Brilliant comment. Shouldn’t you be building startups yourself instead of trying to fit into these teams? I think your skill set speaks for itself.
Recently I joked with the interviewers over Skype screen sharing that I probably wouldn’t be fast enough to get a pair programming exercise done with 3 of them watching me. And that often these things you either see right away or struggle with. They all laughed and agreed.
I wanted to test a particular function after setting everything up, installing jest etc. But was told not to because deconstructing xpath was an implementation detail. No one could see what was wrong with my working and all three of them said it’s the way of working and not if you happen to get the answer on the day.
Of course they failed me saying I was too weak at programming. I won’t be doing coding over Skype screen sharing again and with more than one person in the room, it’s just too stressful and random.
I've done many startups and I have to say I love it, but the struggle to fund it properly (to it right) is what turns me off. I'd rather bootstrap myself (these days) and go the "indie hacker" route and not have to deal with fundraising -- build a product myself, sell it and roll it all on my own. That wasn't possible 20 years ago, it is now.
So yeah, I've focused on the executive level, CTO, VP, etc, But with that, you have to either give up coding and just manage or go to a tiny company to be the "key player", but then you're typically at a smallish company with little to no funding. I've been doing that lately, I'm at a small start up running engineering, but I'm an "employee", not a founder.
There seems to be a clear bias with VC companies against someone my age and background. Not to say I don't have a network I could probably work and get funding, I could. But I also wanted to get back to square one and work with people again and NOT have to deal with things like Healthcare, stock options and "hey, that person needs a week off because their cats sick." -- I'd rather just CODE and learn more, enjoy the art of buildings things without the pressure of an investor looming over you.
I've made enough money to be comfortable, but I still need to earn a living -- I haven't made that "FU" money and my wife laughs and jokes that for as much success we've had, even if I did get the "FU" money, I'd still want to work 70 hours a week and write code... ;-)
About your Skype coding comment. Yeah, new trend is to "pair" with someone online in an interview process and go through programming challenges. I'm OK with that, but I don't work well that way. I work better in a situation where I can think and spend the time myself on the problem. My brain isn't wired for "fast and rapid", it's more of a "trial and error" until I get it working, then later on optimize and make it better. I do terrible at that first pass, always been more of an interactive developer who starts with something that works and then over time perfects it. That style SUCKS on a pair programming exercise.
Recently I joked with the interviewers over Skype screen sharing that I probably wouldn’t be fast enough to get a pair programming exercise done with 3 of them watching me. And that often these things you either see right away or struggle with. They all laughed and agreed.
I wanted to test a particular function after setting everything up, installing jest etc. But was told not to because deconstructing xpath was an implementation detail. No one could see what was wrong with my working and all three of them said it’s the way of working and not if you happen to get the answer on the day.
Of course they failed me saying I was too weak at programming. I won’t be doing coding over Skype screen sharing again and with more than one person in the room, it’s just too stressful and random.