HACKER Q&A
📣 gremlinsinc

Is it okay to apply for Jr Level jobs if you strike out at Sr/Mid-level?


    I'm getting extremely frustrated with the hiring/recruiting process.

    I've been using laravel since 2013. I know livewire, react, alpine.js, and vue.
    I'm not perfect, and sometimes I'm a perfectionist or want to go the extra mile
    and make sure there are tests written at least for mission-critical bits.

    I've also played with Remix.run, Nuxt3, Next.js, go, every python framework, 
    Rails, hasura+vue/react frontends.

    My problem is the majority of my work has been freelance, and non-verifiable. 
    I have people I've worked for who can vouch for me, but nobody in a FAANG company. 
    I live in rural Utah and work remotely.

    I'm 42, and eventually, I'd like to maybe try DevOps or project (or product) management. 
    I'm just struggling to pay the bills because I'm not the best at finding new clients, 
    and I'd like something with benefits that's sustainable.

    I also miss working with a team, so it'd be nice to do that again as I learned a lot more 
    working on a team running scrum, etc...

    So should I continue looking for a mid+ level position or just eat my pride and go for 
    a Jr level position -- maybe with a different tech stack even so at least I broaden my skill-set?
Edit: reformatted - hate when text runs too far to the left and my eyes have to scroll.

  👤 dougbarrett Accepted Answer ✓
If I were you, I would stick with applying for senior or management positions if that's what you're looking to do ultimately. Are you interviewing or are you working on your resume?

If you have any long-term clients in your portfolio, maybe break those out as subsections within your resume under freelance/contract work. Instead of having many bullet points for freelancing, you have it broken out by company/project.

I'd suggest working on the proof of concept projects in your downtime with the language you're interested in working in. Unfortunately, I do not see many PHP jobs (that I'm interested in, at least). Still, I'm seeing many Go, Python, Ruby, Java, and .NET jobs, and you seem to have familiarity with most of those languages.

I think an excellent senior developer can understand the core concepts of what's going on in the application even if they're not an expert at writing the code, so I would lean on the fact that you bring prior experience with several different languages, and over many different industries. You'll be able to share pain points you've run into, best practices you've learned over the years, etc.

Best of luck in your job hunt; stay focused and keep your head up - don't devalue yourself!

👤 weatherlite
I think you need to just keep at it (interviewing), I know how difficult and demoralizing it can be. I had maybe 20 interviews lately and got 2 offers, so that's not a fun process. I have to freaking fail 9 times to get an offer. It's also obvious the more famous the company is the harder it is to get in, which is not surprising, but I really felt it this time. Also there's a huge gap in my abilities between coding oriented interviews and algorithm oriented interviews - I do much better in the former (surprise surprise, I am a programmer after all not an algorithm researcher(; some decent companies sometimes choose to go with the former but its rare (the better the company usually the more predisposed they are to have FAANG-like tests). So my take is its a matter of trying. Eventually with perservence you will get into the right (for you) interview and get an offer.

Good luck man.

👤 jstx1
I think getting hired for a junior position will be more difficult, not less. There will certainly be more explaining to do. Keep targeting mid-level positions.
👤 treis
You don't really say why you're frustrated. What stage of the process are you getting rejected at?
👤 PaulHoule
Yes.