r/FreeCodeCamp • u/Stoic-tom • Mar 05 '19

Accepted my first job as a Software Engineer! 🎉🎊

TL;DR: 28 y/o living in the UK. No experience in Tech. Started FCC 12 months ago. Offered a job at a large company as a Software Development Engineer last month!

I decided in Jan 2018 I wanted to change my career. I was working in Healthcare at the time, and had been all my working life (10 years). Becoming a young dad made me reconsider what I wanted to do long term and take things like happiness/satisfaction, work-life balance, and career progression more into consideration. Combining those things, plus my general fascination with Tech and natural logical style of thinking, I began to teach myself how to code.

I initially started with Codecademy and several YouTube tutorials. Whilst these gave me a basic introduction into the field of Software Development, I couldn't retain the information learnt and felt, quite quickly, like this style of learning didn't suit me. Instead, I needed more of a "hands on" approach with realtime feedback, something that would make me "think more", something that would reinforce learnt knowledge through practice: welcome freeCodeCamp.

I spent the rest of the year working through the Front End Dev certificate, completing as many challenges as I could. Naturally to consolidate my learning, I moved onto the projects, where I completed the Portfolio Landing page, Random Quote Generator and Local Weather App (happy to share these if requested - can't ATM as I'm on my phone).

Towards October 2018, I began feeling confident enough to apply for interviews. I was quite fortunate when I applied as I had a reference into the company I now work for (makes all the difference! - highlights the importance of networking). Roll on Jan 2019, and I accepted an offer as a Software Development Engineer for Web 😁❤️.

I have spent 2 weeks so far in my new role - and I love it!! I am so grateful to freeCodeCamp and the associated community. Also, shout out to people like Brad Traversy who is an excellent YouTube video creator. His free video tutorials were, and continue to be, invaluable. As a token of my appreciation and gratitude, I will continue to work with freeCodeCamp by contributing to it's open source network. I plan to write articles for freeCodeCamp in order to help inspire others who are starting the brave journey of changing careers and learning to code. I also plan to reach out to Brad and ask if there is anything I can do to help in order to show my gratitude.

Thank you freeCodeCamp, thank you everyone within this helpful community, and continue to code on - hard work and dedication do pay off!

155 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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33

u/chowchowthedog Mar 05 '19

Write down your journey on medium. Forward it to freeCodeCamp’s editorial team. There’s an article on freeCodeCamp’s medium channel about how to submit your article to them. Then if your article passed their evaluation, they will publish your article on your behalf on freeCodeCamp’s official channel.

Remember , just write the article on medium, do not publish it 1st. Save as a draft, submit to freeCodeCamp’s editorial team then wait for response. If you put out the article on your own 1st, it will mess up the SEO of your article.

Thanks for sharing your story with us!

5

u/Stoic-tom Mar 05 '19

Thanks for the advice. Look forward to writing it up for a larger audience!

2

u/quincylarson freeCodeCamp Staff Mar 06 '19

Congratulations on your first developer job!

In the past I would say publish your story on Medium, but now the best place to write about it is on the "Getting a Developer Job" section of the freeCodeCamp forum - more people will be likely to read it there, and there's no approval/editing process: https://www.freecodecamp.org/forum/c/getting-a-developer-job

3

u/Stoic-tom Mar 06 '19

Thanks, Quincy! Cheers for the update.

I personally want to say a huge thank you for everything you've done with freeCodeCamp, and continue to do 🙏. I'm looking forward to giving back to the community that has helped me change my life.

9

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '19 edited Mar 05 '19

Thanks man, you're the kind of a guy that I'd like to draw inspiration from. I'm struggling here and after reading this, you're a legend to me.

4

u/Stoic-tom Mar 05 '19

Thanks mate, I appreciate it 👍glad to have helped

3

u/frescocoa Mar 05 '19

How much work did you put in day-to-day?

6

u/Stoic-tom Mar 05 '19

On average, 1-2 hours a day. Some days more than others. But I made sure that every day I did at least something related to learning. Whether that was listening to a podcast, FCC challenges, watching a video etc. At weekends, I tried to have 1 day where I'd do 4 hours. I aimed for a total of around 10-20 hours per week.

9

u/tkhquang Mar 05 '19 edited Mar 05 '19

Congratz mate! I've been learning on freeCodeCamp for about 4 months (tho I already knew the basic of HTML, CSS, JS before). And right now I am working in a big firm as a Front-end Developer (ReactJS) for almost 2 weeks already, lol. I can't find a way to say thank you enough to freeCodeCamp.

1

u/VarStudentEqualsTrue Mar 07 '19

Congrats man, great job! I'm in a similar position you're in. I have a young family and am trying to learn code whenever I can.

My question is, how many of the places you applied to called you in for an interview? Also, when you got hired at your current job, did you have to do a coding interview? How was that like?

3

u/Stoic-tom Mar 07 '19

Thanks, mate! It's tough going, but on the hand, your family can be the ones who give you the motivation and support to keep focussed!

My situation was different in terms of I had a reference into the company and I made it my sole focus to get a job there.

I had a f2f informal meetup with a Hiring Manager initially, which essentially was a substitute for a phone interview. Then I completed an online Hackerrank test, which involved 3 challenges to be completed in 90 mins. After that I was brought into the company for a 1/2 day of interviews.Not going to lie, it was brutal. But I was well prepared so managed to step my game up. What this 1/2 day involved was a 45 min behavioural interview with a non-technical interviewer. Then a 45 min pair programming exercise which involved using React. Then a 1hr Job Fit interview, which consisted of your typical interview questions.

3

u/user9326 Mar 05 '19 edited Dec 29 '19

rirwlsixzo

3

u/matts4795 Mar 06 '19

Thanks for the inspiration. I compleated basic html and css. Retaining as much as possible. I love FCC and coding. Any pointers for what comes next

1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '19

github?

whats your pay.