Entry/Junior Level Developer Positions

Andrey Lyand
Sep 7, 2018 · 4 min read

My Start
I started learning how to program a few years back which feels like yesterday. After a few months I thought I was ready to tackle any challenge in the industry. I have read books, watched videos, and signed up to tutorial websites. I absorbed as much information as possible. I started applying for jobs. Just like many of you I was hit with the same question, ‘How many years of working experience do you have?’. Which the real answer at the time was 0.
I build some websites here and there but it’s nothing like the real tasks you get as a developer when you start working. I was denied by every company and the only people that wanted to talk to me were Recruiters. I thoughts I can get passed them and get myself into a position and start building my experience.
The recruiters can waist your time because they will ask for your resume which they will update and then push you to interview for a senior position which you will not be hired for. This is because they will get a higher commission for senior positions. I also believe this is done to meet a quota of how many people the company needs to interview before they hire and many times the company already picked who they are hiring. The truth is if you believe that you only become better if you start getting paid for your work then you are heading the wrong direction.

Network
As I started connecting with other developers online I started to notice that many are just starting and all have the same question: “I am self-studied, learning the basics of Front-End development and trying to get over the “no experience” dilemma. I feel ready for at least a Junior position. “ Which brings me memories how I was stuck with a question “How can I learn enough to get hired?”. This is why I decided to write this article to breakdown what I think and my experience.

Education
One scary thing that I learned is the material currently available on youtube and paid courses can only take you far enough to make you feel happy about yourself it doesn’t actually teach you how to code. The majority of the people posting and selling are developers who are looking for clients and for people like you to pay them. They are creating content that is easy to digest but brings very little help or value when you actually start building an application from ground up. The principles they use many times are not industry standards but basic todo apps that only help you see how it works. Many content creators do not have complex content because experience developers follow documentation of technologies they need for their job. What makes me laugh is seeing content creators are not even willing to create their own content for their courses but follow tutorials from documentation of technologies they teaching about. These tutorials are usually created but entry developers to gain exposure so be careful with your sources. The main reason that I believe these courses are available is to show us that anyone can learn to program but can you dedicate and discipline yourself to use the knowledge and reverse engineer it to build what you need.

Experience
This hill is hard to climb. My understanding is Junior positions are a more like a myth because they expect you to have 2–4 years of real experience before they hire you, this may be unrealistic but it’s mandatory. I learned this the hard way. The best way around this is doing a internship for a company which hires you after or starting to freelance until you reach a Mid Level Experience. I choose to make my own clients and what a bumpy road that was. After a few weeks of working I realized there is no book, video, or online class that can prepare you for the real world. I also understood very quickly that when you start all you really doing is 80% learning and 20% working. Your clients should not be paying you to learn so you must charge them hours that you actually working on their project. You must invest your time to grow and be able to solve the issue your clients are paying you for on your own time. One thing you will notice quickly is as a freelancer your clients will have issues you have never seen and things that no one on Stackflow has answered before. This is when documentation becomes your best friend.

Conclusion
Remember when you start programming you can’t work full time because a task that should take you 1 hour or 30 mins will take you a 1–3 days to complete. Do you believe your employer should pay you to learn all day or to work as the rest of the team?
The final thing is we can only perfect the time it takes for us to find the needed answers but we can’t know everything at one given time, the amount of research you do will help you work faster around documentation to find a solution that works best and is industry standard.
I hope this answered some questions and puts you on the path to your next destination, if you have questions feel free to reach out to me on LMPTechSoluitons.com.

Andrey Lyand

Written by

Node Engineer @ LMP Technology