How am I suppose to get a job as a software engineer?

Is it fair what companies expect of software engineers? Is it fair that they want you to know database foo, multiple languages, docker, and other dev ops tech? What about hiring with algos? Is that fair? is it good?
Become a backend engineer. Its my favorite site
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This is also the best way to support me is to support yourself becoming a better backend engineer.
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#vim #programming #softwareengineering

[@klc3rd]

Learning docker was honestly a game changer, aside from making it easier to launch web apps. The ability to setup an sql server etc with one command is so convenient

[@ThePrimeagen]

i do it so often now.

[@Dust2n]

Docker and linux coreutils are like having superpowers

[@Fran-kc2gu]

which resource you used to learn docker? I know a couple basics about it, but would love to get a deeper understanding of it

[@klc3rd]

@@Fran-kc2gu I learned with a udemy course, unfortunately I don’t exactly remember which course it was

[@Fran-kc2gu]

@@klc3rd thanks!

[@holonaut]

As a rule of thumb: If you know half of the things on the list, and are *excited to learn* about the other half on the new job, chances are you'll get the deal. For example I did not write a single unit test in my prior 3 years of experience as a PHP dev, also had no experience with using docker. And I told the new company during interviews I chose them BECAUSE I will be able to learn and use those things effectively there, and they were happy to hear that.

[@tuanva6484]

Are you sure? All the things is not easy as php, bro 🤣🤣🤣 php is for non-cs

[@SufianBabri]

@@tuanva6484 yeah, real programmers do web development in assembly (not even web assembly, sir!)

[@vintner_]

Based take. Had the same experience as well prior getting my first job, didn't know unit testing at all, but talking with my now boss, I showed that I was very excited and disposed to learning it, and he hired me on the spot.

[@ckpioo]

​@@tuanva6484 unit tests and docker are easy asf to learn tbh

[@Greenmarty]

But when was that ? 5+ years ago people got hired almost just by passing few easy Leetcode questions .

[@thewalkthroughmaking]

Thanks! I watched this video right before taking an interview for an engineer position I really wanted. It gave me a lot of confidence and I managed to get the job. Thanks for making this videos!

[@zzMigMitzz]

Did you get it mate? Come back with some good news 👍

[@thewalkthroughmaking]

@@zzMigMitzz I did! Working there for almost 2 months already and loving it so far :D

[@odiverso4407]

@@thewalkthroughmaking what skills you have? How you Larned programming? Did it take long to get this job?

[@thewalkthroughmaking]

An update: (for context I live and work for LATAM companies) I worked for seven months on the job I landed, though it ended being more of a data engineer job i learned a lot about working on an IT area (tikcets, sprints, comunication and technologies). But I got lucky and by chane found a job offering that all that it asked for was solving a case given by them (building a mail indexer with a backend and a frontend) in 4 weeks. They liked my solution to the case and now I'm working for a Y combinator alumni Colombian startup called Truora as a software engineer. Part of my onboarding is passing through many teams and right know I am on the devops teams learning about infra, aws and terraform

[@yoyomanthenoob]

0p.

[@iamworstgamer]

learning is not a problem, the problem is when people require experience.

[@lepidoptera9337]

Experience is learning. It's just learning that you can't do in school. It's one thing to learn to configure a Raspberry Pi as a server and it's a completely different one to upload a new bare metal search algorithm on a million Google servers. Google will trust you with the latter... AFTER you have acquired the necessary experience to do it safely. Why would they let a rookie crash a hundred billion dollar search business? :-)

[@simoneintech]

@@lepidoptera9337something so simple, but it makes complete sense. I think as juniors, we have a sense of entitlement to a job we realistically aren’t qualified for and feel too good for that IT Help Desk job because it’s no “culture” or ping pong tables and 6 figures. Nobody seems to want to start from somewhere anymore. We just want to get started with the big boys lol

[@daghetto101]

Experience is Learning.

[@gotthecutenessoverload1086]

​@@lepidoptera9337they can give said rookie a smaller and less risky responsibility and he or she can learn the ropes and eventually become a full-fledged developer. But no, keep making excuses for not hiring juniors and then cry about not having enough developers to work on your projects.

[@brinckau]

Yes, but the problem is not the recruiter. Recruiters will choose the best candidate, that's their job. If there are more available jobs than there are candidates, then finding a job will be quite easy, even without experience. But sometimes, because of the economy, there will be more candidates than available jobs, which means that some people will be unemployed no matter what they do. But that's not the recruiter's fault. That's definitely a bad system (because you can't say "No company needs me? Great, less work to do!", and instead, you usually say "I have to find something to produce even if there is no need to produce anything more"), but if you accept it, then you have to play by its rules.

[@Michael-it6gb]

Companies should be charged with lying with their exaggerated claims of a shortage. They have ruined hundreds of thousands of peoples lives all over the world.

[@lepidoptera9337]

Companies aren't lying about it. You can look up the employment numbers of larger corporations on the internet. You can look at hundreds of thousands of job requirement postings. They aren't putting those up for the fun of it. There are people who are lying to you about this (whoever promises you the sky for two weeks of way overpriced boot camps), but it's not "the industry". The industry is, if anything, offering you a very bleak outlook on your future IF you care to read their actual publications on the topic. Which you don't. You still believe that this is a get rich quick scheme. It's not. It's a mature industry that offers bleak career prospects and endless amounts of unpaid overtime to every low EQ kid who wants them. ;-)

[@Michael-it6gb]

@@lepidoptera9337 those jobs postings are not proof of anything because I sent my application to them many times over through out a year. In 2016 started sending to this one company called Combitech in the beginning of the year and kept getting rejected over and over again and by December I finally got an interview, during it they told me that already had 5 others interviewed for that posting and couldn't find one with "lots of experience" and had interviewed several dozen throughout the year, they would hear back a week later and told me they would give the position to someone already at the company. One month later they put a new jobssite posting the same position(under slightly different title) as they've done 10 times already over the year. That's your version of shortage??

[@restinpeaces100]

@@lepidoptera9337 What a delusional comment. People want to get hired so they can work so they don't end up on the street. Even if you invest all of your time and learn technologies they require, it is not a 100% that you're going to get hired and that is not an individual's fault. In other case, if you get hired, there is not a guarantee you will stay at the company since they can always fire you at will and again, it is not an individual's fault. If you finally stay and work at some company where you're happy and they keep you, you can talk shit all you want, but remember, you stay there because of luck, not because of your skilled expertise that you posses. People get stuck in loops where they can't get a job because of the larger scale problem thus companies lie all the time how many employees they have and amazing reasons why they fire them.

[@Someonedoingnothing]

How would you enforce this? Who decides what warrants this, and by what measure do they use to judge things? Likewise, how do they collect the information needed to enforce such a law or regulation? Controlling behavior beyond a very limited scope and in such abstract ways as this basically requires a totalitarian police state.

[@Michael-it6gb]

@@Someonedoingnothing @Someonedoingnothing companies have to show that they have the money to hire "skilled workers" and also that they're going to use that money to hire them and not "reallocate these resources" later however it fits them at moments notice. You can't just say hey I need 25 carpenters and 3 years later when these people got their exam say "oh sorry can't afford them anymore". Because that is basically fraud.

[@spaphy]

"see life as an opportunity not an inconvenience" True.

[@regibyte]

The most on point argument ever! I showed this to my brother, he is starting to code, I have 8 years of experience and I keep telling him not to give up just because of a big list on job posts

[@adrianord]

Over time you'll build up those skills and experience, too. I started as a software engineer for the first 3 years of my career before I transitioned to DevOps/SRE. My first three years as a SWE let me focus on just coding and now I'm focusing on all the skills to be a better DevOps/SRE while using my SWE background to compliment my current role. You don't need to learn everything all at once.

[@ThePrimeagen]

agreed. tackle the most important things and go from there.

[@sebsplatter914]

Haha, I hope this is how it works for me too, I had no clue how much I genuinely like DevOps. I'm happy to be in SWE for now, but once that starts to become routine, I hope there is some spot for me to become a wizard with tons of machines and pipelines running at my behest :D

[@bendotcodes]

Just one thing at a time! :) There is a really wide spectrum of breath and depth on the knowledge that you can have on software engineering. Some people want to do it all, some others want to focus. I find myself cycling through between both every few years. I find something I love and I go deep but when I'm tired of that I keep trying new stuff.

[@yanuar1420]

Thanks Prime, I just watch that twitch videos a day ago and it pumped me to take my time to learn things even when I feel I don't have time

[@gavincoulson3900]

Love the message, thanks for this! It’s definitely great to see the wish lists more like the general stuff you need for a great job

[@ThePrimeagen]

yaya! having fun making these.

[@rand0mtv660]

2:20 thank you for mentioning this. It's not about being a master in all these technologies, but it's important to at least know something about those technologies in order to be able to have a conversation. What they do, why they might be used and so on. Just being curious and learning about basics about many tools and technologies has allowed me to make better decisions in my work, remember that X tool exists when I have a certain problem or just being able to google stuff better because I know something similar might exist and might push me in the right direction. Curiosity and thirst for knowledge is really valuable in this line of work.

[@parthmangalkar]

This video is just gold! Thanks for all the advice!

[@bacacho123]

Thanks! I've been searching how to get it and this is brilliant :D

[@eudrino]

This was so cool! i really like this vision, you just changed my year, keep it up!

[@ThePrimeagen]

hio!

[@EluLawlielt]

Great message. "imma knock out w/e they throw at me" not only makes you more motivated, but also builds the necessary qualifications and skillset to succeed in you job/ life. After a while you won't even remember the time you didn't know some of the concepts.

[@ThePrimeagen]

exactly

[@MrSman210]

Great message! You won me over with the vim speed run but using your platform to let people know what to actually do succeed in this field is invaluable.

[@ThePrimeagen]

yayaya!

[@runtimejpp]

The positivity keeps me going. Thanks dude

[@ThePrimeagen]

yayaya! get it

[@rodrigopoblete8112]

Thanks for the video! I really like the approach your latest videos have, and how with your experience you can help us get our first job in technology. by the way, the meme is far the best of the video

[@ThePrimeagen]

yaya

[@BoudewijnDanser]

Inspiring! Thank you.

[@rahil_rehan]

+1 to everything you said, the best thing a junior dev can do is to, explore a breadth of technologies and find out how they work in tandem. Some frontend, backend and devops. This will really help in new teams and interviews.

[@ThePrimeagen]

agreed.

[@trashAndNoStar]

New sub here from the Fireship collab. Love the no-nonsense practical approach 🍻.

[@ThePrimeagen]

:) Thank you! I just try to be an engineer and that is it. Not trying to sell you anything, just give out advice from a possibly skewed perception :)

[@MrYoungblood]

Dude love your content and how real you are.

[@ThePrimeagen]

yaya. ty

[@samdelamarter4557]

Great advice Mr. Prime! All about time in the saddle!!

[@ThePrimeagen]

TimeInTheSaddle

[@theizaananwar]

That was helpful! Thank man

[@Zworkz]

Great Video, Thank You!

[@denzilv]

Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals! Believe it or not, as a Netflix engineer, I don't know everything. However, I at the very least have a very, very basic understanding of a lot of technologies and if I ever need to use those technologies, I TITS (time in the saddle) my way through in order to achieve the ultimate goal of building the solution that the business requires. This is what I firmly believe, not exhaustive, exemplifies a really good engineer. 👍

[@ThePrimeagen]

this is the way

[@kusocm]

And what would you say are the fundamentals? Let's call them axioms, for the sake of discussion.... I say that partially, because if you e.g. say data structures & algorithms, someone might say that this is a fairly broad/vague term? What we be other fundamentals? Understanding the 'compiling process' down to logic gates? I'm genuinely interested what you think, so that I can prioritise =)

[@denzilv]

@@kusocm I think it really depends but in my experience, it's not just the technical know-how but also skills that are seemingly undervalued by many. Some of those skills are communication, cross-team and stakeholder partnership management, humility, empathy, and the like. These type of skills, I think, are more difficult to hone than technical concepts/products which in most cases are pretty straightforward if you have no problem reading documentation, trying it out, and iterating on it. I will say that an engineer that is flexible is extremely valuable to any organization that they are employed at because it instills confidence to the team that they can trust that engineer to get the job done despite the challenges.

[@axelongaro1261]

Good stuff here! I think one thing that most people tend to forget is (I quote someone, don't remember who it is tho): "People overestimate what can be done in a day and understimate what can be done in a year" I mean, it can seem daunting at first when you see all the stuff you need to learn, but guess what, you don't have to do it in a week, just put in the time and you'll be very surprised where you are in few weeks/months/years.

[@JoshuaMaciel]

Completely agree. Learning Linux and configuring Vim is what really pushed me to learn more and take more interest in what I was doing. I attribute the vim curiosity to you and fireship actually lol

[@divyuesharma]

I needed this and baba delivered it and I like it. I am in this same scenario. And i am just trying to do it. Will do regularly though because I am in support role and it sucks. It's hard for me so i am spending sometime but as soon as you start getting a concept and try out some problem related to that DS and it will stick with you and you can switch to some other DS and then just continue. Thanks!!

[@ThePrimeagen]

You got it babe! You have to dig deep and go through things. I would first recommend making sure you are great at building things, and every day read a bit about algorithms. I don't think leet code is that great.

[@divyuesharma]

@@ThePrimeagen actually i am working on a project with node as BE and react as FE. Basically it will generate digital brochures in pdf format. I am taking my time and learning a lot of stuff from that. As soon as I learn go i will switch my BE to it. And i am experimenting with AWS S3 bucket as well. I try to read DSA but don't spend much time on it. Just a glance and done.

[@PowerShellNoob]

As an IT professional who has to constantly adjust to new standards, all I have to say is knowing the minimum of something is important. Do you need to know 100% about vCenter? No, but being able to interact with the team who you might need to work alongside is important. An hour a day of practice on any topic you want to learn, will put you above the majority of professionals. I believe it was 30 minutes a day for a year will put you in the top 5% of any given field. That’s insane.

[@plaidchuck]

Depends on the quality of training and practice. Any mope can watch KZbin and udemy courses for hours and still not learning anything usedul

[@PowerShellNoob]

@@plaidchuck that’s usually why I stay away from either due to the quality of content being low since the bar for entry is extremely low

[@PGVladimirovich]

​​@@plaidchuckthe problem isn't even the udemy/youtub courses per say though of course quality varies, the root of the issue is lack of curiosity and intentional practice. Expecting any course to do this for you when you are passively watching and at best copy/pasting is a recipe for failure.

[@tylerreis7627]

Yea that’s bull shit

[@friedkitchenrce]

Just had an interview this morning. Got asked leetcode merge overlapping tuples and valid parentheses. Bombed it so badly lol.

[@ThePrimeagen]

rough. I hate those, but not as much as permutations.

[@mjohnson510]

Sounds like a Facebook interview. You got the easiest questions man. It happens. Merge overlapping was one of the questions I got that prevented from getting a new grad position at Meta (only because the interviewer English was the worse and his communication was “just do it” as I asked what are the inputs. This was my Meta new grad onsite only 3 interviews. 2 technical and one behavioral. 3/4 solved and did a great behavioral interview = no offer. Also the interviewer cut off his Zoom and left (never got a second chance as I complained to my recruiter).

[@markvaldez8602]

I got asked a Leetcode hard during a Jr level interview and the recruiter told me they would only ask easy lol

[@mjohnson510]

@@markvaldez8602 gawd damnnnnnnnn. You got fucked lol

[@superdahoho]

it's less about the skills but more about how much professional experience you have. I graduated 4 months ago and am still searching. Some even don't count internship time as experience. it's so frustrating.

[@guesswhomofo]

update?

[@artificemm]

Thanks for this video. I’m gonna apply for the startup. Yayaya.

[@ThePrimeagen]

GET IN THAT STARTUP

[@PhillipDressen]

The real skills of software engineering: - Always be learning - Solve problems Languages, APIs, algorithms, design patterns, OOP, etc are the tools. At some point you know enough, you can "learn whatever you need to" on the job. But until then: take your time, learn *and apply* each thing until you actually feel like you know its strengths and weaknesses. Then, repeat. A career in software engineering is doing this over and over and over again. So if it is unfair to know all this to get past the interview: it might also be a sign that this is a career you'd hate... And that's okay: it is more important to learn what things you don't like. And SE isn't the only role in technology or the only job that writes code... So maybe there's a different role that you'd like even more.

[@RR-et6zp]

learn java ;)

[@emptybottle1200]

​​@@RR-et6zpbecause of Java i almost have not gotten liking programming

[@atlastheworldonmyshoulders7148]

same, how did you survive? @@emptybottle1200

[@mheidari988]

Great wrap-up. As a savvy software developer, I'd say if you're passionate about it, dive deep and code your way through it.

[@BoopyTheFox]

Thank you for the inspiration! The problem with fundamentals for me is to how to make them FUNdamental - if i don't initially get WHY i would need something unreasonable on my resume, it is just so difficult to learn. And with deep stuff it's not easy to see unless you wait and think about reasoning of these requirements. So yea, considering requirements and skills required not as "requirements", but as a blank checklist of things to explore, helps a lot with making it fun. "Ok but WHY i need to know what's a hash-map? Ok but WHY they want to use Docker when our dev cycle is already in 3 VM's?" etc etc. Having and finding energy to wonder is a whole another problem, so good self-management and taking care of oneself is kinda the most crucial skill any person in any field could have. The final boss is not your interviewer, it's you.

[@Zzznmop]

This video is awesome! I feel like the illusion that your interviewer is all-knowing and expects pure elegant solutions on the fly is common yet flawed.

[@ThePrimeagen]

exactly. I often really liked people that could talk through why they did it. I cared a lot less for the "best" solution.

[@davidomar742]

you are a great motivator sir. I enjoy your no bullshit advice

[@ThePrimeagen]

yaya

[@suganya9838]

Best advice omg

[@bambitsunami4165]

I like the message of “just do it”! And I know this wasn’t the point of the video but what DO you think is the best way for companies to interview people?

[@ThePrimeagen]

i think having a conversation where i know some technical depth about the same topic and we just talk about your experience. I like seeing how much a person knows about a topic. Depth tends to be the greatest identifier for me, at least.

[@jupyter5k647]

Theo has a good rant about the final part of your comment

[@t3dotgg]

@@jupyter5k647 ❤️❤️

[@0xcuadrosweb3recruiting20]

Thinking about job descriptions as a checklist of things to research is a really great approach. Especially looking at maybe your top 2-3 companies seeing what they use and learning the stuff that is applicable for all of them.

[@IbrahimAli-yg5uz]

As someone who is currently going through a Bootcamp for full-stack web development, being overwhelmed with all the technologies out there. This helps, Thanks Prime

[@ThePrimeagen]

yaya!! Just get after it, it wont be long before you cant even remember what it was like to not know it all :)

[@mancewicz]

"have the language and understanding to be able to google and build the solution for them" 100% YES!

[@ThePrimeagen]

yaya

[@0xbyt3z]

i like these meaningful short videos.thanks

[@ThePrimeagen]

yayaya! that is the goal

[@t3dotgg]

As often happens, Prime is the realist and I’m the idealist. This video is the “right advice to get your first gig and start on the right path” If you’re on the other side and want to make interviews suck less hard, I have a video on that part 🙏

[@ThePrimeagen]

i am totally on the side of get in and try to fix interviews, but there is also a question that must be asked, or is implicitly asked, what is it that you are going to fix and how does your fix fix it? The reality is that I can talk to an engineer for ~1 hour and know if they will be a success or not. But I have also busted my ass for +15 years to gain this "ability." Would I trust a fresh grad to interview like me? No, please, I would expect less experience to use different filters for evaluation that I would use. i know, very unhot take ;)

[@odayprogrammer]

who are you

[@babyboie20]

I think most of this is true but I also think the missing part is learning, even to an exploratory level, without actively working in that space for a while, won’t solidify the concepts enough. A lot of time is needed unless some sort of refresher is done before the interview, which I highly suggest btw.

[@atsushitoda]

Thanks & broadly agree, esp with the point that you're getting a checklist which you can address directly. For specific techs like Docker, frameworks and even infra, you can spin up projects (often for free) easily and get real exposure to them. I think the hard part applying this to requirements faced by non-jr but non snr candidates when they get the bad luck of not having exp at shops with appropriate tech set ups e.g. using a range of databases for different types of solutions in a monolithic codebase with one big postgres instance. Not sure you can hard work yourself into experiencing a more distributed architecture, or managing challenging projects. Would like everyone's takes on how they recommend tackling this scenario!

[@ThePrimeagen]

This is true. You cannot possible craft a solution that met needs while having 10k customers to scale to 1million and find all the wrong decisions you have made. That is experience that only come with tears and time :)

[@sasipraveen5257]

Love you Prime ❤

[@ThePrimeagen]

love you too

[@noOwings]

wow, you just gave THE mindset for all and every things guys that we want in our whole life: We can get all we want and almost all we want is free, but cost something. How to 'pay' what you want is really a simple decision over: give $$ or give your time/patience/something inside you. Thank you !

[@ThePrimeagen]

:)

[@vfryhn2]

I think this is one of the best advice out there, nobody knows it all, but you gotta get good at solving problems and know how to look for useful information quickly

[@ThePrimeagen]

yaya!

[@dealloc]

I agree a lot with Primegen that you should just go and learn the things they list if you want to work there. But it also depends on the position; If the things they require and ask you about isn't related to the job that they're hiring for, better avoid that company as it usually means that they don't know how to do interview processes.

[@bobDotJS]

What a godly mustache. This channel makes me so happy

[@wanderer4954]

"I am gonna figure what they want, i am going crush what they want" has become my motto now a days.

[@myrusEW]

I think what sucks with learning hard things is, you don't really know when it makes sense. Like for me, learning is 100% plateau after plateau. It's each one of those a-ha! moments that cements an idea for me, and sometimes it'll just randomly happen when I wake up, or when I'm taking the dog out. I guess I've kind of shifted my mindset from chasing "knowing/understanding" to "waiting" for my brain to click everything into place.

[@Eduardado]

Thank you

[@mdotmertens]

This is totally true. One thing I want to add is that every good engineer that I know of is a T shaped person. T means having a breadth amount of knowledge and being specialised in one of them hence the T shape. Sure I don't need to care about Docker or Kubernetes because of our DevOps team takes care of it. But knowing these "irrelevant" topics helps me to understand the process and therefore I might be able to fix a simple error myself so I can ship faster. Even if you don't need specific knowledge anymore most of the concepts/frameworks you learn help you to better understand new things because there is almost always something that can carry over to the new topic or give you new insights to what you already know.

[@nicowong2428]

best progrmmming channel hands down

[@hotscriptgg]

@2:08 knowing the terminology and what to search on your own is the most important skill in my day to day job. That is what colleage supopose to be. Training the brain of young adults to find and filter knowledge without the assistance. (Good luck to all you folks who are struggling to get hired. Keep on learning.)

[@ThePrimeagen]

yaya! Also don't let college be the thing that teaches you what to search for. Most of industry is practical application of theoretical knowledge.

[@hotscriptgg]

@@ThePrimeagen I'm trained in "public administration" but have the luck to work as dev. Education helps for sure but with a bit of effort it is possible to fill the gap :-)

[@andreipene8647]

Looking forward to your future algorithms course on Frontendmasters

[@ThePrimeagen]

very excited

[@LawrenceDCodes.]

well said Prime

[@cristobaljavier]

Great take 👏👏👏

[@ThePrimeagen]

yaya

[@ramneklav8211]

Just know that you have changed peoples lives and given them hope...I pray for health wealth and happiness of you and your family. Thank you for these gems.

[@ThePrimeagen]

dude, thanks! this was a nice note.

[@jayasurya3085]

Thanks

[@Edster300]

"I'm gonna figure out what they want, and I'm going to crush what they want" .... I live by this!

[@sadique_x_]

best thumbnail!

[@OrbitalCookie]

Bring on you portfolio the history of you solving problems. New job won't have the same problems, your ability to solve them is that's valuable. It may even be worth to go for a worse more junior job for a while if it allows you to build up your knowledge in the area that you are interested in, or contribute to open source and make your contributions publicly visible for future applications. "I did stuff" is always more impressive than "I know stuff".

[@ThePrimeagen]

i did stuff >>>>>>> i know stuff

[@user-qv1bw8vq1y]

thank you

[@iamgabrielsoft5891]

Awesome advice

[@ThePrimeagen]

you are welcome

[@Bielocke]

Freaking A man, well done!

[@criptych]

"Look at life as an adventure, not an injustice". Forget engineering, or even careers, this is just good life advice.

[@dimaswift]

Thanks!

[@ThePrimeagen]

Wowowowowowowwwwewewowowowow!! Tyty

[@trentirvin2008]

Super based take. Looking at all the things i have to learn as an exciting opportunity to become a real professional is exactly how Ive stayed motivated to learn. I got a STEM degree but i got my degree in biology. And as much as i wish i could go back and discover my passion for programming and switch to computer science i think the most valuable thing i attained with my degree was actually the mentality i developed around learning very difficult concepts. Once you’ve done it in one area, you understand the process, and have one huge takeaway from the experience. NEVER confuse recognition for recollection. That lesson has kept me far more aware of my actual abilities than almost every collaborator Ive had on projects, until i came across my current collaborator that has the same mentality as me. Prime is dead on here

[@ElijahManor]

Good for us you are going to do a new Front End Masters course on algorithms and data structures :) Yes? If so, when? :)

[@ScoutSniperMC]

The defacto standard hiring practices are bullshit and I’m happy the company I work for does things different. For people breaking in we value seeing personal projects and will ask them to explain the technical decisions they made within. Critical thinking abilities also take precedence over institutional compsci knowledge or proficiency in any one tool.

[@ThePrimeagen]

yeah this is all true. the hard part is sussing out critical thinking. That is why we have what we have now, because its hard. I don't think its the best, I have a method I like, but I don't want people using my method because I think some people are unable to suss out things in the same way.

[@forthesky1092]

what great spirit !

[@ThePrimeagen]

yaya

[@tears_falling]

Now please make a video on "how to use your time effectively", such that someone can learn those things you mentioned in a couple weeks

[@luissolanodev]

Seconding ^

[@ThePrimeagen]

have you not applied yourself rigorously to a topic and not made great strides in a couple weeks?

[@kofiboateng9181]

You will never learn enough in a couple weeks. Your best bet is to learn by projects. I learned Typescript+React Docker/Kubernetes Java w/ Spring, Go and Message Queueing with RabbitMQ all in one project for banking/fintech. Coupled with NodeJS and ReactJS which I knew already, I worked on a microservice service environment that mimics what real world work would be like working on multi-language projects and pushing to github. This also allowed me to learn CI/CD pipelines. I "finished" out the project by learning Nginx Reverse Proxy which allowed me to host it on AWS EC2 cloud where I have a Google domain rerouted to AWS Route53 (DNS hosting) and then the Nginx serves my react/typescript build. My Spring Boot Java app talks to a cloud database in Amazon (RDS --> Postgres) and my Golang microservice talks to a Cloud DB (Non-RDS --> MongoDB). In total this took me roughly 3 months learning everything but nodejs and JS from scratch. My only other experience was with python for which I did no type of API development. Was it hard? A little bit because you have to code when you do not want to in order to get where you want to, but now, I can ATLEAST hold a conversion in regards to these different technologies and what their purpose is. Now I focus primarily on my weaker points (Algorithm and Dynamic Programming) for interviews. The best advice I can give you is you have to be comfortable being alone and focused on your grind, because it can be hard. If a job wants you to know more than 5 tech stacks and flows at a deep level to get a job, then its more than likely they are looking for a 10X programmer and not someone who is just starting out. Side note: I have absolutely 0 experience in SWE/Web dev as my current job is cyber security.

[@tears_falling]

@@kofiboateng9181 Thanks for your response, it was helpful! I'm currently looking to get my first job as a web developer so I can later transition into cyber security, quite funny

[@kofiboateng9181]

@@tears_falling I still plan on doing cyber security in the future as well, but I started my dev journey to further my knowledge of cyber security and internet knowledge as well! Can't protect what you don't know thoroughly! haha Good luck on your journey and glad I was able to shed some light on a possible course of action for ya!

[@josewilhelm2717]

"No, I don't think it's fair, but at the same time life is not fair." Words of true wisdom. Great talk!

[@frydac]

Pretty sure most (young) adults know, and have experienced, life isn't fair, calling this 'true wisdom'..

[@ThePrimeagen]

but people think "it should be fair." and that is the problem. Life isn't fair is a statement of absolutes in a sense, it will never be fair, and you shouldn't assume its default state is fair.

[@danplt]

Thank you!

[@ThePrimeagen]

you sir are welcome

[@SkyKosiner]

This guy interviews, also great video!

[@ThePrimeagen]

ty yoni

[@proloycodes]

[@gonzalorodriguez9996]

Thais guay is Genius. Greta explanation

[@kodeypatterson8973]

Great video

[@ThePrimeagen]

ty

[@andrews8733]

I largely agree but the issue I have with the wish list, is that resume's are often automatically filtered based on those keywords. You can pick the right skills to learn. Can you confidently defend your skill in tech X though? If it's not on the resume, you can be filtered. If it's on there, you need to be prepared to defend. Resumes which just list tech after tech start to look like BS.

[@ThePrimeagen]

yeah, that seems about right.

[@jiiuk]

I can tell he's a good dad

[@0xlkda]

tldr: good things take time Thank you bro!

[@ThePrimeagen]

yayaya

[@Borladim]

All of that is in every BSc in CS, the problem is, that they require several years of working experience in these technologies. So getting an entry into these companies is more difficult than it has to be.

[@nekoill]

Not a software dev here, I'm a DevOps/SRE/integration engineer, but in my experience actual sane employers who are really in need of a (mostly junior, but not necessarily) software engineer, or a sysadmin, or an SRE guy, or whatever similar position really, and aren't MANGA so that they have a huge pool of extremely talented people to pick and choose from, are willing to look past not having some particular skills and experiences if you have something similar in your portfolio, or can demonstrate the understanding of why those skills are needed, and/or know and understand how the required tech works under the hood at least on a high level, and don't underestimate the significance and apparently rarity of an arcane skill of googling, whatever that is. If you can show the ability to quickly figure out the problem and how to solve it, little else matters really.

[@solvm1652]

Well said

[@ThePrimeagen]

thanks :)

[@ApocalypeX]

I don't get how every one of this guy's hot takes are bangers.

[@ThePrimeagen]

just trying to hot take all the days

[@100timezcooler]

I have a confidence issue where the basic understanding often times doesn’t feel good enough and I feel obligated to know everything end 2 end which just leaves me feeling like I actually know nothing. (When I probably now more than avg)

[@tabliqatchi6696]

You don't need to know anything if you still don't know Git. So my number one recommendation to anyone who still feels "kind of beginner" is to learn Git before ANYTHING else, just start with raw text files and version control them as a practice! And become fluent enough in it so that you feel "confident". You don't need to master it all at once, you can't, you don't need to, and you shouldn't. After that start doing a quick project such as a todo list AND PUT ENOUGH TIME ON IT, remember, "commitment and consistency is the key". Also here's a quotation I've extracted from this Primeagen's video if someone's taking notes: "Be able to practice the art of discussing your ideas in a situation which it's just tossed on you, because most of the time interviewers are looking for someone that can discuss ideas and come to solutions, they're not necessarily always looking for someone that's going to give them the most pristine answer in that moment, and they're often not looking for someone that knows all the technologies that they've listed. ... I would highly recommend looking at life as a challenge not an inconvenience, and to look at it as an adventure not some sort of injustice or ill will towards yourself."

[@CanYouDodgeThis]

Yayaya JUST GET AFTER IT 😤

[@ThePrimeagen]

absolutely.

[@alexanderbryzgalov6136]

man could you recommend a specific linux distro for dev desktop? and what distro do you actually use? PS: thx for that video btw

[@imluctor5997]

Honestly this is what i recommend: Looking for a job? Learn a bit of everything and find information what is important to go ahead and learn. Just coding for for fun/hobby? Well learn what you need to learn only and do some research because you might find something that you prefer over what you are doing right now and it will also give you new ideas of what you can build with those new tools your using.

[@sebsplatter914]

This is the realistic/honest take. It wouldnt be fair if employers expected you to be great at all of this while paying you junior salary, but usually they just want you to have a broad understanding and having played around with it a little. Unless you absolutely want a job at one of the Big5/FAANG/MANGA/whatever the bar is really just at "did you bother to look up the core infrastructure tech every major company uses and did you use it enough so we dont have to send you off to weeks of training before we can even see how you are at your main job". I am regularly amazed at how many people come out of university and cant write up basic SQL commands or a simple Docker config. Few jobs today are just coding within one language and one framework. I feel like thats what FullStack usually means: you should have a good idea how most of the stuff every company uses works and be really good at 1 or 2 of them. And that is achievable. And who knows, you might actually start using those technologies as auxiliaries to improve your main-proficiency.

[@yogiadianta1156]

Nice hot takes...

[@_Karlsson]

I was expecting a 3 second video with a "Yes.", now instead I know every detail of that yes, all the interviewers innermost feelings, their wishlists and that you can learn things if you spend time on them.

[@ThePrimeagen]

yayaya

[@kriscpg]

I'm working on a test project for a junior front-end position right now, and when I got the assignment I didn't know half of the technologies they wanted me to use. Three weeks later and I feel like I know them like the palm of my hand. Modern technologies usually have pretty good documentation and "getting started"-type tutorials, so just learn it, man. It's really not that hard if you give it enough or your time and build a couple of practice projects with them.

[@frydac]

Read about 'four stages of competence', it is 'natural' to think you're more competent than you actually are when starting to learn a new technology. Even when knowing about this I must admit I have multiple times overestimated my competence, or underestimated the time/effort I need to learn.

[@ThePrimeagen]

keep crushing it kris.

[@J90JAM]

Got a more backend focused job as a frontend developer, it’s hard AF, guess I’ll just get better at backend development 🤷‍♂️