Road to Employment: A Junior Dev's Job Search Adventure (Ep. II)

TheRealMakariuz — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 09:35:02 +0000

From the past to the future

Lets go back in time and understand why I made the career choice. What was I doing before?

I worked in a company called "Majorel" where it worked as an outsource to a different company, I was in the chat service / customer support, where I had to speak to all type of customers, some were nice, others weren't at all (anybody from CS can relate to this).

This was back in 2019, and, contrary to what you may believe, I liked it, it was fun typing, creating relationships with customers and helping them with their issues. I've always been one that is keen in helping others, so I always shared my knowledge with others and every time I figured out a new tip to help deal with customers (specially difficult ones) I would share it.

This didn't go unnoticed, although I didn't do it to be noticed, an opportunity arouse for me to become a Quality Analyst, which is a fancy way of saying Solutions Coach - basically I worked with the Quality Team (I actually miss them) and helped other Customer/Order Support specialists in achieving the best they can in their role, by providing coaching, making audits and providing feedback.

Those who know me know I always do my best to bring my best self in every situation, even when everything seems like it's on fire (this is a story for another series I believe!).

This opportunity came after a year (2020) working in the chat service, bear in mind that this wasn't "given", I had to pass tests to be able to have that role, it was one of my favourite jobs! So why did I decide to change career?

The Decision

I am a man of many passions. Besides helping, I also loved programming and everything tech related, I had a friend tell me about a bootcamp opportunity for a Full Stack Web Developer, which meant I would be learning the languages and skills I've always attempted to learn on my own (never successful due to motivation and feeling like I had no one to talk to, although I did Computer Science back in my school days) - so I joined the Ironhack's Full Stack Web Development Bootcamp part-time and remotely. I joined a cohort of around 20 people and got the ball rolling.

Tough times ahead

At the same time I was working full time as a Solutions Coach, and three times a week I was doing the bootcamp, two of those times were straight after work until mid evening, then the third was on Saturday. It was a hustle, had to work hard.

I won't go into details regarding the bootcamp and what I did there (unless you want me to? Like a review?) but I was able to commit (~~to github~~) to the coding and learnt a lot in the process. The course took 24 weeks and once I finished I made the decision of making this my new career path - spoke to my boss previously and she completely understood why I chose this and half expected.

After Majorel & before the Startup

Once I left Majorel in June 2022, I worked on my CV, spoke to my career coach, worked on my LinkedIn (are we connected yet?) and spent the next few weeks in a different country where I was practicing what I learnt and processing this new life I was working towards.

Where did you go?

Scotland and England, but that's not relevant is it?

What now?

This was for you to get to know my actual path from Majorel to the Startup in the previous post. But now I am sharing with you what happens next, had an interview last Tuesday, care to read about it?

Road to Employment: A Junior Dev's Job Search Adventure (Ep. I)

TheRealMakariuz — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 10:30:08 +0000

My first taste of Startup life

Back in May 2022 I finished my bootcamp at Ironhack and graduated as a MERN Stack Developer. This marked the start of what would be my career in Web Development!

Following the months after I finished my course, I just spend the next two months studying on my own, building different playgrounds to experiment with different coding challenges and late August, early September, a friend that had been through the bootcamp with me offered me a chance to work in a startup just for experience (i.e. not being paid) - which is great because I was still searching for a job and this would give me first hand experience in the field.

For the first month I was working with a mid-senior developer that was teaching me the methodologies that we would be working in (Agile) with daily Stand Ups.

Although we were aiming to go for a no-code platform for the MVP we quickly switched to using Next.js (which was something completely new, well, to an extent) - so I spent the week reading the documentation and followed this to get a general understanding.

Within a month I was officially hired and stopped searching for Jr. positions as this job was allowing me to grow in the field. A few weeks later I was able to have some mentoring from a Sr. Developer which was the most insightful thing I could've asked, he helped me:

Organise my code (clean code approach, i.e: removing unnecessary code, delete console.logs for security reasons, etc) keep in mind this was all new to me;
Backlogs and tickets using Gitlab - up to this point, I only knew how to work with Github;
Different branches for different tickets;
Different approach when dealing with issues.

Besides that, on a more managerial side, I had coaching regarding feedback and summarising each day:

Organise workflow for the works' day;
Give midday updates;
End of day summary through bullet points.

Of course there was more to it, but it really gave me a good insight in what is like working in a team, which I think will give me an advantage when settling into a new team.

The Search

My time with the Startup ended after around 4 months which I was grateful everyday and now I am on a hunt for job that will continue to help me grow in the field.

This Blog

I am wanting to share with you my journey into finding my first (post startup) job and all the things I've learnt on the way. I will mostly share what I am currently doing, learning and developing. Also share my interview experiences.

Final Note

I hope you enjoy this first draft, I will be happy to receive feedback on the blog. You can check my latest work here.

DEV Community: TheRealMakariuz