My long journey at Flatiron School, lastly, came to an end. It’s been a real rollercoaster of emotions, long nights on my balcony, times when frustration took over and others when I thought I was the most badass developer in the world!
Going through the stack I had persistent doubts in the back of my head: will I be able to make a sense of all I have learnt, gaining a wider collective view and putting all the single pieces back together? Furthermore, will it be enough to find a job?
Well let’s say I have figured out one of the two hamletic doubts, and it’s not the second… Yet!
Schemes, books, websites and mock technical interviews are what I used to try to bring order and clarity to the massive amount of new information absorbed throughout the bootcamp. See how the smaller components interconnect and analyze edge cases are just some of the main goals of my job interview preparation. The way is still long, but from the main fundamental concepts I passed down to the more specific and maybe trivial ones.
Yesterday, my job hunt started officially! Flatiron offers a curriculum stack that guides you before and after graduation, providing you with the support of experienced mentors and materials. Following the wise suggestions given to me, I divided my time into four main activities that will, hopefully, help me land a job. I wanted to share what my weekly workload is divided into:
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Learn something new to keep my résumé attractive and up-to-date with the tech industry. Use new knowledge to sharpen coding skills and build something.
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Get ready for technical interviews:
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Refresh technical knowledge acquired so far and gain a deeper understanding.
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Read, study, sleep with “Cracking the Coding interview” by Gayle Laakmann McDowell.
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Network, network, network!
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Keep sharing my experiences through my blog.
Concerning the third point, I found in Meetup a great ally! There are cool events every week here in San Diego, and the community is very collaborative and open-minded. Meetup Website
Let’s go back to the hamletic question about the knowledge collected and whether it’d be enough to get hired. Let’s be frank, there’s no way for me to know that!
What I know is that the focus needs to be on yourself. Humbly admit what you don’t know and work extra time to catch up. Be always positive and aim to train originality over perfection. These are my mantras and as simplistic as it might sound, I think that if you really focus on each and every one of these you’ll create for yourself the chance you were long waiting for! Speaking of self-introspection, while talking to my coach last week she raised an interesting question: Would you say that there are any advantages that foreigners have in job interviews or in general in the coding industry?
The question is complex and I think very subjective, also considering that my experience is relatively limited. That said, there are a few reflections that I would like to share. There are many disadvantages (needless to say), from the more obvious like the linguistic and cultural to the more personal ones (see acronyms memorization for me).
I feel though that there are some advantages too, even in what at first sight might seem hostile and frightening.
Let’s take the cultural difference for example. It’s for sure a limit in many ways but it also offers the opportunity for a mutual learning experience! Don’t forget that it’s true that when you code you follow syntax and rules, but what you code is dictated by your personal background. When you walk into a job interview, no matter how little your experience might be, use it to provide a different approach to the same problem. Originality and cultural differences might actually be your aces! Coding skills are not the only factor taken into consideration when companies look for the best fit among new candidates. Unless you’re applying for a remote position with limited interactions with your colleagues, you need to be likeable and if you bring something unique to the table, that something might actually get you hired!
I also noticed that thinking in two languages, makes approaching new ones easier over time. Once you understand the core structure of a language and how its elements have a direct effect on one another, it’s easier to seek that same structure and build the logical connections in other languages. I say it’s easier gathering all the missing info because you know how the general picture should look like.
Maybe the parallel between coding languages and real spoken languages might, to some, result forced but in my personal experience it felt very significant.
To wrap it up, I’ll keep writing a series of blog posts to share my journey through the job hunt in the tech industry and some of the knowledge collected along the way!
Until next time,
Happy coding!