How Hacker News Completely Changed My Life
Seems like a massive mis-attribution error and I worry people will learn the wrong lesson here.<p>The OP's story is:<p>1. learned to program iOS (hard, completely under OP's control)<p>2. wrote and published iOS app (hard, under OP's control)<p>3. the app failed so wrote a blog post about his experience (easy although often neglected by programmers, under OP's control)<p>4. HN picked up the story which led to interview (total crapshot, not under OP's control)<p>5. a round of of interviews which led to job offer and "completely changed life" (hard, under OP's control)<p>I understand why claiming step 4 ("HN picking up the story") was responsible for "changed life" plays well on HN, but it's irrational.<p>The hard things that OP did and were under his control were: learning iOS programming, publishing iOS app, writing a blog post about it and doing well during an interview. Steps 1-3, 5 were necessary and responsible for his getting a better job.<p>Step 4 is the only one that wasn't under OP's control, involved pure luck and is not even necessary.<p>As an example, I get several interview inquiries every month but not because I post on HN (I do) or because occasionally what I wrote ended up on HN (it did) but because I have a website, github account and a portfolio of non-trivial projects.<p>Step 4 is not necessary because in this market a competent iOS programmer can pick and choose. The OP would be better off if he pro-actively applied for several iOS positions in Silicon Valley (of which there are plenty) and picked the best offer, instead of passively waiting and accepting the first offer.<p>I'm not saying that good things don't happen because of HN but in this particular case the lesson shouldn't be "write a blog post, hope it ends up on HN and then further hope someone will contact you with a job offer" but "learn a marketable skill (like iOS programming), produce a proof of your skill (write iOS application), market it a little bit (write a blog post about it) and then go on a job shopping spree (by applying for iOS jobs)".