| As a hiring manager at a startup-ish SaaS company: I love seeing side projects, both because - it shows you have entrepreneurial skills (care about and able to think about more than just code) - as well as the technical side (shows you’re able to build from scratch, probably work across the stack, etc.) Show off as much as you can: - leave the websites up even if the business isn’t viable. Better to be able to see and play with a side project versus just seeing a line on a resume and having no idea how significant or good it was. - open source what you can. It can be very helpful to point to code from real projects you wrote, especially if you have a gap in employment. Try to foster great references. Even if they aren’t recent, you will do better if you have a few raving fans. Unless you had a lot of management experience, I suggest trying to find a job as an IC. More open roles / people seem more desperate for developers. If you’re good, it won’t matter much if you have a gap. Personally I prefer to hire ICs who have a little management experience because they tend to be better employees as well as are more likely to be someone who can eventually lead/manage with us as well. Overall: the biggest thing is you want to show that you have been doing good technical work over the last few years versus just some unemployable person who had “projects”. I’m hiring frontend/React and backend/Python engineers: phil@close.com |