How to Be Competitive & Land the Dev Job (What Every Bootcamp, Self-taught, and CS Grad Should Know)

(Timestamps and Links Below)
Raymond Gan has worked 10 years as a software engineer. He's a senior Ruby, JavaScript, and Golang developer who graduated from Flatiron School in 2013 and has worked in 5 careers, like chemical engineering, software consulting, teaching, and working on spinal surgeries. This guy has done more than I've ever dreamed of doing.

Raymond shares his advice on how to truly be competitive for software jobs and stand out from the crowd, how cutthroat the software world is, how coding bootcamps are weak, and how to write your LinkedIn and GitHub for employers.

01:07 - How to Truly Be Competitive for Software Jobs
14:14 - Raymond's Background
26:12 - How Are Coding Bootcamps Weak?
42:47 -To Bootcamp Grads: The Cold Cutthroat Reality of Becoming a Software Engineer
45:33 - Cultural Fit
49:17 - Companies may hire less than 1% of all applicants for a software engineering job. We all face international competition. In 5 months at a startup, though we hired ~20 more engineers, I was the only new one we hired in LA. All the rest were overseas, for lower salaries.
55:06 - While there’s always a shortage of SENIOR engineers, the junior software job market has been saturated for years.
1:01:59 - Those with a prior background in CS, engineering, science, math, finance, or skill with languages/humanities (English, linguistics, foreign languages, music, history, political science) have an advantage in switching to software careers.
1:03:20 - If switching careers to software, you should save enough money for 1-2 years unemployment.
1:05:58 - As a beginner, avoid applying to startups, which may fire you if you’re not as fast as the rest of the team in 1 month
1:07:06 When you build software for real customers, it's easy to hit a wall where no one else at your company (CTO, VP of Engineering) can answer your technical questions. Get used to being the MAIN expert at your company on your piece of their codebase
1:08:43 - How to Be a Kick*** New Software Engineer
1:16:39 - How networking is often useless to get a software job
1:31:12 - My Ideal Coding Bootcamp. How to TRULY Be Competitive for Software Jobs
1:51:43 - How to Make a Popular LinkedIn Page and Github

Raymond's 5 articles for CS/coding bootcamp grads: www.linkedin.com/in/raymond-gan-0ba8011/detail/rec…

1. My Ideal Coding Bootcamp. How to TRULY Be Competitive for Software Jobs: www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-ideal-coding-bootcamp-ra… - 1:31:12

2. How Are Coding Bootcamps Weak? www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-coding-bootcamps-weak-r… - 26:12

3. How to Be a Kick*** New Software Engineer: bit.ly/31xWFfl - 1:08:43

4. To Bootcamp Grads: The Cold Cutthroat Reality of Becoming a Software Engineer: www.linkedin.com/pulse/bootcamp-grads-cold-cutthro… - 42:47

5. To Software Developers: How to Make a Popular LinkedIn Page: www.linkedin.com/pulse/software-developers-how-mak… - 1:51:43
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#1 question CS/bootcamp grads ask me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:65829…

My weekly study group for code challenge problems and "Cracking the Coding Interview": www.github.com/rayning0/ctci