DEV Community: Antonio Pekeljevic

👨‍💻[FirstDevRole #4] Are You Good Enough for a First Developer Job?

Antonio Pekeljevic — Sun, 19 Dec 2021 22:59:42 +0000

Have you been working on your programming skills for the past few months/years? Starting to think that you might be job-ready?

In this fourth part of the FirstDevRole series I want to try to help you get to know if you are ready for applying to developer jobs and hopefully give you a confidence boost.

Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way for someone to tell you this with a 100% certainty but you can get a solid overview of your status by answering to some questions that I think will bring you close to the answer you are looking for.

By the end of this article you should know at least how far you are from a job-ready state if not that you are already ready for it :)

Let's start with the questions:

If given an unknown task using technologies you know, would you be able to solve it?

This might be the question that gives you the most precise answer to the original question in the shortest time.

Can you build something yourself without following a tutorial?

Taking a peek here and there at a tutorial or a course is ok but it's important that you don't blindly follow it.

Have you went through the official documentation of the language you're using?

It's not expected of you to know the whole documentation from A-Z but just being familiar with it should be enough.

Do you have a few projects that you have done by yourself? (projects from following courses do not count)

Having a few projects done by your own hand (brain) means that you are putting your skills to a real use and that you have the confidence to try something alone.

Can you communicate well in English?

This might not be true in some cases but in 90% of cases you will need to speak in good level of English especially as you climb to larger companies.

Are you ready to follow orders from more experienced people?

Having a mindset of a beginner is important when just starting out. You should have no problems getting orders from more experienced people and do as they say but also try to present your ideas as well in a non-aggressive way.

Are you ready to learn A LOT more?

You might feel that you have learned a lot until now but you should know that there is ALWAYS a new ocean of information to learn and consume. This will be your everyday life and you should be ready for it. It's not like you can learn something and it's done. The things get updated, new versions come out, new tech appears and you will be thrown into the fire. Be ready.

Are you arrogant (if you are willing to admit it)

This is an important question that you should ask yourself as it might be a crucial factor that decides if you will get a job or not. It doesn't matter how good your skills are if you are an asshole. If by any chance, you are, then work on your attitude and mindset! This one matters more than you think :)

BONUS

Some things you should be familiar with before considering yourself ready (in my opinion):

Front-End Developer

HTML
CSS -JavaScript (ES6)
React or Angular or Vue
Consuming API endpoints
Bootstrap
Website Responsiveness

Back-End Developer

JavaScript or PHP or Java
Spring or any Node or any PHP framework
SQL and NoSQL databases
MySQL and Mongodb
Auth tokens
ORM (Hibernate, TypeORM)
Environment variables
Authentication and authorization

Full-Stack Developer

Everything above plus (ideally):

Setting up deployment pipelines
Docker
AWS

That's it for this one.
I hope you got closer to your answer with this article.
(I know that the GIF's are related to programming so I hope you enjoyed that as well)

Let me know what's your opinion in the comments and feel free to reach out on Twitter if you have a profile.

Also if you found my perspective of value you can click the button bellow and:

🧽 Clean Way to Listen to Events from Children Components in Angular

Antonio Pekeljevic — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 19:28:37 +0000

I don't write much about Angular but as I am working on a project that uses Angular at the moment I thought why not share a thing or two that I found interesting.

As someone who is definitely not an Angular expert I was looking for a clean solution on how to listen for element events that are part of a child component's template.

This is of course quite a trivial thing but it might be of value to people who are starting with Angular and are facing the same problem.

Let's start.

Situation:

We want to listen to child component input element's events inside of the parent component. (do something with it in the parent)

Parent template code: (parent.component.html)



<div>
  <h1>Parent component</h1>
  <angular-child></angular-child>
</div>

Child template code: (child.component.html)



<div>
  Child Input: <input type="text" />
</div>

Let's say we want to listen to a keydown event that is emitted by the <input /> element above.

Solution:

Child

Template code (child.component.html):



<div>
  Child Input: <input type="text" (keydown)="handleKeydown($event)" />
  <p>Result from child component: {{ text }}</p>
</div>

Component code (child.component.ts):



import { Component, EventEmitter, Output } from "@angular/core";

@Component({
  selector: "angular-child",
  templateUrl: "./child.component.html",
  styles: ["div { background-color: red }"]
})
export class ChildComponent {
  @Output()
  keyAction: EventEmitter<KeyboardEvent> = new EventEmitter<KeyboardEvent>();

  text = "";

  handleKeydown(event: KeyboardEvent): void {
    this.text = event.key;
    this.keyAction.emit(event);
  }
}

Basically we are just having a method that receives the KeyboardEvent on a (keydown) event in which the text is saved to a variable and it uses an EventEmitter marked with an @Output() decorator. (so that we can later catch it in the parent)

Parent

Template code (parent.component.html):



<div>
  <h1>Parent component</h1>
  <angular-child (keyAction)="handleKeyAction($event)"></angular-child>
  <p>Result from parent component: {{ keyPressed }}</p>
</div>

Component code (parent.component.ts):



import { Component } from "@angular/core";

@Component({
  selector: "angular-parent",
  templateUrl: "./parent.component.html",
  styleUrls: ["./parent.component.css"]
})
export class ParentComponent {
  keyPressed = "";

  handleKeyAction(event: KeyboardEvent): void {
    this.keyPressed = event.key + " from Parent";
  }
}

Inside of the parent, we are calling a method each time the (keyAction) event has been emitted from the child. In that method we can do whatever we want with the received data. In this case we are just getting the key and adding some text to it to indicate that it has been changed before storing it to a variable.

Full code example on Codesandbox:

Again, it's not much but I hope somebody will find it helpful as it might not be an obvious solution at first.

Leave a comment with your opinion about the solution 😄

👨‍💻[FirstDevRole #3] How to Write an Effective CV/Resume for a Programmer Role if You Have No Work Experience

Antonio Pekeljevic — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 18:51:31 +0000

Short Intro

In this article of the FirstDevRole series I want to share my knowledge about how to make a CV/Resume effective when preparing to apply for a developer role if you have no previous work experience in the IT field.
I will share a structure of what I think is good for a CV, what to include and what not to include.

Please note that the advice I will write has proven to be effective in my case but there are also other ways to do it.

General Things to Consider

These are some things that you should have in mind when creating your resume. Again, all of this based on my research and through trial and error.

It would be the best if you tailor each resume to the job post you are applying to vs. having a "one size fits all" resume.
Google about country specific rules regarding resumes - for example some countries prefer a more conservative design (black and white), some prefer colors. Google will give you an answer about that.
File format should be PDF and text selectable. Reason is that some companies run your CV through an automatic "CV scanner" and depending on the result it decides if you can move forward. That automatic mechanism can only detect selectable text so don't make your resume an image.

Effective Structure

Below you can see the structure that I use for my personal resume which has proven to be very effective. It contains all crucial information on a single page which makes it easy for the reader to scan it in a short amount of time so I would highly suggest to use this structure.

Now that you gave the overall resume structure a look, I will continue with explaining what each section should contain and what not.

Header

The header should contain only your first name, last name and optionally your vocation.
If you have a logo then you can include that too.
Make the area clean and breathable by not stuffing anything else in there.

Side Content

Side content should be a narrower section of the resume on either side of the main content and it should contain the following:

Personal Information

Here is what to put here:

Your geographical location (only the city and the country). Don't put your exact address here.
Your contact email
Contact phone number
A link to your portfolio website and/or GitHub profile

Skills (programming languages)

After analyzing the job requirements put all relevant skills that you posses here. It's the best if you make a list of them one by one. Don't include any form of skill ratings because it doesn't tell much to the reader anyway and it could in some cases make you less desirable for the position.

People often ask me how to know which skills to include and which not. The answer is pretty simple. Include the skills that are listed in the job post PLUS all other skills that you consider yourself to be good at. That is, put any programming language that you used to create a project by yourself but don't put programming languages which you only used to create a Hello World application or just followed one tutorial.

Here is how to know if you are good at something or at a programming language to be precise. Ask yourself this question:

If someone gave me a random task to do in that programming language, would I be able to do it?

If the answer is yes then you are confident enough to list the language/skill to along with the required skills that you should obviously posses. If the answer is no, I would really think about if I should list it as a skill.

Languages

List your native language and other languages that you know.
Rate your level of proficiency for each listed language.

Main Content

This is the area where your content that takes more space should be located in.
Also notice the order of sections. I would suggest to keep this order that especially applies to the Summary section since that is your "pitch to sell yourself".

Summary

This section is in my opinion the most important section of your resume. It's the first section that your future employer/HR person will look at and decide if he/she should keep reading. Usually the time spend on looking at a resume is about 6 seconds before the reader decides if it's interesting enough to keep reading further.
Basically, in most cases if you don't "sell" yourself in the Summary section then the chances that the reader will keep on reading are quite low.

Having said that, let's see how we can make this important section as good as it can be.

The most important thing about the Summary section is to present yourself as someone whose skills have made an impact.
It is important to precisely say how the skill that you used to do something has been helpful. No fillers and no mumbo jumbo stuff allowed here.
The impact that you made should be measurable and concrete.

Maybe it's easier to get to the point if I give you a few examples:

"By utilizing my knowledge in Java I have build an application that helped speed up the process of preparing food in a local restaurant by 120%".

Here is a list of questions that you should ask yourself when writing the summary.

What skills did I use?
What measurable goal have I reached by doing so?
Who has benefited from my skills and why?

Also, the best way to list your achievements is to make it a list and try to be as objective as possible.
Note that you don't need too many lines of text here but make sure that your message goes straight to the point.

Education

Put your most recent education level along with the name of the school and also if you have any related certificates or have attended a workshop/internship.

Projects

This section should contain a few of your BEST projects. Make sure to describe what is the point of your project, what technologies did you use and what have you learned from it. If it has made an impact to the society or environment also consider to include that. Put a link that leads the reader to the live application and a link to the GitHub repository of the project.

I will have a dedicated article in this series on how to make your GitHub profile better.

Work Experience

Include any work experience that you might have where you have gathered any experience that can be beneficial to the role you are applying to.
Make sure to list the position you worked as and a description on how working there has affected you. (in a positive way of course)
For example if you have been a restaurant worker in the USA, you can say that it has helped you improve your English language skills, work under pressure, communication skills and things like that.

Hobbies

This is a place where you can optionally put any hobbies that you might want your future employer to know about.
Don't say things like I code as a hobby or anything that might make you look to pushy about getting the job. Just be honest and try to make a personal contact with the reader.

Design Tips

Use a readable font and avoid any cursive or overly styled fonts.
Use a lot of whitespace and make sure that all gaps are even.
Colors should be carefully used or avoided and the overall resume should have a good contrast between the text and background.
Use left text alignment
Don't include a photo of you if it's really not necessary. Depending on company's policies you might be disqualified right at the start if someone from the HR or whoever is looking at your CV doesn't like your appearance. Weird but true.
Single page resume is the best if possible.

I hope that I have cleared some questions that you might have had about writing a resume for a developer position.
If you have any questions please feel free to comment or tweet to me!

If you found this article helpful or if you maybe got your first job because of it, you can support me here:

Thank you for reading!

👨‍💻[FirstDevRole #2] Which Programming Language or Framework to Choose as Your First?

Antonio Pekeljevic — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 16:59:26 +0000

Welcome to the second part of the series where I will give my best to explain everything I know when it comes to picking your first programming language or framework.

Point of this article

This article, as the series name suggest, is aimed at people who are just starting out with programming or are thinking about getting into the IT world as a developer.

I will give my opinion on how I would get my first dev job if I was a beginner again and share my experience of how I picked my first programming language to get a developer role.

Why even listen to me and why decide for this strategy?

Of course, it is your option to choose who you want to listen to and whose advices to take but let me explain my strategy and why it might make sense to you or not.

Since you are just starting out, not a lot of people will want you in their company because you lack experience. What you want to offer them is at least exactly what they need technology-wise and by doing this you increase your chances of landing a job by a maximum.
It is exactly what I did and how I got my first job.

Before you continue please be aware of this:

*Your first programming language is not your wife/husband. You can change it any time and you will most likely change it anyway throughout your career. *

Remember: You just want to break the ice and get your first role so later you will have plenty of time to switch.

1. Analyze your area

What I would suggest is to analyze your local current job openings and see what technologies are mainly used. Just visit your local job posting platforms and really put some time in to make a list of the most popular languages that are being used in your area. Each country is different so you really need to do this.

Remote vs On-site

At the beginning of your career I wouldn't even consider remote jobs. It is a bit more unlikely that a company will hire you because training entry level developers remotely is quite hard. (and it's also easier for you to get proper training on-site).

My suggestion: analyze only on-site positions for now.

2. Get necessary information

After you have a list of some of the most popular technologies that are used in your area it is time to do some filtering.

To make this article evergreen, you should now do a research on what languages and frameworks from your list are popular globally. That is important because later you might want to change companies so it would make sense to know something what the whole world is currently using.

After you have seen what technologies are popular it is time to filter out the other ones from your initial list.

Now you are left with a list of technologies that are both available in your area and globally as well.

3. Decide what language you like the most

It is now time to pick what you like from the list.

Are you looking for a frontend, backend or maybe a devops role? These are the things that only you can answer but let me tell you that whatever you pick, it is a lot easier to make a switch later, let's say from frontend => backend once you get some experience. There is absolutely no need to be afraid and that you will pick the wrong one.

Have you picked your first language?
Yes? Congratulations!

4. Next steps

You have picked the language. It wasn't that hard, right?
What is now left to do is A LOT of learning and preparing for applying to jobs.
Find a course on Udemy or a learning platform of your choice and start learning.

Further details of what your next steps should be are a part of this series as well.
If at the time of reading the entire series is not posted yet, stay tuned because an article will be published soon!

BONUS: My Story

I don't want to bother you with too much me when this is about you but in case you are interested this is how I basically picked my first language or to be more precise, a tech stack:

I found a popular local software engineering company and physically went to their office and had a talk. I asked for a list of technologies that I should know and went home with it.
I kept it near my laptop for more than a year until I learned all the languages one by one from the given list.
It took me more than a year to learn everything but in the end I got a job at a different company which used the same stack.

(That is why I suggest picking globally popular languages)

I hope that this article helped you pick your first language and that it alleviated some anxiety that you might have had on this topic.

It's really not THAT important in the beginning that you pick the PERFECT language.

It is more important that you get your first job and later you can change it since you will have some experience on your resume thus getting the next job will be easier.

If there is a topic that you want me to cover please let me know in the comments and I will gladly add it to my list.
You can also tweet to me if you're on Twitter.

Visit my original website: https://antoniopk.com

👨‍💻[FirstDevRole #1] What are the Real Requirements for Becoming a Programmer?

Antonio Pekeljevic — Tue, 26 Oct 2021 11:21:49 +0000

What is this about? 🥱

In my opinion, the point of writing a blog is to document your journey and share it with other people so hopefully someone finds the information useful.

Having that said, I have decided to share my experience and what I have learned when it comes to getting a first software developer job.

I have been through the process three times already so while everything is still relatively fresh and quite a few people asked me for advice on Twitter, I decided to document it before it all evaporates into the void.

This is definitely going to be a series of blog posts with no specific order where I will try to extract the most important information as it comes to me. 🤷‍♂️

Who is this for?

Anyone who wants to make a career change to IT, is graduating from college, is struggling to get a first job as a programmer or just wants to give programming a try.

Topics that will be covered

These are some of the topics that I will definitely cover but might add more if I remember something that is important as well:

What are the requirements for becoming a programmer
How to write a no bullshit CV/Resume that will increase your chances of getting hired
What programming language / framework to start with
Where to apply for your first job and which ones to consider
How to build an effective portfolio website
What projects to build and how
Creating an effective GitHub profile
How much experience is needed to start applying to jobs
When to apply to an Internship vs Real Developer role
Is your code good enough
What to be ready for while trying to get your first programming role
Mindset and motivation

The first topic is covered in this post as the title says so let's start! 🦾

What are the REAL Requirements for Becoming a Programmer?

Do you need someone to tell you if you are smart enough or do you have what it takes to become a programmer?

Let me tell you this: Programming is not for anyone and it's not enough if you can just install Windows on your laptop. It's only for extremely talented people with IQ over 200.

Anxiety kicks in?

Don't worry, I'm just kidding.

Let's put it this way. If you can read and comprehend what I have written up to this point then you have everything that it takes to become a programmer. You maybe won't be a great one but it's definitely enough to get a job.

Physical requirements ✔️

You did some googling or found this post buried deep down in the #TechTwitter history. That means you have enough interest.

Interest ✔️

Your friend who is incredibly smart is a software engineer and there is no way that you can be that good?

Actually, you can.

I actually know a few people who are generally not that intelligent but are still working as developers.

If it makes it any easier for you, I had the WORST grades in informatics in elementary school and in programming in college. At least get school out of the way because it's not a valid measure for anything.

So what's the thing that separates people who can and who cannot become programmers?

Well, the important things are exactly those two words: CAN and CANNOT.

Just pick one word and fill in the sentence below to find out the answer.

I ___________ become a programmer.

Got it?

It's REALLY a matter of decision. Do you want to become a programmer?

Why it is a matter of a decision?

Because if you don't decide firmly, you will quit somewhere along the road. Just make a decision with yourself, and even better write it somewhere, and whenever you think about quitting (which will happen a lot) just remind yourself that you have decided and that there is no way back.

If you are starting from zero, don't expect a role in the next 1-2 years and be ready to dedicate A LOT of time to learn everything that is necessary to get the job. If you get it earlier than that then even better!

Not a lot of people can sacrifice that much time and be that patient and that's why programming is labeled as "hard".
It's not hard because you have to study some out of this world science, complex algorithms or math formulas - it's hard because it requires TIME and PATIENCE.

So basically you have all the "skills" that you need. It is only the question if you are ready to throw yourself into the fire?

If you were looking for an actual list of requirements in a video game style then here you have it:

Requirements for becoming a software engineer:

Having a normal functioning brain and being able to type
Being ready to not being able to get a job even after learning every day for a year
Basic English language knowledge
Being in peace with the fact that learning will NEVER end
Being in peace with the fact that you will fail a lot
Being comfortable with feeling stupid at times
Being ready to work on your temper and impulsive reacting
Being in front of a computer every day
Being ready to code every day
Being ready to learn the boring stuff so you can enjoy building fun stuff later
Being ready to deal with difficult people
Being ready to read boring or poorly written documentation
Decreased social life at times
Being comfortable with dreaming code (literally)
Being able to think when exhausted at times
Being able to think under pressure

And last but not least: being ready to help everyone alive with their printers or failing internet connections. (funny but true, you will see)

If you can sign up for all of these points above then there is nothing else I want to tell you.

You have it all and are ready to start. ✔️✔️✔️

All I can tell you is good luck, DON'T QUIT and you will get your job I'm sure of that!😄

If there is a topic that you want me to cover please let me know in the comments and I will gladly add it to my list.