Hey Devon,
Thanks for doing this. Your interview on Code Newbie really resonated with me— I spent the second half of 2017 attending a bootcamp called The Firehose Project to learn the fundamentals of HTML/CSS, Javascript, jQuery, Rails and React, and I spent the first half of 2018 trying to find work as an in-house junior dev. After a long dry spell, I’ve gone back to doing freelance transcription for a while just so I can make some money and stay afloat, though I’m still trying to polish my React skills and teach myself Wordpress whenever I have time.
I like coding and I’m confident in my raw talent— I studied philosophy as an undergrad, and the kind of rigorous, logical and abstract thought you do as a philosophy student is not especially different from the kind you do as a coder. What I’m mainly looking for now is some direction and a point of entry into paying tech work. Right now my plan is to collaborate with a buddy of mine who comes from a game dev/design background who’s also looking for work. We’re thinking I can handle the code end of things while he tackles networking, negotiation and administrative stuff, with maybe a grey area of tasks in between that we’re both interested in tackling (like UI/UX, graphic design, online networking, copywriting and SEO, etc).
I’d love to know if you have thoughts on where I am or where I should be headed. If you’re interested, there’s a link to my portfolio site and Github in my signature at the bottom of this e-mail. (I haven’t touched either in a while, in all honesty.) You can also find my LinkedIn here. Thanks again, and looking forward to hearing from you.
My Best,
Raj
https://rajesh-sannidhi.netlify.com/
https://github.com/RajSannidhi
Roadmap-
- Find niche (either through passion or through connections)
- Find “watering holes” (where people in niche go to discuss business)
- Make friends- be curious, ask what they do, what they’re working on, what the hard parts are
- Keep eyes open for a problem you can solve
Advised Raj to focus less on technology and more on building solutions. Told him he could freelance for technical people (which is who his portfolio is written for) or for less technical people. Technical people set a very high bar. Non-technical people just want a problem solved.
Asked if he should try WordPress or stick with the stack he already knows. I told him he could make a career from either, but I would pick one and stick with it for now. He landed on sticking with what he knows.
Asked if he should try to broaden his tech skills. I said not to chase them. Let the problem guide the solution.