Listen to This If You're Working on Your Developer Portfolio, with Alex from TechRally

🎙 About the episode

Meet Alexander Lee 🇺🇸! Alexander, also known as TechRally, is a front-end engineer at Amazon. He's also a developer coach, Youtuber, and career changer. In this episode, TechRally teaches you how to solve a number of challenges you might face as a junior developer trying to break into the industry.

Alex (the host) and Alex (the guest) discuss the pros and cons of bootcamps, as well as developer portfolios, job market trends, and whether job hunting is similar to... dating. You'll also learn what's the least you can do to stand out as an applicant and how to make sure you really stand out. TechRally will teach you how to approach your portfolio project, how to keep up the motivation, and what to do when you feel stuck in your job search.

🔗 Connect with TechRally

• 📹 YouTube
• 🐦 Twitter
• 📸 Instagram
• 👨‍💼 LinkedIn
• 🌐 Website

⏰ Timestamps

• How Alexander Lee decided to enroll into a coding bootcamp and become a developer (01:48)
• Bootcamps vs. traditional education (03:16)
• Are bootcamps a good path for people learning to code and breaking into tech? Is there a difference between bootcamps in 2015 and bootcamps today? (05:02)
• The best advice for aspiring developers (07:59)
• What should you do if you think you're doing everything right but you still don't hear back after you apply for jobs? (09:39)
• Ad break! Have you listened to our interview with Madison Kanna? Plus: You can leave a review of our podcast and make the producer smile. Next Tuesday: Sylvia Favello, who started learning to code because she was bored after surgery!
• Your developer portfolio and resume should be the best at the start of your career (16:31)
• How many projects should you have in your developer portfolio? (18:31)
• How Alexander landed a job at Amazon (19:19)
• Why do there seem to be fewer recruiters reaching out at the moment? (21:28)
• What is the current state of the tech job market, and is there enough work for juniors?  (22:42)
• Should you worry about seasonal trends in the job market? (25:24)
• What are the aspects of the hiring process that a junior developer can control? (26:43)
• Job hunting vs. Tinder (30:46)
• What kind of projects should you have in your portfolio? (33:14)
• One solid project kills two birds with one stone (34:34)
• How to stay motivated while building bigger projects (36:26)
• Quick-fire questions: coffee, front-end frameworks, and Korean food! (41:13)

🧰 Resources Mentioned

• TechRally Youtube Channel
• Scrimba Podcast: Homeschooler, College Dropout, Developer and Master Networker: Crush Your Career with Madison Kanna
• Scrimba's Discord server!

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