If you're willing to share, which portfolio project do you think contributed most to you landing your first FT dev job, and what kind of job did you land?
Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?
1–10 of 121 posts
Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?
#2In 2007 I was working on an open source dock for Linux called AWN (https://launchpad.net/awn).
It helped me get my first job at OpenedHand, working on free and open source software full time. I didn't have any previous experience nor a degree in CS.
Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?
#3I spent several years working in research support roles at uni, and used code to automate the very boring parts of my job. Then thanks to open source activity I got into as part of that, I wrote a book. This was a bit under 10 years ago, I'm not sure there's the market in book writing these days.
Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?
#4None of them - repo and portfolios weren't even mentioned. I was working as a game designer in the company that had a developer opening, and got burnt out. Since the company knew me, landing an interview was easy. I was teaching myself programming since I was 8, and, as I retroactively understand, was at steady junior level in high school already. The interview turned out to be a walk in the park. I wish I was more self-confident and switched over sooner.
Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?
#5None of them - repo and portfolios weren't even mentioned. I was working as a game designer in the company that had a developer opening, and got burnt out. Since the company knew me, landing an interview was easy. I was teaching myself programming since I was 8, and, as I retroactively understand, was at steady junior level in high school already. The interview turned out to be a walk in the park. I wish I was more s…
You were burnt out and switched to game development?
Frying pan, fire, surely?
Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?
#6Back in 2012-2013 I was learning about javascript and nodejs was the new kid in town. I started learning about express and mongodb and within a few weeks I manage to create a scraper for torrentz.eu to index a bunch of movie torrents and fetch their metadata from imdb/omdb and trailers from youtube. I built a pretty UI and publish the website in the chrome store as an app. It quickly began to grow and was averaging around 600-700 visits a day and even made it as a featured app in the store.
One local blog from my city in argentina picked it up and wrote an article about it and got a call from a big local company that they wanted to talk to me. Thats how I landed my first job as a javascript developer.
A year later my app got removed from the store because "it did not comply with their policies or terms of service".
Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?
#7In 2007 I was working on an open source dock for Linux called AWN ( https://launchpad.net/awn ). It helped me get my first job at OpenedHand, working on free and open source software full time. I didn't have any previous experience nor a degree in CS.
What a blast from the past! Thanks for AWN, used it back in the day.. :-)
Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?
#8I got my first job in a company that was desperate, because their only other developer was leaving in days. Got my second job under similar circumstances. And a third one. I did well at all of those companies and left on my own accord. I should also mention that none of those companies were even on a map as far as serious software development is concerned.
Reality is that companies that are not desperate will be picky, take their time, drag you through a bunch of bullshit interviews, etc. Just like every other developer I get pestered by recruiters on regular basis and I often see identical job descriptions that I saw two years ago, so after short interrogation of the recruiter it becomes obvious that those are the kind of companies that are forever looking and never really giving anyone a chance.
I suppose my advice would be: start with the desperate ones, build up your experience and credibility that way and climb higher.
Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?
#9I started working on and with Drupal 2004 May 29 (it was a Saturday but who keeps count). At the Amsterdam DrupalCon in 2005 I got three offers for 60K USD which was an unheard amount for a struggling but very enthusiastic developer for Hungary. I accepted NowPublic's offer and started with them 2005 December 1, I immigrated to Vancouver (NowPublic was based there) 2008 September 1... To answer the question fully, Drupal and I landed a Drupal developer job :)
Re: Ask HN: Self-taught developers, what repo helped land your first job?
#10I got my first job in a company that was desperate, because their only other developer was leaving in days. Got my second job under similar circumstances. And a third one. I did well at all of those companies and left on my own accord. I should also mention that none of those companies were even on a map as far as serious software development is concerned. Reality is that companies that are not desperate will be pick…
And how do you consistently find said companies?