i’ve been learning to code maybe 8 years now. im mostly self taught other than a java bootcamp i attended last year. still i have never had a developer job and it seems to be getting harder to break into the industry every year. especially with high interest rates, bootcamp grads and changing technology. the competition is just way higher
whats your experience been like? are you having any luck with jobs? are you self taught? how long have you been on FCC? and so on…
i feel like i have to be so much better than everyone else because im mostly self taught. i feel like my best chance is direct hire rather than linked in. also honestly im kinda exhausted and demoralized.
The job market, especially in tech, is absolute shit right now. Junior developers are important to a good engineering team, but so many companies just aren’t hiring any devs right now.
This is a weird take. If you have an attitude of “I have to be so much better than everyone else”, then that could be a significant contributor to no one wanting to work with you.
not so much about ego. what i mean is since i dont have a CS degree i need to show my skills since i cant rely on the reputation of a university. and to also prove im a low risk hire by being above average otherwise they dont even look at my resume.
im definitely an average coder, but i get discouraged to study hard because of the market. for that reason i often think about just giving up. its demoralizing and im not getting any younger. its been my goal for the last 8 years. i dont even know what to do next if i gave up. i dont even know what strategy to pursue at this point.
the thought just came to me about all these people on FCC just starting out with no idea the insane competition theyre up againsts. ive started reading advanced books like algorithm design and idiomatic language practices just so i can grind leetcode better. i need more repos but between that an all the other stuff i have to do i just dont know. my anxiety has been crushing me about this which makes everything seem so much harder
i figured it would help me get better at solving problems in general. especially with various languages i also i heard data structures and algorithms were the most important of all the concepts to know. other than that maybe OOP and other stuff.
DSA is important but LeetCode doesn’t teach DSA. It’s just a specific set of puzzle problems.
I’d focus on making real projects, at least one that takes at least 6 months and requires at least one big refactor, with proper tests and documentation.