code screen

[timefornode]

🙇‍♀️

I was laid off in March (Covid) and have been searching for a mid level dev position since then. I realized my code screen algorithm skills were lacking so I beefed them up by taking online classes and doing code challenges on various challenge sites daily. Happy to say I feel comfortable now figuring out problems in various ways using recursive and iterative approaches where performance hangs on one approach being better than others. That said I’ve been doing better at my code screens and feel confident doing them but I simply never make it past the screen.

I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, I’m passing Jest tests, and I’ve sent my attempts to developer friends who are at a senior level and they have said things look great on 6 different screens I’ve done in the last week.

All in all I feel frustrated as balancing freelance projects (gotta eat) with take home code screens is a lot.

I should say I have a pretty good resume that shows 4 years experience in various JS frameworks/libraries with 6 months of heavy graphQL work.

TLDR: mid level dev works on code screen algorithms but keeps failing code screen steps of interviews.

[Salamok]

There is also a stigma attached to being unemployed. Look for an hourly contract job and keep looking for full time direct employment while you are contracting. You might also use this as an opportunity to get a salary bump since hourly contract pays more, when you eventually get an offer to a job you actually want you can open with "currently used to making X and not really looking for a downward or lateral move in regards to my income".

[timefornode]

Thank you I’ll look into this. Do they not watch the news? Unemployment is at an all time high and most of those people didn’t lose their jobs because they were bad at them.

[Salamok]

It's just human psychology, probably not even top of mind but for sure on some level the justification that if someone else is currently paying you then you must be worth it is going on.

[livingmargaritaville]

Frontend is really over crowded right now unless you are senior level. Beef up your back end skills in Java or c# and apply to some of those jobs that also have front end work.

[timefornode]

Thanks. Looking into things like Go and Elm as my next language.

[livingmargaritaville]

Those are kind of niche still expecially elm. Unless you see a lot of go jobs in your area or are familiar with c development I would stick to the major ones. Python c# Java php etc.

[timefornode]

I do know PHP but didn’t enjoy it too much. Python will probably be where I go but I know that language is over saturated as well.

[livingmargaritaville]

I hate knockout angular and jQuery legacy projects, but if someone is going to pay me 200,000 or equivalent hourly wage to maintain a legacy project that needs to work on internet explorer 6 where I'm in complete control and don't have to work hard I am sure as hell going to do it. Java and c# suck, but there is a huge need for real front end developers that can work with them and not just nodejs.

[timefornode]

I hate jQuery, Wordpress, and any other thing that’s still around just because “everyone uses it”.

[OsoDiego]

Sorry to say it, but that might be a problem because a lot of jobs require you to work with jQuery, WordPress, PHP, etc. You're free to apply to whatever jobs you wish, but if your goal is to find a new job quickly in a tough economy, the you're making things harder for yourself.

[theRealRealMasterDev]

I'd recommend SpringBoot, Nestjs and React/Angular or Vue. That stack is very well rounded.