Guest blog contributed by Darshan Somashekar
Darshan Somashekar is a guest contributor, startup entrepreneur, and expert in hiring processes. He brings his expertise in finding the right person for the job, and for the company’s future, to the complex world of ensuring that both students and educators are doing the right thing to ensure that finding a developer job is as easy as their first line of code. When it comes to what starter techies can do to stand out from the crowd, Darshan has the insider’s secrets.
As the tech co-founder of numerous startups, including my newest one, Solitaired, I’ve directly or indirectly hired over a hundred engineers. I’ve worked with external recruiters, internal recruiting teams, and worn the recruiting hat myself. I’ve had a lot of experience interviewing engineering candidates, many whom came straight from dev bootcamps.
Many people think coming out of a bootcamp automatically tags you as an entry level engineer, but my experience is different. I’ve found that bootcamp hires can provide unique perspectives that can benefit a team beyond strictly the core engineering skill set they bring.
If you’re coming from a bootcamp, here are some suggestions to stand out during the recruitment process as you find your new programming job or developer job.
Technical communication skills: Most recruiting processes for developer jobs these days include a coding assignment. If you pass the assignment and move onto the onsite interview, you’re likely going to be asked about the code you wrote. A big determinant in landing your next programming job is how you communicate about your code. More specifically, you need to be able to explain the following:
- The high level architecture of your code: you need to be able to visually diagram how your code works.
- Why you chose this approach you took: as you code, note down different ways you could have done something and why you chose this way. What matters here isn’t the choice itself, but the reason why.
- How you would extend your code: You’re going to be asked, “hey if we need to change X aspect, or add Y feature, how would we do that?” Make sure your code is broken down in a modular enough way where you can isolate specific actions and describe how you’d swap them out.
Tip: Prior to going to an onsite interview for your developer or programmer job, you may want to do a mock interview with a friend who can help you flesh out these areas.
Preparedness: Know about the company you’re interviewing at. Coming from a bootcamp, you may not have years of technical expertise that you can rely on to help you in the interview process. However, you can still shine in a different way. Bring up a company’s mission or its product portfolio. Ask about the company’s direction. Have some good, specific questions that show your interest.
Domain expertise: One of the advantages that you may have over other applicants for the developer job you’re applying to is your background before the bootcamp. For example, one of my companies, Imagine Easy, helped students with their bibliography citations. We sometimes came across candidates that had Library Science degrees – this immediately improved their chances since we knew the candidate would immediately understand the pain points our products solved. Be sure to update your resume to highlight any relevant background you may have regarding the company.
Community: Another unique benefit you might have as a bootcamp graduate is the alumni network and community that comes along with many bootcamps. By participating in events, doing speaking engagements, and knowing the main organizers of a bootcamp, you can offer companies a unique recruiting channel that they may not have access to otherwise. And if they do, being active in the community will still help you by improving your chances at future opportunities for developer jobs.
Personally, I’ve found that the hires we’ve made from bootcamps perform exceedingly well on our teams, and round out our teams in ways we didn’t expect. In my new role, as co-founder of casual gaming platform Solitaired, I hope to continue to leverage the power of bootcamps like HyperionDev to our recruiting process.
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At HyperionDev, we don’t just specialise in teaching people software engineering, data science, and full stack web development so that they can upgrade their salaries, mobility, and career prospects in programming jobs – we work to bridge the global tech skills gap, at all levels.
Our placements service helps to develop our students portfolios, CVs, and interview skills, so that new programmers can fill the growing holes in the rapidly expanding tech market; while our revamped HyperionDev Connect platforms help companies to fill their coding and tech vacancies with programmers who know what they’re doing.
If you want to find out if the tech space is for you, why not take our free trial? It has everything you need to get started on the road to hearing “you’re hired” at your new tech career.
