Makers Academy is a place of transformation. Most people come as career changers, myself included, aspiring to graduate with the super power of coding as a junior developer.
We had the honour of having Najaf Ali, founder of Happy Bear Software, who gave us an incredibly insightful lunch time talk on how to Kick Start a Developer Career. As with most things in life (with a few exceptions), it’s better to have somewhat of a plan when it comes to building a new career than running around like a headless chicken.
I like plans since I never had one.
WRITE | SPEAK | NETWORK
Share the LOVE
The tech community is very social. One thrives in such social space by connecting with people and sharing knowledge. Ali stressed on the importance of building a professional profile and having a presence in the community that will eventually compound overtime.
- Writing blogs / articles– get into the habit of exercising your writing muscles by writing blogs or articles to share technical tips/ knowledges. It’s important to show your personality and have a voice. Your writing can surprisingly be a good point of reference and connects you to potential opportunities. Practice makes it better. Just because you know doesn’t mean everyone else knows.
- Speaking at events / Conferences– ‘No one ever died from public speaking, and 90 % of talks at conferences suck so don’t be afraid to suck too’ , Ali reassured us. Senior dev usually grow blind spots in explaining something technical and junior dev often communicate better in plain english. Start off with giving a short talk on Test Drive Development?
- Networking – ‘Don’t be afraid to meet new people’. Attend tech industry meet ups can be helpful in connecting with like-minded people in the community and potentially create soft leads.
- Side Projects – Your pet projects, something simple and manageable that’s completed and potentially open sourced will be the best indicator of your skills / interest to potential leads or collaboration.
Dream Job Assessment
WARNING: Don’t be the only technical person on the job!
Know thyself is winning half of the battle.
The definition of an ideal job may be different from one person to another. Take some time to answer the following questions before diving into the sea of job applications.
What things are important to you?
- Job / financial security ? —> Big company vs. start-up
- Remote working? —> 9-5 conventional working hours vs. remote working style or part-time
- Senior dev as mentor ? —> Established team with senior dev vs. small teams with more responsibilities
- Practice of Test Driven Development ?
- Open source contribution?
- Opportunities for attending conferences / personal development?
- Other aspirations such as social responsibility?
5 Steps to Project Manage Your Job Search
Use a project management tool, such as Trello to map and keep track of your job search process.
Step 1: Collect Leads – start with 20-30 opportunities
- In-bound leads
- Referral leads
- Job boards
- Research
- Recruitment (least desirable option – don’t ever go through recruiters)
Step 2: Rate Leads
- Rate each leads against the dream job criteria that you have just mapped out
Step 3: Qualify Leads
- Start with applying to anonymous leads and save your dream dream jobs for later application round
- 4-5 Application of qualified leads at once
Step 4: Application
State clearly what you are after – put “Available for full time position as Junior Developer” across first line of your linkedin profile and CV. No one has time to guess what opportunities you are looking for.
Tip 1 – Keep CV short and relevant to developer experience, 2 pages maximum. Keep all previous professional experience on Linked in.
Tip 2 – Make sure your github, blog post, linked in and twitter links are clearly stated on the CV
Tip 3 – Start the CV with 3 links – this is what potential employers are first and foremost interested in. Since they don’t know you, they will have to assess what you can do blindly.
- Side project
- Code Sample
- Screen cast walkthrough of code sample on technical decisions
Step 5 : Follow up
Be PERSISTENT
- Have a follow up schedule every 2 weeks until you have been outright rejected. If so, happily move on.
Negotiate Negotiate & Negotiate
You should never accept salary as a junior dev in London lower than 30K. Do not ever settle on the first offer you receive, be patient and get back to them after a week or two while look for other offers for more negotiating leverage.
Ask for 36K and shut up about it.
You won’t get what you haven’t asked for and you never know that you might make 3K more with an email even if you settle midway. 6 K means nothing to the company financially who are looking to hire junior dev, but the difference will kick start your career at the baseline.
Know that you are worth it.
Thank you Ali for such an invigorating talk that demystified the big scary topic of building a developer career. It definitely helps to have such practical and useful tips to navigate the painful process of starting out not knowing where to put your feet.
Perhaps in 7 more weeks there will be a follow up post on the actual implementation of the above mentioned strategy. But for now, I am happy to huddle in the warm and supportive environment of Makers universe until the winter comes.
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