Seeking work as a developer
Start here
Before you do anything else, connect with the technical community, especially locally. Most jobs aren’t posted, and developer jobs are no different. You need to know people who know about jobs in their network, and who would recommend you into those roles.
Negotiating job offers: a brilliant mindset and information.
Negotiating your salary: understanding how to carry out a salary negotiation and what context your negotiation partner is coming from.
Remember that half, if not more, of the skills you need are soft skills. Here’s a fantastic guide on how to prepare for the soft-skills part of a developer interview.
Putting yourself together
- Put together your portfolio.
- Build your resume using Creddle: give it your resume content, select a theme or two, and see an amazing-looking resume pop out.
Finding work
Want to freelance? Be prepared to handle clients.
- Triplebyte: go through a blind technical interviewing process, then Triplebyte matches you with companies and vouches for you. Disclosure: that’s an affiliation link. If you follow it and get hired, I might make some money. The link isn’t here because of that, I really believe this is an awesome company doing something difficult intelligently.
- The Muse jobs board
- DevPost: a jobs board collecting job posts seeking developers.
- Apprentice.io: ThoughtBot’s program for new web developers, it tends to be popular.
- Neuvoo, a job search engine that indexes job offers directly from companies’ websites.
Places that search for job matches on your behalf
- Hired: create your profile, and they match you with companies who bid on you.
- Crowded: another great place to make a profile allowing the company to match you with companies seeking to hire junior and mid-level developers.
- Vettery: build your profile and companies send you interview requests with upfront salary offers.
- Woo: you put together your ‘job wishlist’ and get matched with companies looking to hire you.
- Underdog.io: your profile is your immediate application to hundreds of companies.
Finding remote jobs
Read about how digital nomads talk about their work schedule.
- WeWorkRemotely, a good place to find remote clients/jobs.
- RemoteOk: remote jobs for developers.
- JobMote: a job posts aggregator for remote roles.
- Remotive: another good jobs board for remote roles.
- remote.com, a jobs board that matches you with potential remote roles and helps you apply.
- WorkingNomads: remote jobs board for developers.
Working remotely and traveling
- FreeCodeCamp’s “How to be a developer and travel the world”
- “How to start your journey as a digital nomad”
- Hacker Paradise, a group that organizes trips all over the world for developers, designers, and entrepreneurs who want to travel while working remotely or focusing on personal projects.
- Nomadlist, a searchable, tagged compilation of cities for remote work.
Searching for work after coding bootcamp
As an inexperienced developer, you’ll be at a disadvantage…but you can still land a job. It’s just harder.
This is a great place to look for start-up jobs. Why start-ups? Because they’re more willing to take risks, which means hiring untried developers…and because there’s so much work to be done that you’ll have no choice but to grab hold with both hands.
This is an amazing thoughtful guide to getting your first job after bootcamp or a self-taught program.
- Triplebyte’s bootcamp vs college review
- “I Graduated From a Code School, Now What?”
- “How I landed my first programming job and what I learned after bootcamp”
- “I just got a developer job at Snapchat. Here’s what I learned and how it can help you with your job search.”
- “Open Letter to Employers on Behalf of Bootcamp Grads”
- “I spent 3 months applying to jobs after coding bootcamp. Here’s what I learned.”
- “Sorry, developer bootcamps: I was wrong.” “…most perceptions towards bootcamp grads are wrong.”
- “8 tips when starting your developer career after code school”
Preparing for technical interviews
- An opinionated guide to writing a tech resume, courtesy of a developer who has hired other developers.
Algorithms and Coding Challenges
- Cracking the Coding Interview, probably the bible for technical interviews.
- Coderrust
- interview.io
- Interview cake
- List of interview questions
- Another epic list of interview questions, both technical and conceptual.
- Algorithms and interview prep questions and resources
- More practice questions and resources
- Codility: get hired via answering interview questions online
Preparing for Interviews
Ruby Interviews
Front-end Interviews
- “Preparing for a front-end web development interview in 2017”
- “A developer’s guide to interviewing”
- “The Definitive JavaScript Handbook for your next developer interview”
Articles on job hunting
- “Want to boost your job prospects? Become an authority on something. Here’s how.”
- Seeking software dev work
- “Don’t call yourself a programmer”
- “Just Starting Out? Ditch the ‘full stack developer’ label. “
- “Four steps to Google without a degree”
- “Always be coding”: how to land an engineering job.
- “Ask a Female Engineer: Interviewing and Company Culture “: lots of women weighing in on their experiences with inclusive and exclusive company cultures and what it was like for them to try to figure out culture problems ahead of time.
- “How you can land a 6-figure development job with no connections.”