Forget Coding Projects: This is How You Get Hired

Summary

This video discusses the challenges junior engineers face in the current job market, especially with many entry-level positions requiring years of experience. The speaker, a retired software engineering manager from Meta, explains why working on coding projects may not be the best approach for landing a job. Instead, they recommend alternatives such as internships, volunteering, open-source contributions, and even building apps. Internships are considered the gold standard for gaining real-world experience, while projects, though helpful for learning, aren't as valued by hiring managers when evaluating candidates.

Takeaways

• 💼 The job market for junior engineers and students is currently tough, with entry-level roles often requiring multiple years of experience.
• ❌ Focusing on coding projects as a way to get hired is considered a waste of time by the speaker, who emphasizes that hiring managers don’t prioritize these projects.
• 🧠 Projects are good for learning but don't compare to real-life experience when seeking a job, much like medical simulations don't equate to real surgeries.
• 📂 Hiring managers rarely review GitHub projects or portfolios, as 99% of the time the code doesn’t even run properly.
• 🧑‍💻 The best way to gain relevant experience is through internships, which the speaker compares to medical residencies in importance for junior engineers.
• 📉 Many junior engineers think projects give an unfair advantage, but the speaker debunks this idea, pointing to internships as a more valuable option.
• 🖥️ Building iOS or Android apps can offer some impact, but both come with time investment challenges, and monetization is typically low unless the app is heavily developed.
• 🤝 Volunteering for businesses or nonprofits can offer hands-on experience and improve communication skills but generally comes with no earnings potential.
• 🔓 Contributing to open-source projects is a more meaningful way to gain experience, especially if the contributions are accepted by the community.
• 💡 Internships are the highest-impact strategy, offering real-world exposure, and companies are more likely to trust candidates who have worked with production code under real conditions.

Q & A

Why does the speaker argue that projects are not the best way for junior engineers to get hired?

The speaker argues that while projects are useful for learning and skill development, they don't carry much weight with hiring managers because they don't demonstrate experience working with real-life production code or dealing with real users and stakes.

What is the main reason hiring managers don't look at GitHub projects according to the speaker?

Hiring managers often don't look at GitHub projects because, in the speaker's experience, most of the time the code doesn't run correctly. Variables are hardcoded, functions may be missing, and there are other issues that make the projects unrepresentative of real-world production environments.

How does the speaker compare coding projects to medical training?

The speaker compares coding projects to a medical student practicing brain surgery simulations. Just as simulations aren’t enough for a doctor to perform real surgery, coding projects don't provide the real-world experience hiring managers look for, unlike internships which are akin to a medical residency.

Why does the speaker emphasize internships as the most valuable experience for junior engineers?

Internships are emphasized as the most valuable because they offer real-world exposure, allow junior engineers to work on production code with real users, and are the most validating for hiring managers. Internships are compared to medical residencies, providing hands-on experience that projects cannot.

What are some of the alternatives to projects that the speaker suggests for gaining experience?

The speaker suggests alternatives such as building iOS or Android apps, developing websites or Chrome extensions, volunteering for businesses or non-profits, contributing to open-source projects, and internships, with internships being the most highly recommended.

Why does the speaker rank internships higher than other alternatives?

Internships are ranked higher because they provide real-world experience, often come with competitive pay, and offer significant validation to hiring managers. They are seen as the tech equivalent of a medical residency, offering supervised, hands-on experience in real environments.

What are some of the challenges with focusing solely on projects for junior engineers?

Focusing solely on projects can be time-consuming, often doesn't provide the real-world impact that hiring managers look for, and may lead to frustration as many projects may not run correctly or fail to demonstrate relevant experience working with actual production code.

How does the speaker evaluate the time investment and earnings potential of building an iOS or Android app?

The time investment for building an iOS or Android app is rated as high due to the effort needed to meet platform standards, especially for iOS, which has stricter guidelines. Earnings potential is generally considered low unless the developer is really trying to monetize their app.

What does the speaker suggest is a key challenge in volunteering as a way to gain experience?

A key challenge in volunteering is accessibility. Finding a business or nonprofit that is open to volunteer help can be difficult, and while the experience may be valuable, there is no direct financial compensation.

What does the speaker suggest for those interested in machine learning roles who don't have a formal job?

The speaker mentions that there will be a separate video covering specific strategies for people interested in AI engineering or machine learning roles, as these roles might have different paths to gaining experience.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 The Struggles of Junior Engineers in a Tough Job Market

The job market is difficult for junior engineers and students, with many entry-level positions requiring years of experience. The speaker emphasizes that projects alone won't differentiate candidates, despite the common belief. As a former Meta engineering manager, they argue that hiring managers don’t prioritize coding projects. While projects help with learning and building skills, they don't equate to real-world experience.

05:02

💡 Better Ways to Build Experience Beyond Projects

Instead of projects, the speaker introduces seven alternative strategies for junior engineers to build experience. These include creating apps, websites, or Chrome extensions, as well as volunteering and contributing to open-source projects. Each strategy is evaluated based on impact, accessibility, time investment, and earning potential, with specific points assigned. The speaker emphasizes that practical experience with real-world systems is more valuable to hiring managers than isolated coding projects.

10:04

🎯 Internships: The Gold Standard for Building Experience

The speaker argues that internships provide the best experience for aspiring engineers, likening them to medical residencies. They highlight that internships offer real-world exposure, validate skills in the eyes of hiring managers, and often come with strong earning potential. While internships can be hard to land and require significant time commitment, they are the most effective way for junior engineers to gain meaningful experience and stand out in the competitive job market.

Keywords

💡Job Market

The job market refers to the demand for workers and the availability of jobs in various industries. In the video, the speaker highlights how the current job market is particularly tough for junior engineers, with even entry-level positions requiring several years of experience. This sets the stage for the advice on how to stand out in such a competitive environment.

💡Entry-Level Roles

Entry-level roles are positions typically designed for individuals with little to no professional work experience. The video emphasizes the challenge that junior engineers face as many of these roles now require multiple years of experience, making it harder for fresh graduates or those just entering the field to get hired.

💡Projects

Projects in this context refer to coding or software development exercises that individuals complete to showcase their skills. The speaker argues that while projects are useful for learning, they are not the best way to land a job. This is because hiring managers often don't care about projects as much as real-world experience with production code.

💡Internship

An internship is a temporary position that offers hands-on experience in a professional environment, often as a stepping stone to full-time employment. The speaker highlights internships as the 'gold standard' for gaining real-world experience, comparing it to a medical residency. Internships offer the most valuable form of experience for junior engineers looking to build their careers.

💡Production Code

Production code refers to software that is deployed in a live environment, being used by actual users. The speaker stresses the importance of having experience working with production code, as it exposes junior engineers to the realities of maintaining and updating systems that have real-world impact, unlike coding projects that only run in isolated environments.

💡GitHub

GitHub is a platform where developers can host, share, and collaborate on code. The speaker mentions that despite many candidates showcasing their projects on GitHub, hiring managers rarely take the time to review them. This is because the code often doesn't run correctly, and recruiters are more interested in candidates' real-world experience.

💡Volunteering

Volunteering, in the context of the video, refers to offering technical skills for free to businesses or nonprofit organizations in order to gain experience. The speaker suggests volunteering as a valuable way for junior engineers to develop real-world experience, communicate with clients, and meet deadlines, all of which can help in landing a job.

💡Open-Source Projects

Open-source projects are publicly accessible software projects where anyone can contribute. The speaker mentions contributing to well-known open-source projects as a strategy to build experience. Successful contributions to such projects can make a resume stand out, as they demonstrate an ability to work on significant, collaborative codebases.

💡Residency Program

A residency program is a period of supervised practice that medical graduates undergo before they are allowed to practice independently. The speaker uses this analogy to explain why internships are crucial for junior engineers, as they provide supervised, real-world experience, similar to how a residency prepares doctors for independent practice.

💡CrowdStrike Outage

The CrowdStrike outage refers to a major software bug that almost caused a global service failure. The speaker uses this example to illustrate why companies are cautious about hiring junior engineers without real-world experience, as inexperienced coders can introduce critical bugs that could lead to disastrous consequences for a company’s systems.

Highlights

The job market for junior engineers is tough, with many entry-level roles requiring multiple years of experience.

Focusing on coding projects as a way to get hired is not effective, despite popular belief.

Projects are valuable for learning, but do not impress hiring managers because they often don't involve real-world production code.

Hiring managers rarely check GitHub projects, as the code often doesn't run or lacks real impact.

Internships are the tech equivalent of medical residencies, providing supervised, real-world experience.

Junior engineers should prioritize getting internships over working on personal projects.

Projects often don't translate into job offers because they lack the pressure and consequences of real-world stakes.

One of the best strategies is to start a business, with building an iOS app offering notable impact but requiring significant time.

Building an Android app is also effective but slightly easier to execute compared to an iOS app.

Building a website or Chrome extension is accessible and can show relevant skills, but may have lower impact.

Volunteering for small businesses or nonprofits can help build real-world experience and is more valuable than personal projects.

Contributing to open-source projects is another way to build experience, but getting code accepted can be challenging.

Internships are the gold standard for gaining experience and validation in the tech industry.

Internships offer real-world exposure, high impact, and often come with significant pay.

In California, the average hourly wage for software engineering interns is over $24, and can go much higher in certain companies.

Transcripts

there's no argument that the job market

right now is pretty tough especially for

junior engineers and students we've been

seeing that a lot of job descriptions

have been asking for multiple years of

work experience even for entry level

roles so what the heck do you do about

it to differentiate yourself and I tell

you the answer is not projects and I

will explain why not projects I also

want to break down seven better ways

Junior Engineers can start building

experience even without having a formal

job as someone who has been working in

tech for close to 20 years now and as a

retired software engineering manager

from meta it kind of drives me up the

wall every time one of those videos pop

up title like these coding projects will

give you an unfair advantage and I'm

thinking well if you have done any

hiring or managing you would probably

never make videos like that then it did

hit me I actually haven't ever seen a

single thing software engineering

manager on YouTube I think I saw one

from Uber and usually Managers from

companies I haven't really heard of but

never from a Fan Company correct me if

I'm wrong if you know anyone else who

has been a manager at a Fang company

leave a name in the comment and I would

love to check them out going back to the

projects there are tons of videos out

there talking as if working on projects

is like magic ticket to getting hired at

tech companies and it is tempting to

think if I just click ahead and find one

magical project idea that will Lam me a

job but honestly focusing on projects as

your path to getting hired is one of the

dumbest ways to waste your time in my

opinion and here's the thing projects

are great for learning they help you

understand New Concepts practice coding

and build up your skills as a programmer

but when it comes to getting a job

that's a whole different story why do

hiring managers not care about your

projects imagine you need brain surgery

and you're looking for a doctor I come

to you and say hey I went to medical

school and I've done five simulations of

brain surgery on a computer in a control

environment AKA like your git or my

schools lab let me operate on your brain

if I said that as a doctor would you let

me operate on you probably not I

wouldn't now hospitals have residency

programs for a reason these recent

medical grads don't just dive into solo

surgeries first they watch procedures

then assist and only after enough

supervised practice do they do their own

surgeries and the tech equivalent of a

residency is an insip people ask me on

comments all the time I'm studying

computer science or machine learning or

data science what should I focus on and

I say go get an internship now coding

isn't usually life or death like brain

surgery but then again you did see what

happened with Crow strike the bug that

almost took down the world if you have

been living under a rock check out my

video covering the crowd's St outage and

because companies don't want to hire

full-time Junior Engineers only to see

them taking down the entire product they

usually look for people who have worked

with real life production code dealing

with real users and real sticks not just

code that runs on a local machine or

some virtual environment that has no

direct impact on actual users or to

automate your own life so do hiring

managers even look at GitHub or

portfolios and the answer is no and

here's why 99% of time the code doesn't

even run when I was hiring interns for

the first time at whatsapp I used to

review candidates a lot more carefully

partly because I didn't have a lot of

experience hiring and I wasn't sure what

to look for also since I was the 19th

engineer at whatsapp we were still

pretty small and we didn't get that many

candidates so I had the luxury to spend

more time on individual candidates back

then I would actually read some of the

code on GitHub but I quickly realized

that almost none of it actually ran

variables would be hardcoded or

functions would be missing there's also

another reason recruiters don't look at

GitHub according to a recent study

recruiters spend on average just about 7

Seconds glancing at a resume before

tossing it away they get hundreds

sometimes thousands of resumés for a

single role so do to they have time to

dig into your GitHub and review your

code probably not okay if projects and

githubschool with

this type of experience three is time

investment how much time does this

require last but not least earnings

potential is there an opportunity to

earn additional income for example

working on a GitHub project that doesn't

fully run zero on impact five on

accessibility time investment would be 1

to three depending on the project and

earnings potential is zero which brings

to a total of six to eight points I have

ranked these strategies and saved the

best for the last plus I have two bonus

strategies specifically for those

interested in becoming a machine

learning engineer which I'll cover at

the end of the list so let's dive in

first category of the projects are to

start your own business in the US

becoming a sole proprietor is pretty

straightforward I'm not a lawyer so I

won't be covering the details of setting

up your own company Google your local

regulations for that if you do decide to

go this route there are a few ways you

can do this so strategy number seven is

to build an iOS app impact here is 3 to

five grading on IOS app can really stand

out especially if you manage to pass the

Apple's tough review process this can be

a big plus if you are targeting rules

that do require iOS skills like becoming

an iOS Developer accessibility is two

because getting an iOS AB approved can

be challenging again because of the

Apple strict guidelines I gave one for

the time investment for the same reason

building an app that meets the iOS

standards can take a lot of time and

effort earnings potential can be

negative-1 or zero if you do decide to

register as a business you might have

some business cost and monetizing

through an app purchases or ads can be

an option but that is a lot of

additional work I'm just going to call

it zero for most people unless you're

really trying to make a buck so the

total comes out to five to seven points

next on the list is to build an Android

app the impact here would be 3.5 to 4.5

on Android app app might not be as

impressive as an IOS app in some cases

but it's still a solid Choice especially

since it's easier to get past the

Android review that's why I think it's a

little bit less impressive unless you're

going for an Android app developer role

for the same reason accessibility is

three time investment is a one is still

a time consuming project earning

potential again there may be some cost

involved with setting up the business

registration you might make a little bit

of Mone money but it's not guaranteed so

total comes out to be 5.5 to 7.5 points

next is building a website or a Chrome

extension impact here is 2 to three this

depends on the relevance to the job that

you're eyeing again accessibility would

be before because building a website or

a Chrome extension is generally much

easier than developing an app time

investment would be 3 to four the time

required will depend on how complex your

project is earnings potential is the

same making money from websites or

extensions is possible but the income

can be pretty minimal that brings a

total to about 8 to 11 points all right

let's dive into volunteering as the next

category this can be a great way to gain

experience and make a real impact there

are a number of ways you can do this so

strategy number four is to volunteer for

a business impact here is two because

volunteering for a local business can be

a little bit better than just doing

projects if you're working with small

companies that need technical support it

could show that you're willing to get

hands-on experience you can work with

clients communicate real requirements

meet deadlines and etc for accessibility

I gave it 2.5 finding a business that's

open to volunteers might take some

effort but it is definitely doable I

recommend you reach out to various

companies in your local area or online

time investment would be a three out of

five you have some flexibility here

since it's a volunteer PR you can can

quit if it's not working out earning

potential is obviously zero because

volunteering usually doesn't come with a

paycheck and it will be zero for the

remainder of the volunteer roles so here

the total is 7.5 number three is

volunteering for nonprofit organization

impact here is three volunteering for a

more well-known nonprofit can boost your

impressiveness Factor accessibility is

two it might be tougher to get a spot

with a high-profile nonprofit due to

competition kind investment would be

three so total here is eight number two

is working on open- Source projects

impact is three again contributing to a

well-known really popular open-source

projects can really make your resume pop

especially if your contribution is more

significant accessibility is three here

anyone can jump into open source

projects but getting your code accepted

can be more challenging time investment

would be 2 to 4 depending on the

complexity of the feature that you're

working on so the total here would be 8

to 10 points now here is what you have

been waiting for the number one option

really the best one is internship if

you're looking for the best way to build

experience hands down it's internship

impact here would be five plus I would

give it six if I could internships are

the gold standard when it comes to

experience remember when I compared it

to Medical residency earlier internship

do really offer real world exposure and

are the most validating for hiring

managers to believe in you as a

potential candidate accessibility here

is One landing on internship can be

tough time investment would be a one

because internships usually require a

long-term commitment it will be

dedicating a significant amount of time

and it's usually not very flexible but

on the upside the earnings potential is

a five plus again internships often come

with really great pay for example in

California the average hourly wage for a

software engineering intern is is about

$24.47 according to zip recruiter but

this is only average right from my

experience I have seen Insurance get way

more money than that and it's not just

big tech companies but startups can pay

really well as well so this brings a

total to 12 plus points if you're aiming

for a role in the tech industry an

internship is by far the most valuable

experience that you can get if you want

tips on Landing internships let me know

the comments and I can make a video

about it I said earlier in the video

that I'm going to share bonus strategies

for people who are interested in machine

learning roles but I'm sorry I ran out

of time so I'm going to have to record a

separate video about that if you're

interested in AI engineering or machine

learning type of roles and you want to

gain experience without actually having

a full-time job go ahead and watch this

video otherwise YouTube thinks you

should watch this one next I'll see you

there