What I Want to Punch
What Inspires Me
We all get our inspiration from somewhere. For me, it’s been finally finding people who look like me in the tech industry and seeing them succeed. When I attended LTX Fest back in 2019, a major conference that brings together Latinxs in tech, my key takeaways revolved around how to level up my career and the importance of giving back to the community by always paying it forward. I didn’t really know how to do that though. I had a hard time finding an active Latinx organization in Chicago that helped Latinxs get into and succeed in tech. And at the time, I had less than a year of professional developer experience so I wasn’t sure if I was at the “right level” to mentor anyone coming into tech.
Luckily, LTX Fest introduced me to a lot of folks killing it at their own companies and careers – and I made sure to follow them on social media. These are the people I get my inspiration from. I don’t remember exactly how I came across it, but I saw a few people mention Nathalie Molina Niño’s Leapfrog: The New Revolution for Women Entrepreneurs. This book gave me my “AHA!” moment. I now knew how I was going to both level up my career and do it in a way that helps me help others.
What I Want to Punch
If you’ve read Leapfrog, then you know what I’m talking about. For those that haven’t read it, and I recommend that you do, here’s the gist of what Molina Niño is talking about. One of her Leapfrog hacks – hack #11 – is to find something you want to punch; a problem in our daily life that makes you “want to raise hell.” For me, it was trying to get the experience that is expected by companies of entry level developers when no one wants to give you the chance to gain that experience.
This was the problem I had during my almost 3 year job search. I didn’t know how to set myself apart from other candidates. I didn’t know how to best format and optimize my résumé. I didn’t know what to expect from an interview process or what questions I would be asked. It hadn’t yet sunk in that I should be interviewing them just as much as they were interviewing me. I felt like I had to mold myself into what they expected of an ideal candidate.
Why I Started Rising Dev Habits
What I’ve now learned from my experiences – and what I hope to pass on to you – is that it’s important to think about and envision the type of company you want to work for – the industry, the size, the cause, what your day-to-day looks like, and the impact you want to have. Figuring this out helped guide some of the questions I needed to be asking during the interview process to determine if the company was the right fit for me.
Now I know that’s easier said than done when you have at least some professional experience under your belt. But hear me out. I can’t think of a specific company where I’ve said, “I want to work at [X]! That’s my dream company!”. Not even during my first job search. I was just hoping someone would give me a chance to gain experience. The thing is, getting specific with my ideal type of company and culture is what has and continues helping guide my effort towards landing my next job.
I don’t want people telling me I don’t have enough experience. I don’t want to hesitate when I apply for my next job. I don’t want to second guess my abilities. My plan for punching through those “not enough experience” roadblocks is this blog. Let’s face it, no matter what level software engineer you are, there’s always room for improvement. The point of this blog is to showcase how I continue to improve and the fact that I put in an honest effort into improving. Knowing exactly what I want tells me how much effort I have to put into getting it. And finally getting it is what makes all the effort worth it.
If you’re someone struggling to land your first job in tech, or even someone more experienced looking to move up, my advice to you is to take some time and figure out what your ideal company and role look like. And then, be willing to go the extra mile to help yourself stand out against other applicants. Build small projects and post them on GitHub and make sure they’re clean and self-explanatory. Can’t think of a project? Mimic a feature of your favorite app or website. Publish some blog posts on Medium about something you’ve worked on and post it on LinkedIn. Follow people at the company you’d like to work for and interact with their content by commenting. That could be the least awkward way to start connecting with people.
Start punching away at that “not enough experience” roadblock. Knowing exactly what you want and potentially getting it makes all the extra work worth it.