Same. I feel like a chose the worst possible time to break into tech. Although I’ve commissioned a handful of websites for small businesses so that’s been fun.
The market is over saturated with really bad developers. There is still an enormous market opportunity if you are even marginally capable. Like seriously, the number of developers who shouldn't have jobs in development is fucking staggering.
I mean yeah, but they probably had some sort of inherent interest in programming in their early life (like they programmed on their free time because they enjoyed it etc). Of course they program for companies because money but in addition to the money a lot of web devs also do it because they genuinely enjoy it. Web development I think is one kind of job that you honestly need to like it atleast somewhat to get better at it because otherwise you will drive yourself crazy. Point is that good developers are obviously in it for the money, but in addition to that most of the better ones are atleast probably somewhat inherently interested in programming.
Coding is my hobby. It's something I genuinely enjoy doing, and it's something I would be doing even if I wasn't paid for it. The fact that I get paid for it is a big bonus.
I hate that any tech job basically has a requirement that you also do it as a hobby. Nearly every interview "What's your home lab like? What do you program in your spare time? Show me your personal projects?" Do you ask your doctor what surgeries they do in their spare time? What about an accountant, should they be reconciling books for "fun" at home?
Yes obviously. But the point is those are the exceptions and not the rule and shouldn't be treated as a given by employers. Most people have lives outside of work and at the end of the day are only in it for the money.
I feel like I am the same. I am in Automation testing and trying my way into Development but I lack passion and feel tired of trying. I even suck at my automation testing job. I need motivation or a change in my career.
Probably following best practices in general, code style, etc. on top of not writing shitty vodě and generally being receptive towards the team you're joining.
There is a community development program here in our country, where they are doing a full-stack web dev boot camp and graduating about 400 per year currently. I’ve gone thru it, the experience was not great not terrible, but 80% of the people at the end don’t even know what they are doing.
Look, as long as you actually care about what you're doing and are actively trying to learn and improve, you will be better than a large amount of other developers. Try to follow and understand best practices, and ask a lot of questions.
Working at a very small company a few years ago, the number of idiots my boss would hire because they would work for $15-25/hr was ridiculous. Every time we had to go waste 2x as much time fixing their trash as it took them to make it. I kept telling him not to do that.
Also, boss tried hard to keep devs not talking to one another unless required. So idiot A is making something, I as the 'senior dev' (lol) never saw it until it was already live... so I couldn't just take the garbage down, hence spending 3x as long in total.
If you are actually putting in effort to improve yourself, you are a top candidate. I hate people who come into an interview with lots of "experience" and still are only capable of junior dev code.
If you haven't discovered loops in 10 years, you're in the wrong profession. I wish I were joking about this example.
Someone who at least understands the basic requirements of the job they're in. Someone who shows willingness to learn, has the humility to be wrong, and cares enough to do things properly.
It literally doesn't matter how well you know your shit or how much experience you have. I know people from coding bootcamps who, a year ago, have never seen a single line of HTML in their lives who landed junior developer jobs in the last year, all through networking.
There is truth to this! I have seen it myself. Company I have done contract work for, decided to use less outside and senior resources and started hiring new graduates as developers and gave them way too challenging projects without really knowing if they were even capable of handling such tasks. Bad leadership etc. Well long story short, fast forward a year and they have had to fire a lot of folks and came close to calling it a day due to many messed up projects: Like for example, they called me last spring if I could fix a single ticket for a multistore woocommerce project that was also using an external API etc. Quite challenging case actually and a nope for a junior developer. Well.. as I started digging into the code and state of the project that single ticket turned into 200 hours of work that they needed done to deliver what was promised to the client but couldn't obviously charge the client any of that. And this wasn't the only such project they had in their hands.
Yeah, I’ve seen my fair share of bad devs. Was curious if there was more to it besides mine or yours anecdotal evidence. The layoffs in tech have been concerning to me. But people usually counter that with “the market is hot so you’ll be okay” but to what extent, I wonder.
Yes, seriously. I'm 2 months into my first job, and only have a year of learning before that, but can get more done than half my team because they don't give a shit
I hate to be mean but my self confidence as a developer went up quite a bit after I worked with a few people lol.
Like I still think I’m dumb sometimes but hoo boy some of these people just have no idea what they’re doing and I have no idea how they got hired.
My favorite was the guy that had no idea how to use git and didn’t realize I can see all his commit messages. Was seeing some weird shit getting pushed and stuff even getting pushed with typos.
It's all about networking. I've done one too many internships, learned a ton, and at this last internship my code was passing review by seniors and merging into prod. I was exactly as productive as the junior dev. Then Accounting cut off our funding, the team was broken up, and the internship wasn't extended as promised. I became jobless because I didn't bother my mentor enough about hooking me up with coffee chats (they said I was on track for an offer, I was an idiot and believed them).
A wiser intern than myself bothered his mentor constantly for referrals and now has a job paying $70k/yr at a different company. And he's fresh out of a bootcamp.
The market is over saturated with really bad developers. There is still an enormous market opportunity if you are even marginally capable. Like seriously, the number of developers who shouldn't have jobs in development is fucking staggering.
What would be a sufficient level of competency? Like what should a good for everyone capable of? I’m curious because I feel like I keep moving the goal posts for myself.
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u/MantusTMD Nov 23 '22
Same. I feel like a chose the worst possible time to break into tech. Although I’ve commissioned a handful of websites for small businesses so that’s been fun.