I’ve been exploring opportunities on wellfound.com to find startups in my area that align with my career goals. Interestingly, I’ve noticed that entry-level front-end developer positions don’t exist. Many companies seem to be seeking Senior Developers or Full-Stack professionals with extensive experience.
While I’m not at the stage of applying for jobs just yet, I’m proactively building connections and preparing for the future. Currently, I’m focused on networking within the tech industry and creating a targeted list of 10-20 healthcare tech companies that I aspire to work for.
It’s a bit surprising that assembling this list has been challenging, especially considering that I’m based in the tech hub of the San Francisco Bay Area. If you have any insights or suggestions on how I can effectively identify potential entry-level front-end positions in such a competitive market, I would greatly appreciate your advice. I need to find these positions so I can look at the application requirements and see what I need to learn next whether it be taking a Typescript course or getting my Amazon Web Services certification.
Thank you in advance for any guidance you can offer!
When it comes to start ups, it is a fast moving environment, you will probably wear many different hats and they are still trying to define many company processes.
I have friends who have worked at startups and for some they thrived in it while for others it wasn’t really a good fit
IMO, most juniors would benefit more from companies that have built in mentorship, guidance and processes in place so they can grow and learn.
I would suggest looking at mid sized to larger companies that have more stability and mentorship.
The market isn’t super great right now.
But also a lot of companies will post software developer roles instead of specifying junior.
If you looks like you are meet a good portion of the qualifications then go ahead and apply.
A lot of that has to do with the current market.
But also juniors need to be trained and it takes a while before they start contributing to projects in a meaningful way.
I remember when I first started, I was mainly working on small bug tickets and updates to the project. But then over time, I started being able to work on larger features and more complex pieces of work.
One of the benefits of hiring juniors is that they are willing to do the work that a lot of seniors have done hundreds of time before. It just takes juniors a little bit to ramp up with working in a professional developer environment.
With seniors, they can ramp up to a project pretty quickly and add a lot more value early on.
I like the idea of networking and creating a targeted approach.
I just that think that you might find 10-20 companies to start with a little on the small side.
You can always start there but you will probably need to keep expanding your list for more opportunities.
Also, I understand that healthcare is your dream industry but you might be open to other types of tech companies if you are struggling to land your first job.
Given the current job market it is not that surprising.
A lot of companies want developers that can hit the ground running pretty quickly.
I would expand to software developer positions and not just limit it to entry or junior.
Even the junior roles will say 2-4 years of experience but most job descriptions are looking for dream candidates that have everything on their list. But no one matches all of the criteria listed.
If you have a good portion of the criteria listed and some really good projects and resume, then apply.
That’s great to know, I will no longer be looking at startups. Last thing I need is a fast paced enviornment.
I have a list of the 65 healthcare companies in S&P 500. I started looking at the careers section on their websites and the ones that had developer roles were Sr. positions or Full Stack, maybe I need guidance on where to look but everything I see are roles starting with high salaries. I am not too stuck on healthcare tbh, I just want my first job to be in an environment that I can learn and grow and receive great mentorship instead of being thrown into a fast-paced environment with unfair expectations
I will take this advice, instead of looking for ‘entry-level front-end dev’, I will look for ‘software engineer/developer’. I know I won’t actually start interviewing until early 2024, I just thought I’d want to find out exactly what lane I am going in and based on job applications I see in that lane…find out if I need any further requirements like knowing TypeScript or getting a AWS cert. I’m not going to lie though, doing this stuff has been more stressful than actually coding lol