Why You Can't Find a Job as a Junior Ruby on Rails Developer

When I sat down to write this blog post, it was going to be titled “Tips and tricks to find your first junior (ruby on rails) developer role”. But, as I was writing it, I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I was repeating what everyone else was saying. They are common sense tips that you will probably read in every shape and form elsewhere.

Instead of recreating yet another easy-to-write, easy-to-forget blog, let’s explore why it’s currently difficult to find a job as a junior Ruby on Rails developer.

What can you do about it, hopefully giving you ammo on getting those first conversations?

What are those tips?

Before anything else, let’s make a quick list of the common tips you’ll find if you’re looking at getting your first junior developer job:

Be on time: I know this seems ridiculous to state, but you wouldn’t believe the number of people that are late for their interview and are not warning you. While shit can happen, and any interviewer will understand it, they can also smell bullshit excuses rather quickly. My view is either to be on time or cancel the interview altogether and try to rearrange it. Starting an interview late is a bad sign as you’ll both be under pressure for lost time.
Work for free: Again, another controversial point, but let me explore that for a second. I’m not advocating you work for free as a developer in a company. This should not be banned and not exists. But, if your circumstances allow you to do, you should spend time crafting things. Make your little todo app and deploy it on Heroku, for example. Or learn a new something about Rails you haven’t seen before and publish some little code on Github. The truth is, one of the first things a recruiter will do is search your name on google. They will look briefly at your social media feeds and look a little more closely at your GitHub account. And there, it’s pretty simple. Someone with more activity will, more often than not, be favourited against someone else. So commit small and push often. A less controversial way to label this would be “create your portfolio”.
Be humble: Yes, you have done a bootcamp, and some may want you to think that when you leave them, you’re almost a mid-dev after three months. This is not true. You’ll have a ton to learn that is not taught in bootcamp. So understand what you’re missing, where the holes are, and state them clearly.
Be ready and ask questions: Again, another one that seems like a no-brainer, but you would be surprised how many interviews I did where the person in front of me didn’t even bother looking at our company website, who we were and what we were doing. As a recruiter, this is very frustrating. And, if you spend minimal time looking at what the company is doing, you’ll hopefully get some questions. In fact, the more questions you have prepared, the merrier.

See, I told you, those tips are not groundbreaking. Again, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were to find those on every blog post about junior tips to get your first job.

Right, but why do I struggle to get the interview then?

Now we’re entering the actual subject. You’re ready. You’re prepared. You’ve got a small portfolio of little projects, but somehow, no jobs are coming your way. Why the hell is that?

It’s not you. It’s Rails

Unfortunately, at the moment, Ruby on Rails seems to be a double-edged sword. Ruby on Rails allows anyone and any team to write web applications productively. To achieve the same results, you then need fewer people. And needing fewer people is then having a direct effect on the recruitment rounds and most notably the juniors.

See, some recruitment manager or some teams only see in bringing juniors to their team the productivity impact this will cause (either because of the time they will take away from more senior folks, or because they could have hired a mid-level/senior instead).

Now, on this point, realistically, there’s nothing you can do to change their mind. It’s a difficult decision to reason because one side of the equation is true (yes, taking a junior in a team will have an impact on productivity), but the other side is entirely narrow minded.

So, yes, it’s not you. It’s Rails. But, the community is becoming more aware of the issue. Most of us have a deep sense of pride and attachment to Rails as a framework but also realise that we need to solve this issue for Rails to strive in its renaissance. For Ruby on Rails to continue its journey, we need to get more people (juniors) to experience it.

It’s not you. It’s the (more) seniors developers

While this point is valid for Rails, it’s also true for any other language and framework.

Sometimes seniors might be excellent developers, but they can be terrible mentors.

A junior developer will inevitably need a mentor to grow and strive in his journey, and this mentor should, more often than not, be found in the team he spends his day with.

But when the seniors in the team don’t have that mindset, they sometimes can be blockers into bringing Junior folks into the team.

Unfortunately, this might be due to the strange progression expectations of our industry.

You see, I have more than 20 years of experience as a developer, and sometimes I struggle to call myself a senior developer. I’m still part of a specific journey, and I’m still learning.

But it’s not rare to see someone rise from Junior to Senior or sometimes even CTO in a very short (less than five years) career span.

This is something I find incredibly unsettling about our industry. Why are we looking to move so quickly to those senior positions? Yes, pay compensations and responsibilities are one part of the equation. Still, the reality is that when you get senior developers with five years of experience, they might not have the time to develop some of the soft skills needed to succeed as well-rounded developers. Mentoring/training is undoubtedly part of it.

It’s not you. It’s us

While (some) Senior developers have a role to play in the current situation, founders / recruiting managers should also look at themselves.

Based on what we said so far, we know that:

It’s difficult to recruit
Rails is a productive tool and will allow anyone to work faster with it
Some seniors are not keen or ready to become a mentor

Taking all this in consideration, it’s easier to see why some of the people in charge will revert to the mid/senior roles only.

This is a false good idea.

By doing so, the team exposes itself to a various series of issues.

Churn for pay: In a world where it’s easier to change jobs to get a 30% pay rise versus staying in place and getting 5% extra per year, mid to senior people will churn rapidly.
No mentoring: A team not mentoring its mentors will never change. If the people in the seniority position are not ready to take onto their wings some newer folks and nobody is helping them, they will never change and do it.
Possible lack of diversity: Not only in terms of gender or skin colour but also in terms of problems’ approach and background. Juniors tend to come from various backgrounds, bringing a fresh new perspective on the product or problem a team is trying to solve.

Hiring juniors well could combat all these points. Hiring juniors will give seniors an extra sense of achievement that will sometimes retain them in the current team for longer (as long as they are well supported in their mentoring journey). Juniors will bring a fresh new perspective and, if treated well, will stay loyal to the team that gave them a chance in the first place.

But don’t despair. Things are moving

While this is painting a pretty gloomy picture of the whole situation, some voices in the community are starting to emerge and are raising the same concerns I present in this article.

It will change, I’m sure. Things have to move as, without giving a chance to folks who want to join our community, Ruby on Rails might be the best framework in the world to build products, but it will then lack the talents to write the code.

We’re literally shooting ourselves in the foot if we are not welcoming and training the next round of talents.

Ok, so how do I get my first interview?

Right, that was quite a lot of introduction to the problem. But you might wonder what difference it makes to you and how you’ll get that first interview.

Well, the job as a developer is about solving problems, and you trying to get a job is currently your first problem to solve. It’s going to be time to be creative.

And to solve a problem, you need to understand your users. You need to understand and reflect on what they are experiencing, how they are currently solving their problem, and the possible solutions you can bring to the table.

In that scenario:

your users are your future team or the next hiring manager
their problem is that they need new people joining their team
they are currently solving it by hiring people more senior than you

Great, now that we’ve assessed the problem and, if you’ve read the rest of the post, you should understand more about the various mindsets at play. We must concentrate on the few tactics that will separate you from the pack.

Select passionately

If you’re struggling to find your first job, it’s tempting to “spread and pray” your CV to every recruiter and respond to every job application.

Unfortunately, this is doing more harm than good. The difference between a generic email and a personal one is night and day.

A personal approach is a lot more effective. They can’t blast these emails (even if you can reuse a lot from one email to another). They seem to have taken a bit more time and careful consideration on who to apply with.

As a person in charge of recruitment, I receive at least a dozen generic emails a week when we say we’re hiring.

I don’t often receive personal ones, but when I do, I look at them differently and will give them a stronger consideration.

Have something to show

I know what you think. How can I possibly have something meaningful or worthwhile to show if I’m just a junior?

But, having “something to show” doesn’t mean something crazy and super innovative to show.

It means be prepared to share one or two examples of codes you’re proud of.

When we look at this code, our aim is not to judge the “cleverness” of the code. We (or at least I) will be looking mainly at:

The fact that you’ve taken the time to master your craft
The general structure of the code
If you wrote any tests for it

Don’t be scared to apply

That’s typically when I hear an “easier said than done, Nic!”. But trust me.

While it’s difficult to tentatively apply to companies that are not hiring right now, if you “select passionately”, it should reduce the scope of those companies.

Secondly, if you see some that have open positions for a more qualified role (like the dreaded minimum three years of experience), I would urge you still apply.

But, don’t apply by sending a generic three lines email. Take the time to craft that first intro email showing them you’ve put some careful consideration about applying there.

Agency / Consultancy / Products

The kind of companies you will be applying to will most likely fit one of those three categories—each with its pros and cons.

Agencies build products for other people. They are paid to write code for a client, usually for a fixed amount of time. Agency work is great for junior developers because you will see a lot of different products as well as a lot of different codebases and possible coding styles.

Consultancies are still paid to write code for other people, but this time they are not writing a new product but improving an existing one. Because consultancies are hired for their brain and expertise, it will be difficult, as a junior, to find your way in.

Products is a vast title. Unlike agency work, product work tends to be less stressful. Deadlines still exist, but they are fixed internally and tend to be less dramatic.

Closing words

Sorry, I didn’t intend to write something that long, but if you’re still there, it is probably worthwhile.

I know that some of these points go against what people would like to read or even how our industry should work, but they are the reality for the moment.

Don’t get discouraged if you are looking for a (Ruby on Rails) junior position.

Our industry needs you.

But more importantly, when you’ve found your position and grown in seniority, don’t forget, at some point, to give their chance to that younger, hungrier you. You could be surprised by who they become.