I’ve had a very tough time finding my first position as a junior dev and have been looking into getting a paid mentor to help me out. Someone who can give me a specific, clear idea of what skills I might need to have, refine, etc, as well as some looser guidance and direction after losing my confidence.
Do any of you have experience with services like this? Somewhere like Mentor Cruise or something similar?
Make stuff. Keep making stuff. Publish your source code, even the shitty stuff. Maybe especially the shitty stuff, since that tends to be more interesting. Be ready to talk about it (humbly) during job interviews.
Hang in there. The industry is in a fuck around phase right now where we bet that AI will be an acceptable substitute for good old fashioned recruitment.
Another “find out” phase is on the horizon - where we fall over ourselves to recruit anyone who can code to undo our stupidity before we go out of business. (Or to quickly capitalize on market gaps left by our competitors who went out of business.)
I’ve gotten my mentorship a few places:
#pythonIRC (Internet Rely Chat) channel on FreeNode.org (it’s free)Depending on the country, your tax laws may also let you get the full cost of job related education and conferences back. I was lucky enough that my employment funded the bulk for me, but in Australia it’s a solid way to keep learning once you’re in the field you’re after.