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Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

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Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#11

Post by forrestbrazeal »

antoncp wrote: post #10
forrestbrazeal wrote: post #6

Read a version of this book pre-release and loved it! Distills much of the best advice you can get if you hang out for a few years on HN into an easily shareable package. Would recommend as a graduation gift or career starter for the new tech person in your life. But also super valuable for folks who have been in the industry as well. The chapter on "Marketing Yourself" contains some reminders that I found really hel…

what is meant by “easily-grasped” in this case, and why is being this type of person good? I.e. why would it be good to have a skill that anyone can easily grasp? (I’m sure it’s mentioned in the book, but I couldn’t help but ask anyway :])

Poor choice of words on my part. Should have said something like "easily-grasped value prop". You want a very short elevator pitch for what you do, that makes it clear what value you provide.

I think of Corey Quinn, whose pitch is "I fix your AWS bill." Short, easily-grasped, specific.

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#14

Post by humanlion87 »

swyx wrote: post #2

Hi HN! I have been writing since April, but this book has been years in the making. So glad to launch it today! Since I switched careers from finance and started doing freeCodeCamp in 2017, I have been studying the principles, strategies, and tactics that make great developers successful and applying it to my own career. This has helped me get hired at a Senior level at AWS in just 3 years. While between jobs, I deci…

Was 2017 the time you switched careers from finance and learned to code via freeCodeCamp? Or did you switch before 2017 but started learning new stuff (say a new language) on freeCodeCamp in 2017? If it is the former, that's great progress getting to Senior level in less than 3 years! Congrats

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#15

Post by ddlec »

swyx wrote: post #2

Hi HN! I have been writing since April, but this book has been years in the making. So glad to launch it today! Since I switched careers from finance and started doing freeCodeCamp in 2017, I have been studying the principles, strategies, and tactics that make great developers successful and applying it to my own career. This has helped me get hired at a Senior level at AWS in just 3 years. While between jobs, I deci…

This looks like a great resource, swyx. I'm considering buying but would strongly prefer to read a physical book. Do you plan to publish a print version?

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#16

Post by swyx »

forrestbrazeal wrote: post #11
antoncp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what is meant by “easily-grasped” in this case, and why is being this type of person good? I.e. why would it be good to have a skill that anyone can easily grasp? (I’m sure it’s mentioned in the book, but I couldn’t help but ask anyway :])

Poor choice of words on my part. Should have said something like "easily-grasped value prop". You want a very short elevator pitch for what you do, that makes it clear what value you provide. I think of Corey Quinn, whose pitch is "I fix your AWS bill." Short, easily-grasped, specific.

this exactly. but Corey can also pitch himself in anywhere from 30seconds to 30 minutes. Marketing Yourself is about adjusting your message to your audience/situation, and it can and should be practiced because you do not leave things like this up to chance. (the public draft: https://www.swyx.io/writing/marketing-yourself/)

this is obliquely referenced in the book, but i believe the most effective pitch is if you can losslessly compress your entire value proposition into two words. https://www.swyx.io/writing/two-words/

Corey invented "Cloud Economist" for this purpose. brilliant. no one can compete in a category you invented.

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#18

Post by swyx »

humanlion87 wrote: post #14
swyx wrote: post #2

Hi HN! I have been writing since April, but this book has been years in the making. So glad to launch it today! Since I switched careers from finance and started doing freeCodeCamp in 2017, I have been studying the principles, strategies, and tactics that make great developers successful and applying it to my own career. This has helped me get hired at a Senior level at AWS in just 3 years. While between jobs, I deci…

Was 2017 the time you switched careers from finance and learned to code via freeCodeCamp? Or did you switch before 2017 but started learning new stuff (say a new language) on freeCodeCamp in 2017? If it is the former, that's great progress getting to Senior level in less than 3 years! Congrats

short form - i started doing FCC in nights and weekends from Nov 2016 - Mar 2017, then quit and went all in in Jun 2017 and went to an NYC bootcamp to top up my FCC knowledge and also get my first dev job.

here's the long form story - https://medium.com/hackernoon/no-zero-days-my-path-from-code... - ive been harangued over this before so i should be clear that i have done programming prior to starting FCC - just that it was basic self taught data munging stuff, not web dev. i definitely did not start from zero, but i also definitely felt very out of my depth learning the JS/Web stack in 2017 and it took me a year to get to the point where I could credibly apply for a frontend dev job.

thanks!

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#19

Post by swyx »

ddlec wrote: post #15
swyx wrote: post #2

Hi HN! I have been writing since April, but this book has been years in the making. So glad to launch it today! Since I switched careers from finance and started doing freeCodeCamp in 2017, I have been studying the principles, strategies, and tactics that make great developers successful and applying it to my own career. This has helped me get hired at a Senior level at AWS in just 3 years. While between jobs, I deci…

This looks like a great resource, swyx. I'm considering buying but would strongly prefer to read a physical book. Do you plan to publish a print version?

thanks! I have no immediate plans but am open to the idea - if only for the fact that itd be freaking cool to give out my own book - any idea what the best way to do a small print run of books would be?

theres the added complication that i'm stuck here in Singapore due to coronavirus, whereas my target audience is all in the US. so i probably shouldnt do shipping myself.

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#20

Post by swyx »

alextrost wrote: post #4
swyx wrote: post #2

Hi HN! I have been writing since April, but this book has been years in the making. So glad to launch it today! Since I switched careers from finance and started doing freeCodeCamp in 2017, I have been studying the principles, strategies, and tactics that make great developers successful and applying it to my own career. This has helped me get hired at a Senior level at AWS in just 3 years. While between jobs, I deci…

Congrats Swyx! Picked up my copy, can't wait to dig into it!

thanks so much for the support Alex!
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