[meuk]

After my graduation, I planned to have some months off to work on hobby stuff, and build a small portfolio with programming projects. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish my thesis in time (which is my own fault, but at my university it was also business as usual to take more time than planned for your master thesis). I already had a job and didn't have any time off between my thesis and working (in fact, I started working before I even graduated).

I should have spent some more time on job hunting, in retrospect. At my current job as a consultant I am back-end code-monkeying in a large team where most developers don't have a technical background - it's not very challenging from a technical perspective (even though I like the working environment in other aspects). My current employer pushes me to get certified for some front-end technologies, which I don't find interesting (and have no value for the gig I'm currently assigned to).

My true interest are OSes, drivers, optimization, FPGA's, electronics, compilers, assembly, microcontrollers, graphics... But I can't seem to find a job in that field, mostly because I don't have work experience in those fields. I also have a tendency to be very humble about my experience, which I think is a good thing in general, but I think sometimes people wrongly classify me as 'very junior'. On top of that, everybody seems to be looking for C# programmers, but the pay seems to be a bit lower in more technical fields. I don't care that much about my salary, but right now I am the one with literally the best background (4 academic studies), and the lowest income (basically every time I talk about it with someone, he/she goes "hm, that's pretty low"). I have had some good offers (about 15% more than I currently earn), but they came with a traineeship which seemed not very challenging and would force me to stay with that company for 2 years.

A very common scenario I end up in is that I'm talking to a very enthousiastic HR person ("I think you're a very good fit for our company!"), but the offer ends up very low ("Well, you're a junior after all.").

I am thinking about quitting my current job to brush up some skills (mainly Python, Vulkan, OpenGL, and some OS API stuff) and build a portfolio, but I'm too afraid to be unproductive and end up in a worse situation than before (about 1 year of working experience and a giant gap in my CV after that). Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any advice?

[forcedefrappe]

This sounds very unfamiliar based on my experience with the US job market, but does match with some experience of the European one.. Which country are you in? Maybe that would make for better advice.

[meuk]

Good observation. I'm in the Netherlands.

[forcedefrappe]

Given that you have a degree, would you consider going to the US for a year or two of work? While the Bay Area isn't for everyone, in my experience the environment is very driven by competence as opposed to tenure. For me, returning to Europe after working there also opened a lot of opportunities.

I also saw you writing that European companies are very driven by specific technologies. I do not think this is true. Sometimes companies will write "5 years of React" but what they are actually looking for is an experienced frontend developer.

What you should show is your ability to solve problems and learn independently. A company that does not believe a skilled frontend developer can learn another framework quickly (or don't want to give you the time to do so) is probably not a place you want to work.

[meuk]

> Given that you have a degree, would you consider going to the US for a year or two of work?

I'd consider it, for the right job. I haven't looked for jobs in the US, and I would prefer a job in the Netherlands, but it's a possibility.

> I also saw you writing that European companies are very driven by specific technologies. I do not think this is true. Sometimes companies will write "5 years of React" but what they are actually looking for is an experienced frontend developer.

Possibly. From my perspective, it is hard to tell the difference, since I don't have a lot of professional experience.

[biscottigelato]

I have trouble leveraging my portfolio for much to be honest. And they are fully functioning published app. Graphic design, marketing material, front-end back-end all that jazz...

Studying 'Cracking the Coding Interview' like everyone else. Nobody cares about specific technology either it seems like these days... Including Triplebyte. Sick of it.

[meuk]

Thanks for sharing.

Are you from the US? It is not in line with my experience. Employers here (in the Netherlands) care very much about experience with specific technologies. It is common that job offers demand a couple of years experience with very specific frameworks, libraries or programming languages, even for entry-level jobs. Anything having to do with data science is also out of question (even though I have a math background), since I didn't study data science and have no work experience (never mind that I am interested in data science and read stuff in my spare time).

This sucks if you want to switch jobs, because it dramatically limits your options.

[nonamenojob]

I would like to share my thoughts on this, as I consider that my experience is comparable with meuk's. I've graduated this summer with a master's degree in security in an Eastern European country and I am currently looking for a job.

Before master's, I worked as a full stack developer (1 year) and for a data science startup (8 months) which did not get off the ground. It seems that managers ask about short stints even for junior positions and one manager asked me "so you weren't working for the past 2 years?". On sites like https://www.honeypot.io/, a platform representative told me that I should write in my profile why I left the jobs after such a short time.

Regarding job ads, most of them are for specific languages and frameworks (Java developer, Python developer, Spring Developer, Django Developer) and very few have a generic title such as Software Engineer. Companies like to cram both language nuts and bolts questions and CTCI questions in 1 hour.

During recent interviews, I have received questions such as: "In Java you have this try-catch-finally code, in what scenarios the finally block does not get executed?". "How do Python generators work under the hood?" "You have a Python class, when the __init__ method is called, does the object already exists?" "In Python, what is with statement and why it is used?"

Btw, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lmCu8wz8ro is a great presentation about Python features.