[justinlloyd]

I love to write code, I love to ship products and I love to build businesses.

But what I really love, what drives me, is solving interesting problems. That's my entire career. Solve interesting problems.

    "We're building a web2.0 exercise tracking..." No!
    "We're putting health records on the block..." Nein!
    "We're improving how people buy insuran..." Non!
    "We're creating a mobile app to submit expens..." Nee!
    "We're building a SaaS to improve cable modem analy..." Nie!


    "We're using computer vision to identify fossilized cat shit." Oh hell yes!

I've built websites and CRUD apps and mobile apps, out of necessity, but they are universally boring endeavours with little to give them any merit beyond a tiny sliver of an interesting problem. Most of the work that is out there is just grunt work that should be farmed out and then extensively code reviewed.

At meetups people ask me, "what do you do?"

And I respond, "Whatever the !@#$ I want to, it makes money, and everyone goes home happy."

I haven't worked a day in my life. I play, every day. And any time I've come close to discovering "it's just another job" I go and find something else to do.

My response on LinkedIn or AngelList when approached by business people and recruiters with their dreadful job opening is usually along the lines of "Thanks for making me aware of this opportunity. Sounds boring. Good luck in your continuing candidate search."

[carlmr]

>My response on LinkedIn or AngelList when approached by business people and recruiters with their dreadful job opening is usually along the lines of "Thanks for making me aware of this opportunity. Sounds boring. Good luck in your continuing candidate search."

Thank you, this is what I always think with these job adverts. It's almost impossible to think about anything less appealing than a list of technologies they require without any motivation why.

[Nextgrid]

The worst is when the company brags about their funding as if it makes any difference to me. If anything, it makes their shitty offer look even more shitty. If you're gonna brag about millions, you better offer me a decent cut.

[justinlloyd]

"This exciting start-up just raised two hundred million dollars. Are you interested in taking a 70% paycut to work for someone who would step over your corpse if they saw you drop a nickle?"

[riantogo]

I never respond to those emails, but after reading your comment I'm thinking maybe I should reply with, "what % of those X millions is being offered for this role?"

[TruthWillHurt]

That's pretty much the tech scene in London right there..

"We're creating a new way for super-rich people to access their swiss bank accounts!"

Yey...

[justinlloyd]

Recruiter: "We're doing <solved problem> to <extract money> from people by implementing <unnecessary subscription service> that attaches <internet stuff> to <something that doesn't need it>. Also, we'll have <creepy video technology> installed in people's homes for <nothing bad ever happened doing that>helping them live healthier, happier lives whilst partially clothed</nothing bad ever happened doing that>. We've raised <large amount of VC measured in hundreds of millions> that guarantees <anybody with equity is so diluted they'll never see a payout>, with that <equity on a stick dangled out in front, we think we can convince you to take a lower salary>."

Paraphrasing from a recent recruiter pitch.

[resonious]

This is a great post but allow me to be a little pedantic.

Your example of an interesting problem sounds more to me like an interesting solution. It's the computer vision that's fun, right? Or is it the cat shit?

[justinlloyd]

Interesting problems have interesting solutions. In my mind, it's rare that an interesting problem would have a run-of-the-mill solution, because if it did, you could hire a freelancer off Craigslist for $30 an hour. Interesting problems are rarely ones that can be solved with a Wordpress install, a few plugins, and a downloaded theme derived from Bootstrap.

Boring problems don't usually have interesting solutions. I mean, you could make the solution interesting, you could over-engineer it, or choose to solve it in a novel and unique way, but it is not often that you'll be given that opportunity. Un-interesting problems with un-interesting solutions usually get given to the lowest bidder.

I built a cat toy, it's a 42" LCD screen with a touch interface overlaid on top, and then wrote a "bot" that exhibits prey response and can be "caught" by the cat. Fun project, had to figure out how to do multiple toe bean rejection. And a whole bunch of other tech too.

Built a cat toy, it's a home built 3D printed robot arm, that has a plastic rod as the end effector, with a feather on it, that is radio controlled, and can be controlled via a 3D application running in a web browser.

I built a semi-autonomous, self-driving radio control car that can race a human controlled radio control car, and can also give the human operator a first person view, like a racing drone. It used various solutions from computer vision, low-latency video streaming, low-latency, long-range WiFi, and so forth.

I built a human controlled robot to clean the litter box, which then farms out the job to people on Mechanical Turk.

I built an app that helps you find the jigsaw puzzle piece you want when solving a jigsaw.

I built an app that can scan your Scrabble tiles and the Scrabble board, and tell you which word to play for the most value.

I built a number of bots and assist bots that play a popular MMORPG.

I built a dashboard for my home that tells me what the weather is like, where my cats are, where the family wallets are located, where I left my phone.

I built a resume website with a space invaders game embedded in it.

Plus there are hundreds of other projects. Each one interesting in their own way. But what I studiously do is avoid the CRUD apps that are solved problems.

Currently I am tinkering with a Star Trek Picard-like, flight deck transparent "holographic", curved display with head/eye tracking and touch interface. I am also building, as my day job, a computer vision solution that will do full body and face tracking for a new VR HMD.

But yeah, the cat shit was kinda interesting.

[tppiotrowski]

Web developer for many years. Lost interest in CRUD apps because they’re mostly the same architecture with different content.

I’ve been learning WebGL and using math more than I have since college. It’s very rewarding and what I feel my Computer Science degree prepared me for. I spend a lot of time outdoors and my project is a map simulation of terrain shadows. Every time I’m outdoors and my model lines up with physical reality, I have an almost spiritual moment of feeling like I can comprehend the universe. :)

[ambrozk]

How did you get into this? Did you learn the tech with a job in mind, or did you just learn the tech and then jobs started appearing?

[lynxaegon]

>"Thanks for making me aware of this opportunity. Sounds boring. Good luck in your continuing candidate search."

Well this made my day. I usually ignore recruiters since everytime i tried telling them that i'm looking for something else, they either keep insisting to have a call or they forget about me for a few days and then start sending the same things.

I think this will be my new response for recruiters :)

[justinlloyd]

Recruiters cannot hear the word "No."

The best way to get recruiters to stop responding is:

    Thank you for making me aware of this opportunity. Before I waste your time, I have a few quick questions that I'd like answered:

    Is this fully remote? Or on-site?

    And most importantly, what is the compensation range for this position?

Pretty much shuts down the conversation completely. Ghosting. So much ghosting. I'd say an awful lot of recruiters will view you as a "difficult candidate" or "too much work" the moment you start asking about compensation.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I've found that just telling them, up front, that I'm over 40, terminates the relationship almost immediately. They can't hang up, fast enough, and I never hear from them again.

[GameOfFrowns]

This is hilarious and depressing at the same time since, having turned 40 recently, I still hope to start a first career in software development in the near future.

[hLsvZHKd]

IMHO, there won't be a shortage of computer programmers for the next 20 years. I'm over 40 too and never experienced any issue with my grand old age. Since you seem interested by software development, I'll tell you the ultimate secret to working with computers: tutorials. That's it, there is no need to be a grand master at one specific piece of technology if you struggle with a simple script on an OS you have never worked with.

My secret is to learn and know "enough" about every OS, every language, every framework out there. Of course you're starting and you don't have either the time or experience to do everything, but do it anyway, slowly, one task at a time. Compare, study a bit, read, and have fun. Also, don't be scared, no one knows everything, you just need to know enough to be able to help (and learn at the same time).

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I wish you luck. It will be a challenge, but I love the field.

You may need to kick open a few doors. I probably could have done that, but I couldn't be arsed.

[acwan93]

I demanded a minimum compensation amount to a recruiter once at a FAANG company, something really outrageous even for FAANG. They ended up giving me non-answers saying that I still needed to interview and determine what my SWE level was going to be before they talk about compensation.

I stopped the conversation right there. That was a massive waste of time.

[justinlloyd]

We need to talk money going in, or someone is wasting my time.

    "Don't be showing up on the Ferrari dealership forecourt with a Honda budget in your pocket."

I don't generally deal with recruiters anymore. Haven't had a job through a recruiter in a long time. My last round of looking for a job (5+ months ago) I had an interview where I confirmed that the compensation would be satisfactory.

Did the interview, got an offer, and that offer was 70% less than what I was currently making. Turned the offer down.

When asked "why?" I responded "because you lied to me about the compensation. I have no interest in working for anyone that would immediately lie to me."

I will not talk to any company, and haven't for the past 15+ years, that cannot give me a very firm number in the first ten minutes. And I shut down the conversation immediately if they won't.

[acwan93]

I think up until recently I had a different mentality than what you're describing, where pay was second, but the type of work was more important. I always assumed that so long as I was satisfied with the projects, coworkers, and company/organization was something I could stand behind, pay and compensation would follow.

As I got older and more "adult" responsibilities started coming (mortgage, family planning), economic security became much more of a priority. More conventional things I learned about employee retention and organizational behavior started to make more sense where pay and time off were huge motivational factors. It's okay to be motivated by money.

[justinlloyd]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I have worked on interesting things with entrepreneurs, without pay, for months at a time. Or even asked for a certain amount, and then never took any money. And I have also worked on interesting problems for far less than what even a mid-level engineer could earn at a decent company.

It isn't always about the pay, but it is often about weeding out the people who would take advantage. There is cheap, and there is poor, and for some parts of my career I have confused the two.

Much like I won't pay for something just because it is expensive, but I will often pay for the more expensive option rather than the cheaper one. Expensive doesn't always mean good, but it is a differentiator and a signalling mechanism.

I use compensation as a litmus test to determine if someone is trying to take advantage of me. If the company is trying to low-ball me, that means to me, not that they are financially cheap (though some are, and you can smell them from as far away as the dog's dinner from two nights ago), but that they believe me to be naive and exploitable. I might be an immigrant, but it doesn't mean that I stepped off the boat yesterday.

Out of all the benefits and bonuses and culture that a company has, all of which can be taken away or changed in an eye blink (Activision's purchase of Blizzard for instance) for a variety of reasons, base compensation is exceptionally hard to hand wave away. Companies that don't pay well usually have crap culture, lousy benefits and work-life balance that truly sucks. Again, for me, compensation is a signalling mechanism.

[arubania]

Did they confirm the offer _during_ your interview?

If yes, then it was a dick move and you definitely dodged a bullet.

I'm asking because I know of some cases where the salary range was listed in the job posting, but after talking to the candidate, the company decided to offer them a number that was below the lower bound, saying that the level of the candidate not enough compared to what they had in mind when they were posting the job.

[justinlloyd]

I confirmed the compensation range via email directly with the hiring manager at the company and again with HR during the initial pitch screening call. "That won't be a problem." was the response. I don't work with 3rd-party or external recruiters so it most definitely wasn't any confusion there.

Now, they might have thought "this guy isn't worth $X, let's offer him $Y" instead, but offering an exceptionally senior candidate $100K is one hell of a "we don't think you're worth it" snub. It's insulting.

[mrfusion]

I’m sold. How do I achieve this?

[loonster]

Many ways to do it * Become really good at something * Live a modest lifestyle * Have low debt * Have decent savings

[justinlloyd]

I don't think I have or am any of those things.

[theonething]

Looking at your resume, I find it hard to believe that you're not really good at something.

[justinlloyd]

Propaganda and lies.

Propaganda.

And lies.

And maybe a little bit of marketing. But I repeat myself.

[mrfusion]

How do you find problems to solve?

[loonster]

You need to get known for being really good at something, then the problems will find you.

[justinlloyd]

Be curious...

[tata71]

Would you agree that the path should be a SaaS that keeps you in a position to keep a flow of new and intriguing work/individuals in tech in your vicinity?

[justinlloyd]

I am not sure I understand the question, sorry.