That's exactly the issue. I didn't have that. At all. Before that I just hacked on stuff because I thought it was fun / interesting. I also came from a tiny country without a tech scene.
>I'm suspecting that you had a hankering to work at a "startup" and that colored your behaviour.
I do love startups. But I before starting my job search I spent about a month trying to figure out freelancing. In the end I decided against it (for reasons listed above) and went onto what I -- at the time -- considered the second best option: employment.
It was a great success. Instead of trying to cold-email people for dev-scraps that are so un-important that they'll let someone with no degree and no industry experience and no references work on it vs. someone with a CS degree + 5-10 years of industry experience + heaps of people with impressive business titles who can recommend his work and doing whatever crappy work I can get my hands on just to "work on connections", I now get to work every day among a set of incredibly smart, compassionate, warm, successful people who want to invest in me and want me to become the best programmer and contributor that I can be.
That's why I chose the employment route: Once you're in, you're in and you can focus on what you love and growing yourself instead of constantly having to worry to put food / contracts on the table.
>Work your network/connections
That's exactly the issue. I didn't have that. At all. Before that I just hacked on stuff because I thought it was fun / interesting. I also came from a tiny country without a tech scene.
>I'm suspecting that you had a hankering to work at a "startup" and that colored your behaviour.
I do love startups. But I before starting my job search I spent about a month trying to figure out freelancing. In the end I decided against it (for reasons listed above) and went onto what I -- at the time -- considered the second best option: employment.
It was a great success. Instead of trying to cold-email people for dev-scraps that are so un-important that they'll let someone with no degree and no industry experience and no references work on it vs. someone with a CS degree + 5-10 years of industry experience + heaps of people with impressive business titles who can recommend his work and doing whatever crappy work I can get my hands on just to "work on connections", I now get to work every day among a set of incredibly smart, compassionate, warm, successful people who want to invest in me and want me to become the best programmer and contributor that I can be.
That's why I chose the employment route: Once you're in, you're in and you can focus on what you love and growing yourself instead of constantly having to worry to put food / contracts on the table.