Since beginning my journey to become a programmer I’ve reached out to countless people that are currently doing what I would like to do. I’ve asked for tips or things that they thought helped them along the way. I’ve gotten great feedback from people and a lot of the advice has overlapped. Here are the most common things that I’ve heard:
Focus on learning one thing at a time. When you’re first starting out the amount of information that you need to learn seems insurmountable. It feels like you’re way behind and you need to make up for lost time so you spread out your learning plan to too many things at the same time. Junior developers have told me that this will waste a lot of your time. Focus on learning one thing at a time and then move on to the next.
Decide what you want to be when you grow up. This was really hard for me, but you need to know what your goal is so that you can work toward it. Research the different software-related jobs and find out which one you would like to do. Once you know this you can focus your learning to reflect those job requirements.
Learn data structures and algorithms. When attending a coding bootcamp this is usually the area that gets swept over. However, knowing data structures and algorithms is super important when applying for jobs (especially with little experience). Consider taking a couple of computer science courses from somewhere like codefellows.com or codesmith.io to supplement this knowledge as well as working through Cracking the Coding Interview.
Create a portfolio that shows off relevant projects. When you’re trying to get a coding job with little experience you have to show that you know what you are doing. Look at job posts for the position that you are interested in and tailor a project around some of those skills and post it on a portfolio website that you created. Then link to that page on your LinkedIn profile. Make sure that it looks good and you keep your projects updated.
Commit code to GitHub. After you create your portfolio and projects commit that code to GitHub. Find projects that you can help with on GitHub as well. This will provide your perspective employers with an ability to actually look at your code. Do this whenever you get a chance.
Those are the most common responses that I have received from the junior developers that I’ve talked to. If there is anything that anyone would like to add please comment. More information is always better than not.