xesite/blog/career-advice-2019-06-18.markdown

---
title: Advice to People Nurturing a Career in Computering
date: 2019-06-18
tags:
 - career
---

Computering, or making computers do things in exchange for money, can be a
surprisingly hard field to break into as an outsider. There's lots of jargon, 
tool holy wars, flamewars about the "right" way to do things and a whole host
of overhead that can make it feel difficult or impossible when starting from
scratch. I'm a college dropout, I know what it's like to be turned down over
and over because of the lack of that blessed square paper. In this post I 
hope to give some general advice based on what has and hasn't worked for me
over the years.

Hopefully this can help you too.

## Make a Portfolio Site

When you are breaking into the industry, there is a huge initial "brand" issue.
You're nobody. This is both a very good thing and a very bad thing. It's a very
good thing because you have a clean slate to start from. It's also a very bad
thing because you have nothing to refer to yourself with.

Part of establishing a brand for yourself in this day and age is to make a website
(like the one you are probably reading this off of right now). This website can
be powered by anything. [GitHub Pages](https://pages.github.com) with the `github.io`
domain works, but it's probably a better idea to make your website backend from scratch.
Your website should include at least the following things:

- Your name
- A few buzzwords relating to the kind of thing you'd like to do with computers (example: I have myself listed as a "Backend Services and Devops Specialist" which sounds really impressive yet doesn't really mean much of anything)
- Tools or soft skills you are experienced with
- Links to yourself on other social media platforms (GitHub, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)
- Links to or words about projects of yours that you are proud of
- Some contact information (an email address is a good idea too)

If you feel comfortable doing so, I'd also suggest putting your [resume](https://christine.website/resume)
on this site too. Even if it's just got your foodservice jobs or education 
history (including your high school diploma if need be).

This website can then be used as a landing page for other things in the future
too. It's _your_ space on the internet. _You_ get to decide what's up there or 
not.

## Make a Tech Blog On That Site

This has been the single biggest thing to help me grow professionally. I regularly
put [articles](https://christine.website/blog) on my blog, sometimes not even about
technology topics. Even if you are writing about your take on something people have
already written about, it's still good practice. Your early posts are going to be
rough. It's normal to not be an expert when starting out in a new skill.

This helps you stand out in the interview process. I've actually managed to skip
interviews with companies purely because of the contents of my blog. One of them
had the interviewer almost word for word say the following:

> I've read your blog, you don't need to prove technical understanding to me.

It was one of the most awestruck feelings I've ever had in the hiring process.

## Find People to Mentor You

Starting out you are going to not be very skilled in anything. One good way you
can help yourself get good at things is to go out into communities and ask for
help understanding things. As you get involved in communities, naturally you will
end up finding people who are giving a lot of advice about things. Don't be 
afraid to ask people for more details. 

Get involved in niche communities (like unpopular Linux distros) and help them
out, even if it's just doing spellcheck over the documentation. This kind of 
stuff really makes you stand out and people will remember it.

Formal mentorship is a very hard thing to try and define. It's probably better
to surround yourself with experts in various niche topics rather than looking
for that one magic mentor. Mentorship can be a very time consuming thing on the
expert's side. Be thankful for what you can get and try and give back by helping
other people too.

Seriously though, don't be afraid to email or DM people for more information about
topics that don't make sense in group chats. I have found that people really 
appreciate that kind of stuff, even if they don't immediately have the time to
respond in detail.

## Do Stuff with Computers, Post the Results Somewhere

Repository hosting sites like GitHub and Gitlab allow you to show potential
employers exactly what you can do by example. Put your code up on them, even
if you think it's "bad" or the solution could have been implemented better by
someone more technically skilled. The best way to get experience in this industry 
is by doing. The best way to do things is to just do them and then let other
people see the results.

Your first programs will be inelegant, but that's okay.  
Your first repositories will be bloated or inefficient, but that's okay.  
Nobody expects perfection out of the gate, and honestly even for skilled experts
perfection is probably too high of a bar. We're human. We make mistakes. Our job
is to turn the results of these mistakes into the products and services that
people rely on.

## You Don't Need 100% Of The Job Requirements

Many companies put job requirements as soft guidelines, not hard ones. It's easy
to see requirements for jobs like this:

> Applicants must have:
>
> - 1 year managing a distributed Flopnax system
> - Experience using Rilkef across multiple regions
> - Ropjar, HTML/CSS

and feel really disheartened. That "must" there seldom actually is a hard 
requirement. Many companies will be willing to hire someone for a junior 
level. You can learn the skills you miss as a natural part of doing your job.
There's support structures at nearly every company for things like this. You
don't need to be perfect out of the gate.

## Interviews

This one is a bit of a weird one to give advice for. Each company ends up having
their own interviewing style, and even then individual interviewers have their
own views on how to do it. My advice here is trying to be as generic as possible.

### Know the Things You Have Listed on Your Resume

If you say you know how to use a language, brush up on that language. If you say
you know how to use a tool, be able to explain that what that tool does and why
people should care about it to someone.

Don't misrepresent your skills on your resume either. It's similar to lying. It's
also a good idea to go back and prune out skills you don't feel as fresh with over
time.

### Be Yourself

It's tempting to put on a persona or try to present yourself as larger than life.
Resist this temptation. They want to see _you_, not a caricature of yourself. It's
scary to do interviews at times. It feels like you are being judged. It's not
personal. Everything in interviews is aimed at making the best decision for the
company. 

Also, don't be afraid to say you don't know things. You don't need to have API
documentation memorized. They aren't looking for that. API documentation will be
available to you while you write code at your job. Interviews are usually there
to help the interviewer verify that you know how to break larger problems into 
more understandable chunks. Ask questions. Ensure you understand what they are
and are not asking you. Nearly every interview that I've had that's resulted in
a job offer has had me ask questions about what they are asking.

### "Do You Have Any Questions?"

A few things I've found work really well for this:

- "Do you know of anyone who left this company and then came back?"
- "What is your favorite part of your workday?"
- "What is your least favorite part of your workday?"
- "Do postmortems have formal blame as a part of the process?"
- "Does code get reviewed before it ships into production?"
- "Are there any employee run interest groups for things like mindfulness?"

And then finally as your last question:

- "What are the next steps?"

This question in particular tends to signal interest in the person interviewing
you. I don't completely understand why, but it seems to be one of the most
useful questions to ask; especially with initial interviews with hiring managers
or human resources.

### Meditate Before Interviews

Even if it's just [watching your breath for 5 minutes](https://when-then-zen.christine.website/meditation/anapana).
I find that doing this helps reset the mind and reduces subjective experiences of
anxiety. 

## Persistence

Getting the first few real jobs is tough, but after you get a year or two at any
employer things get a lot easier. Your first job is going to give you a lot of
experience. You are going to learn things about things you didn't even think 
would be possible to learn about. People, processes and the like are going to
surprise or shock you. 

At the end of the day though, it's just a job. It's impermanent. You might not
fit in. You might have to find another. Don't panic about it, even though it's
really, really tempting to. You can always find another job.

---

I hope this is able to help. Thanks for reading this and be well.