What it takes for Junior Developer to join a startup?
What skills are needed for a Junior Developer to join Start up firm (US,Europe)? I took part in Code Sprint-Interview Street,did Solve Engineering Challenges that is posted in few tech companies website.But yeah none worked,because they look at my experience.I am very much interested to know,what it takes to join a Start Up firm ??
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You could build something to showcase your skills and put it online. But that'd only help show that you have skills. At the very beginning, startups can't take risks on people they don't know; so get yourself known, join entrepreneurial events and meet people. – Frenchie 12 years ago
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Make a demo app in the cloud like AWS, make sure it does support mobile and desktop, plays nice videos on both, loads blazing fast, has lot's of details well done, and it's very secure, you can get free SSL certs too. Create some apps - web, desktop and mobile. E.g. password recovery with SMS message. Or creative authentication methods. Every bit mentioned is opportunity. – Andrew Smith 12 years ago
3 Answers
There is no simple answer to that. Every company has their own recruiting ways and their own criteria.
At a basic level though, you need to be a very good developer, you need to know the technologies they are using and you need to be able to sell yourself. All the skills in the world won't matter if they don't realise you have them.
As for what you can do to improve your chances:
- Start a blog and post regularly about your technology stacks
- Contribute to open source projects on github
- Apply to startups, get feedback, and improve how you go about it.
Ultimately getting a job is a skill in itself, practice!
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Excellent answer. It's very true. – Jrg 12 years ago
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@Joel:yes i have contributed to opensource and yeah Source Codes are over Github :) – Restless 12 years ago
While there are exceptions to every rule, startups are typically not looking for very junior developers. That is because there are a lot of skills that someone in a new company needs to have to make it work, and if you only have a couple of them you aren't going to help them nearly as much as someone with wider experience. When there are very few people in a company everybody has to be able to work unsupervised, and junior developers normally can't do that, no matter how many Code Sprints or Engineering Challenges you've taken part in. In short - startups don't have the resources to train you up.
I would recommend taking a job with a larger company for now. They are typically more willing to train you and mentor you for a few years. Take the opportunity to learn as many skills as you can. Then once you have a couple of years experience, start to look again for a startup to join.
I would say that when it comes to being a junior developer, the best way to build experience is through your own endeavors. Why not make your own startup? If you have any friends in the industry or solid contacts you can work with, building a project together is probably the best way to build experience.
Anyway in this economy it's always best to be proactive since the worst that can happen is that the venture might fail, but you'll still have solid work experience which relates perfectly to the startup. In software it costs nothing to write code and see what sticks - aside from time taken up. But that is a tactic I see all the time with contacts of mine who work in application and game development.
Having an understanding of the risks involved with being at a startup really is key. Firms want to know that their employees are in it for the long haul (even if the salaries are lower, paid in stock to some level, and so on). That's in addition to the skills you'll need.
From my experience I would say you should try finding work at a larger company while also working to code your own venture that way you'll build up both traditional work experience while also really fasttracking your coding ability which is critical in any setting.
