# Bootcamp and beyond  roger@technicalbloke.com :: https://www.technicalbloke.com --- ## Choosing a bootcamp 5 most notable London bootcamps according to ChatGPT... | Bootcamp | Cost | Strengths | | -------- | -------- | -------- | | General Assembly | £9000 | good range and flexibility | | Makers Academy | £8000 / appr | selective, holistic, yoga! | Le Wagon | £6500 | entrepreneur focus, global, immersive | | Flatiron | £15000 | strong name / rep, range, flexibility | | Founders and Coders | free / appr | peer led, selective, alum network | Many others available, often with social purpose, free / apprenticeships --- ## Admissions - Demonstrate dedication, skill, interest - Some are more selective than others - A slack admissions policy is a red flag - Typical requirements - Pass basic modules on Free Code Camp etc - Certain number of points on Codewars etc - One or more small projects --- ## Look for - Emphasis on teamwork / pairing / peer-learning - Holistic experience. Opportunity to try many key roles - product owner, scrum master, devops, QA lead - design, prototyping, presentation - SCRUM/Agile workflows and ceremonies - Standups, refinement, sprint planning, retros, spikes - Real clients: F&C, Code your Future - Help getting a job - What is the success rate in placing students? - What companies do they have realtionships with? --- ## Getting your first gig ### Its hard, NGL!  --- ## The landscape - Few proper junior roles - Dont be scared to apply for mid level roles - Hard part is avoiding CV -> bin - Cover letters - Strong portfolio - Personal recommendations --- ## Your CV - overview - Application Tracking Systems (ATS) - MS-Word, traditional sections, simple fonts. - Pepper with keywords (maybe customise to job) - Include technologies you want to learn - Punchy personal statement, chatGPT can help - Second, pretty, CV doesn't hurt (branding/humans) --- ## Your CV - key things to mention - Commercial experience - Agile - GIT - Testing - Responsive Design - Accessibility - Security - Frameworks --- ## Your CV - tone - Keep it concise and confident - Highlight key words and phrases - Mention things YOU did and their impact - Bump all else for relevant commecial experience - [My pretty CV](https://www.canva.com/design/DAD_ulmTXVw/tULgdmuD4NEmv6GiguAX6g/view?utm_content=DAD_ulmTXVw&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=homepage_design_menu) --- ## LinkedIn - Recruiters search by keyword - Accept everyone's requests - Respond to everyone if poss - Have stock responses - Post on the platform - ChatGPT can write covering letters --- # Networking Networking is your best bet for getting a job. - Tend to your new bootcamp network. - Buddy up and... - do some volunteer mentoring - hit the conference free events / hackathons - Arrange / attend regular alum meetups - Share salary info! - Personal network also good if you have it - Attend in person tech meetups - meetup.com: coding, tech, web - Apply to places where you know someone --- ## Portfolio - One substantial thing beats lots of toy things - Complex projects give you lots to talk about - Published software is impressive - NPM modules are easy to make - Browser extensions can be simple too - Contribs to open source projects - Opportunity to stand out / be memorable - https://roger-heathcote.netlify.app/#main --- ## Tech Tests - Typically 24hr, recommend 2 or 3 hrs - If you've time, hit them hard - If artwork is given be pixel perfect - Demonstrate best practices at every turn - Note your decisions as you go for interview - What were the alternatives? - What was your rationale? - What would you have done differently? --- ## Interviews - Enthusiam and broad interest in the field - Have some passing familiarity with most industry topics. - Ideally? - Depth not so important - Awareness of key tech/issues/players/alternatives - Never exaggerate or try to blag it Some of those topics are... --- ## Key topics 1 of 3 - Core Javascript: event loop, async, promises - Performance: code time & space efficiency (BigO), hardware, tools - Agile: SCRUM vs other methodology, roles/ceremonies - GIT: basic cmds, branching strategies e.g gitflow, github flow, trunk - Ticket/Issue tracking systems: github, jira, ADO etc - Testing: types: unit/integration/e2e. tools: jest/RTL/plywright - Responsive Design: mobile first, flexbox, flexgrid, breakpoints --- ## Key topics 2 of 3 - Accessibility: Semantic HTML, aria, testing/tools, WC3 - Security: common threats: injection/XSS/XSRF, bodies: NIST, OWASP etc - Frameworks: JS React/NextJS, Vue, Svelte etc. Others: Laravel, Django - CMS: Headless vs trad, free/paid, Contentful, Strapi, Kontent.ai - CI/CD: github actions, CircleCI, Travis, Jenkins etc - Cloud: AWS/GCP/Azure. VMs, Containers, Serverless functions. The edge. --- ## Key topics 3 of 3 - Code Quality - best practices, clean code, tooling (linters, husky etc) - principles with acronyms: YAGNI, DRY, KISS, SOLID - Buy books or Ask chatGPT to summarise works of - Kent Beck, Martin Fowler, Robert "uncle bob" Martin. --- ## Up to date news is impressive - Podcasts are great as you can consume them while doing other things - Security Now - Software Engineering Daily - The Changelog - Syntax - Developer Tea - May not understand all of it but you will absorb it by osmosis - Reddit has numerous developer commnities - StackOverflow blog is good - Subscribe to software people on Twitter or Insta --- ## Use ChatGPT - To give you practice interview questions - To evaluate your answers - Live demo - https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/ - https://chat.openai.com/ --- ## Red flags - Bad rep on Glassdoor - Vagueness in job description - Superstar / Rockstar hyped up language - Old or low tech (depends on you interests) - e.g. wordpress, perl, visual-basic, ruby, jQuery, Angular - Working alone / sole programmer - Senior expectations for junior pay - Absolute minimums: Junior: 30k, Mid 45k, Senior: 65k --- ## Once you get the gig (1 of 3)! :confetti_ball: - psychological safety - impostor syndrome (nobody knows it all) - breath and pace yourself - tell people when you don't understand - ask specific people "I'm a bit lost..." - buddy system - pairing - team solidarity and ownership - Use `we` - Own your issues, see it say it sort it! - fight for code quality - Often neglected as non-visual - Top brass can't see it - Try to make improvements as you go - Record opportunities you don't have time for --- ## Once you get the gig (2 of 3)! - shell scripting - Start with aliases (.bashrc, .zshrc) - Make aliases and scripts to reduce repetition - take notes - technical AND performance - HackMD or Notion - Write direcly into the code when debugging --- ## Once you get the gig (3 of 3)! - Use ai tools - Github Co-pilot really reduces rote work - ChatGPT is great for - explaining concepts - giving examples of api use - Careful though: it makes up apis that you wish existed but don't - Keep learning! - Teaching, mentoring, coaching, speaking - Codebar etc - IM Tech Meetups! --- ## The end! Well done! :sweat_smile: --- <style> .reveal { font-size: 28px; } .reveal ul, .reveal ol { margin-left: 5px; /* Change the number to adjust the indentation */ } </style>