Episode 36 - The Bootcamp Experience: Landing the Job with Jonathan Edwards
In this episode we talk to Jonathan Edwards about final bootcamp projects and presentations, job interviews, and landing your first developer job!
Jonathan is a recent graduate of NSS cohort 27. Previously, he received his BS in Communication Advertising from UT Knoxville and moved to Nashville four years ago to pursue music. He developed an interest in web development while working in digital marketing, after which he decided to enroll in NSS’s full stack software bootcamp. He’s a new employee at naviHealth, and we’re talking to him today about what the post-NSS job hunt was like and the process of landing the job.
“Sharpening the Tools”
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“‘Sharpening the Tools’ is the section of the show where we discuss what tools we’re using, concepts we’re learning, and generally how we are continuing our learning in software development.”
Erin:
JavaScript Objects refresher tutorial. And dreaming about JavaScript Objects?
Dave:
Meet-up presentation on Impostor Syndrome – working toward my 2019 goal of submitting a talk to a tech conference.
Jonathan:
Angular tutorials, and finishing a React app
*Shoutouts*
We’d like to give a shoutout to Brandon, our newest patron on Patreon. Thanks so much for your support!
“Opening the Toolbox”
Episode Outline
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Tell us a little bit about your background.
From Knoxville, TN. Studied Advertising at UT. Moved to Nashville for music
How did you get interested in web/software development?
Always had an interest in learning how to code, but kept coming up with reasons as to why I couldn’t do it
Was looking for ways to grow digital marketing skill-set when I came across web development and web design.
Took some online classes to teach myself some basics and fell in love with it.
Decided this is where I belonged and decided to attend NSS to make sure I was learning the right material in the right way
Can you describe your overall NSS experience? Do you feel adequately prepared for a junior level developer position?
Absolutely, attending NSS was the best decision I’ve ever made.
The second half of the course is spent working on teams doing weeklong sprints with planning, standups, retros, etc
The biggest thing was learning how to learn, because there will always be something new to learn in this field.
Another big plus of NSS is all of the extra help they give us outside of the classroom, with resume writing, interview prep, etc
Were there other paths in development that you considered?
Originally wanted to do more front-end focused work, but after going through the back-end of the course and getting experience with C# .NET, SQL, etc., doing full-stack work is where I see myself longterm. I like different parts about both front-end and back-end development and look forward to using both in my career
Can you tell us about your capstone projects? What languages/technologies did you learn?
Front-end capstone written in React using Bloomer and Bulma for styling
App called progressions, goal is to help beginning guitar players write better-sounding chord progressions
Users select the key they want to write their song in and are show the 7 different major and minor chords that make up that key
Users can press keys 1-7 on their keyboard to hear audio of each chord and write a chord progression that will sound good without ever having to pick up an instrument or even know how to play a guitar
Users then select their 4 chords they want to use to write a song and are shown a chord chart of how to play it on a real guitar.
Section for lyrics with a random lyric generator
Users can save, delete, and edit their songs
Back-end capstone written in C# .NET. Uses Entity framework, Identity framework
Called Sommelier. Goal to help people with wine collections keep track of the wines they have on hand, while also getting recommendations of what wine to drink based on what they are having for dinner.
Users build out their “cellar” in the application by filling out a form
Can see a list of every wine they have saved and can click on one to view details or make changes.
Tell us about the Demo Day experience.
It was so fun, but it went by incredibly fast. I talked with so many people and it felt good to show off all of my hard work and everything I had learned from NSS.
Some people wanted to get technical and ask questions about how specific parts worked or see some of the code I had written
It was the perfect way to wrap up the six months I had spent there with my classmates.
What was your post graduation job hunt experience like? How many companies did you interview with? Did you receive any other offers?
My job hunt was fairly short, I was able to get an offer 10 days after graduating.
I interviewed with 3 different companies, all of which I met through demo day. Combination of phone interviews, in-person interviews, technical interviews, skype interviews
A week after I accepted naviHealth’s offer, another company I interviewed with reached out to give me some “feedback” on how my interview went, so I’m assuming they were going to give me an offer, but naviHealth was my number one pick and had everything I was looking for, so I accepted their offer as soon as it was presented to me
What was your decision making process when it came to accepting your current position?
My biggest requirement was being able to work somewhere that I would be able to learn and grow as much as possible. Being somewhere that I could learn something new everyday and be a part of a team to deliver a product was what I really wanted.
I wanted something that I would be able to build upon all of the stuff I’ve learned over my time at NSS and set myself up for success in my career, and naviHealth seemed like the perfect place to do that
Did you do any networking while you were at NSS? If so, did it come in handy when job hunting post-graduation?
I did. I went to a handful of meetups throughout school. None of them led to my job directly, but I did get good experience with networking and walking up to people I had never met before and start talking to them. That experience came in handy on demo which was 4-ish hours of talking to people
What’s your first week on the job been like? What are you looking forward to in your first few weeks or months?
It’s been great! But there’s been a lot of info to take in. So far it’s been learning more about the company and how they operate, getting to know the everyone and how they do things, as well as learning the basics of angular.
Learning angular is something Im really looking forward to, and I’m really excited to get to know my team and being part of my first real software sprint and writing code to help improve their apps and make a difference
What is your advice to a new NSS graduate looking for a job?
Keep coding even after graduation
While technical knowledge is really important, cultural fit and showing that you’re a problem solver are what employers are looking for in a Jr Dev.
You are interviewing them just as much as they are interviewing you. Its a conversation and you’ve got to make sure you’re asking the right questions to figure out if this is somewhere you want to get up and go to 5 days a week
Where can we find Jonathan?
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardsjd/
Personal Website: j-edwards.com
References
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CLR – Common Language Runtime
GAC – Global Assembly Cache
Extra Links
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