Hi all! I joined FCC a few months ago and I am making my way through the certificates. I am wondering what my chances are for landing a job in a few months. I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering and for the past two years I have been working as a Manufacturing Engineer. With my previous experience and my degree will it be any easier to land a web dev job? Thanks!
With engineering degree your chances to get a job will be extremely high.
As long as you don’t butcher your interviews I would say you will be able to get starting job in no time.
Just make sure to know your level and apply for positions that outline your current experience in the field.
If you can show your knowledge of theoretical concepts you learned from your engineering degree and knowledge of technological stack, you will be able to get a job easily.
Not only you have a degree, it is also relevant one and some of the theory overlaps with Computer Science, so you will have an edge over many other applicants, as long as you dont apply on positions for those who have experience in programming jobs and look for entry positions.
I would also advice you to not look down on junior or intern positions. It is better to get hired on junior position now and get promoted in few months once you prove yourself, compared to searching for higher position and getting one after months and months of wasted time.
I appreciate the insight. I thought so as well, I have heard of people with my degree switching over careers has not been too bad so I was curious if it was the same with CS
It will all come down to your actual ability in the end.
As long as you can actually produce results and apply your knowledge from education, you will have no issues.
Your degree as an paper does not matter, what matters is that after learning technology and your full stack certification, you can apply math and theoretical knowledge from your education to your programming. If you can show you can do that in your portfolio and interview, you will get hired easily.
Thank you! Yeah I am still in the learning process for right now. My plan is to learn in my free time as my current job is full time and when I get to a sufficient level of understanding and a strong portfolio, that is when I will start applying.
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Do you have a github and some projects in there? It will be necessary to show them your work, your solutions to some of the problems your encountered.
Your degree is very valuable and with some side projects you will have great chances 
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Yeah I started a GitHub account. So far the projects I have worked on are just the Responsive Web Design projects. But once I start diving into Javascript and getting that down, that is when I will start applying.
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One advice, learn JS very well if you are going to aim at front end jobs. Also, i would start applying after you learned React and build something with it.
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Hi there, I think you have a much better position with a technical degree. Getting you a job depends on a few things, a) how much time you have to learn, b) which position you want to get to c) where do you live d) what you wanna do.
a) how much time you have to learn
If you are in a hurry, Udemy course by Colt Steel - web dev bootcamp, might be better that FCC, since I feel FCC mostly manages to explain isolated technical parts. Learning from a reall developer like Colt helps you to understand the ins and outs of web dev better. The course is cheap - like 10 - 30 USD depending of the sale events. If you have lots of free time FCC is also a good help, but I would add doing youtube tutorials like Traversy Media from exprience developers teaches you the rest, what is required aside general coding.
b) which position you want to get to
If you want to work for a big tech company for a high pay, you might sruggle to land that job. Junior developer for a lower pay in not so prestigious company will be a lot easier. For these kind of postiiton, I got an offer only after oral interviews. I just showed enthusiamism and my portfolio projects and that was it.
c) where do you live
Getting a job a city is much better than a town with 50 000 inhabitans. You can always commute, but everyone hates it after a month.
d) what you wanna do.
It is much better to get an idea, what is interesting for you to develop, become good on your spare time at it and find a job, where you can create it. Be it PHP eshops for small companies, React apps for start-ups, or simple company web site done at a digital agency. It is your job to fugure out your preferences.
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I appreciated how you laid this out. I really want to start getting in the industry and growing, but I don’t think I can apply for anything yet. However, its good to know you don’t have to be extremely impressive/experienced for the not-so-big companies to be offered a job. I think I can cover the enthusiasm part.
But what really hit home was the first part about learning from actual web devs. I mean, I do follow Traversy Media on Youtube already and have watched many of his videos and followed a first projects, but I should do more. I wish I had a little more expendable money to sign up for Udemy courses to push myself more, but I think Youtube’s a great platform for now.
And I suppose I should solidify what I specifically wanna do too. Thanks for the helpful post 