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IMHO, the best thing you can do is to build something real. Register a domain name. Create social accounts for it. Advertise. Get real users. This requires you
by whatamidoingyo 3y ago
IMHO, the best thing you can do is to build something real. Register a domain name. Create social accounts for it. Advertise. Get real users.
This requires you to build efficiently and securely. Build a real system, which you intend to acquire users. Even if you don't finish it, you will learn a ton. But if you do finish (you never will, but you know what I mean), and your project is solid, you may not even need to apply for a job (the most likely scenario is you get no users, but you still have an awesome project to showcase).
Add it to your resume:
domain.com | Developer & Founder
* Developed the entire system in modern languages
* Acquired 50,000 total users in 6 months
* etc.
- the_af 3y agoA lot of software engineers do not want to run a business (in the general sense of attracting users, being a founder, etc -- I do not mean making money), so this wouldn't be good advice for them. Being an engineer != being an entrepreneur. They are disjoint skill sets, and one does not imply the other (nor should it).
- Hasz 3y agoBuilding a system != building a business. Even if OP is just building something to scratch their own itch, slap up a landing page and repo. Even if you offer it as a WYSIWYG and totally ignore issues, it's still a tenable sign of other people finding your stuff useful.
- the_af 3y agoThe description in the comment I replied to mentioned acquiring X users in Y months. Looks like a business or startup to me! Engineers do not necessarily care about managing a startup themselves, acquiring users, etc. You do not need to present yourself as a "founder" of anything in order to land a programming job.
- whatamidoingyo 3y agoOf course, but the OP asked what he can do. This answers their question. It doesn't have to be a business, it was just an example. Build something real. No one wants to see a calculator or weather application (unless it were like weather.com, eh? Now that's impressive).
- tracker1 3y agoDoesn't have to be a business... I made a similar suggestion specifically mentioning a hobby based community as the target audience. It's mostly about scratching an itch and creating something with the touch points you're likely to experience. Front end, back end, api, data storage/persistence, source control and ci/cd deployments. You can do all of these things with free and/or nearly free platforms. Currently playing with Cloudflare and Deno, which both have some cool factors/features.
- Hasz 3y agoI second this. Building one or two cool demos with a common tech stack is a great learning tool and strong signal. It's a much better approach than lots of small projects.
- Zetice 3y agoEh, I wouldn’t think of these as “demos”, really. What you want to show is that you’re going to be building working products that solve peoples’ problems regardless of what happens, and by hiring you they’ll be putting that energy to work for their problems.
- Simon_O_Rourke 3y agoYes and no - the guy who created the HomeBrew package installer in OSX was turned down for a job in Google, because allegedly he couldn't invert some binary tree quickly enough for some wet-behind-the-ears junior dev in the hiring process.
- Zetice 3y agoGoogle isn’t the best programming job.
- randomNumber7 3y agoImo this leetcode tests are just hidden iq tests (unless you actually get asked s.th. you studied before). That is not necessarily connected to beeing succesful.