How to look for a new developer job while employed as a developer?

Hello fellow FCCers,

I landed my first programming job 4 months ago, and the job itself is amazing, I am essentially handling the entire front-end development, working on the back end as well albeit less-so, researching frameworks, making proposals/presentations, releases, learning Git and Linux, it’s a wonderful learning opportunity and I enjoy the work. However, I am working with one other guy and only this one guy, and he is a very unpleasant person. Let’s just say, he ignores me when I greet him, super reluctant to talk to me/get to know me or work together on things, criticizes my coding methodology often (rightly so sometimes), AND HE FARTS (AND DENIES IT!!). So despite the wonderful job, I am seriously unhappy having to work two feet away from this guy, if I had other people to work/collaborate with or atleast one friend it would be fine, but the office isn’t set up like that, so I’m stuck with this smelly a#@hole in this work area away from everyone else. My question is, how should I go about looking for a new job? On my resume, should I put down that I’m currently employed as a developer and mention the company? Not mention the company? Should I try to go at it again with a bare resume (though with updated skills) in order to hide my tracks so to speak? I know this industry has a lot of people switching jobs, and I would like to give it a year at this place, but man it’s really bad. I would snatch up another opportunity in a heartbeat, I really don’t think it could get worse… Thanks for reading!

Well, firstly I think this would be great material for a Soft Skills Engineering podcast, so maybe send your question to them (maybe about changing the dynamic with this co-worker, if the job search is fruitless or unbearably long).

As for the job hunt - I switched jobs after about 16 months partly because I didn’t like the way the culture was shifting where I was, and partly because a perfect opportunity popped up on LinkedIn that I knew I would be a great fit for.

That was the only job I applied for the and I got it. I sold myself more on my passion for the mission of the new company, rather than making it about wanting to leave the current job.

In your case, I think I would start looking for opportunities that might suit you - be somewhat selective, don’t just apply to everything. Try to ascertain the mission, values and purpose of the new companies and find a good fit.

Regarding the resume - I’d definitely include your current job. It is the single most important piece of information on your resume because it says clearly “someone pays me money to do this job already”. It’s so much harder to get a job without the professional capital that experience brings.

You will face questions about why you are leaving so soon, but that’s where your selective job searching comes in.

You tell them that you saw the opportunity to work with them, and despite the joy you’ve had at your current company getting to use your skills to solve problems, you are much more excited at the prospect of using those skills to solve problems in a domain you are much more passionate about, i.e. theirs!

One word of caution: 4 months is not that long, and it may be a red flag against you from the start. But if you can at least get past the initial resume screening part so you can talk to a human being and convince them you are excited by them, then you’ll have a stronger chance.

To that end, it’s time to start boosting your network - get involved in local dev communities in whatever way is appropriate in these socially distant times, and ramp up your LinkedIn engagement. Find the recruiters, engage subtly with their posts, post stuff that shows you know stuff in the technical domains you wish to find work in etc.

Good luck!