Advice for young developers
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Advice for young developers
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Re: Advice for young developers
#2Definitely all good points, only quibble is that not everyone has the option to work for the their first company for free or would have to take a second paying job to make it work. That limits the amount of time you can spend on your own projects and personal development.
Re: Advice for young developers
#3Why I wouldn't work for you:
I don't work for free. My time is more valuable than free. Perhaps at reduced rate, but never for free. Working for free makes your clients balk when you finally dare to charge.
I like my free time. Free time gives me a chance to do what I want, as I'm young only once. It's not always easy to have some time off when in college / uni, so the time you can make is time you (should) treasure. How you fill that time does not matter, but it should be fun (as that's what free time should be).
The other points I agree with. Building a portfolio is a great way to get at least one foot in the door. Writing code and text is also a very good way to learn to express thoughts (both of which I do too little of, personally), which also helps your future senior to get a reading of you.
Re: Advice for young developers
#4Why I wouldn't work for you: I don't work for free. My time is more valuable than free. Perhaps at reduced rate, but never for free. Working for free makes your clients balk when you finally dare to charge. I like my free time. Free time gives me a chance to do what I want, as I'm young only once. It's not always easy to have some time off when in college / uni, so the time you can make is time you (should) treasure.…
Agreed, I find it unprofessional to work for free and you do yourself and everyone else a disfavor.
With two exceptions; internships via universities (where it is part of your education) and certain kinds of work for non-profits. And even then I am reluctant to work for free.
If you cannot even contribute at least minimum wage worth of value to a company, why bother contribute at all - go spend time on open source or for a charity instead. Or you know, go out and network at events (or bars for that matter).
The other points made in the post are good and relevant. Being able to show off what you have done is always helpful and writing a blog is always worthwhile in my opinion, even if barely anyone reads it (hello my own blog).
Re: Advice for young developers
#5> Work for free. This is my boilerplate advice for anyone getting started in any industry, not just web developers. Finding someone that will let you work with them is not that hard, if you offer to do it for free.
Yikes.... I would never advise someone to work for free for a company. If you want to work on an open source project then that's probably a better use of your time.
The problem with free is that it lowers your worth to a company.m
Heck even university co-op terms pay well these days.
Re: Advice for young developers
#6Why I wouldn't work for you: I don't work for free. My time is more valuable than free. Perhaps at reduced rate, but never for free. Working for free makes your clients balk when you finally dare to charge. I like my free time. Free time gives me a chance to do what I want, as I'm young only once. It's not always easy to have some time off when in college / uni, so the time you can make is time you (should) treasure.…
> I don't work for free. My time is more valuable than free.
I think this doesn't probably apply for students and/or recent graduates, as it would be a way of escaping the typical "I can't get a job because I don't have experience, and I can't get experience because I don't have a job" catch-22.
True, my time is always worth a certain amount (probably higher than I assume), but if I get a tangible benefit out of it, I could assume that I just switched from "I pay you and you give me knowledge and a degree" to "I pay you and you give me experience and a recomendation".
Re: Advice for young developers
#7Advertising the 'work for free' thing pushes towards establishing a dangerous culture, in which slowly all first jobs are expected to be unpaid. And some companies would (and some already do) include these 'free' people in their business model.
There is no reason why those companies can't pay a basic internship salary which at least allows you not to work somewhere else to be able to eat and sleep somewhere else than a friends couch (or floor).
And if the company really can't afford that basic salary, I would double question if it's really worth for you to work for them.
Re: Advice for young developers
#8Thanks, all, for the feedback! I just wanted to clarify on my 'work for free' point. If you have no real-world experience, get some. While you may not get paid at first, the amount of marketable skills you learn will more than pay for that. The point here is not to offer to work for free in hopes that you might eventually get hired (although that can sometimes happen). Rather, the point is that there are a lot of things that you can only learn by being thrown into the context of a fast-moving, multi-faceted company with real clients.
Re: Advice for young developers
#9Why I wouldn't work for you: I don't work for free. My time is more valuable than free. Perhaps at reduced rate, but never for free. Working for free makes your clients balk when you finally dare to charge. I like my free time. Free time gives me a chance to do what I want, as I'm young only once. It's not always easy to have some time off when in college / uni, so the time you can make is time you (should) treasure.…
> I don't work for free. My time is more valuable than free. I think this doesn't probably apply for students and/or recent graduates, as it would be a way of escaping the typical "I can't get a job because I don't have experience, and I can't get experience because I don't have a job" catch-22. True, my time is always worth a certain amount (probably higher than I assume), but if I get a tangible benefit out of it,…
No, working for free is not a good idea. Perhaps for non-profits, but even then you are better off to either charge a friends' price, or just donate money.
How would someone that just graduated pay rent and food when they don't have a job that, you know, pays them?
Re: Advice for young developers
#10> Work for free. This is my boilerplate advice for anyone getting started in any industry, not just web developers. Finding someone that will let you work with them is not that hard, if you offer to do it for free. Yikes.... I would never advise someone to work for free for a company. If you want to work on an open source project then that's probably a better use of your time. The problem with free is that it lowers…
That depends on how you class "for free". Most people think free = not being paid money.
I'm actually looking into working for the whole of July for no monetary compensation. But in return, I expect to learn something from whoever I work with/for.
Most of the time money is good. You can exchange that for many things in life. But sometimes, knowledge is better to have as you can exchange that for (even more) money.
And from an employer point of view, you should not be judged by the size of your pay cheque, but by how much value you actually add to a company.