I got a job as a Rails developer without knowing Rails. Here's how I did it. I went out to local community events with a focus on software and networked with o

I got a job as a Rails developer without knowing Rails. Here's how I did it. I went out to local community events with a focus on software and networked with other developers. Word got out that I (a student at the time) was a competent developer with open source experience. When I graduated, a few of my new developer friends tried to recruit me. I took a job at a local startup as a software developer. I was going to build a new product, though the tech stack wasn't decided yet. Soon it was decided to be Ruby on Rails. I worked through the Rails guide on building your own blog, then continued to learn it on the job by doing a small project that shipped. At that point I had enough experience to design the important project and start building it. It's worth noting that while learning Ruby/Rails, I completely surrounded myself with resources. I would answer questions on StackOverflow, follow Rails blogs, watch screencasts, hang out in the IRC channels, read and review Ruby books, watch and learn from public projects on GitHub, etc.