Job Hunting After a Coding Bootcamp
4 min read

Job Hunting After a Coding Bootcamp

Photo shows two black people collaborating while looking at code in the foreground. Photo by Mars on Unsplash.

I completed coding curriculum at Epicodus in February of 2017, by September I'd accepted my first job offer as an Android Developer.  While the circumstances of every job hunt are different, I did find the practices described here helpful in building a network, and using that network to find job opportunities.

The job market in Portland at that time was getting more saturated with entry level developers.  Applying to jobs blindly can work and I did land a couple phone screens doing that, but I found networking in person to be much more valuable. Keep in mind this was before 2020, so in-person tech meetups and events were occurring frequently in Portland.

I focused more on the social side of things than the ubiquitous advice that I've seen about "grinding leetcode".  I’m generally an outgoing person and I enjoy meeting folks, so this came more naturally to me than it may to others.

Below are the approaches and practices that helped me

Go to meet-ups and tech events in your city as much as you can.  Talking about what you’re working on or are interested in moves a conversation forward more than talking about your job hunt.

This is really broad, but be interested in the tech space. Keep up on sites like Hacker News and Product Hunt, listen to tech podcasts, follow tech bloggers that you find interesting. Consume tech. The reason I say this is because in many interviews/conversations I had, I was able to bring up something that the folks in the room hadn’t heard of and thought was interesting.

I brought up The Imposter’s Handbook as a learning resource, to a founder who was working w lots of Jr Devs.

I mentioned ClickTeam to a Perl dev who wanted to build a game as a side project, but didn't want to jump into Unity.

I brought up realm.io (which was less known at the time) when I was talking to a team lead about mobile database options. They later sent me an email saying it looked perfect for their next application.

This is easier to do if you have your ear to the ground for interesting new products and technologies. It’s also a great segue to exchanging contact info, and it makes sending that 1st email easier - “I’ll send you a link to that webcast, do you have a business card?” or “I just listened to this podcast where they went into detail about RELEVANT THING”, then follow up with “Hi PERSON, nice meeting you at the EVENT, here’s that info I mentioned.”

If you go to enough events and meet enough people, you’ll build up a decent contact list by the time you’re out of your bootcamp. Speaking of, when you’re done, send an email/LinkedIn msg/whatever (reply to the original one you sent, so they can just scroll up if they need to remember how they met you, and that you linked them a cool thing) to these folks saying something like:

“Hi PERSON, I’ve finished my courses and I’m looking for FT or freelance work in TECH STACK, can you let me know if you hear of anything? I’ve been working on SIDE PROJECT, I’m also interested in OTHER TECH STACK MAYBE. Thanks, hope to run into you again soon. How has THING THEY MENTIONED been going?”

4. I didn’t directly ask for anyone to give me a recommendation at their company. It seemed too forward, and with an email like the one above, if they liked me enough they’d get the hint and do it anyway.

I managed to get recommended and/or interview for positions that weren’t even posted yet by working the network->email->follow-up loop that I mentioned above.

So that’s a bit of the soft skills/social part, which honestly is a very large part of what helped me land my first tech job.  Unless you have a really interesting or unique portfolio project, or relevant certifications, it will be difficult to distinguish yourself from other bootcamp grads on paper. The personal impression was worth more in my case.

There are many resources for accessible, practical advice about the technical part of the interview process. Regarding the non-technical parts of the interview though, your goal should be to consistently nail the soft-skills, likability, and culture fit part of the interview process. You may not know the answer to every technical question asked, sure.  You should however, be able to communicate your passion and interest in the field, as well as the technical challenges you've faced in your previous projects, in a clear non-rambling fashion.

You should know who the company's major competitors are.

You should be able to list a few websites/Apps that you think have great design/UX.

You should be on-time, well dressed, and polite to the front desk person.

I also think it is worth considering Support Engineer or QA roles as well. We (my bootcamp cohort) had this gung-ho "I'm gonna be a Dev!!😤" mentality, nonetheless some of the people in my cohort went the support route. A portion of that group later transitioned to dev roles, but others really enjoyed support/customer success and remained invested in that path.


It is ok to broaden your definition of success.

Once you're employed in a technical role, you’ll be getting paid to gain an intricate understanding of what is likely a complex application and codebase. You can continue to build your network, portfolio, and side-projects, and then when the next career opportunity comes along you’ll be a much stronger candidate.