How can I ensure my success in becoming a software developer straight out of college.
Posted by That-Degree-474@reddit | learnprogramming | View on Reddit | 69 comments
Hello Reddit, I'm an aspiring university student currently pursuing a BA in Computer Science and an Associate’s in Management Information Technology. My goal is to position myself as strongly as possible to secure a job or internship either during my studies or right after graduation. What steps should I take to increase my chances? Are certifications important? Should I focus on learning specific programming languages? How critical are personal projects and portfolios in the job search? I'd love to hear your advice!
Frequent_Fold_7871@reddit
lul...
I'm watching as dozens of former coworkers who are 15+ year veteran coders struggling 1-2+ years into finding a job. I think the funny word here is "ensure", because you seem to be under the impression that you'll even find a job amongst the 10,000 developers currently looking for work, let alone someone with ZERO work experience AND on top of it, you want a good paying position.
CrocodileWalker@reddit
Certificates are meaningless for SWE, specific languages can help but overall programming skill is better. Good programmers could pick up a new language in a week. Personal projects are extremely important if you have no intern experience
RufusVS@reddit
Ability to read code in a week, maybe. Programming simple programs with language keywords, a bit longer. Using the equivalent of standard libraries, longer. Learning paradigms and best practices, longer. But learning to read code may enable you to see most bugs. But these days, give it to an AI and ask what might be wrong in this code, or how to improve it.
CrocodileWalker@reddit
I think your steps make sense but I’d shorten the timeline a bit. I never learned Ruby before, but I learned it enough to read syntax in a couple days and I learned to write simple programs within a week. To start using more libraries etc. it took me longer but that’s an example. Basic proficiency can happen in a week or two unless the language is radically different
Lumpy_Ad7002@reddit
Snort. At the level of reading some of the code and writing some simple stuff. I was a senior developer in C++ and after three years I wasn't an expert. After six years of C# I was very comfortable with the language, but still had gaps
CrocodileWalker@reddit
I don’t mean being an expert I mean familiar with the basics.
C++ is also an insanely bloated language. You could pick up almost everything there is to know about something like Go in a month or less.
Obviously there’s differences in complexity and domain knowledge but if you spent a couple weeks learning rust for example you could be productive enough to start working on new features using it
JDawgproductions@reddit
The issue im mainly having is that I’m not super creative and it’s hard for me to think of personal projects to do.
CrocodileWalker@reddit
Checkout the build your own X repo, it’s got some great inspiration
warzy97@reddit
Create facebook at home
Natural_TestCase@reddit
Swap to a BS would help. Also internships.
IdempodentFlux@reddit
People will shot on certs, but if a new grad had aws certified developer, that would be a differentiator imo.
10choices@reddit
Is that preferred over the Solutions Architect? Not a new grad, but curious why this cert is a differentiator.
IdempodentFlux@reddit
It wouldn't make a difference imo, but forreal I'm talking out my ass.
10choices@reddit
😂😂😂 thanks
Major-Management-518@reddit
By graduating 20 years ago.
armahillo@reddit
Network as much as possible. The majority of the jobs Ive landed over the last 30 years were because I knew someone on the inside.
Connect with technical groups, intern, go to events, etc
PM_ME_UR_ROUND_ASS@reddit
Try joining meetup.com groups for developers in your area and actually show up consistently - I landed my first two jobs just by being the person who kept showing up and eventually someone remebered me when they needed a junior dev.
Sakkyoku-Sha@reddit
The following is just my opinion.
You will want a B+ minimum GPA ideally higher.
Personal projects is what is going to get you hired over anyone else. It doesn't need to be super novel its about showing practical knowledge of tooling. You can start today.
If you want to strictly aim for employability either A) use Java, JavaScript, React, or B) target a particular kind of Company and using their tech stack EXACTLY build something. You could literally send an email to their HR department right now.
LeetCode is a requirement for larger companies. It's used as a filter to just get rid of a number of Candidates. In my experience smaller companies will run comparatively easy coding tests. Know the fundamental data structures well and view them as tools in your tool kit.
ncmentis@reddit
Internships matter miles more than personal projects. And leetcode style coding interviews are required for that unfortunately. So leetcode, then internships, then personal and class projects. Grades I've never heard of mattering.
lgastako@reddit
Out of curiosity, why does the GPA matter? Do companies ask for that now? No one in my entire career has ever know my GPA, but then I got started a long time ago.
romple@reddit
When you're looking at resumes you see so many that you can remove everyone under a 3.8GPA and still have way too many resumes to look through.
I mean some people actually care but it's mostly just the easiest way to filter out fresh outs.
lionseatcake@reddit
But that didn't answer the question, you just restated the point.
"Do companies even ask for that now"
Are you supposed to put your GPA on your resume?
my_password_is______@reddit
if you have a 4.0 or a 3.9 why wouldn't you ?
if you had a 2.7 ... probably not
lionseatcake@reddit
None of you can just answer the question.
You are just repeating the situation. I asked two very straightforward questions.
Sihmael@reddit
The comment you're responding to is a very clear answer to your second question. If your GPA is high enough, then yes you should. If it's not, no you shouldn't. To save you the trouble of using google, the cutoff at which you're generally recommended not to is about 3.0.
The comment you responded to before that is pretty clearly implying that yes, some companies do ask for it to filter out applicants. No way to know if a specific listing will actually care until you go to fill out the application and they ask for it. Most don't seem to care in my experience, but some absolutely do.
lionseatcake@reddit
I can't believe you wrote all of that, and your first sentence is just blatantly false. They did not answer my question clearly or otherwise.
Are you supposed to put your gpa on your resume?
Cmon guys, this is a simple concept.
Tin_Foiled@reddit
Your question doesn’t even make sense. What do you mean “are you supposed to”. Every hiring manager is different. There isn’t an answer to your question yet you’re berating people for not answering it. The closest answer to your question is “yes if it’s high”. That IS the answer. There is no “supposed to”. People took your stupid question , tried to help anyway, and you argue with them. Really stupid my guy
lionseatcake@reddit
No it makes sense. It's a complete sentence, and it's a reasonable question.
Crazy how yall type so many words when your opening statement is false.
Like, you begin your thought with a flash statement and then think anyone will find the rest of what you day to be legitimate.
Tin_Foiled@reddit
Dur, it makes grammatical sense as a question, yes. That doesn’t mean it makes sense in context. Not all questions have yes/no answers dipshit
Sihmael@reddit
This is an unbelievable level of semantic nitpicking. Given that they're responding to you asking a question, it's pretty obvious that "why wouldn't you" means "yes". It's a rhetorical question. The only other way that could be interpreted is as them literally asking you a question back, but their next sentence directly giving you a circumstance where you shouldn't include it gives away that it wasn't meant as a real question.
lionseatcake@reddit
A lot of words again. You keep invalidating your own credibility right from the start by saying something that isn't true.
Don't know why that seems like a good idea
Sihmael@reddit
Got it, you can’t read so I’ll shorten it for you:
Sometimes
Sometimes
That helpful now?
lionseatcake@reddit
Nah somehow that's still pedantic af.
Sihmael@reddit
Ah, sorry about that, I really hoped that was concise enough. Guess you were right, seems like nobody in the world is able to answer your questions.
SR_Powah@reddit
Its an easy filter to show they can learn and/or care about their education. Imagine you have 3 intern spots and 40 resumes of very similar students. 20 don’t list a GPA at all, 10 have <3.5, 10 have >3.5.
Unless one of the other 30 have something very standout on their resume or their soft skills really wowed us, the 10 students with the good GPA are going to the next step of the process before anyone else gets revisited.
FWIW, I got in via soft skills.
lionseatcake@reddit
Are you just trolling?
I really don't understand why it's so hard to answer the question.
SR_Powah@reddit
Oh, do companies ask for that? Yeah, the best places at our career fairs won’t even take a resume without a GPA over 3.2 listed on it.
lionseatcake@reddit
So they just don't hire people who haven't been in college for a decade or more?
SR_Powah@reddit
Now im curious if you are trolling. lol
If its a position meant for a new college grad level like OP asked about, your 10 years of experience is probably sufficient.
If you have no experience, you need something to separate you from the kids thats have an indicator that they can probably learn like mentioned in my first comment.
lionseatcake@reddit
Nah, actually, at this point of the night, I'm just too high to be having conversations. It's bedtime.
SR_Powah@reddit
I just caught your edit. Yeah, my focus was only on new grad stuff. People that have been out of school for a few years probably don’t need it, but also why wouldn’t you include you graduated with honors?
Take an extra hit for me and have a good night.
MulberryLarge6375@reddit
Agree, but in college, when you are hunting for an internship, it's probably the best to put your GPA in there. Out of college, bootcamp certificate > gpa.
lgastako@reddit
Ah, thanks. That makes sense.
sobaer@reddit
If you want to make sure to get a job, learn SAP or some old but still used languages like FORTRAN. Increases your chance for a good payed job massively, it might also result in a job/environment that sucks :)
Important-Product210@reddit
Nobody cares
MulberryLarge6375@reddit
If you are in a good college, you're likely going to become a software developer straight out of college. There's college that has collaboration with these big tech companies. Allows the students to become interns or maybe FTE. If you're not ready to suffer, practice leetcode's top 150 coding questions, and look over roadmap.io to check your path of knowledge. Also, try to find a reliable boot camp that matches your path(frontend, backend, qa, devop), bootcamp give you insight knowledge and also chances to join in big tech company (they got connections and may refer you). Try to find boot camp that won't charge you money immediately but only charge you after you're onboars(got the offer).
brightside100@reddit
grades will probably will be minimal for interviewers. at the end you sit next to someone who wants to see you solve problems and write code. you should practice your code writing skills with AI tools like gpteach or chat gpt and create your personal project to go over from time to time.
deftware@reddit
Write code.
Webstack is played out.
Learn a real language that lets you make real things. Having at least some fullstack awareness won't hurt though - at least enough to be dangerous (i.e. understanding the big picture to where you can just google anything you don't already know off-hand to make anything happen on your own). A real language will enable you to solve real problems and create real value much more readily than a higher level or webstack language. Backend web "technologies" are going to be more valuable than front-end stuff - because front-end is easier. A good rule of thumb to keep in mind with regard to all things in life: the easier that something is to do, the more people there are who will be able to do it, and the less valuable being able to do it will be. That is especially the case when it's something that someone can just use an LLM to do. An LLM can't write a complex project that nobody has done before, or solve a problem that nobody has solved before. If you can engineer solutions to novel problems you'll be ahead of 95% of the CS degree holders out there, if not more.
A portfolio of projects is what will set you apart from all the other hundreds or thousands of job applicants who also have the same degree that you do, but who have no portfolio that demonstrates that they can actually do stuff, and actually have an ability to take an idea or a problem and implement a solution. If you can't do that then it doesn't matter how well you know any language - which is what employers have been figuring out. A portfolio (that isn't just a bunch of ripped code from elsewhere, or hobbled together by an LLM doing everything) says a lot more than a degree about a person's abilities.
omegaonion@reddit
its annoying but having 1-2 good personal projects that you can talk about makes a world of difference for a graduate
MrHighStreetRoad@reddit
Impress your peers so they think of you when someone asks them for a recommendation.
TSComicron@reddit
lionseatcake@reddit
"Fuck ai" just sounds like you're avoiding something new like an old man yelling about the kids these days.
I wouldn't say rely on it, I wouldn't say use it for anything important, but "fuck ai" is some truly neo-conservative nonsense.
I used to work doing physical labor and I'd try new tools and techniques sometimes to see if they made my process more efficient.
The 50 year olds would always just laugh while using only the things they were used to. Shit, sometimes they'd laugh if you wore eye protection.
"Fuck ai" just reminds me of that same black and white, speak only in absolutes attitude that is completely untenable and unreasonable.
wggn@reddit
Don't rely on ai
NanoYohaneTSU@reddit
You can't. Success is not guaranteed. You getting a BA is already not a good plan at all.
Why can't you just get a B.S. STEM degree from a good University?
ledatherockband_@reddit
Build a lot of stuff on your free time, pay attention to architecture patterns that work best for your industry/programming language.
See if you have an industry in mind and build products around that.
Vegetable-Passion357@reddit
What everyone is looking for is someone who can create instructions describing how to install the web site onto the web server. Whenever a new programmer comes on board, we lack written instructions informing him how to accomplish this goal.
I write almost all of the documentation in the shop.
I suspect that most programmers did not attend a high school where they were required to write a 20 page research paper on a subject, complete with footnotes and a bibliography.
My report discussed the history of Punch Magazine, a Victorian satirical publication. Nobody cares about Punch Magazine. People are about the skills that I developed that made the report possible.
kibasaur@reddit
20 page research paper?!
pinkwar@reddit
If you are able to do some aws certifications those can come in handy.
Dziadzios@reddit
Do internship before graduation.
VokN@reddit
do the classes required for a bsc lol
Tigerbotanist@reddit
I am also doing A.S. I.T. Degree with bachelors CS. And training for the giac reverse engineering malware.
VokN@reddit
A BA means they aren’t doing very many maths credits and likely tells employers your degree isn’t as rigorous as a BSC, the IT associates isn’t as important since IT is a completely different field to software dev
WhompWump@reddit
You can never ensure success but you should always be prepared for when the opportunity for success arises
Learning tools like git would be big, otherwise I think it's more having the right mindset of being hungry to learn and having some humility, realizing that as a junior/first year nobody is expecting you to be a god of the team but at the same time don't be completely helpless (learn how to google and/or use docs and AI tools to learn things)
ColdStorageParticle@reddit
You can't
heroyi@reddit
Grind leetcode and get internships to get job. No internship or experience puts you miles behind your peers.
do Leetcode apply do projects if possible
do Leetcode to get internships to get jobs
Aaod@reddit
Oh that is easy their is a trick the people that a lot of people I saw used to to get a job and be successful even if they could not code so it works for everyone. Have rich parents with connections get you jobs.
iOSCaleb@reddit
aamoguss@reddit
Become a content creator, build up an audience, and create a software company which you advertise to the audience.
crywoof@reddit
Grind leetcode Do internships