How I went from 4LPA to 10+ LPA as 3 tier college grad
India is still a developing country and there is huge competition for single jobs and only the IT industry is becoming the savior for engineers. In India, mostly 3/4 tier engineering college graduates either leave India for better benefits or do masters in computer science, MBA . even after masters, MBA, most graduates either do some other job or remain jobless, underpaid.
But nowadays this is not true that only 1/2 tier grads get lucrative jobs. I am a 2020 graduate from 3 tier engineering college then also I am getting offers from 10 LPA-12 LPA with WFH and other benefits. even I got messages from recruiters of USA startups. getting 10 LPA — 12 LPA job offers right out from the college is a dream for many 3/4 tier comp sci graduates. The target audience of this blog is 3/4 tier Indian grads. so, if you are not from India or you are from 1/2 tier Indian grad let me know in the comments if I am missing anything in this blog.
Starting Early and Finding Domain
Most Indian college grads in the last year join some programming classes or start preparing for competitive exams. I advise you to start exploring every domain of computer science from the 2nd year.
Picking Up Programming Language
You will find hundreds of online resources, blogs for this topic. let me make it easy for you — pick a language that is of your domain and you like working with. I was interested in web development and at my time, javascript was not a popular language it was just client-side language but now javascript is getting used for building APIs, App development, and even for machine learning.
There is no programming language on this planet which don’t have conditions, operators, variables, loops, function. so, once you learn one language it will become easy for you to learn any other language. still, confused? check out the article https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/stack-overflow-developer-survey-2020-programming-language-framework-salary-data/
Learning Core Skills
Clean coding, optimization techniques, scaling software, designing highly tolerant software, making code scalable, version control, and understanding the internal working of the programming language. all these come under “Core Skills” and these skills will make stand out from the crowd
Building Projects
Building projects are not that hard all you have to do is apply what you learned from courses or books. start building very small projects and gradually increase the complexity of the projects and deploy projects on GitHub and the internet. if you want to stand out build libraries, frameworks and deploy them to GitHub. don’t forget to write documentation of the project, instructions for local development.
Portfolio and Blog
As you know coronavirus changed the whole industry. Now, people are getting remote jobs in other countries. now your opportunities are not just limited to your city, country. you can get remote jobs abroad.
The portfolio shows that how much you are serious about your work and it also shows passion, professionalism. There is plenty of portfolio design is available on the internet and you don’t need fancy domain names like .com, .dev, .code you can easily host your portfolio on Github Pages. In your portfolio list out only quality projects don’t list out every project. if you did any freelancer works don’t forget to show a case study of that project show objectives, outcomes of the project. check out this blog for inspiration 30 developer portfolios to inspire you, 15 Web Developer Portfolios to Inspire You, my portfolio
Use medium, dev.to, hashnode for blogging. honestly, never self host your blog because for a successful blog you need to invest money in SEO, marketing and these platforms are doing everything for you without any cost. you can start writing blogs on interview questions, programming concepts, trending technologies, tutorials. blogging improves your skills in writing documentation, technical blogs and it also shows how much you are passionate. if you have a hard time writing technical blogs. check out this
These two thing is really important I got my first remote internship due to my portfolio and quality projects.
Building Killer ATS Proof Resume
Making a Resume for every job application is time consuming process sadly there is no way to tackle this issue. try to make a resume relevant to the job description. I already wrote a blog on this topic check out here No BS Guide To Make Killer ATS Proof Resume
Say No To Unpaid Internships
Instead of finding unpaid internships give priority to paid internships. unpaid internships show that you don’t respect yourself and it not contribute to your branding and as you know most unpaid internship is exploitation. if you are getting paid before graduating you can project these internships as your strength in your job interviews and negotiate for salary and that’s what I did in my first job interview. there is a common culture in the Indian IT industry that you have to show salary slips to employers for hikes, proof of employment and I had all salary slips of my internship so, it was not hard to prove the companies.
After, doing my 2 paid internships. in 3rd year of college I directly got a job as a javascript consultant with work from home before COVID-19 getting a WFH job was big deal.
I am highly encouraged to not fall into the trap of unpaid internships. if you are not getting paid internships it means you lack skills in either programming, communication. work on skills and re-apply. use Reddit, social media, LinkedIn, and other job portals to find paid internships
DSA helps to become a good developer
In one of the project codebase, I found horrible code full of nested loops, unnecessary filtering arrays, and horrible logic. after analyzing the code I found the solution using hashmap I reduced loops, removed nested loops. that horrible code was working code because the company had few users if there were so many users it will take more than 1+ minutes to complete 1 request and after seniors reviewed my code and they appreciated me. see this is how DSA helps you become a good developer.
In an interview, I failed to write the right solution of the N-queen problem which is a very common problem of backtracking but then also I got the job. In DSA interviews, most interviewers want to see your approach to solve a problem they don’t want the right answer or solution. Just start grinding leetcode and try to become an analytical person and honestly, competitive programming helps you to become a 10x problem solver but it is not needed to crack interviews.
Some Resources To Learn and Practice DSA
- leetcode.com
- Cracking The Coding Interview
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBSGKlAvoiM&t=34s
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee0HzlnIYWQ
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2CEgPsws3U
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA-tUyM_y7s&list=PLUl4u3cNGP63EdVPNLG3ToM6LaEUuStEY&index=1
- SDE sheet from a competitive programmer who cracked FAANG
Contributing To Open Source
Honestly, I never contributed to open source projects when I was in college. I just started contributing before 2–3 months. I contributed to a very small project and my contribution was pretty little after this contribution I think after 1 or 2 weeks recruiter of a USA remote startup reached to me for the job position I passed the first interview but after that interview, I got the job in Indian startup and pay was same. so, I accepted that offer and canceled interviews with a USA startup.
Open source contribution can get you in tech companies if you genuinely contribute and don’t spam PR requests also open source contribution increase your personal branding and make you visible in the community it means your network will increase and a big network means more job opportunities. check out the video of GitHub star https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCoHyI21bAo
Develop Soft Skill
Soft Skill is the second key to getting any job. empathy, listening is much more important than politeness. communication not just helps you to clear interviews but also helps in a job if you are a software engineer then your responsibility is not just developing features/projects but also collaborating with project manager/backend teams/frontend teams/other software engineers. I highly encourage you if you do not understand the codebase try to communicate with other engineers. watch a video which I have given below
Building Optimized Profile
if you want to attract high-paying job offers make an optimized profile on every job portal. I got a message from recruiters of Ola, USA remote startups, and other companies for an interview. you have to follow the steps which I listed
- Upload a professional picture that clearly shows your face. don’t upload selfies and don’t upload scanned passport size photo
- Write a good headline for your profile. instead of writing “Software engineer”,” Frontend Developer”, etc write “Software Engineer @ company name”
- Explain your work experience in detail. instead of writing” worked on React project” write “Created reusable, optimized components and integrated with redux and APIs”
- Write a post, comment on the post, give your opinions. but don’t spam it. try to network
- If you think you are fit for a job ask referral for a job
Meetups
Meetups are a much more efficient, faster way to build your professional network. just install the meetup app and find communities. also, check Facebook, discord sometimes some meetups are not listed on the meetup app. In meetups, you will not find only developers but also CXOs. also, you can give tech talks in meetups. So far, I have only gone for Vadodara WordPress Meetup and OWASP Ahmedabad Chapter
Don’t take this roadmap literally journey of every developer is different enjoy your journey and don’t compare yourself with others. feel free if something I missed. feel free to reach me
Edit — I removed the offer letter from article
Ready to kickstart your software engineering career? I’m a Senior Software Engineer with 5+ years of experience, here to guide college grads, students, and tech enthusiasts. Get a FREE 1:1 career session — https://topmate.io/yashraj_basan/177532 (Free for the first 10 people).
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