Can anyone help me? I have had plenty of jobs but never one as a programmer. I have some skill, but no experience. The problem is this: in every job posting I see, even those purporting to be "junior" positions, they want someone with at least a year of experience. How do I get experience when I can't get a job?? Any advice / tips would be great. THANKS!
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Top comments (78)
Hey Tiffany,
If you’re looking for experience, I’d be willing to take you on as a developer in my business to help you gain said experience. If you’re interested I’ll reply with an email address you can reach me at to discuss details!
Stack:
Let me know!
Thanks Michael! I'd love to talk. Here's my email: tkwismer@gmail.com
Great, I’ve sent you an email.
Hi Michael,
Would you be willing to assist me too?
Hi! am facing the same problem here. I need some help please!!
Is this still going on? Is the stack for current skills or skills that will be gained from mentorship? Thank you!
You can try to make a website you like, dev.to, reddit, hacker news, etc. Show to this company that you know what you say, build a personal website. Maybe a tutorial and put it on GitHub, break that code. There are many ways to show experience. Clone websites are usually good.
I agree. Personal projects that you devote to go along way.
When I was first trying to break in I was basically doing full-time development on a website I was treating as if it were itself a biz opportunity with deadlines etc. Just making it as polished as possible.
But one more thing:
Interview for jobs even if you feel a bit under-qualified. You're probably not. Don't disqualify yourself. That's their job.
Here's a post I wrote on this general subject:
Embrace How Random the Programming Interview Is
Ben Halpern
Thank you Ben!
I second Ben here - definitely apply for jobs even if you feel you aren't experienced enough. I've hired people with almost zero prior coding experience for software developer positions, based on how the interview went. Good communication skills and interpersonal skills are much harder to train for than technical skills.
This is good to know!! Thank you!
@Donald, I wish my manager can say this to me. :( I moved to dev department a year ago but only as someone who implements template design to WYSWG editor. I just had an appraisal few days back. I told my manager that I've learned Javascript, React, UI design and Node.js hoping that somehow they can see it fitting to our project, because I really wanted to become a full-time frontend developer - only to be told that being Technical (learning all these technologies) doesn't really help the business then proceeds saying that they already hired enough devs for their team. 💔
I'm sorry to hear that it didn't work out on your first try. I'm sure that you'll be able to apply your new tech skills somehow!
I was in a very similar situation about 5 years ago: wanting to transition into web development with 0 professional experience. I used this method to create a successful freelance practice followed by an amazing job offer for a permanent position.
Thanks for the advice on personal projects! I've started many of them but never had any gumption to finish them(mostly because they were stupid).
I think this is the biggest challenge for any personal project. At least I realize how stupid my ideas are before I start working on it. I think Devon has a great point though - we need to work on many small tightly scoped projects instead of one big one.
Great advice, thank you.
Great suggestions on where to get some experience.
I just wanted to reiterate what @ben said.
Many times companies post a list of requirements, but not all of them are hard requirements. They are more like a "shopping list" of things the "ideal" candidate would have.
Try to read between the lines to see what it is they actually need and what's just "nice to have"s.
At the end of the day, if you aren't sure if you qualify, apply anyways and let them decide.
You will get rejected from 100% of the jobs you don't apply to.
Thank you, very encouraging.
Hehe, the gretzsky would be proud I think.
Did you consider internship? Contributing to open source projects?
Re: Open source. There are ways to contribute to even the most complicated projects without a high barrier, you just have to be searching for it.
For example, check out this PR I made to React:
github.com/facebook/react/pull/5287
If you contribute in non-code, just say it was "mostly documentation" and interviewers will respect your effort to be a part of the ecosystem.
Can I admit to being really scared to contribute to open source projects? I feel like I have no business touching someone else's code. Is this a normal fear?
I think it's normal. I was stressed out about my first PR. I was trying to make it perfect. It didn't end up being perfect 😁. I was also very new to git at the time. You can see my first PR to Github here. Yolo.
Even though I was very comfortable with JavaScript, I was working with technology that was very new to me at the time, Meteor. I started to contribute to this project to get out of my comfort zone and force me to learn Meteor.
If you're super stressed out about it, I can give you a hand with your first PR if you want.
Also, for those interested in seeing what their first PR was, check out firstpr.me
Suuuuuuuuuper normal Tiffany.
Ha! Thanks. I'm glad to hear that.
If you want to contribute "code" to an opensource project; add documentation of a complex example.
One of my pet peeves of so many O/S projects is that the documentation shows trivial examples that I have already figured out and nothing more concrete/complex. If you could create a more complex example and contribute that, you're doing the community a favour to help the project AND also creating something that you can easily "show off" for an employer.
Whatever you contribute becomes a good indicator of how you think and your work product as well... so a triple bonus! And while your answer to "what did you do there" is still technically "some documentation" it can be enhanced by mentioning that it was complex interation case(s) and not just simple documentation.
I wrote about contributing to open source projects in ways that aren't just code for my personal blog and published it on the Cucumber blog as well. Seems fitting for this conversation! cucumber.io/blog/2018/08/10/contri...
Open Source is the way to go. I should have read this before I made my comment .
I agree with this, even though I'm now a student.
I was once in an event that people around me who are experienced in coding. They told me try to contribute to open-source projects or create a project yourself on GitHub, make some contributions. This is your proof of experience and capability.
Hey tiffany !
3 years ago i started learning how to code.
every day after i got off my TERRIBLE admin office position a security company, I would go online and teach myself how to write in javascript, than i taught myself frameworks.
Than i started networking and meeting other people who code, not even trying during this time to land a job, just trying to focus on getting to a place where i could be confident in my own abilities .
I continued to BUILD THINGS , and as i did i got better and better.
Soon i was building small apps just for my amusement - at this point the universe placed someone in my life and i was able to , not even trying take a shot at a junior/intern position
the position didnt even pay money, they said basically we will take you on as an intern and can only pay your rent and your car note.
I quit my job and said okay im down
so initially it was never for the job / money / title .
it was just cause i wanted to do what i love
ive been writing in React/rails for 3+ years now, not only do i have an awesome job , but now i'm way better at building things.
everyones journey is different though , good luck on yours .
i believe in the law of attraction though, i feel if your going down this path, a job will come to you.
ken
Hey Tiffany,
One of the reasons I began learning programming was because of the potential to create something. There are so many free/minimal-cost resources online to learn programming, start a project, and maintain it.
I don't really know what your time situation is like, but I would recommend starting a programming project you're interested in. Maybe find a group of people like you who have the same ideas who will help maintain it. Or, get involved with somebody else's team project.
While this is mainly for game dev, teamups.net/ is a good way to find projects to hop on.
This article may help:
antrikshy.com/blog/how-i-got-start...
Best of luck,
Hey Ben, I started programming for a similar reason! Mostly I wanted to re-create what was in my math book, to be honest. xD
Also, thanks for the link! I'm looking to Game Development as a possible career, as I'm currently lead dev for the Qub3d Engine Project.
Tre'
michael@invocie.com - reach out to me
can i hop on?
As an employer, I don't see it like that. There is no requirement list per se (and I'm honest about it in my job offers, I don't put a requirements list).
There's only two things I look at:
Depending on the business constraints, I'll be needing someone able to work at an expected level within an expected amount of time.
So, regarding the technical skills, I hire the people with the most potential but within an acceptable investment threshold.
Every job offer on the planet lists "requirements" that they don't actually require. I don't believe I've been "qualified" for a single job I've gotten if looking at their job postings.
What is sufficient "experience" for a junior level programming job generally is some sort of basic proof that you can actually do something for yourself - e.g. set up a GitHub account, put your personal projects there. The better you do those, the better chances you have of getting a decent job.
Thanks, very encouraging!
Oh, and for more specific advice on what to put to those personal projects:
Everything the others said and these:
Who's looking for open source contributors? (April 16 edition)
Ben Halpern
Who's looking for open source contributors? (April 9 edition)
Ben Halpern
Who's looking for open source contributors? (April 2 edition)
Ben Halpern
Did I mention open source :D ?
One thing that I love of being Software Developer is that you don't need to wait for someone to hire you to gain some experience. The limit of experience you can get totally depends on you.
You can create or work in whatever project you like, you can create your own Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, or even somethig new, in my opinion I try to make my personal projects something that might generate value for someone else, hopefully this gets spread and then you can say not only you created a project but you also generated an amazing idea.
Would be my pleasure to help you if you need further information.
Hey Tiffany - I'm on the same boat. Looking for jobs, but have no experience and I'm terrified of touching anyone's code. There are lots of good advice here and I will try to follow it. Thanks for posting this question!
Hi Daniela! I'm glad it could help others! Did you see this? dev.to/michaelgv/looking-for-workp...
I didn't. Thanks for sharing it!
My first programming job was in marketing.
They needed someone to make some simple websites for campaigns. Wasn't really a programming job. I started with stuff like Joomla and when they wanted more customizations than the plugins delivered, I got more and more into coding.
After a year or so I switched to an open position in R&D.
Read every day, about your industry this will eventually help you gain more experience, more knowledge that can help you in your interviews.
Work on open source projects. Companies see the value, and they can even see your skills in the code. Especially if you help has few commits on a big project, that adds value to an interview.
Talk to anyone that you know that is looking for a project to build and build it for them for free with the chances that you can showcase it online. Make sure is a realistic project with your skills set. Make sure you take these projects very seriously because they are going to help you in the future.
Find a company that needs a programmer and work for them very cheap.
Create a LinkedIn account let everybody know that you contribute to open source projects and that you have work on many projects.
These are the things that I did when I was getting started, and it works out perfectly for me. Hopefully, it will help you too.