DEV Community: KangWei Yew

The biggest open-source event is ending soon!

KangWei Yew — Fri, 23 Oct 2020 14:48:48 +0000

Hacktoberfest is held on every October (yes, once a year) to celebrate open-source software and allow passionate coders to collaborate & have fun together.

This year, I didn't have a lot of time to really enjoy it because I'd been super busy. As you could see, I had to write 20-50 letters a day before I got a job. After that, I still have to hustle 2 jobs (or more) for my dream.

So I thought, instead of seeking fun alone, why don't I create an opportunity for more developers to enjoy the open-source experience together? Therefore, I launched TrackerBase as an open-source project.

Link: https://github.com/yewyewXD/React-Amazon-Price-Tracker

Now, I officially invite YOU to come and have fun with us. You can make ANY changes or suggest ANYTHING you want, just fork it and make a pull request, the point is to learn not to be afraid of making mistakes!

Wanna become a moderator? Sure! I'd be so happy about that! Just shoot me a DM on Twitter or Insta (@yewyewXD).

Twitter Link: https://twitter.com/yewyewXD

Stay safe, happy weekend!

I finally achieved my goal, but again, it’s not the end.

KangWei Yew — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 03:44:15 +0000

I’ve always wanted to live in Europe, especially in France. To speed up the process of reaching my dream, I challenged myself to create a portfolio and get a developer job in October.

On 20 October, I received an approval email from my current CEO. It was really one of the best days of my life. You can’t imagine how happy I was! I love the team so much because everyone is so friendly and welcoming.

My next big goal is not related to coding, but I still would like to share it with you — I want to get the French long-stay VISA in January.

Stay safe, stay tuned.

I wrote an app to speed up my job hunting process

KangWei Yew — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 15:28:10 +0000

So I gave myself a challenge called October Hunt. The challenge is to write as much cover letter as I can and get a developer job in October.

On average, I'd send an application every 5-15 minutes. As I'm using a self-made template, about 70% of the things I write would always be the same.

Today, instead of continuing in the old way, which is customizing my template for each company, I created a (ReactJS) app that sped up my process 3x times.

The app is called Smart Cover Letter. It's not live yet. I'll probably share it globally after getting a job. Until then, I will also connect it to a (MongoDB / Firebase) database so that I won't have to record every single company I apply to on an Excel spreadsheet.

Once again, I fell in love with coding and problem-solving.

Thanks for reading, stay safe!

Introducing my little app that tracks any product’s price on Amazon.

KangWei Yew — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 15:37:35 +0000

Project Link: https://trackerbase.herokuapp.com/

In this article, as I had written the documentation (at https://github.com/yewyewXD/React-Amazon-Price-Tracker), I will walk you through using this app step-by-step.

It might take a few seconds to load because Heroku (a hosting platform) will put my app to Sleep Mode if it's inactive for 30 minutes.

Log in (you can log in as a guest) or create an account (please don't use your real info for this demo app). Note that guest mode will disable the database and backend CRUDs.
View "dashboard" and click the "plus" button to track a product's price. In the "Product URL" field, you can either paste the link of any Amazon product detail page or simply use our demo link.
Label your track record in the "Name" field, enter your ideal/target price in the "Expected Price" field, and hit the "Track" button.

Now your product is being tracked!

To edit, use the "Edit" or "Detail" button (it depends on your device).

To delete, select a track record, and then use the delete button.

To get the latest price info of all your tracked products, just click on "Update all".

**If you wanna suggest something or contribute to this project, leave a comment and let me know! Thank you for reading, stay safe!

Road to getting a dev job

KangWei Yew — Fri, 09 Oct 2020 15:26:58 +0000

Right after writing about my portfolio website, I hopped onto my Word file and started refactoring my cover letter. Yes, I have a template, but it's self-made.

The next morning, after building a mini React Progressive Web App (PWA) project, I began my job hunting journey. I spent about 6 hours of my day applying for dev jobs, and the rest learning how to increase my chance of getting a call-back.

I wrote about 25 customized cover letters in total. I know it's a numbers game and I need to 10x my productivity. My eyes hurt when I read too much on my screen, but I'll take short breaks and continue grinding.

I won't give up, and I wish you all good luck getting a job. Stay safe.

Finally, my first ever portfolio website!

KangWei Yew — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 03:37:39 +0000

Link to my dev portfolio: https://www.yewkangwei.com

On 28 Sep 2020, I challenged myself to build a developer portfolio website. I've been learning and making small projects, but never seriously craft something great.

As usual, I coded up to 11 hours per day. But this time, I went all-in for my portfolio. Within a week, I built 2 projects from scratch to showcase them on my site.

In a total of 10 days, my mission is finally accomplished. I covered everything, from design to documentation. I'm satisfied, but it's not the end.

My next goal is to get a remote job, ideally from Europe or NA. I will step out of my comfort zone and give it all. Wish me good luck!

See you in the next post. Have a wonderful day!