts are built, you can use them to deploy most web apps in the same way and stuff rarely breaks.
For websites I have switched away from ansible to simple shell-scripts ("npm run build && scp ..."), I have also done this for web apps but it starts getting a bit more complex when doing healthchecks/rollbacks.
In general, most of my work involes web apps and I start with this and grow from there:
- Monolith backend + Postgres + same language for backend and frontend with shared code.
- Small Linux server within a cloud with fixed pricing (like DigitalOcean) with backups enabled.
- When the project allows it, postgres is installed in the VM (backups help to recover data and keep the price small).
- Use nginx as the entrypoint to the app, this is very flexible once you are used to it, for example, you can do caching + rate limit with simple configuration.
- Use certbot to get the SSL certificate.
- Use systemd to keep the app running.
- A cheap monitoring service to keep pinging my app.
- Deploys are triggered from my computer unless it is justified to delegate this to the CI.
It's been a while since I have found Ansible to be too slow and I have been willing to complete building my with a general-purpose tool for deploying webapps this way but I have no idea if I'll be ever done with this.
Perhaps the most important project I used to run with this approach is a custom block-explorer API which indexed Bitcoin + a few other cryptocurrencies and it scaled well with a single-VM (nginx aggressive caching for immutable data helped a lot), this means that the postgres storage required more than 1TB.
Someone already mentioned zero days but let me elaborate a bit on what can happen when visiting a website:
- Without zero days involved, you are already disclosing digital information, ip address, browser fingerprint, precise location access could be granted with relaxed browser settings, etc.
- As a dev, you may have services running locally, let's say, postgres, web servers, etc. -sometimes we install stuff and forget about it- the malicious website could access these.
- It could try using your sessions for other websites.
- It can also interact with your browser extensions, many of these do not take precautions for this.
- It can also try using your hardware, camera, microphone, bluetooth, we now even have webusb.
- It can also try to use your CPU/network for cryptocurrency mining or attacking other servers, it could even use you as a proxy while you are on the website.
- With zerodays, it could do just anything.
Thanks for sharing!
Related to Python 2->3, I don't see how Scala 2->3 compares, there are clear migration guides + tools to help re-writing to switch between the new/old syntax, I have done many migrations and I have used these tools since the time when Scala 3 was launched (I admit that I reverted a migration at that time).
Thanks!
At this age, I think it is more important to keep them motivated and find ways to use their creativity than to get them through the pains of debugging and learning too many technical concepts, even simple details like learning about image formats, how to reference them, case-sensitiveness are just obstacles against meeting their goals.
I wrote quite a lot about my motivations a couple of days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41619733
I took the freedom to email you an api key to give it a try.
Good luck.