It finally happened. I am pleased to say that I finally caught my big break and I am now working as a Software Developer!!!
After another temp job ended back in November I finally got fed up spending all my time doing stuff I hated. Sure the pay was steady, not much mental energy was required, and it kept me from thinking about the dev job hunt but I didn't want to waste my time any further. So I declined other temp roles and forced myself to focus completely on the job hunt. Sure rejection sucks but everyone has to go through it.
So started then I've been applying to an average of 25 jobs/week and reaching out to recruiters I knew on LinkedIn or through a mutual friend. I also sat down and started working on further with coding practices. It was demoralizing as usual and it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. Then I started getting feedback. People calling to schedule a phone screen at least once a week. As expected most interviews ended in rejection, one of which was really brutal I felt like a sucker for choosing this line of work.
I still kept my remote job, which helped me out because recruiters like to see that you are still working. One of the perks of remote work is that you can work from wherever you want, which I took advantage of in February when I went to Europe for two weeks. First week was in London, where I did the usual tourist stuff; the second week was in Germany where I reconnected with an old friend and spent some time with his lovely family in a small village.
Things picked up the moment I returned home. The day after my return I was taking two phone calls from recruiters, including a coding challenge. I was submitting resumes weekly through Angel List and Dice, and attending networking events. It was demoralizing but nothing I could do but keep moving forward. There was no temp job waiting to distract me any further.
Finally about two months ago I got a call back for a Software Developer role at a university. The university is in the process of developing a new web application and they needed an experienced Rails developer to help them out. It was a good thing I had that remote Rails job, which played really well in my favor. After a couple of phone calls with the recruiter and the lead developer I was offered a job! It's a contract role which could transfer over to full-time if the project goes well.
I'm on my fifth week. I apologize for waiting this long to write about it but I didn't want to jinx myself. I didn't want to start bragging about this, only for someone to tell me it was a mistake. I wanted to wait until I knew that it wasn't a mistake, or a misunderstanding of some sort. And it is real, and very satisfying. I'm up every morning at 5am, sitting in traffic for an hour, get to work at 8:30am until 5pm.
Two years ago I was working at a startup doing mainly administrative work. At the start of each day I'd take the long way to my desk so I can walk past the dev team's corner. I didn't understand what they were doing but I was intrigued. I resolved to do what they were doing. I was clueless as to how: I didn't understand basic programming terminology, I didn't get good grades in college, and I didn't know anyone who would mentor me. There was a point where I felt like being an admin was the best I could ever hope to become. Then things got better; little by little. I found Coding Dojo, I met people, I traveled, I took more chances and walked away from old habits and lifestyles that didn't fit the image for my future.
It probably would have happened sooner if I hadn't been so scared of rejection. If I had kept pushing through all of the bad stuff I would have noticed sooner just how smart and important I am to a lot of companies who were desperate for good programmers.
I'm not really sure what advice I could part to you at this final post. I'm not really good with final words. I've ranted a lot and I'm sure you picked up some do's and don'ts about coding bootcamp and job hunting. If you'd like to know something else in particular feel free to shoot me a message.
I guess I'll leave things like this: Thanks for following me. You've all been the greatest.
