Self taught dev, worked in medical field and as analyst before this. Did web dev on the side for years on and off.
After quitting my analyst role, applied to 500+ companies. Boy, it's brutal…
First round of applications, only put frontend knowledge to get a job quick or so I thought. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Typescript, React, Next.js, and calling APIs.
I very quickly realized I wasn’t going anywhere with this. Getting rejected immediately.
Stopped applying, and beefed up resume and project so it’s all the above plus Node.js, Express with Auth. CI/CD pipeline and deployment on cloud.
Still got rejected a ton, but not as quickly. And rejections were much nicer saying they liked my experience but chose someone else.
Love waking up to rejection emails all day.
Had multiple non tech phone screen (easy), but ghosted by many afterwards. Passed a bunch of high level tech interviews. Then after deeper tech interview, got rejected.
The one offer I got was where I pretty much just demoed my project and it was clear I knew what I was talking about. Got offer on the spot.
I did take a pay cut from analyst role, but fuck it. Gotta break in somehow. $70k/yr to $63k/yr. NE USA, so pretty low salary to be honest. Not New York though. Sorry it’s not a $100k/yr first job post.
Hybrid job, so meh…but jobs that require on site, significantly less competition compared to regional or global competition on remote jobs. Gonna miss my 100% remote life. Apply to no name company also improves odds.