Poorly explain what you do for a living

I get blamed if I don't point out someone else's mistakes in a timely manner.

Hello folks, I am working as an Android developer in service based companies for more than 7 years in Ahmedabad. As there are very few product based companies in Ahmedabad I am planning to relocate to another city to switch to a product based company ofcourse for better compensation. I have applied to many product based companies but I'm not even getting shortlisted for the interviews. There are many other folks in the service based companies who have faced the same thing. Any advice for switching to a product based company would be really helpful.

I have evaluated a lot of startups as part of my work. My approach has changed from being optimistic to being suspicious of a lot of founders, even before the process starts. The sheer number of founders that I come across that try to game metrics/play around with data to make the startup look good. Most commonly: 1) Completely changing the definition of margins, repeat rates, etc. and never clarifying that they are using different definition. 2) Often giving rebates/discounts to key stakeholders but finding ways to hide it from their P&L so that it’s not visible. THIS IS SO COMMON - lot’s of them start showing revenues, and then you will see another cost item rising at the same pace, and lot’s of times it will just be money moving around 3) Sometimes completely giving the wrong picture of how their product works on ground. You then speak with their customers, and they describe something completely else. Things like these are eating up the ecosystem. These founders also end up fooling some VCs, and then capital get’s kept away from actually good founders who have good intentions. There was a recent major investment in the commerce space, and that is another one such example of a startup doing this. Needs to stop.

I see people keep telling they work as frontend, backend and fullstack. But I feel these are more of Web developer roles. Then comes Devops, Data Engineers, Data Scientist etc. Where do I fit ? My work is follows - 1. Pick a story from sprint 2. Story as small as writing unit tests or functional test for some logic 3. Solve a small problem related to the product such as - on a certain scenario NullPointerException occurs . So debug that and fix it. 4. Add a new feature to already existing functionality - e.g. collect more log information, extend product to cover more scenarios etc. What exactly will I say my work is? Backend - come on.

[TL;DR former National quizzing champ dropped out of B. Tech in 2020 during peak of addiction and depression . Got over it and sober in Jan'23, resumed college and completed my B. Tech in Feb'24. Picked up coding again and feel ready for a job now Should I be honest or lie about the gap? Been ghosted my few recruiters whom I was honest with.] JS developer here. I used to be a decent student, public speaker and one of the best quizzers in the college scene (former National Champ). But I never addressed some traumatic events that took place in my life before I turned 16. My depression took refuge in substance abuse and I abandoned all studies/career prospects during the pandemic. Eventually after 7 years of using, I got clean/sober in Jan'23 and resumed my studies. I earned my degree but on paper it took me 8 years to complete a 4 year B. Tech (2016-24). Reasonably I get asked about the gap in my academics by hr/recruiters whom I push my CV to. I've been dead honest to them about my struggles with mental health and addiction in the past. And I've been getting ghosted. (It could be because of skill reasons on my part but I'm not even getting a feedback). Should I not tell recruiters the truth about the gap? Should I leave the addiction bit out? How should I word it? I've never held a real coding job before but been slogging for the last 6 months to get better each day (my github and projects will reflect that). Please help me out with all your valuable suggestions. If you're a tech recruiter let me know how you would perceive my case.

Does anyone else feel like the PM interview process is easily scammable? I feel like 80% of it is a vibe check and 20% is the actual content itself. Am a PM with 3 YoE and have been interviewing around recently. I have 0 preparation for any interview I walk into and have gotten offers from multiple startups. (Not bragging, I'm a good talker) You need to just break down any questions into understandable parts and explain it well enough. Maybe it's imposter syndrome or maybe I'm a little disillusioned with my job. TC : 31 base 4 performance bonus 10 ESOPs