DEV Community

Discussion on: How did you get your first Dev job?

Collapse
 
cathodion profile image
Dustin King • Edited

I got a job in customer service/tech support and transferred into the R&D department after a year or so. A friend who worked at the company was instrumental in both getting the job and holding someone's feet to the fire who'd promised me I could transfer. Another friend had left support, and the support management were (rightly) worried that I'd quit. So they said I could transfer if I stayed for 3 more months. I had just assumed they were lying, so had started looking for jobs elsewhere. But my friend (who was a product manager by this point) went and talked to somebody without my asking him to, and boom, I was starting in R&D earlier than the date they promised.

I had on my resume that I'd written a Pong clone in Java. At the time, they didn't have a lot of people who knew or liked Java, so their one Java desktop app was what they put me on. A few months later the other developer on that app quit, so they gave me a raise to make sure I'd stay.

You don't necessarily need to know someone with a lot of clout to follow a similar path, starting in a relatively easy-to-get position and transferring. Some companies like to hire from within. But it would probably help to have more self-confidence than I did, and advocate for yourself.