Interview Your Interviewers and Find Somebody Who Believes in Your Skills: How Jonathan Became a Developer in Three Months

🎙 About the episode

Meet Jonathan Gauthier 🇨🇦! Jonathan volunteered when the company where he worked needed somebody to figure out how to turn a Figma design into a website. The rest is history.

After quitting that job, Jonathan gave himself three months to properly learn front-end development and get his first developer job. And he succeeded! In this interview, he shares how. Yes, Jonathan was pulling long hours, but there's more to it!

Jonathan talks about his way of learning and why knowing how to approach a problem is better than knowing the exact method of solving it. You'll also learn why it's good to find a mentor - and how to find one! Lastly, Jonathan shares his approach to looking for a job online and why it's important to interview your interviewer. Believe it or not, the latter can make or break your interview process!   

🔗 Connect with Jonathan

• 👨🏻‍💼 LinkedIn
• 🐦 Twitter
• 🤖 Pancarte#2314 on the Scrimba Discord

⏰ Timestamps

• Jonathan's journey into coding by way of learning to translate designs in Figma into a website + his introduction to Scrimba (01:59)
• How Jonathan quit his job and had only three months to learn to code and get a job in front-end (04:14)
• What's manual QA, and was that a helpful background to a new developer? (05:41)
• Learn the approach, not the method (06:29)
• How Jonathan decided to switch careers(07:27)
• Why you should apply when others think you're ready (08:53)
• Jonathan's study plan (10:21)
• How can you study both properly and fast? (11:41)
• The importance of taking breaks (14:10)
• How Jonathan found a mentor and why are mentors important (15:10)
• Jonathan's approach to finding his first developer job: LinkedIn, Angel.co, and messaging recruiters directly (17:43)
• How to optimize your LinkedIn profile (19:16)
• Jonathan's interview process (21:22)
• How to interview your interviewers and why that gives you an advantage (22:15)
• What skills should a junior developer have? (24:44)
• How Jonathan got his job offer (27:13)
• Jonathan's new company + Do you have to know Agile? (28:21)
• How to ask questions as a junior (29:38)
• Closing advice: don't stress about feeling ready; remember to take breaks, and come up with personal projects! (31:18)
• On notetaking (32:12)

🧰 Resources mentioned

• Jonathan's LinkedIn profile
• The Frontend Developer Career Path
• HTML and CSS crash course with Kevin Powell
• ProgrammingBuddies() on Reddit
• No Whiteboard
• Angel.co

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