bendixso

I say meh to all of this. You're better off taking that extra time and spending it on side projects and side businesses that will give you independence from your current company.

When you take taxes into consideration, the promotions don't really add up to that much. You're just adding to your yearly income, which tends to get taxed quite heavily anyway. You need to find a way to take your effort and put it into something that doesn't get taxed as much as regular income does.

I would be more interested in building passive sources of income that don't rely so much on my being present to bring in the money.

I also generally don't like the idea of someone else telling me what my contributions are worth. By putting in all those extra hours, you're basically pinning all of your hopes on someone else's judgment. If they like you, then maybe you'll get that extra money.

But what if they don't? What if they're just some sociopath who couldn't give a rip about your career goals? In my experience, that's been the case more often that not.

It would take one hell of a leader to convince me it's worth putting in all those extra hours. I would basically need assurance from the very beginning that I would be getting a bigger cut of the pie.

I'm not sure I get what all the cynicism is about. Github can be really helpful for figuring out where someone's strengths lie.

If they are really proud of what they've done, I would want to look at a few sample projects.

If they can explain clearly what their code does, I might even forego a code test. After all, if you aren't paying for the test, you're just wasting their time. There are lots of candidates who won't do an unpaid code test because the subject matter is usually really boring, and they would rather work on something meaningful.

I suppose anything can be faked, so I would be asking myself if their story matches what's on the Github profile. If it doesn't, then what you're seeing is probably fake. If it does, you can use it as a springboard to ask more questions.

Totally feeling the same frustration here. The only projects I have worked on that have stood the test of time are my own side projects.

This has led me to conclude that most forms of employment in the software industry will leave you with little to speak for. You have to create your own thing if you want to make an impact.

Early on in my career, I released a somewhat successful iOS app for skateboarders. It was really cool seeing monthly revenue come in, even if it was only a few hundred dollars.

I basically want that same feeling times 20, so I'm getting enough to live on from my own products.

I also want to work on projects where I either have full creative control or get to work with great designers who I mostly agree with.

I want the financial comfort to confidently say 'no' to every bad idea I hear.

2.5 years is a long time to be working on something with no tangible result that is bringing in money. Of course, I don't know what sort of product you're working on, but it is possible that you've simply picked something that will take too many man-hours to build for the size of your team.

I've launched my own products before, and they're usually something I can finish in 2-3 months working full-time with a part-time designer. If you only have weekends and holidays, even one of those could take as much as a year, if not more.

The only thing that is going to get you excited again is to get some tangible result from your work. Try to simplify the product down to a small prototype you can test on your target market. It doesn't even need to be an app. It could be an Invision or a 'fake' app that shows the navigation and what your app could do.

Get some people together and show them your prototype. Get feedback. Improve upon it.

If they really like what you're doing, it might give you a sense that you're on the right track. You need shorter feedback cycles to get energized about these sorts of things. That's my experience, at least.

I'll add that it would feel as though I am acting in bad faith not notifying them about my uneasiness up front.

It's a 600 person company, and I interviewed with engineers as well as management for the project. They all knew in advance that they would be interviewing with me.

Once again, not a good sign. It means a few possibilities.

1.) They didn't think I was good enough, so they decided to keep the information secret.

2.) It wasn't really an interview but more of a screening. They wanted to see if I pass their smell test.

Gut feeling overall wasn't good. I'll have to go with that.

Interesting. This wasn't really sold to me as a contract but rather as a full-time employment situation. I think I might be willing to make that sort of compromise if I knew I had a chance to decompress after the six months are over and I'm on to the next thing.

And yeah, part-time software dev jobs seem to be increasingly rare these days. People either want your soul or they don't want anything to do with you. I would be totally happy working half as many hours at the same hourly rate with lower living expenses than working full-time or overtime with a high salary. We all have different priorities. I need my tinkering time.

Yeah, it just seems kind of odd being the one who is interviewed. They ask me if I have any questions, and the only question I can ask is "well what the hell will I be working on?" (obviously phrased in a much more diplomatic way).

I think a company like Apple could get away with this because their reputation in the space speaks for them, but this company hadn't ever launched a mobile app of any sort.

Perhaps the best thing in these sorts of interviews is to try and ask as many questions as I can so they have fewer chances to get information out of me.

Yeah, I get where you are coming from. We all have to eat.

I got the impression from them that they wanted more than 40 hrs a week from me, almost to the point of wanting to own me. One of the managers had a problem with me continuing to support my own apps after accepting the job.

For me, that's a pretty steep job requirement. You'd have to really convince me that what you're doing matters and that lives are literally at stake if I don't come join your company. Otherwise you're just being selfish in my view.

I told them I can't accept the job unless they give me more details, and you're right, there's a good chance they will show me the door.

But then I'm pretty sure that's a business I wouldn't want to work for anyway.