My number one question to ask a company in a job interview is "What would a typical working day look like for this role?". It often puts the interviewers on the back foot as they have to think about it and make the role not sound boring - they need to sell the job. There is some psychology involved here because they tend to want you more when you ask them questions they find difficult because they suddenly want to impress you instead of you impressing them and realising that you may actually turn the job down - which makes you much more desirable.
That is true... but when employers see oxbridge (or some other world class establishment) on a CV their knees go all wobbly and all normal reasoning goes out the window.
Ruhul Amin my father is working in HR at Royal Dutch Shell and he has told that that is the biggest bull there is. This because I always wanted to go to one of the best universities in the world. But companies look at your other curriculum activities. That can dissociate yourself from the rest. All diplomas from western universities are high quality. The only thing you accomplish with going to these kind of universities is that you will lose a ton of money and have higher social prestige. And if those are your only goals of getting a degree at those unis that is just sad.
All the best finding a new job Jake. You seem to have exceptional insight and capacity for self reflection, so I'm sure the path forward can only help you grow further. We're all behind you 100%.
You're great Jake! I'm a swedish computer scientist, and I have just finished my master's, and it's great to follow you along with your journey with jobs and so on, when I'm having the same kind of trouble finding what job is the best one for me etc! Keep it it up, your channel is great!
No one understands your thinking until they go through your pain. I am in the same boat. My biggest mistake was I never asked them during interview what my day to day task and I never saw the office space. I’m a well established company that is growing, which is weird, you figure they would have it down pack.
Seems like your going through the same motions as me when I was working as a developer in London. Let me give you some advice. You will not find what your are looking for. To these companies you are a resource, that is it. You might not think so, but as a "IT worker" you are at the bottom of the corporate food chain and you always will be. Use them while you need them, but work on building your own ideas/business. The sooner you start the better. Being successful in this field is not about how much tech you know but about ideas and having the balls to take a chance - coding/tech is easy.
You are awesome mate. I have been a software developer for a long time and still, your comments about the job and these kinds of stuff are very helpful. Keep doing plz.
Even though this video is 6 years old, I am in my first job and thinking of leaving soon after two years, and this video has helped me consider and reflect on what I might want in the future, so thank you.
I'm currently working on a little office, we are 5 persons on the same room, with our headphones on and not much talking nor moving. however I'm learning a lot from the mids and seniors here and that's why I'm staying a bit longer. I've learned a lot of stuff this last 5 months but I'm gonna move on, whenever I'm ready. Greetings from México
It,s was good experience because you tried out and you know what you don’t like. The most important when I take these decisions are to have some money in my wallet to work out next decision without stress!
It takes a lot of courage to evaluate the company that you’re working with and to raise your concern and negotiate. If it’s not a win-win, there isn’t a point for a person to stay. Came across your video on my smart tv (randomly, I hope). Great video though, keep it up.
new to this channel but wish you the best of luck, actually got my computer science interview at churchill, Cambridge tomorrow but im watching this instead of preparing! Wish me luck!
I'm extremely sorry to hear this. I was shocked when you uploaded this latest video. I went through a bit of a somewhat similar situation after I left UCL (maths) and it took a couple of hoops until I found I developer position that made me feel at home.
i completely understand your decision. Having worked in a big company aprx. 24,000 employees, hopped to work in start up . Not so much exciting things to do, random task, and boss decision is absolute. i thought it is quite normal in small company #yes i quit too.
I hate to say this but I saw this coming from day 1. You are in a very privileged position where you have the freedom to define exactly what you want and to quit a job if that's not it. That being said, that privilege was earned but should still be acknowledged.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, dood. I've been spending a fair bit of time recently thinking about "corporate" environments and how to foster community and co-operation. Also, as a cheeky side note, I love your soft North East accent :)
That is quite interesting actually. I've recently, after 1.5 years quit my job as a software developer in a huge company. Though a very good work/life balance ratio, I've found the project not allowing me to learn new things anymore. I was thinking about looking for a new job this time in contrary in a startup/small company but the thoughts you shared, especially in the last part of the video were quite interesting, maybe even eye opening. I probably need to consider the 'social life' aspect more whilst looking for a new job and ask more questions to the interviewers about things other than the projects itself. Thank you for these ideas!
As always Jack, you never cease to amaze me! But could you explain something about knowledge you learned at college and your experience? Are those two things really matter when you seek for the job and apply for it? Please maybe you could make a video explaining about it. Thankyou in advance Jacky!
I would recommend considering older medium sized companies (or just remember they exist). A lot of these are a bit old and sell their software to big companies in certain industries. They might have a start-up sized R&D department but they will have more employees overall. In my experience they have a huge backlog of cool projects, things that their big company clients asked for years ago. You might be able to choose between either building things from scratch or bringing out new versions of existing products (you know how big companies get stuck with awful systems - you can completely overhaul them). It might just be higher expectations for the same pay, but it does give "learn by doing" a new meaning.
Wish you all the best. Good to here about your experience. It’ll definitely help me when I start looking for job after graduation. Please do share your tips along this journey! Lots of love xx.
Too bad things didn’t workout better, but it is good that you are able to go in a new direction. Some of this reminds me of things Jamie Ped Vlogs had shared about his previous job situation. He found a new job and is much happier than he was. You and he could probably do a really interesting collaboration video about your different work experiences. Even if you don’t film anything you may enjoy talking with him. He is a lovely person. I work for a very small company. I have come to like that. Eventually I know we will have to expand. That will be an interesting period of adjustment. I wish you well and look forward to more videos from you.
Consider going freelance, as a software developer you will be challenged and have an end in sight. You'll also get exposure to different projects. Finally the beauty of freelance is the money, you'll be able take time between contracts to have that work life balance.
Not sure how this ended up in my suggested videos but glad it did. I went through the exact same thing after a decade working for a large fintech, I went to a startup only to leave after 6 months.
There's a couple of dev positions open at my place at the moment; One business intelligence developer on and one .net developer. The dev team has about 10(ish) people at the moment but they're looking to expand a lot. Only thing is it's based in Derby. I can send you the job descriptions etc across if you're interested.
As usual, you are brilliant, focused, and self-directed. There'll be something out there that will engage and challenge you. Do your research and find it.
Actually I also started to work for a start up about 3 months ago as devops engineer. I think most of the things that you didn't get from this job are specific to this job not start ups as general. We've got most of the things that you've missed from bigger company and I think interesting product related to customer information and their rights as the owner of the information. They might be looking for new Dev, they also use GO language. Let me know if you'd like to know more
You can't expect to be working for a startup which has huge team sizes with years and years of experience and alot of resources to try out new things. You can't have it every way.
Dude, there are a LOT of people who are slaving away each day trying to get a job. It's not a game, it's a job, and I'm sure many people would of jumped at the chance to work at either of those jobs!
Forget working for other people, grow some balls and start working for yourself on something you're passionate about. You are definitely intellectually capable, whether you are emotionally and mentally capable I don't know.
I thought you've quit your job again because youtube wouldn't show the red line at the bottom of the video, phew it's good to know that we still get employed vlogs
So I talked about this with my manager and some other peers, i.e is it better to stay 8 months or leave after 2 and everyone agreed on 2. After 6-12 months I’d have a lot more knowledge about the platform and it would be harder to replace me and people would still ask why I left so soon but then be like “if it wasn’t for you why did it take you 6 months to realise/do anything about it”. So yeah, decided just to leave straight away.
Yeah I think you've made the right choice, if there's one thing I've learned over the past several years in the software/design/product business specifically - it's time moves really fast, might as well spend it in a roll you really enjoy. It's interesting I've always heard the opposite argument - if you leave a job after a couple months just because you don't like it - how can your next potential employer trust you not to jump ship just as fast. Or put another way - how loyal/demanding is this person? Maybe the thought is most employers expect the worst from people?
It depends on the type of job, but for software developers it would be rare to have notice of less than one month. I'm not sure how common three months is but all of my jobs so far have had that.
Hi! I'm interested in computer science. Can you Please do videos relating to computer science?. Like what did you learn, and perhaps you could teach some lessons here?. Thankyou.
Tempted yes but also tempted by the chance to have a few weeks off to properly figure out what I want to do and not rush into something for the sake of it. I didn’t really have time anyway, it all happened within a week and things got more complicated if I stayed any longer and passed the end of my probation period.
well.. unless you have a real idea to start a company and technical and social skills to drive it and persevere, you will be in the workforce like 90% of the people who got high education. And somebody with 2 years of experience after college saying I want to make bigger impact is really laughable. Especially when they say "I want to make a bigger impact! But also want to have a work.life balance!", I have interviewed hundreds of people from fresh grads to veteran developers with various backgrounds and I turned most of them down when they say these things. People call them millenials. I found culture fit and dedication go a million miles more than people who call themselves smart with good school names. I hope you stay longer even though everything is not perfect for you next time you get a job. There is no job perfect for you but you can create your vision and value for the company and make everyday almost perfect for yourself.
Hey maybe try a healthcare related company? Or just sit down and brainstorm all the different products you would happily become an ambassador for without getting paid.
Hi Jake I have a question to ask seeing as you are a Cambridge grad in comp sci. I'm a current year 12 student studying maths ,physics,computer science and I want to be like you studying comp sci at Cambridge , however I wanted to do 4 alevels and add further maths into my 3 options , unfortunately due to a timetable clash I cannot do so . Shall I stick with what I've got or drop computer science for further maths?
So I did A Level Computing (not Computer Science) and Further Maths was *definitely* more useful than that and would have been the best thing to take if I could have one done one or the other. I’m not so sure about Computer Science A Level. Further Maths is never a bad choice and I might still lean towards that because first year CompSci at Cambridge is extremely Maths heavy, but I think ultimately you should do the one you enjoy more and the one you’ll do best in. Also talk to your teachers about this, they’ll be less out of touch with it than I am now.
![[Live สด] การออกรางวัลสลากกินแบ่งรัฐบาล งวดวันที่ 16 พฤศจิกายน 2567](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wPd7VFfWHIA/mqdefault.jpg)
My number one question to ask a company in a job interview is "What would a typical working day look like for this role?". It often puts the interviewers on the back foot as they have to think about it and make the role not sound boring - they need to sell the job. There is some psychology involved here because they tend to want you more when you ask them questions they find difficult because they suddenly want to impress you instead of you impressing them and realising that you may actually turn the job down - which makes you much more desirable.
Excellent comment.
That was informative. Thanks!
We will always continue supporting you 😁
no we wont you fucking liar
Thank you, this means a lot!
People that are concerned for his career are hilarious. He's a Cambridge compsci that can actually code... He'll be snapped up pretty rapidly.
Ruhul Amin
...and that's (partly) why he can resign twice that early on and still be fine 😂😎
Your behavior, proactivity and endurance will define your career, not your diploma.
That is true... but when employers see oxbridge (or some other world class establishment) on a CV their knees go all wobbly and all normal reasoning goes out the window.
Ruhul Amin my father is working in HR at Royal Dutch Shell and he has told that that is the biggest bull there is. This because I always wanted to go to one of the best universities in the world. But companies look at your other curriculum activities. That can dissociate yourself from the rest. All diplomas from western universities are high quality. The only thing you accomplish with going to these kind of universities is that you will lose a ton of money and have higher social prestige. And if those are your only goals of getting a degree at those unis that is just sad.
I wish more HR people were like your dad then. I don't think social prestige should be a goal but I also think its real and can't be ignored.
All the best finding a new job Jake.
You seem to have exceptional insight and capacity for self reflection, so I'm sure the path forward can only help you grow further.
We're all behind you 100%.
You're great Jake! I'm a swedish computer scientist, and I have just finished my master's, and it's great to follow you along with your journey with jobs and so on, when I'm having the same kind of trouble finding what job is the best one for me etc! Keep it it up, your channel is great!
No one understands your thinking until they go through your pain. I am in the same boat. My biggest mistake was I never asked them during interview what my day to day task and I never saw the office space. I’m a well established company that is growing, which is weird, you figure they would have it down pack.
Seems like your going through the same motions as me when I was working as a developer in London. Let me give you some advice. You will not find what your are looking for. To these companies you are a resource, that is it. You might not think so, but as a "IT worker" you are at the bottom of the corporate food chain and you always will be. Use them while you need them, but work on building your own ideas/business. The sooner you start the better. Being successful in this field is not about how much tech you know but about ideas and having the balls to take a chance - coding/tech is easy.
Real talk
You are awesome mate. I have been a software developer for a long time and still, your comments about the job and these kinds of stuff are very helpful. Keep doing plz.
5 things: money, learning, making a difference, 50% interesting and 50% enjoyable, work-life balance.
Even though this video is 6 years old, I am in my first job and thinking of leaving soon after two years, and this video has helped me consider and reflect on what I might want in the future, so thank you.
I'm currently working on a little office, we are 5 persons on the same room, with our headphones on and not much talking nor moving. however I'm learning a lot from the mids and seniors here and that's why I'm staying a bit longer. I've learned a lot of stuff this last 5 months but I'm gonna move on, whenever I'm ready. Greetings from México
It,s was good experience because you tried out and you know what you don’t like. The most important when I take these decisions are to have some money in my wallet to work out next decision without stress!
I'm not out of university yet so I'm living vicariously through you. Great videos btw.
do not worry, if it was not fit for you, you are able to change it :) people have many changes in work-life back.
Your insights are brilliant!
Good luck Jake! You da man
It takes a lot of courage to evaluate the company that you’re working with and to raise your concern and negotiate. If it’s not a win-win, there isn’t a point for a person to stay. Came across your video on my smart tv (randomly, I hope). Great video though, keep it up.
new to this channel but wish you the best of luck, actually got my computer science interview at churchill, Cambridge tomorrow but im watching this instead of preparing! Wish me luck!
Pure Orange Good luck!
Good luck mate
I'm sure you'll smash it
John doesn't blink. Try not to be too terrified
Had mine thursday. Good luck!
I'm extremely sorry to hear this. I was shocked when you uploaded this latest video. I went through a bit of a somewhat similar situation after I left UCL (maths) and it took a couple of hoops until I found I developer position that made me feel at home.
How did you find the degree?
Good luck man, u the best !
All the best Jake ! ☺
Hey Jake, got my cambridge computer Science interview at Corpus Christi college on the 7th, nervous as hell but your videos have been really helpful.
You could tell from the mail train vid that you weren't hugely enthusiastic about it all
i completely understand your decision. Having worked in a big company aprx. 24,000 employees, hopped to work in start up . Not so much exciting things to do, random task, and boss decision is absolute. i thought it is quite normal in small company #yes i quit too.
I hate to say this but I saw this coming from day 1. You are in a very privileged position where you have the freedom to define exactly what you want and to quit a job if that's not it. That being said, that privilege was earned but should still be acknowledged.
Aaron D He literally acknowledged that “he’s in a privileged position”
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, dood. I've been spending a fair bit of time recently thinking about "corporate" environments and how to foster community and co-operation. Also, as a cheeky side note, I love your soft North East accent :)
I needed to see this! Great video, work culture is sooooo important man
That is quite interesting actually. I've recently, after 1.5 years quit my job as a software developer in a huge company. Though a very good work/life balance ratio, I've found the project not allowing me to learn new things anymore. I was thinking about looking for a new job this time in contrary in a startup/small company but the thoughts you shared, especially in the last part of the video were quite interesting, maybe even eye opening. I probably need to consider the 'social life' aspect more whilst looking for a new job and ask more questions to the interviewers about things other than the projects itself. Thank you for these ideas!
Hi Jake, good to see an upload. Got a CompSci interview at Christ’s on Thursday and your videos have helped loads, thanks!
Ollie T Good Luck Mate,Hope you get in!
Good luck man.
Good luck. I'll be helping with the interviews so I might see you there!
As always Jack, you never cease to amaze me! But could you explain something about knowledge you learned at college and your experience? Are those two things really matter when you seek for the job and apply for it? Please maybe you could make a video explaining about it. Thankyou in advance Jacky!
I would recommend considering older medium sized companies (or just remember they exist). A lot of these are a bit old and sell their software to big companies in certain industries. They might have a start-up sized R&D department but they will have more employees overall. In my experience they have a huge backlog of cool projects, things that their big company clients asked for years ago. You might be able to choose between either building things from scratch or bringing out new versions of existing products (you know how big companies get stuck with awful systems - you can completely overhaul them). It might just be higher expectations for the same pay, but it does give "learn by doing" a new meaning.
Ah. Nice to have a Jake vid, again.
Wish you all the best. Good to here about your experience. It’ll definitely help me when I start looking for job after graduation. Please do share your tips along this journey! Lots of love xx.
As a software developer I doubt it will be hard to find something you can be passionate about. Best of luck
Good luck in the job hunt, Jake. Love your content on youtube!
I am learning a lot from your channel. Keep the good educational videos more often
Jake my G! Please do TH-cam full-time. I bet you will smash it!!!!!!!
Good luck on the job search Jake! I'm sure it will all work out! Keep us posted =)
Yay! Jake uploaded a new video! Today is gotta be a good day
Thank you for this video. I need this
Best of luck at your next job.
Too bad things didn’t workout better, but it is good that you are able to go in a new direction. Some of this reminds me of things Jamie Ped Vlogs had shared about his previous job situation. He found a new job and is much happier than he was. You and he could probably do a really interesting collaboration video about your different work experiences. Even if you don’t film anything you may enjoy talking with him. He is a lovely person.
I work for a very small company. I have come to like that. Eventually I know we will have to expand. That will be an interesting period of adjustment.
I wish you well and look forward to more videos from you.
Consider going freelance, as a software developer you will be challenged and have an end in sight. You'll also get exposure to different projects. Finally the beauty of freelance is the money, you'll be able take time between contracts to have that work life balance.
Not sure how this ended up in my suggested videos but glad it did. I went through the exact same thing after a decade working for a large fintech, I went to a startup only to leave after 6 months.
There's a couple of dev positions open at my place at the moment; One business intelligence developer on and one .net developer. The dev team has about 10(ish) people at the moment but they're looking to expand a lot. Only thing is it's based in Derby. I can send you the job descriptions etc across if you're interested.
You are such an inspiring human being Jake. I support whatever path you choose to pursue :) Sending you lots of love, xoxo
all the best jake
5 good points my man. They should be on everyone's list, when looking for a new job.
As usual, you are brilliant, focused, and self-directed. There'll be something out there that will engage and challenge you. Do your research and find it.
Applying for placement year, this incredibly insightful
Wooo the videos are back
A919a
You'll achieve great things! Good luck :)
Actually I also started to work for a start up about 3 months ago as devops engineer. I think most of the things that you didn't get from this job are specific to this job not start ups as general. We've got most of the things that you've missed from bigger company and I think interesting product related to customer information and their rights as the owner of the information. They might be looking for new Dev, they also use GO language. Let me know if you'd like to know more
Why does your face constantly look as if you're trying not to burst out laughing?
I’ve never clicked faster
Good luck Jake.
Thanks for the video. reminded me I have to change the job :)
You can't expect to be working for a startup which has huge team sizes with years and years of experience and alot of resources to try out new things. You can't have it every way.
Google?
JAKE omg good luck!
Good luck on your next job
Get better, Jake.
It's not snacks in the post and it's not surveys , it's Data and Analytics !
Love u jake whatever u do is superb
All the best.
I'm somewhat in the same situation as you are. Leaving my job on 31st December 2017 with no other offer in hand.
You should look into startups regarding international development - how to cheaply deploy technology to save millions of lives
Dude, there are a LOT of people who are slaving away each day trying to get a job. It's not a game, it's a job, and I'm sure many people would of jumped at the chance to work at either of those jobs!
Good luck man... Your brother from Palestine
cheers from the states!
Feeling like crap. Great treat watching this
I like that you've always followed your guts.🙂
Dude, why don't you join Google , Apple, Microsoft, Facebook , Symantec or other big companies
loving the "people are bi. get over it" poster, it was pretty distracting for a minute there :)
charlinda same
Forget working for other people, grow some balls and start working for yourself on something you're passionate about. You are definitely intellectually capable, whether you are emotionally and mentally capable I don't know.
Your voice sort of reminds me of young Morrissey's... very soothing
Spot on
I thought you've quit your job again because youtube wouldn't show the red line at the bottom of the video, phew it's good to know that we still get employed vlogs
Good luck mate, I am sure they'll be ripping their 1000$ suit sleeves just to get you to work for them.
you can apply for software developer at one of these companies.
Jake,you should go work in the Silicon Valley.It would be great culture and super content for us😜
You're really great at making videos. Consider that for making a living.
I personally would have sucked it up for at least 6+ months, but good for you mate!
So I talked about this with my manager and some other peers, i.e is it better to stay 8 months or leave after 2 and everyone agreed on 2. After 6-12 months I’d have a lot more knowledge about the platform and it would be harder to replace me and people would still ask why I left so soon but then be like “if it wasn’t for you why did it take you 6 months to realise/do anything about it”. So yeah, decided just to leave straight away.
Yeah I think you've made the right choice, if there's one thing I've learned over the past several years in the software/design/product business specifically - it's time moves really fast, might as well spend it in a roll you really enjoy.
It's interesting I've always heard the opposite argument - if you leave a job after a couple months just because you don't like it - how can your next potential employer trust you not to jump ship just as fast. Or put another way - how loyal/demanding is this person? Maybe the thought is most employers expect the worst from people?
You on cryptocurrency?
you left your job with no ready replacement
Google is a perfect fit for u Jake
Is a three month notice normal in the UK? Two weeks is the standard here (the US) so when you said you gave your three months notice I was shocked tbh
It depends on the type of job, but for software developers it would be rare to have notice of less than one month. I'm not sure how common three months is but all of my jobs so far have had that.
Can you pleas talk about the things you exactly do in each company you work on as a computer scientist :) pleeeeeeas
Hi! I'm interested in computer science. Can you Please do videos relating to computer science?. Like what did you learn, and perhaps you could teach some lessons here?. Thankyou.
same things are happening to my current employer.
What about working for a company that does B2B Software development services? E.g. Accenture or a more medium sized company such as Zuehlke?
Were you tempted to sort out another job before handing in your notice or was that option off the table?
Tempted yes but also tempted by the chance to have a few weeks off to properly figure out what I want to do and not rush into something for the sake of it. I didn’t really have time anyway, it all happened within a week and things got more complicated if I stayed any longer and passed the end of my probation period.
well.. unless you have a real idea to start a company and technical and social skills to drive it and persevere, you will be in the workforce like 90% of the people who got high education. And somebody with 2 years of experience after college saying I want to make bigger impact is really laughable. Especially when they say "I want to make a bigger impact! But also want to have a work.life balance!", I have interviewed hundreds of people from fresh grads to veteran developers with various backgrounds and I turned most of them down when they say these things. People call them millenials. I found culture fit and dedication go a million miles more than people who call themselves smart with good school names.
I hope you stay longer even though everything is not perfect for you next time you get a job. There is no job perfect for you but you can create your vision and value for the company and make everyday almost perfect for yourself.
What language were you writing on the back end?
Hey maybe try a healthcare related company? Or just sit down and brainstorm all the different products you would happily become an ambassador for without getting paid.
Or work with Khan Academy? Or TED? I have no idea if there are any roles available to suit you but u know maybe?
100% agreed!
Hi Jake I have a question to ask seeing as you are a Cambridge grad in comp sci. I'm a current year 12 student studying maths ,physics,computer science and I want to be like you studying comp sci at Cambridge , however I wanted to do 4 alevels and add further maths into my 3 options , unfortunately due to a timetable clash I cannot do so . Shall I stick with what I've got or drop computer science for further maths?
swarnadipmitra Thank you for your advice and this question is open to everyone as I would like to know other people's views on my situation
So I did A Level Computing (not Computer Science) and Further Maths was *definitely* more useful than that and would have been the best thing to take if I could have one done one or the other. I’m not so sure about Computer Science A Level. Further Maths is never a bad choice and I might still lean towards that because first year CompSci at Cambridge is extremely Maths heavy, but I think ultimately you should do the one you enjoy more and the one you’ll do best in. Also talk to your teachers about this, they’ll be less out of touch with it than I am now.
Please just do TH-cam full time!
cam4 pays better
No he doesn't get enough views per vid and most of his videos are about his work so what will he vlog about
This is exactly the problem 😂😭
You have to be insane to choose making TH-cam over being a professional software developer.
make a patreon!
entrepreneurship.. Its better than to do a job..
Would you ever want to work at Docker? (We do have a London office!)
best of luck