A community for discussion amongst professional software developers.
Posts should be relevant to those well into their careers.
For those looking to break into the industry, are hustling for their first job, or have just started their career and are looking for advice, check out:
Like the name of this sub suggests, most companies that are hiring developers want someone with existing real-world experience building things. If you just went and got a degree and have nothing else to show, then you have the training but you don't have experience.
I would suggest meaningfully contributing to open-source projects, and/or making your own projects, so that you have something to show on your resume as "experience" until you get real projects at a real job.
yes, I have been active but lately too exhausted for meaningful contributions, would start again.
Make your CV interesting, a good option to do that is work on small functional projects that you can host (e.g on GitHub) and attach links to your CV. Go to job events in your area to talk to recruiters, get an idea of the companies in your area, get comfortable talking to recruiters by practicing.
You take an entry level position and suffer for at least a year or until you have the requisite experience for a job change. Truth of the matter is that there’s a lot of credential inflation; it’s gotten so bad that it’s become a bipartisan issue in the US.
Also, fun fact: getting a job is about who you know not about what you know. My husband and I have the same amount of experience, but he’s an executive, and I had peaked at middle management, but am currently working entry level because I can’t find another management position (and we don’t need more income). He’s the luckiest person you’ll ever meet; every time he gets fired, he gets a huge promotion and raise for looking on the job market because he knows a few good references. (he works in finance, which is prone to office politicking, thus easier to be fired)
credential inflation?
Essentially, the idea you need a master’s degree to do what your parents were doing with a high school diploma.
The networking advice is right, but here's the part you can actually control while you wait for that to pay off. Most fresh-grad applications look the same from the other side of the desk, a degree and a list of tutorials. What made me put someone through to interview was evidence of judgment: one or two small projects that are genuinely finished, with tests and a readme, ideally deployed somewhere I can poke at. Not a half-built clone of something. And in the cover note, one specific trade-off you made and why you made it. That reads as someone who has actually shipped, which is rarer than it should be.