71–80 of 95 posts
Lots of small businesses need tech support. Maybe you can find a local business, get any job in their office and find ways to make your technology skills useful after you learn the business and determine if there is a personal fit with your colleagues? Sounds like a lot of work if you have tech skills, but that is a need and those are the hoops you need to jump to get that work.
Now when I say he did nothing but that I mean exactly that. He lived with me and he went to his junior dev job, came home, made dinner, and went into his bedroom and worked on his dev job and studying everything about JSAR. He took on as many extra stories he could, cleaned up code to make the work easier, and asked 10k questions.
Then he found his next job after about a year, and found a better job. That one lasted about 2 years, and he did a similar thing, he helped clean up code, make the projects easier, and took on stories that he could do. And he played a little bit more but he still put more hours into his work than into his play time.
At this time he had 3 years, and moved on to his next job and did it all over again. And when he left this third job or his fourth he was the senior dev.
Also, he always worked with the team and didn't isolate (though above it sounds like he isolated - maybe from me but not from the job or team). He learned everything that he could during all this time and he helped newer developers or developers that were struggling with things that he wasn't. He was a team player and always helpful to everyone.
He is a senior developer, owns his on town house, commands a 6 figure salary and is bored so his time off is between learning new things, and taking time with his friends.
Also, every job was a different industry meaning he didn't specialize in a type of industry. Financial, travel, etc. He specialized in JSAR and he's an expert in Full Stack systems.
So if there is any advice I can give, from the immortal word of RuPaul - "You Better Work!!!" and become an expert and team player.
It wasn't about the first job he took as a junior developer - it was about the work and always doing more.
The BEST advice I can give you is to make a real world project to send to potential employers. Show you have what it takes from wireframe to MVP and beyond.
Show the process. You can do this all via git and commits and PR's.
-Create the readme with the wireframe and photos of whiteboard if that's your thing. -Create the project and keep track of all progress via PR's and explain your logic and reasoning for decisions. -Once your at a place where your at MVP show the release process in your readme. -Once at MVP make sure you focus on performance and track the changes you make in PR's.
This will let employers know you can work on a real project with real value and understand how pieces fit together way past writing small feature code. This needs to be beyond the skill level of your project work in school.
I WISH I would have known this when I got into tech. I now work as an SRE and still code a rails web app but not for my day job.
I see a ton of listings wanting cloud experience along side the dev work. I think its very important to know. For example my rails app uses S3 for hosting tons of images. I not only know AWS as I use it daily in my day job but know it well enough to utilize it in my rails app and make the most of it. S3 is a simple example but you get the idea.
You can also play with release processes and pipelines and have a solid release plan for your work so that employers see okay the application not only can code a project from start to MVP and beyond BUT you can also get it out in the world. If your project makes sense to containerize into micro services then use Kubernetes. Use ArgoCD or similiar to deploy it, etc...Be able to roll back the app and have that built into the functionality that roll backs are possible. Have a DR plan and especially around data integrity not just infra. Use terraform (infra as code), etc...A lot you can do to really impress employers.
I really wish you the best of luck and don't give up. If you have to get another role that's not what you want until you can get hired as a dev do it but don't give up on the dev side. Hopefully my advice helps.
If your curious about my transition from a wanna be dev to SRE I was told that the world needed more infrastructure guys and I happened to be a Linux nerd in high school so I learned cloud online (linux academy but its now a cloud guru) in a few months and was able to land my first role. I was able to prove via code (terraform and an entire release process) in git for a sample app that I had what it takes to do the job.
Have you considered DevRel? It might be worth looking into if you're interested in the teaching aspect.
How can I contact you?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that success isn’t from individual “great engineers” but from excellent teams and collaborations. We over emphasise the myth of the solo genius, for example, as it fits neatly into “stories”. There are many cases where the heroic genius “great engineer” seems to be the solution to all of the problems… until they get sick or fired and suddenly the remaining team becomes far more productive than they were befor…
So no such thing as a good or bad engineer? Just teams then? Have you ever worked by yourself? I think the bias today is actually against individuals and for community. Money ball didn’t get them the best team it got them the better team than others expected for less money.
Buddy I understood your original points — and once held them myself — but if this reply is how you construe what I’ve tried to share with you, you have not reciprocated with any genuine care in trying to understand the conversation I thought we were having.
Good luck!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
... there are still a lot of people in this business who don't have a college degree. Doesn't stop them from being professionals.
My response was about a person that is finishing up the final year for their degree
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So no such thing as a good or bad engineer? Just teams then? Have you ever worked by yourself? I think the bias today is actually against individuals and for community. Money ball didn’t get them the best team it got them the better team than others expected for less money.
In my opinion, you have a very simplistic view of the world and our industry. I formed this from reading quotes like the following: > If you haven't been naturally excited to work on your own projects during this downtime, this field might not be for you. reply Being successful in this field doesn't require programming in your spare time - especially so not while going through a difficult period in life. To think tha…
I already addressed this point.
> No one made a statement even remotely like this. This is a strawman you chose to "reply to"
No. My argument was that it’s important for a new engineers to have drive and curiosity to get started. The other poster replied that this wasn’t true because “teams”. So I was checking for understanding about why this individual does not need to take their personal development seriously.
> I don’t think your advice is good advice
This is why I am asking questions that seem stupid to you. You don’t think someone should have strong natural interest at the beginning of their career?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So no such thing as a good or bad engineer? Just teams then? Have you ever worked by yourself? I think the bias today is actually against individuals and for community. Money ball didn’t get them the best team it got them the better team than others expected for less money.
> So no such thing as a good or bad engineer? Just teams then? Buddy I understood your original points — and once held them myself — but if this reply is how you construe what I’ve tried to share with you, you have not reciprocated with any genuine care in trying to understand the conversation I thought we were having. Good luck!