I've been coding for 15 years. I've shipped products that millions of people use. I've built systems that don't crash, fixed bugs that made people's lives better, and mentored junior developers who are now more successful than me.

But I never worked at Google. Or Facebook. Or any of the companies that make recruiters' eyes light up.

And now, in 2025, that's apparently my biggest problem.

The LinkedIn Problem Nobody Talks About

Last month, a recruiter told me I looked "disconnected" because I only had 281 LinkedIn connections. She said most senior developers have 500+. It makes them look more "networked" and "collaborative."

This is insane. I don't accept connection requests from strangers. I don't want to connect with some random person who messages me about "exciting blockchain opportunities" every week. I connect with people I actually know.

The Catch-22 of Professional Networking

Here's the thing: recruiters want you to have 500+ connections because it signals you're well-connected. But getting to 500+ connections on LinkedIn is nearly impossible if you're not willing to connect with bots, fake profiles, and people who just collect connections.

This isn't networking. This is digital pollution.

The Real Problem: We're All Fighting Alone

The job market is brutal right now. Mass layoffs every week. Companies making you do 8 rounds of interviews, then ghosting you. Leetcode grinding that has nothing to do with actual work. Recruiters who disappear after you've spent hours on their "quick assessment."

Meanwhile, we're all sitting here with our sub-500 LinkedIn connections, looking "disconnected" to the same recruiters who will ghost us anyway.

This is backwards. We're some of the most connected people in the world. We collaborate on GitHub, help each other on Stack Overflow, and share knowledge constantly. But because we don't want to connect with strangers on LinkedIn, we look antisocial.

So I Built Something Different

Real500 is simple: get to 500+ LinkedIn connections with actual professionals, not bots.

Every member gets verified. No fake profiles. No connection collectors. No crypto bros. Just real developers, engineers, and tech workers who understand that networking shouldn't mean dealing with spam.

You connect with people in your field who are actually trying to build their careers, not sell you something. When you reach out to someone on Real500, they respond. Because they're real people dealing with the same job market you are.

This Isn't About the Money

I'm charging for this because running servers costs money and I need to eat. But the real value isn't the subscription. It's the solidarity.

For the first time in years, I feel like I'm not fighting this job market alone. When I connect with another developer on Real500, I know they've been through the same interview gauntlet. They've gotten the same rejection emails. They've wondered if they're just not good enough.

They are good enough. You are good enough. We're all good enough.

The problem isn't us. The problem is a system that judges our professional worth by how many strangers we're willing to connect with on LinkedIn.

Join Me

I'm not promising Real500 will get you a job. I'm not promising it will fix the tech industry's hiring problems.

But I am promising you won't be alone anymore.

When you join Real500, you're joining a community of developers who understand that:

• Your GitHub contributions matter more than your LinkedIn connections
• Working at a no-name company for 10 years beats job-hopping through startups
• Being selective about who you connect with is a feature, not a bug

We're weathering this storm together. Mass layoffs, impossible interviews, recruiters who treat us like numbers – all of it. But we're doing it as a community of real people, not as isolated individuals trying to game LinkedIn's algorithm.

The job market is broken. But we're not.

Join Real500 at real500.tech

Let's build our networks the right way. Together.

Every developer eventually inherits that one codebase. You know the one I'm talking about. The one where the previous developer left cryptic comments like "This shouldn't work but it does" and "DO NOT TOUCH - Dragons ahead."

Last week, I was handed a Node.js application that was "just having a few issues." The issues turned out to be memory leaks, a database connection pool that maxed out every Tuesday at 3 PM, and a authentication system held together with duct tape and prayer.

Here's how I approach these digital archaeological digs.

Step 1: Don't Fix Anything (Yet)

I know, I know. Your first instinct is to start refactoring that 500-line function that does everything. Resist. The code is ugly, but it's been working (sort of) for years. There's probably a reason for some of those weird workarounds.

Instead, spend a week just observing. Run the application. Click around. Look at the logs. Take notes. What actually breaks? What just looks broken but works fine?

I learned this the hard way when I "cleaned up" a seemingly redundant setTimeout in a React component, only to discover it was preventing a race condition that crashed the entire checkout process.

Step 2: Add Tests (But Not How You Think)

Legacy code usually has no tests. Don't try to write unit tests for that spaghetti code - you'll spend months trying to mock dependencies that shouldn't exist.

Instead, write integration tests that capture the current behavior, bugs and all. If clicking "Submit" on the form currently takes 30 seconds and throws two errors before succeeding, write a test that expects exactly that.

These "behavioral tests" become your safety net. When you fix something, you'll know if you broke something else.

Step 3: Follow the Money

Not all code is created equal. Find the parts that actually matter to the business. The user registration flow that brings in customers. The payment processing that makes money. The report generation that the CEO looks at every morning.

Fix those first. That weird utility function that sorts arrays in a bizarre way? Leave it alone if it's not causing problems.

Step 4: Document the Madness

Every legacy codebase has its own internal logic. Document it. Not with fancy architecture diagrams, but with simple notes:

• "The database connection pool gets reset every Tuesday because of the weekly report job"
• "User sessions expire after 30 minutes unless they're on the premium plan"
• "The upload feature only works on Chrome because of a FileReader polyfill"

Future you will thank present you for this.

Step 5: Make Friends with Git Blame

Git blame isn't just for assigning responsibility. It's for understanding context. That weird SQL query might make sense when you realize it was added during a migration three years ago.

If the original developer is still around, buy them coffee. They'll save you weeks of detective work.

The Plot Twist

Here's the thing about legacy code: it's usually not that bad. It's messy, sure. It doesn't follow modern best practices. It probably has some security issues.

But it works. It's been solving real problems for real people, sometimes for years. That's more than most of our shiny new projects can say.

The best legacy code I've worked with wasn't elegant. It was pragmatic. It was written by developers who understood that working code is better than perfect code.

So before you rewrite everything, ask yourself: what can I learn from this mess? What problems was the original developer trying to solve? What constraints were they working under?

Sometimes the real debugging isn't fixing the code. It's understanding the context.

My GitHub profile is a graveyard of ambitious side projects. Half-finished React apps, CLI tools that nobody uses, and more todo list implementations than I care to admit.

For years, I followed the conventional wisdom: build side projects to showcase your skills. Create a portfolio that impresses recruiters. Contribute to open source to get noticed.

But here's what I've learned: the most valuable side projects aren't the ones that look good on your resume. They're the ones that solve real problems for real people.

The Farmers Market App

When I became president of our local farmers market, I noticed kids getting bored while their parents shopped. So I built a simple web app - a scavenger hunt where kids could check off items as they found them at different vendor booths.

It's not impressive technically. Just a basic HTML form with some JavaScript. No fancy framework, no complex state management. But it kept dozens of kids engaged every Saturday morning.

That "simple" app taught me more about user experience than any React tutorial ever could. I learned that users don't read instructions. I learned that battery life matters more than animations. I learned that a mom with three kids doesn't care about your elegant code - she cares about whether her children are happy.

The Problem with Portfolio Projects

Most side projects exist in a vacuum. We build another weather app, another social media clone, another CRUD application. They demonstrate technical skills, but they don't solve problems.

Real projects have real constraints. Real users who don't behave like you expect. Real deadlines that force you to make trade-offs. Real feedback that challenges your assumptions.

When I built the farmers market app, I had to consider:

• Parents who might not speak English as their first language
• Kids who might be using mom's phone with a cracked screen
• Spotty cell service in the park where we held the market
• Vendors who needed to understand the app enough to help confused families

These constraints made me a better developer. Not because I used the latest framework, but because I learned to build for real people in real situations.

Start Small, Solve Real Problems

The best side projects start with a problem you personally experience. Maybe it's a script that automates something annoying in your workflow. Maybe it's a tool that helps your hobby group stay organized. Maybe it's a simple app that makes your kid's bedtime routine more fun.

Don't worry about impressing anyone. Worry about solving the problem.

My most successful side project is a simple Node.js script that sends automated thank-you emails to our farmers market sponsors. It's 200 lines of code, mostly glue between a spreadsheet and an email API. It's not going to win any architecture awards.

But it saves me 3 hours of manual work every month. It's improved our sponsor relationships. It's made the market more sustainable. That's real impact.

The Compound Effect

Here's the surprising thing about building projects that solve real problems: they compound. One project leads to another. One solved problem reveals new problems worth solving.

The farmers market app led to other community organizations asking for help. The sponsor email script evolved into a broader system for managing vendor communications. Each project taught me something that made the next project better.

And eventually, these "simple" projects became the foundation for my consulting business. Clients don't care about my elegant React components. They care about my track record of building things that actually work for real people.

Your Turn

Look around your life. What's annoying you? What manual process do you repeat every week? What problem do your friends or family complain about?

Don't build another todo app. Build something that solves that problem.

It doesn't have to be impressive. It doesn't have to use the latest technology. It just has to work.

You'll learn more from shipping one ugly, working project than from perfecting a dozen portfolio pieces that nobody uses.

And who knows? That little project might just change everything.