Hi, I am Ayomide, my friends and team members from Spacepen Technologies calls me Netrobe. I am a software engineer, experienced in building SaaS applications. I use various tools and frameworks daily to build web applications, collaborate with other team members and have fun. I am currently learning Spanish, Gracias.
Why talk about this
As a self-taught developer, I did not really have anyone to put me through what to learn, tools to use, and other things to understand. I thought it was just learning python or java so I can start building amazing applications and websites like Facebook or Google. But that was not the case, after taking my first interview, around 4 years ago, I knew I had a lot to learn and understand. Just so you know I did not get the job.
Therefore, I want to use this opportunity given by Hashnode to share the lessons I learned from that interview.
Lessons I Learned 🤯
These I lessons I learned after many failed interviews, just telling you this to let you know I am not perfect, no one is. So, If you failed your first interview and more, no problem. Failure means learning, which means you are getting better, keep on trying. DON'T STOP 💪🏽
Lesson 1: Know your career path 🎯
It is really important to know the things required for you to learn in your career, whether you are a Web developer like me, an App developer, a DevOps engineer, or more. There are some necessary tools you need to understand that give you an edge over other people that have applied for the job and these tools or methods or ideas make the interviewers feel you are needed in their company. As a web developer, I had not learned some important things like testing, algorithms, designing efficient software architectures, and more.
But, how do I come to know about these things; By checking job posts relating to my skill. After checking some job posts on LinkedIn and other sites, I found out about some tools and skills I did not know of before. Then I weighed these tools. After checking like 5 - 10 job posts, I wrote down the most required skills. Then I searched about them on Google, there I got to know why I needed them, their use cases, other tools and skills like them, and many other things.
If you are still a student, you can use GitHub Education to learn a lot of things for free while you are a student. It's amazing, you can get access to sites like Educative and more.
Skills and Tools you might need 🛩
- Testing (E2E testing, Unit testing, Integration testing)
- Methodologies (Design patterns, Designing Software architecture, Data structures and Algorithms, AGILE methodology, Microservices)
- Deployment tools (AWS, Azure, Linode, DigitalOcean, ServerLess)
- Collaboration tools (GitHub, Taskade, Slack)
Lesson 2: Build projects with your skills 🎯
https://github.com/devvspaces/devvspaces
Do not just stop there after learning these tools and methods. Use them, and build projects that implement them. It can be hard to get project ideas, you can check Google, Stack Overflow, and GitHub (here you can see open source projects people have already built). Projects are what got me my first job. Check out my GitHub repo above, there are a lot of amazing projects related to Software engineering, Web application, Python, Golang, and JavaScript.
Lesson 3: Get certified 🎯
After building projects, there are still some jobs that will require that you are certified in any skills related to the job post. It is a little expensive to get certified, but with Coursera, you can audit a course, watch the videos, attempt the quizzes and when you have cash, you can pay and get your certificate quickly. You can also get a degree in your related field from a local university or an online degree.
Lesson 4: Collaborate with other developers 🎯
While building your projects, also try to collaborate with other developers. You can either get them to work with you on your project or work on their projects. This can really help you in interviews and your CV. It lets the interviewer understand that you can work well with a team of developers. This is a very important thing to understand, I learned it the hard way. As a self-taught developer, I was very good at working alone and creating new GitHub repositories with amazing projects but never collaborated. It will be very good for you to start working with other developers now because it can be hard. It's not easy to collaborate, but by practicing you will understand how to communicate well with others.
You can easily find open-source projects you can collaborate with on GitHub or Hashnode. It will be good to find other developers in your local area too. For example, as a Backend developer, you can look for a frontend developer, DevOps engineer, and cyber security expert to develop an e-commerce website together. Doing this helps the interviewer to understand that you can work well with teams.
Important 🎯
Create your CV right now, and keep updating it. I recommend using Google Docs for your CV because it already has nice templates you can use, you can also easily update it anytime, download it in any format (pdf, word, and more), and a sharable link. But you can always go with any other platforms, just make sure you keep updating it.
Conclusion
It can be hard to be perfect before the interviewer, just make sure you show that you are confident, skilled, and funny. Also, check the job post well, there might be some hints on the kind of person they want to employ. This is just what I learned, It would be lovely if you also share what you have learned and what you think is best in the comments.
Thanks for reading, hope you have learned something.
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