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

They were talking about front end dev, backend dev, and full stack dev. Those distinctions are only applied in web development. Grandparent post thought full stack meant knowing about deployment and setting up deployment environment too which goes beyond full stack into the realm of operations.

Outside of web development I haven't heard about such distinctions like backend or frontend. There are application developer, system developer etc.

Where are you making ~$1.8k/year?

At the bootcamp I went to (Origin Code Academy), those without previous experience are told to emphasize what they've learned in 12 weeks if this is more or less their first contact with coding. At no point were we told to lie or bend the truth. All of our LinkedIn accounts mention the time in the bootcamp. The advice was all about presenting yourself in a way that emphasized either your ability to learn, raw skills if you had some previous experience, or accomplishments if your final project was especially impressive.

I call it FU savings. Mainly because if you get tired of your employer, you can tell them to take their job and shove it. Move on to better pastures, and not have to worry about paying bills while you look.

I've done it twice, and there's nothing like having that fund (and also being unsecured debt-free) backing you up. Each time I made my choice to leave my employer, I had a new job lined up within a couple of months - and I had negotiated a higher salary to boot.

The best way to go about getting such a savings set up is to first plan a realistic budget. Then, pay down any unsecured debt, starting with the smallest debt owed first. Roll that payment, once the debt is paid back, into the next debt, until you have all your debt paid off.

At that point, you should be left with no unsecured debt; a mortgage can be considered OK (as it is secured by your equity) - but if you can pay that off too, so much the better. Usually, though, it's better to keep it for tax deduction purposes.

Don't have a car payment - if you aren't paying cash for a used (but reliable) car, and paying for it in full - you are likely wasting your money.

There's more tips out there than just the above, but them's the basics - basically. Once you become "debt free" in this manner - a great burden will be lifted from your shoulders. I'm serious.

And once you get your FU savings set up (bank for at least 6 months to a year - but ultimately, just keep building the savings as you have available cash - you may never know when you'll need it) - you'll be free to do as you please with your career and goals.

During one time I was using a recruiter to get a position, he had me interview with a company that used an online coding test as a first-level filter. I didn't know what they were going to ask, but I asked if he had any idea - all he would tell me was that it was something like good-ole "fizzbuzz".

So I studied a bunch of stuff. Anything and everything but fizzbuzz (not that I needed to study that). Then I decided to go for the test - which was timed - and...

...fizzbuzz.

I'm sitting there a bit dumbfounded - seriously? So I coded it up from memory; I could have easily pulled a solution down off the net, but I figured "what the hell - let's go old-school" on it. Also - if I just cut-n-pasted something in, and they saw "it took the candidate one minute to code it" - they might suspect something, then google search the plagiarized code. No good.

So - I coded it up; it was in PHP, but the job was supposed to be for javascript/node (???) - so I wrote it as a class, then I spent the remainder of the time optimizing it - making it the fastest FizzBuzz solver I could, complete with tests and demonstration code. I took up the entire available time, and submitted that. I made sure to add proper PHPdoc comments to everything.

...and I got an "in-person" interview as a result. At the end of that was an another "live coding" session - this one using javascript for a "single page" app. They left me to it, and I got everything coded up inside of 15 minutes or so (there was a paper document laying out what the challenges were in the example code). They were watching my progress via screen sharing.

Apparently I completed the task quicker than other applicants. I later learned that some applicants just sat there unable to do anything (not even google around for help!), or they would take convoluted paths to implementing the changes; not necessarily wrong answers, just not efficient ones - and would be sitting there doing this for a couple of hours (at which point the interview would be brought to a close).

At the end, I got the offer.

Ultimately - those are the kind of challenges I like - give me a real coding assignment, something close to what you are really working on. In this case, it was also in two different languages - so I could also help to "bridge gaps" between a PHP team and a javascript team as needed (added value for the employer).

I really dislike whiteboard coding - completely unrealistic, and while I gather why it is a widely used tool, I think there are better ways to gauge a developer's competence for the position - and actual coding challenges to solve problems seems like one of the best ways to do so (though I also understand that it is very time consuming - so an up-front online timed challenge might be a good pre-filter for on-site or further interviewing).