🎙 About the episode
Meet Matheus Pessoa 🇧🇷! Matheus is a recently hired new developer who landed his first junior developer job after only about a year of learning to code. To make this story even more awesome, the CTO of the company he now works at reached out to him!
In this episode, you'll hear how Matheus approached learning to code with ADHD, how he chose front-end development as a career that blends his different interests, and how he ultimately landed his first dev job. You'll learn what's important when applying for jobs at startups (hint: it's not necessarily your tech knowledge, especially if you're a junior), whether you can apply for a position involving something you haven't learned yet, and how not to get stuck if everybody on your team is super young.
🔗 Connect with Matheus
⏰ Timestamps
- How Matheus decided to learn to code after studying statistics while being interested in visual arts (01:42)
- What projects did Matheus make to learn to code? (03:02)
- How Matheus decided to focus on becoming a front-end developer (04:32)
- How Matheus approached learning to code and navigated being self-taught while having ADHD (05:56)
- What's the job market like in Brazil, and when did Matheus start applying? (08:23)
- Community break! (09:35)
- The real challenge is finding the right cultural fit (11:37)
- Matheus found a job because the CTO of the company reached out to him! (12:06)
- Interviewing in reverse (14:43)
- What kind of technical skills were they looking for from a junior candidate? (15:47)
- What made Matheus stand out (16:10)
- What is more important: mission fit, tech, or communication skills?
- Matheus got an offer letter only five days after the interview! (18:22)
- What does a day of work look like for Matheus today? (20:08)
- Matheus works in a very young team. Here's why that's awesome and how to do with its shortcomings (20:41)
- Matheus's future career goals (21:55)
- What Matheus wishes he had known when he was starting out: Be patient! (22:38)
- Next week, Lane Wagner of Btalks about layoffs and what they mean for new developers (24:06)
🧰 Resources Mentioned
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