The What
DevCoach is an initiative which is all about helping people to develop the skills and mindset of a professional software developer to maximize their chances of passing any technical interview as a Junior Software Developer in a company.
The initiative was started in 2017 as a personal project (by myself) and and in time it grew, impacting more and more people in a positive way.
Hopefully it will continue to grow, bringing more value to more people who need it.
The Why
The main purpose of DevCoach is to build the foundations required for a true professional software developer.
From my technical experience, I know that it's true what they say: good technical people are rare.
I also think that one can't achieve great things alone, you need a team. A great team, consisting of great technical people. So it's in everybody's interest to grow more technical people with a solid foundation.
We all know that the software development field can be quite challenging, especially in the beginning. Once you manage to get hired, things will get a bit easier as you will have access to valuable learning resources (e.g. colleagues, internal events, conferences, videos, books etc.) to learn from. So there are many opportunities to learn new things afterwards.
However, this is AFTER you get hired. To get hired, you have to invest some more energy as usually the learning opportunities are more limited and with a lower return value as you will constantly doubt whether what you learned is correctly applied.
So why not provide an opportunity for the people determined to learn?
This way, I can give back the help I never had when I started out. I know things can be really intimidating at first, but usually you just need another way of looking at things to understand the basics and build strong foundations. Given I also love to help others succeed in an area I also enjoy, this makes it easier for me and also gives me further motivation to do it.
Lastly, for me it's all about making a positive impact. I have realized I've been doing it indirectly for some time and I will keep making a (positive) difference in different forms, such as giving you the opportunity to change your career for example, which of course will also change your life (for the better from my perspective).
The How
Okay, okay, so helping determined people to build a solid software development foundation to maximize the chances of passing a technical interview for a junior role. Got it. But how does this happen? Good question.
I don't think there's a silver bullet for this given everybody has its own way of learning and thinking. This is why, through DevCoach, I want to cover multiple approaches.
Before getting into it, I want to mention that this initiative is a personal project and I take care of it in my free time which is getting more and more limited with my increasing responsibilities. But, this does not mean that I cannot do it, it's just that I can't focus on it 100% as I also have a full time job.
The good part is that you can benefit from this as I can share real life insights with you. For example, the top 3 things which in my opinion as a technical interviewer, I've noticed on mediocre candidates are: shaky foundations, self-limiting mindsets and lack of soft skills. Obviously, this is what we will focus on.
Free Resources
Through DevCoach, there are several free resources that anybody can access to get better. This includes the blog where when I have the time, I write original articles on topics I see people struggle with. Sharing of various interesting articles via the social media channels. Answering to any punctual question if I can. If I can't, I can usually redirect you in other sources which can help (it's not like I know everything). Also, if you need any career advice or questions I am happy to help.
Also, the community which is currently developing is also able to answer some of your questions, even faster.
Every now and then I join conferences both as a speaker on various topics and as a participant where I can share the things I found interesting.
Last, but not least, myself, together with some community members gather up and build some community projects to put in practice some skills and do something great for a cause.
For example, in 2020, with some of the participants from the course, we designed an application meant to limit the spread of COVID by scheduling your visit to the supermarkets to avoid crowded places. The application was live for several months, but unfortunately it was not used as often we hoped for, but at least everybody benefited from the knowledge applied for creating it.
Premium Resources
DevCoach also offers premium resources, namely courses which take you from one point to another, in a step by step fashion, so that you get more in depth knowledge in a logical way for you to learn significantly faster. Clearly, these resources take a lot of time and effort to create and sustain and are only partially free. However, given the value they bring and the impact they have, the prices are reasonable compared with the gains (i.e. getting hired in the software development field) from my perspective.
Currently there is a big course, the essence of the DevCoach initiative, one which in my opinion takes you from the absolute beginner to having a rock solid foundation on the basic concepts which is enough to pass the technical interview as a junior in any company.
Check out the Intro to Programming course, which is 100% free (no credit card required), so that you can have a feeling on how the topics are taught and also have a better understanding on what software development is.
Afterwards you can continue, if you want, with the rest of the Basic Programming course which will build your solid knowledge foundation to help you nail the technical interview for an entry level position as a Junior Software Engineer. You can see more details here.
Most likely, in the future there will be other courses, maybe smaller ones which focus on a specific topic only. However, as an absolute beginner and not only, the Basic Programming course will put you on the right track and the feedback I received so far is excellent. You can start for free now.
Target Audience
DevCoach focuses on the "education" of the software developers, a process which is usually best developed during the beginning of one's career, so our targeted audience consists of students or other people looking for a career change, both strongly determined in becoming software developers. This recommendation mostly applies for the courses as we've observed that having the goal of getting hired significantly increases the motivation for learning.
Next
The goal for DevCoach is to continue to grow and have an even greater, positive impact on the community members.
As I get this question a lot from my Basic Programming participants, no, I won't make specialized, in-depth courses because I think there are plenty of resources already available and it doesn't make sense to duplicate this information. Also, now that you are at least a junior and joined a company, you should be able to learn by yourself anyway by accessing the resources provided by your company and not only.
DevCoach is about helping those beginning their journey as software developers but are not quire there yet. So any future courses will be focused on the basics, on some complementary skills to those described in the Basic Programming course, which I think is the starting point, the foundation for any software developer, regardless the field (web, desktop, mobile, database etc.).
Clearly, I can't do this alone so as soon as I find like minded people willing to help in this direction you'll hear from them. I encourage anyone to join DevCoach and provide a better way for helping beginners.
In case you have ideas for a course or would like to lead a community project, drop me a line and let's see what great things we can achieve together.
I also appreciate any kind of feedback, good or bad, if you have a few minutes to spare, let me know, I really appreciate it!
I wish you great success in building the solid foundations for the future professional software developer in you!