

Ask HN: Fresh out of bootcamp, what next? - CoreSet

Hello HN. Thanks in advance for the advice!<p>I am a graduate of a RoR&#x2F;JS bootcamp that just ended in late November. After graduating I found (part-time) work with a local Javascript developer and now provide basic technical support for one of his larger projects, a CDN for sports videos.<p>I asked a question a week ago about technical certifications and the HN community very wisely assured me that they weren&#x27;t very helpful beyond certain specific (and corporate) career tracks.<p>My question now is: what are some structured projects, assignments, or goals (beyond my own work, which I do have) that I CAN do and feel like I&#x27;m moving forward?<p>I want to keep learning and growing, I&#x27;m just not sure where to turn to next, and - beyond my one side-project - don&#x27;t have many ideas of my own that need building out.
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BWStearns
I'm in a similar boat at the moment. I've just been applying to developer
positions that don't require senior and prefacing my cover letters with the
fact that I am in fact very new to professional coding.

As for projects I had a few toy ones that I started to learn specific things,
but after I felt I understood the objective the motivation kind of died. I'm
now working on an app that my girlfriend wanted for her academic work.

Having someone who actually wants the app and can give input makes it a lot
easier to keep going towards an actual finished product than when you're
building it because you're supposed to build stuff. Bug your non-technical
friends for what they would like to exist/be better.

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phaus
>I've just been applying to developer positions that don't require senior and
prefacing my cover letters with the fact that I am in fact very new to
professional coding.

Maybe I should write a cover letter like that. I've worked in an unrelated
tech field for almost a decade and I have never gotten a response for a jr
position in the year or so I've been applying for them. I have, however, in
spite of the fact that my resume indicates I'm new to programming, gotten a
bunch of calls/emails for Sr. positions that am not nearly qualified for.

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argonaut
Side projects that actually get shipped and are potentially HN-able (I refuse
to believe you've never had a cool web app idea). Open source libraries for
useful functionality for JS/Ruby/Rails. MOOCs (esp. with algorithms).
Reimplementing/redesigning already existing open-source libraries (e.g.
creating your own JS promises library, node.js router, Sinatra-style
framework, JS templating language, etc. etc. etc.).

I would specifically caution against selling yourself short in job
applications. Do not call yourself a "junior" software engineer. Call yourself
a software engineer. Do not advertise in a cover letter that you are very new
to coding. Just focus on what you've done.

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BWStearns
Fair point. My thought process went that perhaps they do have junior positions
but I saw an advertisement for something more senior, that said I do not have
more than a few weeks experience in applying for webdev positions and evidence
is better than reasoning from ignorance.

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yizzerin
Do something exciting for _you_. More than anything, employers want to see you
get excited and energized about something. So if there's some really cool
problem that you want to work on and you create/help maintain an open source
project related to it - that's great. Or make your own app. Whatever: it
doesn't really matter, it just matters that you're into it.

~~~
CoreSet
Definitely good advice. I had a lot of fun yesterday adding some whizz-bang JS
features to my personal site, so certainly feel the truth of this.

Any advice for getting started in open source? I always hear there are roles
for newbies in even larger projects, but I'm not sure how to attack it all.

