Hey everyone!
I’m a new - old dev; meaning I haven’t done any serious development on production systems in the last… 5 years I’d say. Over the past few months, I’ve been upskilling while searching for new employment, applying to jobs, applying, getting rejection letters, and so on. I’m at the point where if it’s personalized, I get a bittersweet sense of oh… I don’t know… accomplishment? I should put that on my resume - “personally rejected by x companies” haha
So the other day, I got invited to a take home coding test as part of an application I recently submitted - totally unexpected but I’m both excited and nervous to say the least!
All sorts of worrisome thoughts flood my mind but I know that all I can do is be honest in my attempt and just be prepared to explain any deficiencies I may have. Whether I actually manage to solve the problem may not be as important as the process so I try to remind myself to stay focused on having a good approach. (By coincidence, I was just doing some of the projects in the FCC curriculum when this all came up)
Well, I just wanted to share that and say it’s good to be here - lots of great content (even more to be released) and I see a healthy tech community with a comfy vibe…kinda rare yeah.
Nice to meet you all, feel free to reach out and say hi!
Yeah, getting a first job is very tough. It’s kind of weird for you because it is and it isn’t.
Keep in mind that some coding tests are definitely more difficult than they need to be. They want to see how you handle stress and how you solve problems. I think one of the important things you can do is to show them that you can handle difficulty and no give up. I always say that one of your goals in an interview is to seem like the kind of person they would enjoy sharing a cubicle with.
I don’t know where you are, but a great resource in general and specifically for algorithms is Cracking the Coding Interview - great stuff.
And remember that rejection is part of this game. There are a lot of jobs but there is also a lot of combination. If you stick with it and work hard, you should get something eventually, but it may be a frustrating journey.
Honestly it feels like starting over again but I’ve got a fresh perspective on programming and the industry now. I’ve spent some time over on the operations side but dev is where I really belong.
Thank you so much for the advice and the book reccommendation. I did have a chance to check it out and it’s fantastic - covers exactly what I need. I’m interviewing for a remote position in the US so this directly applies.
There are indeed a lot of jobs being posted now but organizations are more selective with remote hires effectively making the competition global. I know that most are hiring for sr. level now but there should be a wave of intermediate and jr. level jobs coming up in the next few months if nothing materializes yet.
