Hi guys, yeah so I'm dedicating this thread for the purpose of outlaying my job hunting experiences so far in getting my first full time tech role.

This might give aspiring learners and complete beginners an overview of what to really expect (or so I hope).

So yeah, I've been coding since 2019, I wasn't consistent actually, it was on and off, I could say the stress of school was a major reason for the initial inconsistencies.

I'm coming from an Industrial Chemistry major, but I've always loved computers, I've always been tech savvy.

Well, Sololearn and W3Schools were my early teachers in the field of web development. I learnt HTML and CSS using those two platforms. They are awesome resources for beginners, I definitely recommend.

At the start of the pandemic, just like most other university students, I found myself back home, with an array of free time and idleness. Well time to get back to my computer. Lol.

I learnt JavaScript, practicing everyday like someone without a life, because I didn't really have any as at then. (Still don't lol).

But JS na beast sha, you cannot understand that language via tutorials, so I started working on pure JS projects, and even discovered stuffs that weren't taught in the tutorials lmao

Thank God for Brad Traversy, Dev Ed and Freecodecamp. (I for don give up)

Okay, the pandemic have subsided, and ASUU and FG don settle their kwata. The start of 2021 saw me back in school for my final lap in the university.

Another break in coding because I cannot multitask abeg. Make I no go die.

July, I finally graduated from that evil school, Omo I no fit happy abeg. I was doing painting jobs to support myself while in school, with the hope of upskilling my already existent skills in web development.

By October 2021, I picked up React, the popular and most loved JavaScript framework. The YouTube channels responsible for my growth in React was JSMastery and Brad Traversy (God bless them for me).

I was coding an average of 8 hours a day (no jokes). In fact, I dumped the idea of enrolling for NYSC because I needed utmost and complete focus.

Reading

It's the consistency for me o, this consistency can be proven if you take a peep at my GitHub graph. I sure lit up those squares with green colours

I was learning and building real life projects using JS and React.

Guys I mean projects that are applicable to real life, not all these Todo apps and calculator. Those YouTube guys mentioned earlier helped me through this. Freecodecamp sef try.

Omo, the last 5 months, I haven't had a life, it's just me and my laptop. My social life has practically been dead lol.

My social media is mostly tech twitter and Nairaland. My contact list grew with connecting and meeting more Devs online and even offline.

Reading...

So as at late March, I already had 5 solid projects. However, let me take you guys a bit back to January of this year.

In January, after shouting "Happy New Year", the next train of thoughts that passed through my mind was how I would support myself while I'm learning this coding thing. I don graduate na, who go give me money. Na only free food my parents dey give me.

Then one guy on Twitter kept tweeting about technical writing. He always emphasized on how developers can make money through technical writing gigs and even full time work.

Omo, na so my ear dey always stand anytime dis guy dey tweet, I became increasingly interested in this technical writing. Sapa na your mate??

So I resolved to start blogging about software development, I opened a Hashnode account.
I would write articles about the things I'm learning. What do I mean?

For instance, if I happen to encounter an error or a bug while coding, after researching and checking stackoverflow, geeks4geeks and the likes in a bid to solve the error. When I finally solved the error or added the feature (as the case may be), then I'd write an article on it. Sound smart right?

That was how I was building my blog while building my software development portfolio.

When I had up to 5 solid articles, I started looking for technical writing gigs.

Now, I'm trying not to make it sound too easy, looking for the writing gigs is a hell of a task itself. Writing and documentation is a big issue in the software industry. There's a huge dearth in proper documentation and guides for majority of the software that has been produced.

This makes technical writers in high demand. This I noticed.

I started searching for sites that pay writers to write for them. I would apply depending on the type of writers they were searching for.

The ones that were looking for writers on JavaScript and React and front-end development, were the ones I'd always apply for. I no fit dey write about python or C# when I no sabi am na.

The application would usually require you choosing a topic proposal, and dropping a writing pitch on the chosen topic.

If they find your topic interesting, they'd reach out to you and offer you a pay range to write the content for them.

Omo, I no go lie, I chop rejection mail tire. Lol.

Actually, most of those technical content writing gigs usually pay between $100 to $600 per article.

I kept on applying sha, that's one thing with job/gig search. You don't give up after the first few attempts. You keep applying, it's a job itself.

I finally landed my first technical writing role. It was an Indian blog site, they loved my proposal and they offered me the gig.

Pay was $250. But wait a sec!
It also involved me building something using their SDK and writing about it.

If you no Sabi code, na you know.
They gave me one month sha. I built the stuff, wrote the article within one month. That was my first ever 100k+ I earned by myself.

I go continue later, I get interview task to work on

TheManOfTheYear:
I go continue later, I get interview task to work on

All za best

Cool u just gave me a path to consider

In the course of learning programming,did you have a topic/concept you had problem with.
if yes,how did you tackle it and finally understand the concept/topic?

TheManOfTheYear:
Okay, the pandemic have subsided, and ASUU and FG don settle their kwata. The start of 2021 saw me back in school for my final lap in the university.

Another break in coding because I cannot multitask abeg. Make I no go die.

July, I finally graduated from that evil school, Omo I no fit happy abeg. I was doing painting jobs to support myself while in school, with the hope of upskilling my already existent skills in web development.

By October 2021, I picked up React, the popular and most loved JavaScript framework. The YouTube channels responsible for my growth in React was JSMastery and Brad Traversy (God bless them for me).

I was coding an average of 8 hours a day (no jokes). In fact, I dumped the idea of enrolling for NYSC because I needed utmost and complete focus.

TheManOfTheYear:
It's the consistency for me o, this consistency can be proven if you take a peep at my GitHub graph. I sure lit up those squares with green colours

I was learning and building real life projects using JS and React.

Guys I mean projects that are applicable to real life, not all these Todo apps and calculator. Those YouTube guys mentioned earlier helped me through this. Freecodecamp sef try.

Omo, the last 5 months, I haven't had a life, it's just me and my laptop. My social life has practically been dead lol.

My social media is mostly tech twitter and Nairaland. My contact list grew with connecting and meeting more Devs online and even offline.

Please can you list the type of project you built

TheManOfTheYear:
Actually, most of those technical content writing gigs usually pay between $100 to $600 per article.

I kept on applying sha, that's one thing with job/gig search. You don't give up after the first few attempts. You keep applying, it's a job itself.

I finally landed my first technical writing role. It was an Indian blog site, they loved my proposal and they offered me the gig.

Pay was $250. But wait a sec!
It also involved me building something using their SDK and writing about it.

If you no Sabi code, na you know.
They gave me one month sha. I built the stuff, write the article within one month. That was my first ever 100k+ I earned by myself.

Lol it's always 100k. That was my first programming salary too. And the first money I made programming on Upwork was around that figure too.

TheManOfTheYear:
I go continue later, I get interview task to work on

You are doing well, and you'll go far ��

IamBabsjnr:
In the course of learning programming,did you have a topic/concept you had problem with.
if yes,how did you tackle it and finally understand the concept/topic?

It would just click.

There some concepts you wouldn't understand initially, you would struggle to understand or get a hang of it. But as you keep on coding, one day, the thing would just click. That "aha" moment lol

Phantaminum1:

Please can you list the type of project you built

I built a cryptocurrency app using the Coinranking API, I built a Skype clone app using the 100ms SDK, I built a travel app using the trip advisor API etc

Real estate apps, and e-commerce stores are great projects too

tensazangetsu20:


Lol it's always 100k. That was my first programming salary too. And the first money I made programming on Upwork was around that figure too.

I swears, it felt really great to be honest.

longlife101:
You are doing well, and you'll go far ��

Thanks so much. Amen.

TheManOfTheYear:
I swears, it felt really great to be honest.

It was like a million naira to me then seeing that I was making 25k a month working 8 to 6pm Monday through to Saturday. Now I make more than that a week and I am not satisfied

tensazangetsu20:

It was like a million naira to me then seeing that I was making 25k a month working 8 to 6pm Monday through to Saturday. Now I make more than that a week and I am not satisfied

The chief himself. Blasting forward-ever. Baba, I quoted you on my recent "Web-Work" topic, yet to here from you o

Now just for clarity, you would need to have a good blog portfolio before applying to technical writing gigs. I prefer Hashnode because it is centered around software developers content only, and it offers custom domain and customization of your blog. That's not necessary sha.

My writing gave me a couple of opportunities. One US based start-up saw one of my articles I shared on twitter and they reached out to me to write contents for their open source projects.

This wasn't a full time job, just a content creator job, the perks were free T-shirts and swags and water bottle

There's a huge way you can sell yourself as a developer, and that is by creating technical contents. Trust me, nothing beats that.

It strengthens your resume when looking for your first engineering job.

tensazangetsu20:

It was like a million naira to me then seeing that I was making 25k a month working 8 to 6pm Monday through to Saturday. Now I make more than that a week and I am not satisfied

Life is in stages. I'm getting there soon.

TheManOfTheYear:
It would just click.

There some concepts you wouldn't understand initially, you would struggle to understand or get a hang of it. But as you keep on coding, one day, the thing would just click. That "aha" moment lol

thank you very much for your reply.
am actual encountering such moment in my python journey.

Now that I've spent more than 4-5 months learning React, I felt I was ready for my first job. Sapa told me I was ready at least.

The first thing I did was to write my resume. I prefer writing such things myself rather than give a so-called CV writer. No one can document your experience like yourself.

I just used one nice, free template I found online and constructed a 'great' CV.
Now lemme break it down what I did

I'm a newbie, I practically have zero industry experience as a software engineer. Save for two internships I did back in 2020.

80% of the jobs I saw listed online, were all looking for "Senior developers", "Senior Frontend Engineer", "Senior full stack Developer" bla bla bla.
This made me wonder, who would hire the juniors?
If you don't hire juniors, who would be the seniors tomorrow?

The rest of the jobs were always looking for mid-level experienced engineers. Even the so-called junior jobs required you to know full stack technologies these recruiters no go kill me.

So I thought to myself, if I don't tailor this CV to reflect industry experience, I wouldn't even get an interview let alone a job.

longlife101:
The chief himself. Blasting forward-ever. Baba, I quoted you on my recent "Web-Work" topic, yet to here from you o

I must have missed that will check it out

What I did was, I listed those two internships I did in 2020 on my resume. I listed them as though they were full time roles. Under each role, I gave about 3 bullet points of the 'milestones' I did while on the job.

A bit of an exaggeration I must confess but still related to what I did. Stated the technologies I used. For instance; "I worked on different websites and helped add chat functionalities to them, using react and Chatwoot" etc

Now I have two previous roles. They are experiences. Whether college internship, or gig or whatever, they are all experiences. List am.

Afterward, I added my technical writing experiences I had with about 3 blog sites (which were startups too).

That gig were I had to build something and write an article on it using their SDK, I listed it and documented it well in 3 bullet points.
You just have to sell yourself well.

Please don't lie on your resume o, I simply mean you should sell yourself well with the little experiences you've gathered. Whether it's an internship or a gig or whatever. You get d point abi?

Somewhere in your resume, you could write a short intro of yourself in one simple paragraph. I was like "I have 2 years experience learning web development, interning and working with various startups" bla bla

I have a portfolio website, but no one has ever explicitly asked me for it. Details on my job search experiences henceforth.

Nairaland mod on the beat

This is a great read man, it's a motivation. I am at the stage of starting projects too, it's a faster way of learning the ropes.