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Comment by taurath | Hacker News Reader

This is similar to my experience but without a bootcamp. My biggest problem when mentoring people that want to and are capable of learning to code is pointing them towards any avenue of someone who might hire them to code. It seems like the few companies that do "junior" positions only target new grads, and many companies don't even bother with junior devs. As a result, finding the first job can be a larger barrier than being able to code useful things.

Wondering if anyone has any insight as to where I might be able to help people look for a first coding job, especially without a connection to a bootcamp.

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Over the last ~5 years many of the "New Grad" recruiting programs in tech companies have pivoted to "Early Career" programs that accept non-traditional candidates. This is partly in a response to diversity requirements.

How these might work is that you come in at a lower level (Associate, "level 1", whatever, varies by company) and generally these are up-or-out roles where a person has a year or so to prove themselves or they would be let go.

Interesting that multiple people here have said that Early Career style programs are aimed at diversity requirements. I guess if you're male and white/asian, you should still make sure to go to university if you have the chance.

I think it’s less that these programs aren’t interested in people from typical backgrounds and more that the candidates from alternative paths are more likely to be of diverse backgrounds, so considering those alternative paths (in addition to the classical ones) is a good way to help diversify your hires. I.e they’re expanding the pool rather than pulling from just one source.

That's not how it worked at Dropbox when I worked there 2015-2019. Only women and URM candidates from bootcamps were interviewed. There's plenty of white and Asian men in those programs, and if you hired them at equal rates as their diverse counterparts it wouldn't help the company's representation.

Semi-related but I heard of someone - a friend of a founder I worked for a couple years ago - who tried to get into Oxford and failed, so took a gap year to go travelling. Applied again the next year and failed, so took a second gap year and keep travelling. Tried a third time, failed yet again, and spent more time on holidays. On his fourth attempt he ticked a couple diversity boxes as he'd been travelling around strange parts of the Globe for long enough and actually got in haha.

He was a white Etonian but had the privilege to pay for a long enough holiday to move into one of the diversity groups.

Not a novel thought but regular attendance of a local meetup or joining an online community like some projects discord will be useful for getting your name out there.

Also generally I think easier to smart smaller. Companies that aren't as tech focused will probably be more lenient.

You can always try to build some websites for local companies or friends gratis as well to get some work experience.

> Not a novel thought but regular attendance of a local meetup or joining an online community like some projects discord will be useful for getting your name out there.

Absolutely. But also do something for yourself with your programming so you can talk about it. If it's important to you, you will be able to convey that to people in your group.

Track your pokemon cards. Record your bikes. Make some decorations that blink. Something. Anything. As long as it's actually relevant to something you want to do, you'll be fine.

Yep. I got a job because I followed comma.ai's self driving car project and then did a port to a new car. I got a lot of help from community and explained this to my employer but they didn't really care, only cared that I was passionate enough to do my own project.

Well, it wasn't just that you were passionate enough ...

Doing a port shows that you can work with an existing codebase and work with others. This is vastly more important to a business than pure programming chops.

Does it really help to be the guy at the meetup who everyone knows because he can't get a job? Not sure anyone's ever told me that an employer reached out to them after they did a 5-minute talk at a meetup or became a regular on Discord.

I already had a job but I literally got an offer without an interview after giving a talk at a meetup. And I just think generally if you keep attending one and get to know some people they'll eventually have referrals for you, a lot of people need talent.

I have recently begun searching for software development jobs as a self-taught programmer. So I too would love to gain some insight on where to look not only for a job, but also for advice on the application process (e.g. my resume and personal website).

Do you have any decently complex open source projects that you can show off to potential employers? If you do you’ll likely not have any trouble finding a job.

Thank you for the kind words. I suppose my answer depends on our definitions of decently complex. My primary two projects are a multi-user painting program via the internet, and what is effectively a network KVM switch, sans video.

> I suppose my answer depends on our definitions of decently complex.

Write them up like you believe they are important. Put the code on your GitHub. Advertise. Get pics of the KVM up and write something like a blog post about it. Remember - your competition doesn't have the self-motivation to be creative like this.

https://www.rezi.ai/rezi-ai-resume-editor

When I first graduated (with a BSEE from some shitty local uni), the only CS project I had on my resume was some ML research I published as an undergrad. I did do a lot of hobby projects in Python / some JS, but nothing was presentable in the slightest.

When applying for jobs in a medium-sized but not-very-techy-city, I found the hardest part to be just getting an interview offer. But the interview itself usually ranged from braindead easy to a straightforward take-home exam. So I guess the takeaway is to fluff up your resume and accomplishments as much as possible. It turns out to be much easier to impress someone in an interview than with your resume. And at least for entry-level positions, you aren't really grilled on trivia for whatever you list, maybe just a general "how-does-it-work" question.

Sadly I didn't realize this until my second go-around with job-hunting. The first time I only really got responses for intern positions (was applying for both frontend / backend / fullstack). Luckily I was offered a full-time frontend position after interviewing for an internship and crushing the take-home exam.

I would try to contribute to open source and put a volunteer section on your resume, if you contribute to an open source app used by a company, I would think getting an interview would be doable

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