FASTEST Way to Learn Coding and ACTUALLY Get a Job in 2024
Summary
TLDRThe video discusses strategies to increase retention rates for those learning to code, so they can successfully become software developers. It advises taking a long-term view, getting real-world experience through internships, focusing on building functional code rather than perfect code, being relentlessly reliable, mastering basics like data structures first, embracing rejection as part of the process, and finding motivational stories that inspire you to keep learning.
Takeaways
- 📈 The '100 Days of Code' challenge had a low retention rate, with only 5% of the 2.3 million starters completing it.
- 🔥 Avoiding early drop-off in your coding journey is crucial for becoming a successful software developer.
- 📊 Successful participants focus on long-term goals rather than immediate results, embodying the principle that slow and steady wins the race.
- 💻 Acquiring a Computer Science degree or getting an internship through connections can provide a significant advantage in the tech industry.
- 👌 Being scrappy and focusing on practical outcomes can be more beneficial early on than adhering to perfect code standards.
- 👩💻 Reliability, resourcefulness, and result-orientation are highly valued traits in the tech industry, often more than pure technical skills.
- 🚀 Embracing the journey and preparing for a long career in tech, including facing inevitable rejections, builds resilience and success over time.
- 📚 Meeting the bare minimum standards in the industry, like mastering data structures and algorithms, is essential before seeking unique opportunities.
- 💡 Motivation plays a key role in sustaining effort and passion in tech, with inspirations often coming from success stories and industry documentaries.
- 🙋♂️ Networking and getting a foot in the door through internships or underpricing yourself initially can lead to invaluable learning and future opportunities.
Q & A
What was the completion rate for the 100 Days of Code challenge by Replate in 2023?
-Less than 5% of the approximately 2.3 million participants were able to finish the challenge.
Why does the speaker emphasize the importance of avoiding early dropout in learning to code?
-The speaker believes avoiding early dropout is crucial because it leads to higher retention and success in becoming a software developer.
What is the perspective of the 5% who completed the challenge on their learning journey?
-The 5% who completed the challenge focus on long-term goals, understanding that slow growth leads to sustainable progress in building a tech career.
How does getting a CS degree help in retaining technical knowledge according to the speaker?
-A CS degree forces engagement with fundamental subjects like DBMS, Operating Systems, and Computer Networks, providing essential jargon and background that make practical coding easier.
What does 'grabbing the unfair advantage in Tech' mean?
-It refers to taking actions that significantly increase one's chances of staying in the tech industry, such as getting a CS degree or securing a position through connections.
Why does the speaker suggest working in a scrappy manner early in one's tech career?
-Working in a scrappy manner allows for learning through doing, focusing on delivering outcomes even if the methods are not polished, which is valuable for growth and avoiding dropout.
What qualities does the speaker believe are most valued by founders when hiring?
-Founders value resourcefulness, reliability, and results-orientation, appreciating employees who can figure things out and deliver value reliably.
Why is it important to prepare for rejections in the tech industry?
-Rejections are common, and building resilience helps one bounce back and continue pursuing opportunities without being discouraged.
What is the speaker's view on interview preparation?
-The speaker believes that interview success comes from consistent practice over time rather than last-minute cramming, emphasizing the importance of real-world coding experience.
How does the speaker suggest using motivation to advance in a tech career?
-The speaker recommends seeking inspiration from successful stories, documentaries, and the potential of creating impactful technology to maintain motivation throughout the learning journey.
Outlines
😊 Understanding the 5% who completed the coding challenge
Paragraph 1 discusses a coding challenge where only 5% were able to complete it and retain till the end. It emphasizes focusing on long-term goals rather than short-term outcomes to avoid dropping off. Taking a longer horizon and thinking in terms of years rather than days leads to better retention.
😃 Tips for grabbing an unfair advantage to stay in tech
Paragraph 2 provides tips like getting a CS degree, getting an internship through connections, and not worrying about writing perfect code as a beginner. The key is forcing yourself to stay invested in tech through these unfair advantages, which leads to better retention.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡drop off
💡retention
💡slow growth
💡unfair advantage
💡scrappy
💡fio
💡saturation
💡rejection
💡motivation
💡interview preparation
Highlights
The biggest mistake as a beginner is dropping off early in your coding journey
Focus on slow consistent growth rather than quick early results
Get a computer science degree or get an internship at a tech company
Early on, scrappy code that works is more important than elegant code
Being resourceful, reliable and results-oriented is key to getting a coding job
In tech, hard work plus smart work leads to success
Initially, do the basic things everyone else is doing like data structures and algorithms
Rejection is common in tech, don't let it stop you
Thoroughly prepare for interviews over a long period of time
Watch videos and learn about accomplished people in tech for motivation
Have a long term perspective, humans underestimate progress over decades
The 5% who finished the 100 days of code challenge looked at long term goals
Getting an unfair advantage like an internship forces you to persist
Write your own full stack app from end to end to start liking coding
Be incredibly reliable and hardworking, especially the first 3 months on a job
Transcripts
all right look at this tweet this is how
many people did the 100 days of code
challenge by replate in 2023 and this is
probably the worst retention graphs out
there around 2.3 million people started
and less than 5% were able to finish the
challenge the retention was so bad that
even Elon Musk was vowed by it why am I
talking about this in a video that is
titled fastest way to become a software
developer in 2024 the reason is that the
fastest way to become a software
developer is to avoid this drop off the
biggest mistake that you can do as a
beginner is drop off early in your
journey and in this video I'll talk
about all the points that I feel can
lead to higher retention when it comes
to following coding or following a
course let's get right into it all right
let's kick things off by looking at the
graph what is this 5% doing right and I
think the answer is that this 5% is not
focused on day Zero outcomes they're
looking at a very long road to create
Tech as their career there's a saying
that says humans overestimate what they
can do in a day but underestimate what
they can do in a decade what this means
is that we feel like we'll be able to
complete web development in a day but we
never feel like we'll be able to become
senior engineer in the next 10 years we
underestimate how far we can go in the
next 10 years and I think what these 5%
are doing right is that they're really
focusing on the longer goal they're
focusing on slow growth and in the end
slow growth is the thing that retains
very well you might be able to luck into
a job randomly but unless you've paid
your debt unless you've spent a lot of
time honing your skills uh your growth
will Top out really quickly in that job
so the first thing that you can do is
take a longer term Horizon in this
journey of your Tech anyways runs in
Cycles you'll see bulls and bears be
prepared for this long journey that's
ahead and don't Focus too much on the
next week's outcome maybe focus on a
year worth of outcome how far you can go
in the next one year with that let's
move to the second point which is a
little more actionable the point is
called grabbing the unfair advantage in
Tech what this means is that there are
few bets that you can take a few things
that you can do that will force you to
stay in Tech you will not necessarily
procrastinate if you take these bets a
few of these include either getting a CS
degree because you'll be forced to take
classes that you will Almost 100%
procrastinate through if you're not in
CS some of the examples include dbms
Operating Systems computer networks and
even though they don't have a direct
impact on your journey they teach you a
lot of jargon that make practical coding
much easier compared to someone who's
not done a CS degree so if you have the
choice get a CS degree number two get
grandfather into a company if you have a
brother who's the founder of a company
if you have a friend let them in your
company as an intern uh of course don't
work for free at a very humble salary
try to get into the company and
understand the code base the best thing
you can do early in your career is
understand how things are happening in
the industry and for that you can either
get grandfathered in or you can
underprice yourself really heavily to
get that first internship offer that
takes me to the third point which is
Scrappy is good in the end Tech is run
by businesses and as businesses grow and
scale they need extremely good code
practices all around but early in your
career Scrappy is good a good example
here is level IO who's built multiple
pseudo million dollar businesses and his
complete stack is PHP U he pushes his
code directly to master he pulls them on
a server I think has a single server
running he has the scrappiest stack out
there yet he has one of the most
successful running you know Indie
businesses in the world why because in
the end people want outcomes people want
K code does a certain thing and you as
the learner will most probably drop off
really bad if I ask you to write code in
Russ 20 however if I give you a problem
statement and don't necessarily a stack
on you you might be able to figure out a
scrappy way to build it and that's how
you incrementally get over the curve and
avoid drop off the first time you write
a full stack application end to end
yourself is when that flywheel begins is
when you start to like the field a
little bit more this happened for me
almost 6 months into my coding Journey
so try to look for that first win and it
does not have to be the fanciest code
base out there it can be Scrappy it
needs to have an outcome for me it was
building a multiplayer game uh
specifically a multiplayer version of
flappy bird fourth point to get a job uh
hard work plus smart work is key here is
another tweet it says the number one
thing I look out for when hiring in
people is fio figure it out um you can
get pretty damn far by being just
resourceful reliable and result oriented
in the end in a remote job no one is
tracking you at least today there's no
way for them to figure out if you're
really smart or if you know you have an
AI assistant that's really smart um so
no one cares how you arrived at the
solution as long as you're being result
oriented if you understand the business
priorities well if you write code that
is acceptable given the current code
standards of the company and if you're
being reliable I think that's the
quality that Founders are chasing the
most right now anyone can be a software
developer eventually the thing that
differentiates you is how hardworking
you are and how reliable you are if you
can be that guy who the founder looks up
to whenever a problem goes down is when
your job is sorted so if you want to
take one thing from this point it is be
incredibly reliable uh especially during
your initial 3 months of programming
because what happens when you join a
company is that that for the first 3
months you're sort of looked down upon a
lot as in people are tracking to see
where you stand in the company and then
if you're performing really well for the
first 3 months that first impression
sticks it sticks the other way around as
well and whatever the first impression
is it's very hard to break it usually
which is why the suggestion is if you're
if you've had a bad quarter if your
initial impression isn't great you
should switch the company because no
matter how well you perform after that
it's very hard to break that initial
impression so at least during the first
3 months and preferably throughout your
journey in a company be extremely
resourceful be extremely reliable make
sure you're providing more value than
you're charging for next Point run
towards saturation as a beginner as a
beginner there are a thousand things
that everyone around you is doing some
examples include creating read me
contributions don't do that doing data
structures and algorithms trying to
contribute to open source trying G I get
that there are a lot of people flocking
and you know trying to do these things
but that's the bare minimum right if
you're a beginner try to pay your debts
and you know figure out the data
structure and algorithms make sure
you're doing whatever 300 400 problems
everyone is and have that bare minimum
metric that everyone in the country
currently has U the reason for this is
you know it feels very flashy to you
know directly aim for a 100K remote
offer but unfortunately everything
happens in stages um and that includes
doing data sucess algorithms once make
sure you're paying your debt and have
the standard things under your belt
because unfortunately hiring isn't very
optimal if DSA is a metric DSA is a
metric if an e-commerce project on a
resume looks good it looks good so
whatever is the alpha that's going
around if people are doing open source
contributions try to do those if people
are getting into G try aiming for G if
people are doing DSA make sure you're
doing DSA make sure you have all of
these corners covered before you start
applying for a company NeXT Point
rejection is part of tech especially
today make sure you're building the
muscle that prepares you for a lot of
rejections it happens with everyone
including me the only advice I can give
you here is unless you get kicked back
you won't be able to go back up so make
sure you're not letting any rejections
affect you the one thing I would like to
advise here is uh be be prepared for
that interview there might be a thousand
rejections that you get purely based on
your resume but once you get that
interview you should be able to nail
everything the problem with tech is that
people defer interview preparation until
the very last minute and I feel
interviews are something you shouldn't
even prepare for it's your journey over
the last few years that prepares you for
that one day you can't really hack the
system and you know buy an interview
preparation boot camp for one week and
prepare for your interview it is also
extremely anxiety inducing to do that uh
so make sure once you get an interview
offer you're able to nail it that'll
only happen if you're consistent over
the last few years there's a lot of
years of experience that's been honed in
that you just spit out in an interview
so the worst thing you can do is that
you got an interview but got rejected
make sure when that day comes and it
will if you're going to stick through
tech for a long time it could be for a
50 lak offer could be for a 10 lak offer
does not matter as long as you price
yourself somewhere on the curve you will
get an interview and then when you do
get an interview make sure you're over
impressing that will only happen if
you're practicing coding a lot if you're
spending your your time coding as you
would in a company so make sure you
don't defer interview preparation make
sure you're coding the right things from
not Day Zero but eventually before your
interview you should have spent at least
a few weeks if not months writing good
scalable back end or front end or full
stack or whatever company you're
applying for code so that when you get
that interview you're not fing with
anxiety and it's a chill process for you
to go through the interview I think the
worst thing you can do is give an
interview with a lot of anxiety around
what questions they'll ask me and last
Point motivation helps that's why I make
these videos from time to time and
that's also why there's a montage at the
end of this video watch social network
look at an accomplished seniors of yours
um I think at least initially you need a
lot of motivation to stay in Tech to
code to you know have more motivation
other than money and you know getting a
job for that I have a bunch of
documentaries I'm happy to link in the
description documentaries around how
Bitcoin Works how there was a Bitcoin
millionaire SL billionaire a few years
ago these are the things that I watched
initially that gave me a lot of
motivation to you know pursue a CS
degree over something else I could have
gone to a better College in like a
mechanical degree but I ended up
choosing CS because I really wanted to
be that hacker on a computer and today I
have like the fanciest setup over here
in the end all of this does not matter
um you are writing code that does like
the dumbest thing if you're in Amazon
you're you're writing code for a very
small button but at least initially to
be able to think you can eventually you
know be the person who's mining Bitcoin
in 2013 or be the person who creates the
next social network um it leads to a lot
of motivation which is good when you're
just starting your journey so that's all
I had for this video the takeaways are
have extremely high motivation do this
for a really long time interviews aren't
something you should be preparing for
have a senior a friend who can
grandfather you into a company or you
know underprice yourself really bad and
understand how code is being written in
the industry write that code yourself
and then eventually wait for that offer
underprice overprice yourself on the
curve so that at least you're able to
get that interview once you get the
interview as long as you've been doing
all the things that I've talked about it
should be easy to nail is what I think
with that let's end it I'll see you guys
in the next one
bye-bye
for
for
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