https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8795321
TL;DR After a few solo-startup failures, I had a few years' worth of acute job-hunting struggles and finally landed a respectable, but low-paying job at a univ.
Update, short version: Job went well and I polished my engineering fundamentals, but I quit after about 6 mo due to the bureaucracy. Built an emerging tech side project over the next 6 mo (relevant below), then landed a job as an integration engineer at a maturing startup at at 2.5x salary... and I'm killing it. Perfect fit.
Lessons:
1. The skills from the univ job are critical to my success in this new one. Sometimes taking a step back allows you to take 2 steps forward. Corollary: A smart, hardworking person with sufficient foundation and maybe a few rough edges can be brought up to speed quickly.
2. A job hopper is only a job hopper until they find their forever home. I hope to be here until something major changes.
3. Hiring mgrs at BigCo have to cover their own ass. You may be, in theory, everything they want. But they seem to get cold feet when it comes to hiring someone with an unorthodox resume because they have to justify, up the chain, why. By contrast, my hiring mgr was high-up enough to say "Fuck it. This is my guy." He was esp. impressed by the project I'd just built between jobs.
4. Just because someone is unemployed or job hunting doesn't make them a bad engineer. Tsk tsk, Joel Spolsky. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/06/finding-great-developers-2/
5. Interviews are so random you might as well relax and be yourself. I've now seen ppl rejected for illogical, vague reasons from the other side. Job-hunting = sales. You make cold calls, get a lot of rejections, then land one. You don't have that much control over which ones fit and which ones don't, so just go with it.
For me, 2016 was a great year. Here's to 2017 being even better!
GL to all the job hunters!