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What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

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Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#62
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no familiarity with the UK tax practices, but what kind of burden are you for an employer? The US has 7.5% tax per employee. There are a few others such as health insurance.

There's an extra tax paid by the employer, technically "employer's National Insurance contributions", which is about 10% (up to a limit). So that's comparable to US payroll taxes. Because the National Health Service is generally considered to offer a decent-enough level of care, there's normally no private health insurance in most tech jobs -- so no extra costs there.

And anecdotally that an british expat who worked for citi in the states was paying over 15% just for his health coverage - he was lucky as his wife is something senior with the FBI and has coverage from work.

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#63
post #6

Are people in America seriously getting offers of $120k with no degree, no experience, and not even a side-project? That is mind-blowing. In London, probably the biggest/richest market outside of USA, that sort of salary is beyond what most experienced developers get, even some very good ones. I must be missing something here (some sort of bubble?) because I can't see how businesses can be profitable paying those sor…

That's over £90k in our terms you can see why Google and othe reengineering companies set up in the UK as we are cheap

Two years ago $120k was just £77k (still good). Salaries are famously sticky as a number, and do not change quickly when currencies move after events like Brexit.

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#64
post #60
post #55

I'm happy for this guy, and there are really good tips in here for managing an application funnel. Like others, I'm surprised offers north of 110 are possible given his experience, and can't help but bristle a bit at him being a self described "full stack" developer when it appears he's a front end developer (does rails really count as being a backend engineer?). But he worked exceptionally hard at the process (guess…

Why doesn't rails count as a backend engineer? Would you also not count someone who works with Django as a backend engineer?

I would definitely distinguish between html / css / javascript and server side application code, be it in ruby or python, I just didn't think working on the server side application logic completed the "full stack".

To me full stack means you are into the systems a bit too and would be capable of setting up the stack itself (and perhaps enhancing it, or setting up custom batch systems), not just working effectively within a larger space provided by the application frameworks.

But perhaps I just have the terminology wrong? Full stack developer = someone who works across the application stack, and I'm thinking more of "systems" or "backend" engineer?

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#65
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty young and it seems stupid to me too, this guy wanted to be a React Dev. If he was ever at work writing a binary search tree by hand, or writing his own quick sort function, then he would be wasting his time and creating a huge potential problem point in the code. This guy claims to have worked ~6 days a week for 3 months not to become a great full stack dev, but to become a great interviewee. Seems kinda…

This is what drives me crazy. I'm a bootcamp grad, and I've been interviewing for 6 months. I've spent EVERY single day of those six months, (besides applying and networking and interviewing), working on coding, design, projects, and leveling up so I can collaborate with a team. This guy spends all of his time working on stuff that is considered "level 2", and he will make double what I end up getting. Frustrating.

As a former bootcamp grad, please prioritize interviewing skills over development skills. once you get a good job, you can spend your free time on side projects but until then you need to practice on interviews not coding.

Sadly it's the reality of interviewing and I hate it but there is nothing you can do until you are an experienced dev and can leverage your power to say "I refuse to work or interview at companies with dumb interviewing processes."

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#66
Honestly, isn't that an unimaginably huge investment of time and effort? Wouldn't it be easier and cheaper, more educational, and maybe faster to just create a startup and get aquihired? I'm not in the market now, but that's my plan for the next time I'm looking. Its kind of a level up from merely registering an account at github.

I'd be dealing with business acquisition people instead of a role-mailbox in HR that's piped to /dev/null anyway.

I don't really want to move to CA and certainly can't afford it without a huge hit in the standard of living. However... if someone bought goofy-idea-by-vlm.com for two or three million bucks and an aquihire job in CA, then I still don't want to move there, but at least I could afford it if I absolutely had to.

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not shocked that nobody looks at your GitHub. Reading other people's code takes time and energy that a lot of people aren't going to spend if they have a ton of candidates to sift through.

I'm not too surprised either, but I marvel at the amount of time wasted preparing and asking all the stupid questions when they could just look at my code for 5 minutes. Like, the main file in one of my libraries clearly uses concurrent locking, it even says so in readme.md . These were all last round on site interviews and we spent maybe 30 minutes of 2 devs time going over pointless stuff when they could just skim…

Github makes it hard to tell what code is yours and what is something you just forked from somebody else.

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#68
post #65
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what drives me crazy. I'm a bootcamp grad, and I've been interviewing for 6 months. I've spent EVERY single day of those six months, (besides applying and networking and interviewing), working on coding, design, projects, and leveling up so I can collaborate with a team. This guy spends all of his time working on stuff that is considered "level 2", and he will make double what I end up getting. Frustrating.

As a former bootcamp grad, please prioritize interviewing skills over development skills. once you get a good job, you can spend your free time on side projects but until then you need to practice on interviews not coding. Sadly it's the reality of interviewing and I hate it but there is nothing you can do until you are an experienced dev and can leverage your power to say "I refuse to work or interview at companies…

Fair point. Drives me bananas though.

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#69

For some strange reason people hate recruiters, but during my most recent job search - a month ago - I worked with seven recruiting companies. I was submitted to 15 jobs after filtering for commuting distance, technology, salary requirements. First noticed that I filtered based on salary. Most companies don't divulge salary ranges but recruiters know that up front. Out of the 17: 2 - positions already filled before I…

My impression has always been the spammy feeling of it all when someone is not seeking employment. The apparent never-ending "would you or someone you know be interested in this position" spam that developers get. Personally, I don't mind it at all but I understand why some might.

As for the company side, I have directly heard from many a company that they don't like dealing with recruiters because of the cost involved. But then, it seems it has become necessary to many job seekers because experience suggests that if you want a response from a company about a position you must go through a recruiter.

Re: What I learned from spending 3 months applying to jobs after a coding bootcamp

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's over £90k in our terms you can see why Google and othe reengineering companies set up in the UK as we are cheap

I have no familiarity with the UK tax practices, but what kind of burden are you for an employer? The US has 7.5% tax per employee. There are a few others such as health insurance.

For a gross salary of 90k as assuming 2k a month dc pension it breaks down like this.

Taxable wage 55K Taxpaid 15.6k Tax Free 11k NI 5.1K Take home 45.26 Pension 24k Tax relief on pension 9.6K

And rember you also have CGT allowance of 11K and an Annual ISA allowance of 14.2k (20k next year) and property taxes are much much lower

The rule of thumb I heard for the cost of a FTE was 3x salary.

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