Am I hireable? I'm asking for advice

Career Advice
1

Ok, guys. I want your advice on finding a job.

TL;DR: If you were in a hiring manager position, is my portfolio enough to catch your attention? Would you contact me for the next step?

Long story:

About my FreeCodeCamp progress:

-Responsive Web Design Certification: I just finished my personal portfolio webpage project and received my responsive web design certification (20th February 2020).

-JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structure Certification: I received my certification on January 23rd 2020 (yes!, I liked Js and finished first, but because it takes me more time to master CSS, even I think is more than I still don’t know about CSS, but I wanted to make beautiful designs for my projects).

-Front-End Libraries Certification: I have finished all challenges and the first project (Random Quote Machine) with React, I hope to finish the other four before the end of February.

-Data visualization certification: I have finished all JSON APIs and Ajax, there are 9 challenge left me from D3.js and the 5 projects.

About me:

I’m 37 years old. Married, and I have an 8 months baby boy. I have a B.Sc. in Electronics Engineer. In the last 8 years I have been involved in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation ecosystem in my country (Colombia, South America) as a Business Model Mentor for startups and Innovation consultant for companies. I have had three companies, that failed. The last company still alive but I leaved it to my partners as I lost motivation due to not finding a repeatable and scalable business model. (we made cool interactive things though https://youtu.be/-LTGmMTZzRc)

I have skills in problem solving, strategic thinking and project management.

The last job I made was for the chamber of commerce of the city I live, they hired me to lead a project funded by the innovation agency of the country to implement e-commerce, digital marketing and international trade for 10 fashion companies with a budget of USD$75.000 equivalent in a 10 months time frame. I finished that project in October 2019 with 100% technical and financial recognition.

About why, I am searching a Job as a Developer:

As you see my skills are unbalanced towards the business area and not so much technically. I want to have the skills needed to build apps (web or mobile) from scratch to scalable deployment. Maybe you would tell me it’s too much for one person, but at least I want to know how is the full process made. I want to be involved in a dev team (remote preferred, but I’m willing to relocate if necessary), know how they manage agile dev, and why not in the future manage and code with high performance teams, and why not come back as entrepreneur some day.

Situation:

Since November 2019 I’m dedicated full time to the FreeCodeCamp curriculum (and other youtube tutorials in topics that FCC is shallow), but my gas is running out ($), the bills and rent keep going but not my income.

The chamber of commerce is offering me a fixed position as Innovation Coordinator, beside that, the German Society for International Cooperation is offering me a regional coordinator position in order to help build business models for victims of violence (Yes, my country has already signed a peace treaty, but there are many victims of the armed conflict). But, I don’t want to accept those jobs, and don’t get me wrong on this, I really like the idea to lead the innovation in my city and I enjoy helping people find their way as business owners, even if they are not tech related. The thing is that this is what has happened to me in the last four years, those jobs take all my time and my past intents to become a proficient developer got stuck. I know how it is, you need to be coding all the time to get to the next level.

What is my goal?

My short term goal is to land a remote job as a developer, could be a junior position as a front end, that let me contribute to the goals of the company at the same time advance in my curriculum to get the full-stack skills. If the company needs me there, I’ll be willing to relocate with my family, but I don’t know if this happens for a junior front end.

If you have taken the time to read this, I would appreciate your advice on guide me to the next specific steps I should do to find that job. (not general advice, specific steps according to what I have written):

What would be desirable for me?

-If you could tell me, in what kind of (company || startup) would be interested in my coding skills and beside that would be interested in my (soft || business) skills, so that I could level up the probabilities to get hired and contribute the most for them.

-Knowing that by end of February I expect to get Front End libraries certification, and by the 10th of march I expect to get the Data visualization certification, and knowing I’m full time committed to this purpose, and knowing my learning skills (pace). Tell me if I have to stop doing this and start doing something else that I haven’t seen and would be necessary to get the job.

-Knowing that my personal portfolio only accomplished the rwd project requirement, would you clarify if I have to mix portfolio and resume in one page or recruiters prefer to have just a pdf with the resume. Do you think I have to talk about my (soft || business) skills in my portfolio or let them in resume?

What about 15 years old coding skills (Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision)?

In 2005, I coded in Matlab and Simulink (A programming language similar to C) a Control System for an autonomous didactic helicopter (Quanser brand) using genetic algorithms as my engineering thesis and in 2006 I coded in C++ and OpenCV (beta version 0.93) a computer vision app to count people in public spaces to get information to estimate commercial real estate value based on amount of people that pass through the front store (My first company).

Do you think, I have to talk about this in portfolio or resume?, please take in count that I have the code for both “apps”, but I don’t know if I am able to run them again. How much time would take me to make them run, or if it is worth it.

What about other skills?

I run several WordPress websites: I set up an Ubuntu droplet in Digital Ocean, I set up a Nginx server through SSH, SSL through let’s encrypt, MySQL, PHP7.2, several virtual host for each WordPress site, Woo-commerce, Elementor, SEO, Mailchimp, etc.

I like photography, product photography, photoshop, lightroom, and even Illustrator for vector graphics design.

I had set up Tableau for several companies with different dashboards on key metrics for business intelligence on sales and inventory management that let them take the smart business decisions.

I run workshops on entrepreneurship through Lean Launch Pad methodology using tools like business model canvas, value/proposition canvas, empathy map, business persona, story telling, experiment board (I have been trained as a mentor by Bob Dorf and Alex Osterwalder trough a government program called Apps.co)

I have read in many other post that the resume should be one page, max two. But I think is impossible to shrink this info in one or two pages. So I’m asking you to tell me what does it matter or what doesn’t.

thanks in advance for your support

@kevinSmith Yes, I have read your doc, but if you have the time read the context.
@Roma You are the one that have been pushing me to be better, don’t let me halfway.

2

Hey,

Are you hirable? Sure. But I think you still have some work to do if you want to increase the odds. But you could get hired. I think you may have better luck at a mid-large company. My perception would be that a small company or start up is not going to want to invest valuable resources to mentor you - they’d want someone that could hit the ground running. Judging by what I see, I think you’d be more likely to get an internship and even that might be a stretch. It is possible, but I don’t think that it’s probable. But you never know.

I’ll be willing to relocate with my family, but I don’t know if this happens for a junior front end.

Probably not. Maybe locally, but probably not internationally. And to be honest, (sorry if this sounds harsh) but I’m not sure if I’d label you as a “junior level” yet. I see people that get hired as juniors where I work and they’re ahead of where you are now. Still, promote yourself as that, hope for that, but I’m not seeing it yet. Maybe I’m wrong. There are people out there with more breadth of experience than me. I’m not saying that you couldn’t land a junior job, just that it’s a bit of a stretch, based on seeing 6 guided FCC projects on codepen. I’d want to see some more advanced projects, preferably some things with some API integration. You’re To Do app says, “Fetch Data Api like”. I don’t even know what that means. I don’t see an API call.

You need some projects that interface with real APIs. You need to get and put data. If you can’t set up a server yet (you’ll learn that later) you can use something like firebase. I’d want some apps with more pages and dynamic interactions. But the FCC projects will get you there. But then the point will be to extend beyond those and start making your own apps, building your own servers, etc. FCC will get you there, but it’s going to take a while.

So, you’ve only been doing this for 3-4 months? I think you’re doing well. I think one of the unfortunate things about the people’s perception of web dev is “study it for a few months and you can get a job”. I’d say “Study really hard for a year and you might get a job. But keep building and learning until you do.”

If you need the money and have a chance to get a job to provide some income, then I’d definitely recommend taking advantage of those. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Unless you’re lucky, but you can’t count on that. Hope for the best, plan for the worst. The bewst is you get hired tomorrow. The worst could be that it may take a year or two.

Your portfolio…

First of all, I’d definitely want to get that off codepen. To me, that screams amateur. Get that hosted somewhere. Even hosted on github pages (with a custom web address pointing to it) would be a big improvement. I think an employer’s first question would be, “Wait… does this guy know how to set up a web site?”

I will say it looks slick, well designed. I find the animations a bit much, but I’m overly picky about those things, and it’s certainly a lot better than some of what I see, much more tasteful.

I would want more projects there. Those are all FCC projects. They’ve probably seen 100 portfolios with those exact projects. Keep getting the more advanced FCC projects. And come up with some side projects on your own. They don’t have to be brilliant ideas, just well built. That shows initiative, curiosity, and creativity.

And again, I would not want to host those on codepen. Don’t get me wrong - codepen is a cool learning tool. And I often use it really quick if I need to try out a JS idea. But it’s like training wheels. It doesn’t make a great impression. Ideally, those should be hosted somewhere (possibly just a folder in your portfolio) and your portfolio should have a link to the live app and a link to the code repo on github. Ideally, your code should be managed with something like webpack. I realize that some of this may be above your head right now, but this is the direction you want to move.

I’d also want some more info on the portfolio, like resume kind of information. Why not?

Your other experience and skills? Great. That’s good. Mention it. But If you want a job as a web developer, they want to see what you’ve built in terms of web pages, servers, etc. That other stuff is good, it may put you ahead of someone with similar experience. But you have to learn, learn, learn, and build, build, build.

This is all my opinion. There certainly have been people that have been hired somewhere with your level of coding. This is just my assessment based on my (not very extensive) experience. I think you’re on the right path. I think if you continue on this path, you will reach a point where your growing talent, the market needs, and luck will intersect. I can’t tell when that will be. But I will say that the more you learn and build, the greater the odds will become.

I can sympathize with “needing a job soon”. I am married and things were getting stressful before my ship came in. But I stuck it out. When I got my job, I had already finished all of FCC and had spent a year building new stuff and learning new things. I’d taught myself React Native. That is what got me a job - not just knowing it, but that I had taught myself and done some self-directed projects.

Sorry if this isn’t what you wanted to hear. Like I said, I think you’re on the right path and doing well. I just think people think this is a shorter path than it is.

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Agree with Kevin and wouldn’t say you’re there yet. You can get there, but it’ll just take more time.

First is that you should get your “site” and projects off CodePen. I’d suggest taking a look at CodePen’s home page to see the sort of work that most other people are putting on there.

Second is that you’re limiting yourself too much. Don’t limit yourself to just freeCodeCamp. Think of FCC as a guide and roadmap, not a comprehensive resource of everything you need to learn. There are so many more resources than FCC to use—online course platforms (Udemy, Lynda, etc), print books and ebooks, developer blogs, newsletters, meetups, etc.

Third is that your skillset looks like it’s simply incomplete right now. You seem to know HTML, CSS, JS, Node.js, and React all on a very basic level. Your React to-do list is a very simple “app” that should take no more than a couple of hours to do. What you should really build is a fully responsive SPA that’s a multi-user CRUD app or consumes from an API, deployed on something like Heroku.

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Hi Kevin, this is actually what I wanted to hear!

In other words I wanted to know the crude truth of how close I am to getting a job as a developer, the level I have from the point of view of developers with experience and the specific path others think I need to take to get to the goal.

Now I know there are things I’m able to do to like move the portfolio to my own server, and other little things you said without taking me much time.

I’ll keep the path with FCC and I hope to share with you my progress in a month or two. I really appreciate you have taken the time to read the long story and give your opinion based in my context.

5

Hi Steve @astv99 , yes I think I’ll move it to a virtual host in my Nginx server on Digital Ocean where I host wordpress sites. I didn’t want to do that because I don’t know how a html+css+js web page could affect the security of my other sites. I have read some vulnerabilities that forms could let Js injection or something like that, so I’ll avoid forms until I’m sure how to deal with them securely.

I’m following scrimba course on React and learning some CSS tricks in youtube, I have to search in MDN and W3 when I don’t know how to do something in Js, html or css, I know that when I’m stuck I need to find how to solve it. But I don’t want to fall in tutorial hell and the path FCC gives let me watch myself coding a full app in less than four months from now (Maybe I’m a dreamer, but that’s what I see)

I still don’t get to Node.js, hope to get there soon and start with Back End skills. And I think is obvious my skills on Front End are on a very basic level, that’s were we all start right?

This is really helpful, let me know what kind of goal I have to set myself in a practical sense. But what is the difference between a SPA and a WPA?

Thanks for taking the time to read the long story and give your opinion

6

Did you mean a PWA? Web apps can be both an SPA and PWA. I’d suggest Googl’ing those so you can see for yourself.

Btw, it seems that you’re unfamiliar with this popular Roadmap which outlines a lot of need-to-know topics (everything in yellow is something you should know to become hireable): Frontend Developer Roadmap: What is Frontend Development?

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Not necessarily your own server, just hosted somewhere, your own site. Look up “web hosting”.

100%. FCC makes a great framework on which to build, but there will be a lot of little sidequests as you learn.