if you have a couple of bucks for a DO instance and a domain, develop and opensource many sample apps to create a portfolio.
Some ideas from the top of my head: blog, job board, chat client/server, HN/reddit clone, FB clone.
Ask HN: Python Enthusiast – How to get my foot through the door?
11–20 of 54 posts
Re: Ask HN: Python Enthusiast – How to get my foot through the door?
#12In order to get a job as a fullstack python dev, at the minimum you need to know: - Python - JavaScript - jQuery (bonus for knowing Angular or something other framework) - Basic Git skills - SQL - HTML / CSS - Flask or Django - Basic Unix skills - Basic knowledge of algorithms and data structures I cover how I personally approached this here: http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2013/11/2012-my-yea... Once you ha…
Alternatively, don't try and be a "fullstack" dev (at least right off the bat), and you only need to know Python, git, and Django/Flask.
In my opinion, places demanding "fullstack" devs are going to overwork you because they're too cheap or too small to hire real DBAs and front-end devs.
Re: Ask HN: Python Enthusiast – How to get my foot through the door?
#13I'm exactly in your position. Any help or advice would be great.
Contribute to open source, work on side-projects, do some professional work for friends/relatives pro-bono.
Re: Ask HN: Python Enthusiast – How to get my foot through the door?
#14If you're willing to work for free, it would be great if you could do that for a nonprofit that can't afford to pay or a social good open source project where everyone does it for free.
What's very hard is finding a good fit. There is no equivalent of OKCupid for matching nonprofits and coders. The ones I've found are like dating services that only ask “Do you like girls or boys?” and “How tall are you?”
So I've decide to build it myself. It will be called GitGive. You heard it here first!
It will be the ultimate bootstrap, because the very first nonprofit project on GitGive will be GitGive itself.
I'm going to build it in Python. If you want to help out, let me know!
Re: Ask HN: Python Enthusiast – How to get my foot through the door?
#15I've met a bunch of folks who changed careers and are doing full-time development now. A fair amount of them went through one of those devlopment bootcamps like Recurse Center (ex-Hacker School). The other folks basically got their foot in the door through networking.
So, I'd say those would be a couple of things to explore.
Re: Ask HN: Python Enthusiast – How to get my foot through the door?
#16In order to get a job as a fullstack python dev, at the minimum you need to know: - Python - JavaScript - jQuery (bonus for knowing Angular or something other framework) - Basic Git skills - SQL - HTML / CSS - Flask or Django - Basic Unix skills - Basic knowledge of algorithms and data structures I cover how I personally approached this here: http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2013/11/2012-my-yea... Once you ha…
A good reference is Full Stack Python: http://www.fullstackpython.com/
Discussed previously here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7985692
Re: Ask HN: Python Enthusiast – How to get my foot through the door?
#17This is how I bootstrapped my way into a full-time engineering job (note, I also have my BS in Computer Science), I'm sure you could do something similar:
Find some businesses that need some simple, short-term coding work - python work or php work, whatever you know that people need - and, maybe by taking an initial pay hit, get the job and deliver. Do a few of these, charging a bit more each time, and you have a portfolio of professional work. Now you're a professional programmer, you can either continue doing freelance work or apply to full-time gigs with your portfolio of real-world work.
It's not glamorous, it's not quick, but it worked for me.
Some places to look for intitial jobs:
Re: Ask HN: Python Enthusiast – How to get my foot through the door?
#18Here is another approach that you can try: you can get your foot into a medium sized company as a QA automation developer, you need to learn Selenium Webdriver with Python and you can practice a little bit of Python and get paid. As a Python enthusiast you probably know enough about QA anyways. Once you are in, it is possible for a dev opportunity to open and you'll be in a very good position to apply.
Re: Ask HN: Python Enthusiast – How to get my foot through the door?
#19If you're willing to work for free, it would be great if you could do that for a nonprofit that can't afford to pay or a social good open source project where everyone does it for free. What's very hard is finding a good fit. There is no equivalent of OKCupid for matching nonprofits and coders. The ones I've found are like dating services that only ask “Do you like girls or boys?” and “How tall are you?” So I've deci…
I might be interested send me an email? gitgive@wfc.help
Re: Ask HN: Python Enthusiast – How to get my foot through the door?
#20I'd recommend that you go to places and meet people in person with no expectations (eg. go hang out at local Python meetups, get to know people, discuss your current projects over a pint, etc.), contribute to as many open source projects as possible, and don't put too much emphasis on particular technologies (eg. lots of places won't care that you know Python in particular as much as they'll care that you understand general concepts: Learn your algorithms, distributed version control principles, and be able to talk intelligently about computer science in general)