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How To Get a Web Developer Job in 2024 (without dying inside) 🧑‍💻💀

vincanger on May 21, 2024

Hey, I'm Vince... I’m a self-taught developer that changed careers during the Covid pandemic. I was able to switch from education to w...
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techtobe101 profile image
Tech Tobé • Edited

Here's a way I think you should start your journey. (proven and tested by me 🤚)

START HERE...

  1. Job shadowing - even if you know only a little (do it for free) ->
  2. network at job shadowing & find out qualifications of everyone there and how they go to working there ->
  3. Apply for internship / attempt to sell yourself to that company ->
  4. It's likely that some people within that network may have left that company or may have started their own thing in the time passing ->
  5. sell yourself to them & ask for referrals at where they work ->
  6. land job mainly through networking, if they're not in your network or if the recruiter didn't reach out to you directly, I've found that it usually doesn't go as far as I'd have liked it to.

Key Take-aways:

  1. NETWORK (through studies + job shadowing) +
  2. GET GOOD AT SELLING YOURSELF (portfolio, LinkedIn page, resume') +
  3. BE CONFIDENT (ANTI-IMPOSTER SYNDROME) (through studies + personal projects etc.. + believing that you will indeed get the job )

Don't primarily hunt for jobs, hunt for opportunities within your network. 🎀

Oh and if you're a faith person: You ought to pray. Trust that God's got you and that He loves you. Having His peace through out this whole process is KEY for getting through it. And don't put your life on pause, go out and live. Don't focus all your energy on job hunting. Go for a walk on the beach. Do something you love (without feeling guilty). Those are all acts of faith that you believe indeed God has your back & you don't need to worry.

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vincanger profile image
vincanger

Dealing with imposter syndrome is a tough one. Definitely learning to trust yourself is something that gets better with time.

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SusyZee

I did the exact same thing.... changed careers during the pandemic. From working in 2 international airports for so many years, to learning how to code and I love it!!!!🩷🩷🩷🩷

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vincanger profile image
vincanger

awesome. congrats!

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vbd profile image
Volker B. Duetsch

Imposter can be a beast. Watched "I Suck." ... "I Rock!": youtube.com/watch?v=cFIF46j59LY It's "a lengthy description of the two extremes: impostor syndrome (undervaluing your skills) and Dunning-Kruger effect (not knowing that you don't know)."
Recommend it to everybody.

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techtobe101 profile image
Tech Tobé

Ooh, sounds intriguing. I'll definitely give it a watch :)

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TheCodingBam

this is really great

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vincanger profile image
vincanger

thanks

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Joffrey Kagayo

Thank you

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Ramon Polidura

Love walks on the beach

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alexnder394

That's very interesting, thank you! Could you please explain more on how to do the first point though? How do you job shadow someone in tech if you're not in a company with a techinical division?

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Joshua Adumchimma

Nice comment. The peace factor and walking by faith in this industry are very key if one wants to succeed in this industry.

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Martin Šošić

I often get asked lately about the situation in the programmer market and I will be sharing this post from now on as an answer!
My quick summary of it with a bit of my own spin on it:

  1. Is it not enough to just know how to code, you have to really go for it, build stuff, show that you are scrappy and have initiative, learn whatever technology you need for the project. There is no "Are we there yet", that is the wrong question to ask, the question you should be asking is "Where next".
  2. Build side projects that you care about, always work on something.
  3. Get your hands dirty and do the grunt work, it will pay off.
  4. Be a good person and communicator, that others will want to work with.
  5. Send a small number of high-quality applications. Research the job position, explain why you care about it, and possibly even put some effort upfront to show your dedication. This will make you jump out from the other candidates.
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vincanger profile image
vincanger

Oh yeah, researching the job position and explaining why you care about are two great points I missed!

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rescenic profile image
Muhammad Ridwan Hakim, S.T.

Thank you very much.

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Brian Austin

"Learn how to solve problems" is timeless advice, self taught or otherwise. I recommend this post by Chelsea Troy about how formal education is changing in response to LLMs.

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shivanshi770 profile image
shivanshi

Nice tips! It's kinda motivating and also makes you feel you are not alone in this.

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vincanger profile image
vincanger

Nice! yes, the point is that anyone can put these into practice :)

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Leonardo Correa • Edited

I agree with all points on this article. The soft skills take longer to develop. I believe junior devs should learn how to implement to right behaviors from the beginning. From years of experience, learning, and mentoring, I decided to consolidate the key learning on an ebook.

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John

really nice.
very very good article.

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vincanger profile image
vincanger

thanks! what did you find insightful about it?

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John

thank you for reatching out.
is it possible for us to be friends with each other?

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vincanger profile image
vincanger

of course 🫂

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johnboris profile image
John

okay.
i followed you.

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johnboris profile image
John

do you have whatsapp?

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Samuel

This is a master piece. I'm well pleased with this 👍

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vincanger profile image
vincanger

thanks for the kind words

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Jiju

Excellent post! This was a great read, thanks!

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vincanger

glad you liked it!

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rescenic profile image
Muhammad Ridwan Hakim, S.T.

Thank you very much. 💖

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Jose E Saura

Wasp is everywhere. You are nailing the content that I least I NEEDED. Grats

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vincanger profile image
vincanger

have you tried wasp?! :)

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Ayush Thakur

Quite an informative share

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vincanger profile image
vincanger

Glad you liked it :)

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Rob Frank

This article will help you land the job without dying inside! But doing the job will still kill you on the inside.

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vincanger profile image
vincanger

then you took the wrong job :)

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rob_frank_7704ee64bcba0de profile image
Rob Frank

Which is why I read articles like this one, my friend

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Jack Bridger

Useful, thanks!

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vincanger profile image
vincanger

🙏

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Matija Sosic

Love it! Especially the "do the boring work" part, that's my favorite.

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vincanger

and if you can find ways to like the boring work, you'll never hate going work :)

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Jake Page

Finally, I missed my Vinny posts! Great read

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vincanger

Thanks, friend.

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Soham

Great Tips Vinny !

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vincanger profile image
vincanger

🙏

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Augusta Kozey

Thank you

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vincanger profile image
vincanger

🙏

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YukiOnishi

Very excellent article!!

Thanks for writtng!!

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vincanger

glad you liked it :)

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Douglas Banda

Thank you so much this was so motivative

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Dylan Cross

This was a very insightful and motivating post. Thanks for the great advice/guidance, Vince!

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vincanger

🙏

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Minhaz Halim (Zim)

Such a great article!!

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vincanger

Thank you!

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Tiani Pierce

Question: what is considered “boring/grunt work”? Because, to me that falls in line with junior development standards, meaning junior devs typically get the grunt work/boring stuff because they need the experience of starting out which leads to being given the more ehhhh trying not to use the wrong words here, so I guess I’ll just repeat, grunt/ boring stuff that senior devs just don’t want to deal with. If my views are wrong here please educate me.

Aside from that, I found this article to be very insightful, but also slightly saddening because to me it says that the majority of junior dev positions are becoming moot and void, which to me was the starting line - would you also suggest doing freelancing work to gain added experience? What additional open sources would you recommend on GitHub to us beginners to add to/collab on?

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Amber Adamson

What really stands out to me in this article is the author builds a lot of apps with real world business significance. That's the advice you always get, and it's important advice. This is what that advice looks like. Recently, I forked a repo for the realworld app and have begun exploring it on my local machine. First open source repo work!

I know senior dev/IT guy on LinkedIn who swears by certs. I think some certs, like AWS or Cisco, can look nice on a resume, but I do also think it's easy to get overly focused on courses and not building things. Recently, a lot of my work on apps has involved working on my own problems, as you said. For example, I'm currently working on a tool to help curate and do screening on job board postings. This solves a real world problem for me, namely the problem of seeing job postings on general sites which have information that's not reflective of the actual job. Ex: ZipRecruiter posting w/100K salary. Click and it's actually a volunteer job.

I'm working on an app/site for this problem.

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Marian Kovalsky

It's also OK to go to a psychiatrist or psychotherapist. Many people, like me, have big mental issues that can be fixed. Just go and don't ask additional questions why. If you can't find a job for a year and you are a good developer, that means the problem is not with the market but with you. Maybe you are not conscious of it, but it's visible in interviews.