Hello, World!
It takes me a while to have something developed by myself to express my craftsmanship. It is also difficult for me as non-native English speaker, to write and publish an article about it.
After graduation, I found it extremely hard to land my first job as a software developer in New Zealand. As an international student with no connections and no relevant commercial experiences, fighting in kitchens to pay bills and rent in the 21st most expensive city in the world, Auckland.
I tried my best to get myself recognised as a coder such as joining the Microsoft Student Accelerator Programme for New Zealand (MSA), and completing my final project (an e-commerce website) for my degree in New Zealand with a Kiwi business owner.
Well, It did not lead me to the outcome that I expected (becoming a software developer here). When your degree and your academic experience are not returning you a 200 HTTP status code on your programming career, but a big red 404. So please sing along with me the song Everybody Hurts by R.E.M.
I felt completely lost....
It's fair enough to say that an overseas person needs to try harder for recognition from the local community, and to try many times harder to stand out.
The challenge is: there is NO standard syntax for this. Gaining experience takes time, and time is not everyone's ally.
Life as it is, In May 2016 on aucklandnz.com I saw a scholarship for a BootCamp and internship at Industry Connect.
A light at the end of the tunnel, I just hope it ain't no train :), I applied and luckily I was accepted.
After my BootCamp at Industry Connect, I got my hands dirty on front-end with AnglarJS. The internship with MVP studio allowed me to gain more hands-on commercial experience. I built my skills up with ASP.NET MVC 5 and Azure. Working 7 days per week: 5 days coding 2 days dishes-ing. In my free time, I gain new skills with new technologies and tools, and finally today I have a portfolio to demonstrate the "Hello, World!" by my own hands: a developer, not a student, not a marketer, not a dancer, or a kitchenhand.
First, a personal blog, powered by Jekyll and GitHub-Pages for blogging technique issues and solutions that I found. I make it special by adding AngularJS, Angular Material, and cloud-based on Azure and AWS.
Secondly, a cloud-based lab for practising and experimenting with new technologies and tools. At the time of this post, it is a coming soon page. It is built as a Single Page Application, using AngularJS and Angular Material to consume backend ASP.NET Core Web API.
Technically, I can see myself growing over time. The light which I found at the end of the tunnel (confirmed not a train), I am keeping it. Now, I am looking for someone or a team, who can teach me to appreciate detail and software craftsmanship.
I look forward to hearing from you and your team.