
Ask HN: How to get a Scala graduate position? - HighlandSpring
I&#x27;ve recently been getting increasingly into Scala, slowly going from &#x27;writing Java in a more terse syntax&#x27; to &#x27;programming functionally in Scala&#x27;, playing with Akka actors&#x2F;streams, and exploring ways of implementing CQRS&#x2F;Event-sourcing on top of these. Dropped the familiar Spring Boot and its 10 second startup time in favour of Akka HTTP (since all I needed is a REST API anyway).<p>What I&#x27;m getting at is: after the initial pain period, these frameworks fill me with a sense of &quot;oh wow, I really like how this is done&quot;. I can&#x27;t help but love Scala and the ecosystem, I want to explore it further, dig deeper down the FP rabbit-hole, work with actors in the real-world.<p>I&#x27;m now determined to work with Scala when I graduate. The problem is that I&#x27;m not seeing Scala Developer openings aimed at graduates. They all seem to be targeting experienced developers. I did some searches on indeed for &#x27;java&#x27; and &#x27;scala&#x27; in various cities and London&#x27;s ratio is the most favourable so I&#x27;m already searching in the right market.<p>My current plan is to try to find the time to put out a portfolio piece in Scala and apply for Scala positions, regardless of whether they&#x27;re taking on graduates. But even then, what can I do to convince this company to take on a Scala newbie without an appropriate graduate program in place, when they could hire an experienced one instead?
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kenhwang
As someone who has to screen way too many "Scala Developer"s, just being able
write idiomatic Scala to solve FizzBuzz level problems already puts you head
and shoulders above the competition. It's frustrating how often candidates
write more or less Java and try to pass it off as Scala.

Scala devs are already quite difficult to find, and we're more than willing to
dedicate months of training to get someone up to speed on Scala. I suspect
other shops might be the same, so any demonstration of decrease in training
time is a huge plus.

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EnderMB
I wish every Scala house had this attitude.

I'm a .NET developer by day (for the moment, I'm moving jobs soon), and I
applied for a handful of Scala roles, and I didn't even get as far as the
interview stage for all but one of them. One of them was nice enough to tell
me that they wouldn't be continuing with the process because they're looking
for the finished article, rather than having to train someone to use Scala.
Since the job advert is still coming up on SO Careers I would assume that
they're still looking...

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joshdev
The best advice I can give is to stop attaching yourself to a specific
language. Having expertise in a language can be great, but you are going to be
better served by demonstrating the ability to ramp up on any language that is
needed. Scala is a solid language, but is plagued with functional purists and
a love of domain specific languages. Take the skills and patterns you've
learned from Scala and apply them to other jobs.

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neverminder
It may just be my experience, but as someone who works with Scala in London
the market for Scala jobs is poor. I keep my eye on the market and every now
and then get int touch with some company / do an interview, but usually it
doesn't go anywhere. I get constantly pestered by recruiters about exact same
positions for years now, so it looks like either those companies have a high
turnaround or they are super picky and never give anyone a chance.

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wgillett
If you are interested in living in the U.S. (Boston area), CiBO Technologies
(precision agriculture) is hiring entry-level developers for our Cambridge, MA
and St. Louis, MO offices and we are passionate about Scala and functional
programming. See cibotechnologies.com for more info on the company. Email me
at walter underscore gillett at hotmail dot com (don’t want to post my work
address here due to spam worries, happy to share via email).

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estsauver
Email me (email in profile.)

We're hiring for Scala developers and we're based in Amsterdam. I'll be in
London early next year if you want to get coffee.

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HighlandSpring
What you're doing sounds so cool, will do!

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pedrorijo91
Are you willing to move to Lisbon, Portugal? I know of a few companies using
Scala, including my current employer, Feedzai
([https://feedzai.com/](https://feedzai.com/)) - a company that uses ML to
detect and prevent fraud on e-commerce

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jquast
supply of scala developers to demand is so unbalanced that you are sure to do
fine.

A portfolio that shows that you can complete all facets of a large project
(tests, documentation, builds, artifact publishing) will get you hired fine,
don't sweat it.

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jghn
Is the demand really all that high? As a scala dev myself, when I look around
it always seems like the trend is heading in the wrong direction in terms of
the job market.

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neverminder
My thoughts exactly. I am at the point of considering switching to another
language, because job opportunities with Scala are just abysmal.

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peterbecich
Just more anecdata; most of the Scala positions I've seen are data engineering
roles with Spark. I need to look harder for Scala roles without Spark.

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fspear
Initially that was my experience too but over the past 2 years I've found that
more and more places are switching to Java or Python for Spark Data
Engineering actually, it might only be in my local market though.

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peterbecich
Thanks, I will keep that in mind. Additionally, I've been told recently that
Scala is losing ground to Go for things not related to data engineering.

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wikibob
Here's a few recruiters I've seen that have functional jobs. No affiliation.

[https://functional.works-hub.com/](https://functional.works-hub.com/)

[https://www.signifytechnology.com/job-
search](https://www.signifytechnology.com/job-search)

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ldite
Well, there's this (in London):

[https://www.ovoenergy.com/careers/vacancies?gh_jid=903885](https://www.ovoenergy.com/careers/vacancies?gh_jid=903885)

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gurgus
If you're in London, hit me up! I work for a mid-large company that is full of
Scalia devs. We'd be more than happy to give you an interview :)

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wikibob
Can you add an email or website to your profile?

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justbaker
Show me you are willing to put in the work! Seriously in need more scala/jvm
developers.

