Taking the Next Steps to Grow as a Developer

So here I am, on vacation but still trying to grow and learn. I had an amazing call this week while I was on the road in northern Arizona. I have a few service industry jobs and that can be taxing but it has it’s perks too. One being the fact I am exposed to hundreds of new connections a week. I don’t shamelessly promote myself with every guest. In fact, I would find that to be a tad tasteless. I am good at what I do within the hospitality sector. How I end up making those connections comes up a bit more organically. Usually a table or bar guest will ask what days a week I work. I let them know most weeks I have two to three jobs while I look for a software engineering position. Since I have been back into the service industry for six weeks. I have made roughly 10–15 solid connections. One in particular came from a table I was serving. They were excellent. The topic came up about me job hunting for a software engineering position. One guest had made mention that her brother was very active in the community, 15 years in and really enjoys mentoring software engineers who come from an unorthodox background. I wanted to take time today to share how our phone call went.

Before the call, we were in contact via email. It was refreshing to hear that he noticed I have a decent online presence from my Linkedin, Github and my Medium. I was happy to hear that. I am not huge on social media and I am a bit more timid to self promote on social media. My career coach from school has given me some grief about that so it was nice to hear from a professional that I was drawing attention with what I have been doing. He had expressed that this is a great way to let recruiters get to know you before you actually get a chance to meet them.

We chatted a bit about how to go about looking for the right position. I have a bit more intimidated by applying for positions that I was not confident on the language. He had explained to me that I shouldn’t avoid applying for those jobs just because I didn’t spend months learning the languages they are asking for. I should start to branch out and learn some new languages as well but if I can learn the languages I have already learned, they won’t be completely foreign to me. Many principles still hold true in many languages. Learning their rules and syntax might take time but it isn’t unrealistic to learn.

The next bit of advice he passed on was joining other slack channels that are very active to help me connect with others who may be asking questions I haven’t thought of or who are posting positions that I may be qualified for. Canton Coders was one he had passed onto me. This a Michigan based channel but at first glance, it has a lot of resources that I feel many people new to the industry could use. on another resource called Code Craft Saturdays. As I am learning more about it, it seems like it is a group that gets together and works on a project as a team to help one another grow and learn new was of doing things. I think this would be very helpful for someone who is trying to get an idea of what “industry standard” is and how to collaborate with other developers. It might be a great way to network with some passionate developers as well.

We had discussed a ton more but I felt this was the big stuff that could help other newbies trying to break into the market. I know sometimes these things can be just a bit of luck on who you run into. That has been how my hospitality career began and I am assuming my tech career will as well. I wanted to pass on some of this to anyone who is trying to break into the market. It was fortunate to have made this specific connection and I wanted to take the time out of my day to share what I could with any other aspiring developers.