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Not sure if this is the right place, but... hi, everyone. I have discovered a love of coding through learning Java (I'm still pretty raw with it and basically still a beginner), and want to do web/software development. So, I am taking UConn's new bootcamp for that. Starts mid-July and runs for six months, it's a full-on experience, working with other coders, career services, the works. I'm going to be spending the next 6 weeks I have before starting learning as much HTML/CSS/JS as possible through FreeCodeCamp and other services. I guess I'm just here to introduce myself - I'm sure I'll be a regular visitor and contributor to the thread. Quick about me - I've spent 15 years in the service industry - various managerial/operational roles in popular coffee shops, and I consider myself pretty darn good with people management, optimizing work flow, communication, etc. and I'm excited to have that skill-set to bring into my new career, whenever that may be.
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May 19, 2021 14:20
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 07:12 |
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This is all great advice. One of the most important things about job searching, from my experience, which is mentioned in that piece, is to not just spam front-door applications and don't just look for people who have job listings to respond to. Make a big list of companies you specifically love and want to work for. Then directly contact those companies and make your pitch. Even if they aren't hiring, if they like you, they will keep your information on file or remember you when you circle around again. Companies are much more likely to hire someone who takes the time to reach them directly and say, in better words, "I am not applying just anywhere, I love what your company is doing and I want to be a part of it", rather than someone who just sends their resume to a job listing. Emailing directly to companies which may not have put up a job listing yet gets you in before the thousand other applicants who have not contacted them yet. So, in short, the advice boils down to something like: don't just wait for job listings to pop up. Be pro-active. Emailing directly will make more of an impact than just the two-click "submit resume" on Indeed.
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Jun 17, 2021 14:22
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Hadlock posted:This is sort of my reasoning as well I understand this sentiment, but sometimes you can get through to such people. People learn and understand differently and it is worthwhile to ask them how they best learn/figure things out on their own and try to attribute that style to your explanations towards them. Something else that mostly can't be taught is having a sense of urgency. Either you come in and you take the job seriously and show a little hustle or you don't. Urgency is almost impossible to teach.
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Jun 18, 2021 13:02
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I'm in the middle of UConn's bootcamp which is headed by Trilogy and I feel like that might be worth a tiny bit of name recognition but what do I know.
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Aug 9, 2021 01:31
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Lockback posted:I get to know a few of the big ones in my area. If I don't recognize it, I'll usually spend more time talking to candidates about what they did and what they got out of it. There's usually a clear divide between the people who take it seriously, work hard, have some aptitude, and actually got something out of a BC and then those who basically treated it like 8th grade shop class. 100%. It's remarkable how many people in my cohort threw down the money to go into this bootcamp but are very blase about it, don't ask questions, don't engage, and fall behind. My tutor for this curriculum told me when he did the same bootcamp, it started with 50 people and only 10 graduated because so many of them fell behind.
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Aug 9, 2021 14:24
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Those are very valuable bits of posting for someone in the middle of a Trilogy bootcamp now. I have also noticed that there isn't much focus on current better practices/"this is a much more optimal way to do this" type of stuff, and part of it is probably because if you go to work for a company, there is likely to be some legacy code/older practices in the codebase that you'll need to understand in order to update. But my expectation of "get my foot in the door as a junior developer and take it from there on my own" is exactly my thought process. I know I have the tools and the drive to learn as much as I can on the job and to be diligent and do my best, and ultimately, if I'm working for a company I enjoy working for and making even a lower-end developer salary, I'm pretty content with that. It's very good to read that my hunch was correct -- that I am not going to expect employers to expect that someone with no experience other than a six-month bootcamp is any replacement for the knowledge of a four-year degree or from someone who's actually worked in the industry with a robust background in building codebases. EDIT: Haha, after posting this and going through the next part of the DOM module, it's having us use innerHTML as an example of manipulation, which is a huge security risk and a nightmare to maintain from what I understand. fawning deference fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Aug 9, 2021 |
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Aug 9, 2021 15:24
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barkbell posted:after a bootcamp it took me 6 months, ~100 applications, 35 hr screens, 18 technical interviews, 6 final rounds, and one offer to get my first job. Wow, godspeed. I pray I don't have to wait six months to work. I'm unemployed right now but have enough money saved to live within my means for a while while I do this, so I'll have the advantage of doing nothing but job searching 8-10 hours a day every day until I get something. I am absolutely expecting for it to be a long slog, but I've heard from some who graduated from the same bootcamp that some people take longer than others. My tutor, who went through the exact same bootcamp with no coding experience prior last year, said he took advantage of all the career services and worked his rear end off and got a job pretty quickly. The person mentioning luck has to be spot on. We make our own luck to some degree, but I'm just going to expect for things to take a while and be ready to demonstrate my soft skills as well as possible in every interview. What might help me is that if I wind up going to work at a physical location, I'm in Connecticut, and CT has a bunch of initiatives to increase the supply of tech skilled workers. There are a lot of job listings here and not too many candidates -- I'm sure it would be much harder living in a major city.
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Aug 24, 2021 14:32
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Glassdoor might have interview questions from the company.
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Sep 23, 2021 12:41
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You're all great and congrats. I am very close to starting my job search -- I have 15 years in retail management and am more than halfway through UConn's Full Stack bootcamp and I have been taking full advantage of the career services there. All I need to do is re-make my portfolio (I'm going to learn React early and make it with React) and do a couple of more projects so I have better ones to put on my resume. But I'm probably under a month away from looking. Vilgefartz/Romes/anyone else, did you have connections at all? ie. did you know any developers who could have helped you get interviews or were you totally out on your own?
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Oct 8, 2021 13:32
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Romes128 posted:My bootcamp had a partner program which they sent us openings and if we applied they contacted the recruiter and put us at the top of the list. Half of my interviews I got through there. The rest were through LinkedIn job postings and Angel.co. Mine has that as well. A friend of mine told me she has a ton of tech connections and likely knows a few people who would be willing to take on a vouched-for junior dev, so I'm hoping that will cut my job search short!
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Oct 8, 2021 14:41
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I'll be ready to look for jobs in a couple of weeks -- I'm in the middle of a collaborative project now and I have to finish up my remade portfolio. Then I'll, well, have a portfolio I like and have a solid collaborative application to show. I'm really glad to have this thread, it would be cool to work with goons!
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Oct 26, 2021 03:15
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EDIT: Removed.
fawning deference fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Nov 10, 2021 |
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Nov 9, 2021 22:26
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Lockback posted:Everything but the weather app gives a 404? I assume not intentional? I found them in your resume though. Though not employee tracker? So yeah, that is weird. Oh wow, they are 404. You got me out of a big jam, they were working, but it looks like I had the wrong URL's in there when I edited the code tonight. Thank you! If you go now, they should all work, and it's great that you think it's a solid portfolio, I was nervous. EDIT: I didn't put Employee Tracker on my resume because 3 projects take up enough room as it is, and I'll have more on my LinkedIn featured section and portfolio anyway. fawning deference fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Nov 10, 2021 |
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Nov 10, 2021 02:41
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Xarn posted:It is also broken on mobile phone, so that's the lesser problem. Hmmm. Broken how? I did test it on different mobile viewports and it looked not broken to me. I'll try to compress my images too, good call.
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Nov 10, 2021 12:59
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Xarn posted:Using Chrome on Android 12 on Pixel 4a, I got a centered view of the pictures from your project and couldn't side scroll. OK, so I guess I should take my stuff down because I didn't really think twice about putting my stuff on here for feedback, but I ought to be careful, so anyone who's willing to take a look at my job materials, let me know and I can PM them. fawning deference fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Nov 10, 2021 |
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Nov 10, 2021 13:53
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Armauk posted:Are you OK with totally doxxing yourself? Hmm. Forgot this is SomethingAwful. Fair enough, I can take this stuff down, but if I want feedback from people who are not malicious here, where should I post my stuff? Also I was being an idiot on purpose with getting a dumb url, so I am aware it's stupid. "hellyeah url" had a lost tone online I think. Completely joking. fawning deference fucked around with this message at 15:25 on Nov 10, 2021 |
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Nov 10, 2021 15:22
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barkbell posted:I think the feedback you’ve been given is useful and not malicious. It absolutely was good feedback, I'm just taking protective measures because this is the internet.
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Nov 10, 2021 16:46
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That's a really cool approach. I have lots of ideas for apps that I want to start and might not finish! What's your consensus on README's/documenting the app built? I go out of my way to make nice-looking, readable, extensive README's but don't know if employers care about that. Either way, I like doing them and it helps me better understand, so whatever.
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Dec 28, 2021 16:08
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Lockback posted:Very important. Managers live in documentation and people who are good at it are very valuable. I usually ask a bunch about documentation and even if it doesn't come up it's a good opportunity to frame your projects in the best light. Time spent on documentation is time well spent. Yeah - one of the things I hear over and over from my dev friends in the industry already is that my READMEs are really good for a junior developer. Most learning engineers have minimal to no README for projects. Glad I'm not wasting my time in terms of what employers like.
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Dec 28, 2021 21:17
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I'd think anything you can do to make yourself stand out is a good thing. It won't hurt to have a nice-looking portfolio, even if it's basic.
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Jan 16, 2022 03:27
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Vincent Valentine posted:I can talk about things all day long, give you good, detailed answers on complicated topics. But the instant you ask me to write code while looking at me do it, I turn into a complete and utter loving moron. I had to look up how Slice worked in an interview and then realized what I wanted was actually splice so I had to look that up instead and then had to look up Map to remember what argument the index was. This is why companies seem to be moving away from live coding. I'm similar. I have been building React apps with conditional rendering for months and in a recent live coding interview I led a ternary operation with a question mark instead of a colon and felt stupid. I think if I know I can be comfortable and do my process without feeling judged and second-guessing, I would do eons better. It's not really the interviewer's fault either, even if they're amazing and make you feel comfortable, something about being watched while I work is hard to get used to.
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Jan 23, 2022 13:58
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I can chime in extensively about this, too. I had a lot of money saved up and was getting a lot of unemployment from California for a while, and that enabled me to do a six-month intensive Full-Stack bootcamp. I did research and ultimately landed on UConn/Trilogy because it seemed really thorough and, best of all, seemed like all the reviews mentioned the amazing support system and career services. Here is a bullet point list of things to consider. -- Assume you will be looking for work after the bootcamp for 3 or 4 months. That might not be true, it might be less (advice on making it less below), it might be more, but it is prudent to give yourself a realistic runway for how long you can survive based on what you have in the bank. -- Like everyone else has said, be prepared to have this take over your life fully. The bootcamp I did is made for people who work during the day, meaning the two classes a week fall on weekday evenings, and they advertise that cohorts need to put in 20 hours a week at least. It's more like 50 if you want to stand a chance of getting a solid grasp of what you're learning and also stand out in other ways to get a job when you're done. The handful of people in my cohort who were serious, passionate, and put a ton of time were able to stay well ahead of the curriculum and I expect them to find work in a reasonable time frame. Most of the others either fell way behind and dropped out or graduated JUST BARELY and their materials are not good and they're probably not going to find work anytime soon. -- Do freeCodeCamp/some sort of free learning of HTML/CSS/JavaScript basics BEFORE you go in. Even though there's pre-work, it's not much. You should take 2 months outside of your current job and learn those basics so you can hit the ground running. You don't want to go in completely useless. If you know what arrays and loops are and know how to make a skeleton website with HTML and CSS, you will feel much more comfortable at the outset expanding on those skills. -- Try to find a bootcamp that uses version control or at the very least does group projects. So many people go through tutorials and bootcamps and have websites but have no idea how to collaborate on a repo. It's going to be much harder to accommodate to an industry job or even get hired for one if you don't know what a feature branch or a pull request is. Coding is highly collaborative and you will need to show that you can work with people on a codebase. If they don't touch on Git, definitely make a point to make it part of what you learn before the bootcamp starts, even just the basics. -- Be engaged! From what I can gather (and from my experience with my bootcamp), remote learning means everyone is awkward and nobody asks questions. Ask questions! Be funny and to lighten the mood. Take it upon yourself to lead discussions, especially if nobody else is saying anything. You will really stand out doing this and you will learn more. -- NETWORK. This is the #1 most important thing, in my opinion. Get on Slack and Discord communities and GET ON LINKEDIN and start posting or responding to posts here and there about coding. Make friends. Reach out to people. Help others behind you. So many people I know who have done bootcamps got jobs because of a connection. I myself am in the hiring pipeline process of working on the team of my bootcamp instructor at a big company because he wants to work with me. My tutor has also told me if his company has an opening he would essentially hand me a job. Network!!! Go to events, go to career fairs, go to office hours. If you are willing to put in a ton of time and have the means to survive for an extended period of time on the money you've got, it's a great idea to do a bootcamp as long as it's thorough and has really good career services and you are willing to do what you need to do to stand out, because most bootcampers do the minimum and don't graduate or are not employable after they're done -- their portfolios look like an absolute mess, they have no online presence, they didn't say a single word in the entire class curriculum, and their projects are obviously just beginner projects instead of unique and personal ones. If anyone wants more advice about this I would love to help. Shoot me a DM! I think I am pretty astute in terms of what I see people doing and not doing which allow them to get the most out of a bootcamp or not.
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Jan 24, 2022 14:35
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In a quick subject change, I want to read Clean Code but I'm wondering if it is fairly beginner friendly. If it isn't, is there something like which is? Edit: It seems like CC is Java-specific and I'm finding that most of the "you gotta read this" books on software architecture and good coding habits are specific to object-oriented languages. That's fine, but I'm going to be coding in JavaScript/React using functional components and am wondering if there is a great resource that is more relevant to that. fawning deference fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Feb 23, 2022 |
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Feb 23, 2022 16:22
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So what would you all suggest instead of Clean Code?
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Feb 23, 2022 18:06
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Funny stuff. Anyway, I am struggling because comp-sci and software engineering books or courses focus on Java or C# or Python and I'm going to be using JavaScript/React almost exclusively. I still really want to learn and I know lots of it is transferrable, but it's difficult to know where to dive in.
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Feb 23, 2022 18:43
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I wonder what these good recommendations are!
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Feb 24, 2022 02:28
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I accepted an offer for my first software engineering gig! The background check came back perfect except (I can see the results) that the start date on my last retail job is almost 3 years off. If I couldn't remember my start date and just guessed terribly, is that going to be OK or is this going to look really bad? I imagine people forget dates all the time and discrepancies are common, but this is embarrassingly off.
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Apr 11, 2022 16:11
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Even 3 years? OK. Well even so, if they ask me what I did during that time, I don't know what to say. Should I just say I was a musician at the time as primary income and just forgot when I actually started the official job (this is the case)? Because then they will just think I pushed back the start date to cover that up. I'm moreso just freaking out because I am bad under pressure and if they ask me I don't want it to seem like I'm lying.
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Apr 11, 2022 16:23
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Coco13 posted:Yup. Numbers don't have a spell check, and if they're doing background checks you're far enough along that time spent in retail is not a big deal. The bigger issue is that if you don't catch any other minor issues now and they do, that's an uncomfortable conversation. I'd go over the information you sent with a fine-tooth comb to make sure. Yup, everything else checks out perfectly.
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Apr 11, 2022 17:22
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Welp, you were all right. I got cleared today and am officially hired! I start next Monday. Hell yeah.
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Apr 18, 2022 18:51
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That post is amazing. A 700 sq foot 1br with no view in the middle of a crazy loud city for $3100. In 2015. I'm certain it's significantly higher now. I am renting a gorgeous two story house in the woods Connecticut 30 minutes outside of New Haven for probably half of what that 1br would cost now
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Jun 1, 2022 13:58
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No I'm not rich, my point was that you can have a great housing situation for not much money if you don't live in a major city, and considering the remote work trend in tech, you no longer have to. Highly advisable
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Jun 1, 2022 18:27
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asur posted:Just because you don't want to live in a city doesn't mean the rest of us don't. Never said that either. I lived in Brooklyn and LA for 12 years total. Cities are great too. Just not what I want now. I was making a statement purely about housing costs.
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Jun 1, 2022 20:38
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Interviews are conversations. In my experience, the more a candidate sound like they're reading off a cue-card and/or dodging a question and/or making stuff up to sound like they know what they're talking about, the less likely it is for them to be hired. I talk about what I actually know and if I don't know something I have no qualms saying so.
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Jun 5, 2022 13:06
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prom candy posted:get that paper
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Jun 8, 2022 12:57
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Mega Comrade posted:If only. After the hours you spend in meetings, arguing with PMs and dealing with annoying clients, 4 hours is a good day. One of the biggest misconceptions people have about being a software engineer is that they think it's head down 8 hours of code while wearing sunglasses and listening to techno (not really but you get my point). The amount of meetings, project roadmapping, work refinements, tracking down information, meetings, and meetings you are involved in is a wake up call to most new engineers. It's an extremely collaborative profession and you'll need to learn how to talk to business leadership. I'd say that it varies between me coding between 2 and 4 hours a day.
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Dec 29, 2023 03:16
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rally posted:Hell…there are many WEEKS where I don’t code a total of 8 hours. It has been less and less coding as I move up the engineering levels. This too. The tech leads at the company I work at code very very little. Almost fully removed from team-based delivery.
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Dec 29, 2023 12:35
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I will probably post this in the Resume/Interview thread as well, since this seems relevant for both places. I'll try to be brief. I'd been in music and coffee shop gigs all my life until COVID. I learned to code, did a 6-month bootcamp at UCONN, and my instructor hired me at his company, which is Fortune 500, straight out of it. I started in April 2022. It's been 2 years and I have been promoted twice and am now a Tech Lead for our Innovation team (have you guys heard of imposter syndrome?). I have had this rocket strapped on me because, I think, of 4 things I have always seemed to be good at: being pro-active in taking on more responsibility, following/standardizing/improving processes, mentoring my peers, and being vocal and charismatic. I also have a great boss who believes in me and puts me in positions to try things out, and failure is just a learning experience, etc. Here's the meat of my post. I'm starting to get interested in exploring different opportunities. I like my current job enough but why not look to see what else I can get? Well, I am nervous. I got lucky with my job because my instructor loved me and made the hiring process extremely easy. I am not a great coder. I will figure something out if you ask me to and I have attention to detail, but I also wrote my first line of code only 3 years ago. I hate / am miserable at algorithms and generally forget everything I know when put on the spot. I'm a rambling speaker who is bad at boiling concepts down to a concise core and am under the impression that I will be unable to get through any round of interviews with a company that would pay me more than I make now because of these things. Am I alone in feeling that the interview process, especially for a tech lead role, is punishing for people like me and would at the very least require a full-time job's worth of time to do interview prep, which I am not going to be able to manage right now? Is all of this really just imposter syndrome?
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May 12, 2024 17:13
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 07:12 |
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lifg posted:1) You must be doing something right. What are you referring to for #3? #2 nails it for me. It makes me wonder why the interview process is the way it is, and it also kinda validates what I'm saying: I know I'm doing really well at my current job, but the interview process is an entirely different thing that I would need to dedicate tons of time to prep for algorithms and if I'm being honest, I don't want to nor do I have the time to while working a full-time job.
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May 12, 2024 17:53
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