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matthew dale
3,115 Pointshaving trouble with finding a programming job
Hello, I am trying to find a programming job as either a front end, or back end web developer. I have been coding for about 1 year now and have been using treehouse for about 4 months. What should i do and where should i go to try and land a decent programming job. I understand i wont be making a crazy amount of money, but i need to start somewhere. All of the job descriptions i find want people with 3 or more years of experience. does this mean that i need to wait 2 more years before even considering finding a job? P.S. I spend about 4 hours everyday coding different languages.(PHP, HTML, CSS, and JAVA)
1 Answer
Dave Berning
17,365 PointsHi Matthew. A lot of job applications state to have 2-3 years of experience and knowledge of HTML, CSS, JS, with knowledge of PHP and Wordpress (or other CMS) as a plus. If you've been working as a freelance web developer in the past year or worked as an intern somewhere, you can certainly list that as part of your professional work experience.
I've met web developers with little experience in the field that get a job at a company . Even if you start out at a small company, that's valuable real world experience that you can take else where to a larger company in the future. One thing I've learned over my years (about 3 years) in web development is that a lot of employers hire based off of your ambition to learn and awareness of technology. Make sure you play off the fact that you spend 4+ hours a day learning different programming languages; that shows you won't get left behind when technology evolves.
Long story short, even if you don't think you're qualified for a job you should still apply; it couldn't hurt. Not to mention, if you get called in for an interview your portfolio will speak for itself. Employers like to see that you can actually DO the work not just talk about it.
P.S. One last bit of advice, you should always NETWORK. It's so important I can't stress this enough. The more you network with other developers the better you have at getting a job (or a better paying job). Every single web development opportunity that I've had was because of networking.
I hope this helps! Good luck matthew dale!
matthew dale
3,115 Pointsmatthew dale
3,115 PointsThank you for the response. It really helped. The only thing is i live in Modesto CA. I can't seem to find any companies that need any programmers. I look online for jobs in my area constantly, but nearly all of them want a lead developer or programmer to lead a team. I'm a manager at my current job, but for some reason the thought of running my own programming team, when I have never worked on a team like this before, intimidates the heck out of me. I'm a good leader, I just feel like I should work with a team before I lead a team. I guess what i'm asking is where should I look for a job in this field, and how should I go about applying for it?
Dave Berning
17,365 PointsDave Berning
17,365 PointsYou're welcome! I live in Cincinnati, OH and there are a decent amount of web jobs here; at least that's my experience. I got my current and previous web job due to networking, I keep up with various job sites like GlassDoor or Monster and get notifications when a new job opens up. There might be some entry-level positions on a few sites like GlassDoor. You'll probably see entry-level positions from companies that you've never even heard of before! At least in Cincinnati it takes about 2 years to get a raise an go above entry-level.