81–90 of 169 posts
Finished ones. This sounds trite, but honestly, finishing things is hard. If you can show off a couple of finished side projects, that reflects much better than a half-dozen abandoned halfway through.
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From what I remember so far at Airbnb it used to be tough when they were small. I don't know today if they still attract a lot of rock stars. But still, all I had to do was to write up a mini-web app and connect to their API in order to pull out some data, in about 2 hours. Then after this interview they had an onsite with classic CS and culture fit. They were very tough on culture fit and you had to meet with the 3…
Interesting. What does "tough on culture fit" mean exactly?
Here's a piece of advice from actual experience (from both sides): Invest your time studying for interviews than wasting time building side projects if you're doing this purely for getting a job, period. In my experience, companies don't care about your little side project when hiring--that is, unless your "little side project" had some huge impact or is something they have been aware of--the best you could get is "h…
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Lol. There is definitively a barrier of entry in software and it helps if you do a bunch of things that are discussed here in this thread. On the other hand, if you just need a job as a programmer and have skills like OP seems to have, and apply for junior positions, possibly through a contractor, then you will get a job. This is for anyone who reads these threads and wonders "am I good enough?" "can I be a programme…
One of my problems is finding junior jobs. It seems whenever I go searching I see only mid-senior level jobs
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Lol. There is definitively a barrier of entry in software and it helps if you do a bunch of things that are discussed here in this thread. On the other hand, if you just need a job as a programmer and have skills like OP seems to have, and apply for junior positions, possibly through a contractor, then you will get a job. This is for anyone who reads these threads and wonders "am I good enough?" "can I be a programme…
One of my problems is finding junior jobs. It seems whenever I go searching I see only mid-senior level jobs
In the end you'll have an actual job as a real programmer doing Java at a bank and soon you'll realize the job is kinda boring and most of your colleagues are kinda average at their job and you realize why companies would advertise to find mid-senior level people :-)
But you've made it. You started kinda late in life and you wondered if you were smart enough to do it, but of course you put in the work and you got the results.
And now it's up to you if you want to cruise along or use that precious skill, the ability to sit down in the evenings and study and practice, and go on to do something you'll be proud of.
Can you do it? Yes.
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This 0%. Side projects are how I've gotten all of my real jobs. Side projects* demonstrate that not only can you write code, but that you can also architect and deploy an application that solves real world problems. There's a lot more to software engineering than can be tested by fizzbuzzing on a whiteboard. * (I'm assuming your side project is an application)
side projects show you can clone code on github and push it to your own repo. Interviews show you can articulate what you know in a convincing fashion, and that you have done homework on the company as well as your skills of inference and general personal skills to glean into what sort of answer the particular interview is looking for at the time. Something a lot of people really miss out on when bikeshedding over ho…
But if someone was able to clone and deploy someone else's project and pass it off as their own, it at least demonstrates that they know git, the command line and some ops.
It depends on what your definition of "getting jobs" is. I haven't looked for a job for years but I get freelance / consulting gig opportunities presented to me on a pretty regular basis. Most of those opportunities come from a combination of side projects, open source contributions, having a blog and teaching online courses. Now, I'm not sure if that's what you meant but in the above life style you don't need a resu…
Congratulations, you're in a nice spot but your situation is extremely unusual. Most people do not have jobs just being offered to them out of the blue, so not sure if the advice is really that usable.
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side projects show you can clone code on github and push it to your own repo. Interviews show you can articulate what you know in a convincing fashion, and that you have done homework on the company as well as your skills of inference and general personal skills to glean into what sort of answer the particular interview is looking for at the time. Something a lot of people really miss out on when bikeshedding over ho…
Pass off someone else project as your own? Doubtful. This attitude comes across as having trust issues. To me, it's a sign of a company with a rotten culture to be avoided. But if someone was able to clone and deploy someone else's project and pass it off as their own, it at least demonstrates that they know git, the command line and some ops.