Getting Started in Tech (June 19th, Santa Monica)
- 1. Getting Started in Tech: Building Your Career June 2017 - Los Angeles, California http://bit.ly/tech-la
- 2. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 2 About us We train developers and data scientists through 1-on-1 mentorship and career prep
- 3. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 3 About us Noel Duarte Old LA General Manager ! Georgie Thomas New LA General Manager ✨👀
- 4. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 4 About you Why are you here? I’d like to become a developer I’m curious about what the tech industry is Programming/career experience? First lines of code yet to be written Been self teaching for 1-3 months Actively working as a developer
- 5. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 5 Why are we here? Traditional career building:
- 6. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 6 Why are we here? Traditional career building: Junior sales / SDR Account executive Sales Manager VP Sales
- 7. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 7 Tech is weird Career trajectories are far more varied Tech isn’t one industry. It’s every industry.
- 8. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 8 Tech doesn’t fit traditional career building Full stack developer Front-end developer Back-end developer QA developer
- 9. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 9 Full stack developer Front-end developer Back-end developer QA developer Tech doesn’t fit traditional career building
- 10. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 10 Full stack developer Front-end developer Back-end developer DevOps Product developer Growth hacker Reliability engineer QA developer Architect Manager / team lead Tech doesn’t fit traditional career building
- 11. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 11 Full stack developer Front-end developer Back-end developer DevOps Product developer Growth hacker Reliability engineer QA developer Architect Manager / team lead Tech doesn’t fit traditional career building
- 12. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 12 Full stack developer Front-end developer Back-end developer DevOps Product developer Growth hacker Reliability engineer QA developer Architect Manager / team lead Tech doesn’t fit traditional career building UI/UX Designer Product Manager
- 13. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 13 Tech is everywhere MLBAM (advanced media) - digital arm of Major League Baseball recently valued at $3B, about as much as the New York Yankees
- 14. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 14 Tech is everywhere: Politics
- 15. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 15 Dating
- 16. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 16 Transportation/Travel
- 17. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 17 Everything else!
- 18. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 18 Tech is everywhere “Goldman Sachs is a Technology Firm” - Lloyd Blankfein, CEO 9,000 out of 33,000 employees are on tech team
- 19. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 19 Goals for tonight Identify different types of jobs available and the skills you’ll need to qualify Career building from the ground up: Build in-demand skills Prepare your application materials Networking and searching for a job Interviewing Stay current
- 20. Where to start?
- 21. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 21 First jobs: Front-end Developer What: Skills & Tools Building the parts of a web application that people interact with
- 22. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 22 First jobs: Back-end developer What: Skills & Tools Writing the business logic and handling data storage and manipulation
- 23. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 23 First jobs: Back-end developer What: Skills & Tools Writing the business logic and handling data storage and manipulation
- 24. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 24 First jobs: Full stack developer What: Skills & Tools Build features front to back +
- 25. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 25 First jobs: QA developer What: Skills & Tools Write software tests and conduct manual tests to catch bugs before they’re shipped Unit testing Regression testing Breaking software
- 26. Before you apply
- 27. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 27 Building skills You can build your niche with any set of technologies, but we (Thinkful and our network of 350+ engineers around the world) found the following to be particularly in-demand: Vanilla JavaScript Node.js for server-side programming React React Native (everyone needs a mobile presence)
- 28. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 28 But take that with a grain of salt, but also don’t. Building skills
- 29. © 2016 Thinkful, Inc. All Rights Reserved. PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL29 Building skills
- 30. © 2016 Thinkful, Inc. All Rights Reserved. PRIVATE & CONFIDENTIAL30 Building skills
- 31. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 31 Building skills JavaScript is the most commonly used programming language on earth. Even Back-End developers are more likely to use it than any other language. Click me!
- 32. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 32 Planning + Prioritizing Location Industry Company size Compensation Technology Training Role
- 33. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 33 Materials Resume/Linkedin/AngelList Github profile Personal website & portfolio https://robbykim.github.io/portfolio/ — doesn’t have to have a wow factor but if it does, make it clean: http://hannahmcca.in/
- 34. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 34 Soft assets Develop your personal story (elevator pitch!) Catalog your network
- 36. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 36 Zen and the art of applying to jobs
- 37. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 37 Referrals The single highest-converting channel 50-80% of jobs are never posted
- 38. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 38 Applications: Golden Tickets Create something that demonstrates your skills and is applicable to the job Litmus test: will it make the person reviewing your job application smile and want to share it with their team?
- 39. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 39 Pop quiz What % of applicants get an interview?
- 40. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 40 Pop quiz What % of applicants get an interview? Low end: 5-10% High end: 30-35%
- 41. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 41 Wild (or not so wild) card: Recruiter Tech recruiters serve as your agent They reach out to companies on your behalf and arrange interviews Their business is to find you a job Overall highly valuable — they have connections and help keep your expectations real
- 42. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 42 How Thinkful alumni find jobs
- 43. Interviewing
- 44. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 44 Most common funnel Phone screen Take home tech challenge In person interview Some tech (sometimes algos, usually follow up to take home) Some personal
- 45. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 45 Interview tips Ask for context before an interview Discuss your work Become deep in one set of tools, and conversant in a broad list Don’t focus on being new
- 46. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 46 Pop quiz What % of opportunities go from in-person interview to offer?
- 47. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 47 Pop quiz What % of opportunities go from in-person interview to offer? >50%
- 48. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 48 Mindset Put yourself in a position to have a positive mindset: Continue to line up your next interview until you’ve signed on the dotted line Every opportunity is perfect and no opportunity is perfect
- 49. The first job leads to the second
- 50. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 50 Staying current Technology advances relentlessly. Grow with it. A few resources we particularly like: Thinkful (workshops, courses, community) Youtube videos JavaScript documentation Meetups!
- 51. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 51 Moving up: Senior Developer What: Skills & Tools All previous duties and to estimate your work accurately, handle challenging problems with less support, support junior colleagues The tools don’t change* Your ability to use them does
- 52. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 52 Moving up: Engineering manager What: Skills & Tools Mastery of technology used by your company. All abilities and skills of a senior developer, plus the ability to manage a team Soft skills, management ability
- 53. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 53 Coding Plus Product: Product manager What: Skills & Tools Take business goals and turn them into product requirements. Work with developers and designers to deliver. Measure success. Repeat. Customer development User stories Wireframes Analytics
- 54. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 54 Coding Plus Marketing: Growth Hacker / Technical Marketer What: Skills & Tools Run experiments to drive new and repeat users, usually at startups User acquisition Analytics Fast prototyping
- 55. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 55 Coding Plus Community: Developer Evangelist What: Skills & Tools Build community around a technology by helping customers, creating content, and participating at events Specific technical expertise Teaching Customer support
- 56. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 56 Coding Plus Sales: Sales engineer What: Skills & Tools Sell complex technical product by helping customers understand how it works and how they’ll use it Coding Communication
- 57. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 57 Coding Plus data: Data scientist What: Skills & Tools Use statistics and programming to answer questions with data Statistics Machine learning Programming
- 58. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 58 Getting there Skills Brand Network Also, most importantly, succeed at your job
- 59. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 59 Getting there: Skills Levelofsupport Structure efficiency
- 60. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 60 Getting there: Brand Speak at conferences at meetups Blogging: articulate the journey Find your niche (and then blog)
- 61. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 61 Getting there: Network Make time (and find budget) Be helpful Talk to people (online or offline)
- 62. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 62 Getting there: Network 325+ mentors with an average of 10 years of experience in the field
- 63. © 2017 Thinkful. All Rights Reserved. 63 Try us out! Try the program for two weeks, includes six mentor sessions - $50 Learn HTML/CSS/JavaScript Option to continue onto web development bootcamp Come talk to me if you’re interested (or email me at noel@thinkful.com)