During the last few months I have been researching about frontend open positions in the internet and I was amazed to see how little they worry about the jobs descriptions and how many requirements they ask for.
Then I saw @donnacamos88's tweet a few days back:
I felt so identified with the tweet and I decided to write this article. I hope could help some frontend developers to find easier a good opening... and don't move around a mess of openings.
When we start searching for a new position to work usually we talk with the people around us (great option) but in many cases we search on internet. There are thousands of platforms where companies (or recruiters) post their open positions... I'm sure you know many of these platforms as LinkedIn, Indeed... This type of platforms collect all kind of offers and there are so many companies and offers that it's difficult find a good opening. We could say that in this websites we have “high quantity” but “low quality”. In many cases because there are too many recruiters and they don't really know the company or the role.
So if you are a frontend developer and you want to change your job I would like to talk about how I do. I like to use platforms which are specialized in single technology (Vue.js, Angular, React,...). These sites are usually way more specific about the role they are looking for and it’s quite more rare to find those recruiter standard style descriptions where they may be asking for “C, Rust, PL-SQL, Perl, Cobol, JavaScript, PHP, Photoshop…” knowledge in a row and they are just looking for a “Software Engineer”. Rather than that I prefer to get titles like “React Native Developer” or “Senior Vue.js developer”.
How to find my next frontend job?
1. Which tech-stack you want to work with?
Seems easy… But just asking this question to yourself will probably lead you to a tech-specific job board where almost every listing will be fully related to this tech. Here you go a few of them:
- Vue.js: https://vuejobs.com/
- React: https://www.react-jobs.com/
- Svelte.js: https://sveltejobs.com/
- Angular: https://angularjobs.com/
- Ember.js: https://jobs.emberjs.com/
- WebAssembly: https://webassemblyjobs.com/ (open standard for running binary programs in browsers with near-native performance, you should definitely check it out!)
- Backbone: Sorry backboners, you will have to carry on using Linkedin 😅 (a big respect to this huge platform... I use quite a lot but not for job hunting)
2. Did you like an opening?
My advice is to research about the companies as they going to do with you, so...
- Visit their websites.
- Find their projects (if they have open source projects, better!).
- Follow their social networks.
- And maybe... try to talk to some workers. This could be really helpful in order to know the company lifestyle.
3. Apply for it and ask as many questions as you can
In many cases, the process of hiring a frontend developer have different steps and tests, but I think we should make the companies pass our own tests too.
It’s now the moment to know what we need or what we want and make sure that the company can offer that to us.
I know it may be difficult but we have to try to not be shy during the interviews and ask every thing we want to know about them.
- Educational resources?
- Projects they work with?
- Chances of building a career inside the company?
- Mentoring? Specially important for junior devs.
Conclusion
Right now there is a big lack of developers and there are too many offers out there so if you don't like your current job just go to the market and find the new opportunity to grow up personally and professionally.
Last thing I would like to say is that almost every tech-specific job board have a newsletter. Subscribe and you will be notified about new openings.
Good luck finding your new job!!
I would like to know your opinion even if you agree or disagree. Leave a comment below!
Greetings,
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