Episode 438: Software job after prison and working 60 hours per week at age 20 and feeling unfulfilled

Soft Skills Engineering

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. I am a first time caller and full time listener of your show.

   I was released from prison a year ago and I coded for 18 years straight on all sorts of stacks as part of my job requirements in the pen. Imagine the irony when I discovered what codepen was.

   A dev told me about an opening for full remote/full stack web dev at their company. I’ve used the tech stack before but I have a non-traditional background to say the least. I’m not worried about being qualified but I have never worked in a team and I have always been responsible for production.

   I work for a large retailer in a non-coding role. I’m also doing some freelancing on upwork/fiverr, but the pay is low and the jobs are not fulfilling. I was self-employed before I was incarcerated and I know how to beat the pavement and get small time work, but this is an opportunity to work at a real software house. I don’t even care if it’s a feature factory, I just have loved coding since I was 14.

   What do I do? I am confident in my skills and ability to deliver under pressure (in a place that has pressures you can’t imagine). I have a cover letter, but a bad resume and no open source projects from this millennium. I do have a reference - a Captain I worked for said he was willing. However, the opportunity was unexpected and I have not prepared anything.

   The dev who brought me the offer was a casual friend in IRC and he told me that my resume was mentioned in some meeting. I know you have suggested in previous shows that having someone get your foot in the door is the best way but I really think that feels gross to me.

   Anyways, longtime listener of your show and first time caller. In fact, when I was in prison, a few years before I was released we finally got tablets with an incredibly limited amount of content. Your show was one of a few on coding but I really enjoy your take on the soft skills because even though I worked in a non-traditional environment, teamwork was always the focus and I listened to everything from square one (took me a long time to get there).

   So thank you for your podcast you don’t know how many times I could sit in my cell listening to your show and disappear from my cage.

   Sincerely, Names have been change to protect the guilty

2. Second time caller from NYC! I previously wrote in as an 18-year-old CS graduate (Episode 332).

   I’ve focused intensely on work for the past 4 years, consistently working 60+ hours per week.

   I always assumed that this approach to life would eventually bear fruit, but a couple months into turning 20, I’m realizing that I haven’t really done anything memorable besides work (which is a scary realization at 20).

   While I like working hard and want to ensure the success of the company I work for, I also want to feel like I am living. How have you struck the balance between work and non-work in your lives, and how has that related to the culture of the company you were working for at the time? I should also mention the company I work for (early stage, well funded) does have a culture where it’s expected to work everyday, and 60 hours is approximately the minimum expected.