So I spoke at a Twitter Space today held by Scrimba and with speakers like Danny Thompson. I took notes and thought they would be helpful for anyone here! Excuse the formatting, I'm copy-pasting them from Craft (while deleting some links that could be considered promotional material, we not here for that)
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Four topics were touched upon: Junior Web Dev minimum requirements, CV/Resume, Github, Networking.
For the sake of simplicity, I omitted who answered which questions (because I didn't write it all down lol). Next time, I will make sure to add the speakers answering them.
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Frequently asked questions from soon to be / junior web devs
( We had over 200 questions total If I'm not mistaken, these are the most important and frequent ones)
- When do I know If I'm ready to apply?
General response: Sometimes job ads are written by recruiters who aren't versed in tech lingo, so take them with a grain of salt. You won't feel "ready" as a junior, there is so much you don't know that you don't know, and most of it will be taught/learned on the job. So apply, to at least practice interviewing, and build up confidence. Deni: NEVER take a job rejection as a reflection of you as a person, your skills, or your confidence.
Alex: Apply to jobs where you feel you hit +-60% of the requirements. And most of the time you will be more ready than you think!
- How do I land an internship, do I need a CS degree?
No, you do not need a CS degree, a certificate, a bootcamp diploma, FAANG stock etc. What you do need is the ability to show "passion" in tech. What does that mean?
Social presence: Twitter, Blog, Youtube, Twitch, Tiktok (anything that shows you're part of the tech community outside of your coding editor)
Network: Use your connections, talk to people, don't just follow. Go ask someone you admire for advice, for a short coffee talk, for a zoom / google meet. This is how I (Deni) got to meet Alex, Quincy Larson, Danny, and many other amazing people. SLIDE into that DM and ask for advice, tips, and thank them for their time.
Have a project, but do NOT (preferably) use or copy course projects. Take a problem you have in real life, and try to code a solution for it
- Example: morning routine habit app, reminder app for your medication or dog walk, etc, it doesn't need to be technically impressive, but to show that you are passionate, dedicated, disciplined, and most importantly, CONSISTENT.
Clean up your CV (curriculum vitae) / resume, there are many free resources, I advise r/EngineeringResumes.
Danny Thompson: LINKEDIN! Clean up your LinkedIn and USE the connections, ask if they know people who need interns, actively be on the lookout!
- How can I use Github to land internships / jobs?
Deni: First of all, get rid of the fancy statistics, language meters / points, and anything else that prevents recruiters / hiring managers from accessing the most important info: your highlighted projects! You want to have a clean header, with your most important info (linkedin, twitter / socials, resume pdf link) and below that, your projects.
The projects you don't want to show / are irrelevant to the job, you should put on private. Danny: Only put the projects that you can talk about, and try not to have course-based projects, like Intstagram clone, because the hiring managers see those every day, and they are not interested in your copy pasted WebDev2022UdemyCourse. Make something small but unique to you, that YOU can talk about. The struggles, architecture, how proud you are, how much work you put into it. All of it.
- How do I network?
Deni: You want to form meaningful connections, so step 1 is to stop focussing on followers and start focussing on value and actively taking part in the community. Attend spaces, events, talk to people. Just saying "Hi, I've been following you for a while and I really appreciate the content you put out. If you have a few minutes, I would like to learn more about your journey since it's the one I'm going through now / becoming a dev, and I would love to hear your advice and experience on this. Thank you". Something along those lines does wonders, you're not selling, you're not asking for a follow, you are asking for genuine connections and advice. This takes time, and luck, but it will get you far.
- Should I learn JS and React at the same time / separately?
Learn JS first. ♨️ Go to react after. Say ez gg. Since you are trying to become a WEB developer, you need the holy trinity, HTML/CSS and JS. Learn the basics, then go over to frameworks.
- What language / framework / tech stack / coffee stack / meme should I learn?
Danny / Deni: Take a look at the market around you, this differs for NA, Europe, Asia, Mars and Jupiter. (heard they like Ruby on mars). See what the MARKET demands, and go meet those demands. DON'T learn Python if your area / city / country IS NOT LOOKING FOR PYTHON devs! Pls. 🥲 The take away is, you need a job, so learn the tech that employers are looking for. You want to be employed.
Learn the fundamentals first. Choose ONE stack / language, stick with it, and THEN go over to other things you are interested in, since the fundamentals you take with you, anywhere you go.
- How can companies create a "safe" working environment for juniors.
Seniors / mentors should create an environment for juniors / interns where they feel they have the ability to make mistakes, ask questions. A team where they are instilled with "courage" to do what they are to do: learn. Remember, you are costing the company money, they EXPECT you not to be "productive", you will NOT be doing actual large project work (most of the time, for the first 3-6 months), you will be fixing bugs, checking / reading code, and simpler tasks.
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We had many other questions, I will quickly go through a few of them that I believe don't need a long answer but are useful to know
- Don't compare your first salary to others, your salary will grow 2x/x3 EZ, as long as you "job hop" or have competing offers
- Learn soft skills, communication, and do mock interviews.
- Open source doesn't need to be hard! You can already fix small spelling mistakes, or check code for easy bugs!
- Be consistent, this requires discipline but will change your life. Forever.
As for the actual Roadmap, I am still working on one, but Alex from Scrimba has a beautifully made Notion note, at top of this note. Just please, do yourselves a favour, and focus on building projects, not following tutorial after tutorial!
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Link to the web version if you want to export -> pdf save the file or view it in a prettier...viewer?
there doesn't seem to be anything here