The Software Engineer Growth Letter

![tech is too hard. i quit](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/7558/conversions/tweet-1702802140152881412-1-image.png)

It was painful reading this message on the timeline.

But sadly, this is the story of thousands of people getting into tech in 2023.

❌ Job market is saturated

❌ Scam courses everywhere

❌ Hard time for newbies in tech

Before starting a career, the best thing you can do for yourself is making a **long term plan** and set **realistic expectations**.

Many people advertise tech saying you can land a remote job in 6months to 2 years.

False.

Here's my career progression, and all the salaries I had in my 8 years in tech.

***Year 0 - 2 (Learning: $0)***
 
***Year one Professional: $0 (Worked for free) 
Year two: $1k 
Year three: $1k 
Year four: $10k 
Year 5: $70k 
Year 8: $140k***


If I had given up in the first 3 - 4 years of joining a tech career, I would not be where I am today.

These first few years were painful and hard.

But, now I have:

- A skill that can pay me every month for the rest of my life
- Experience to get even higher pay as time goes on
- Flexibility to grow into any other career paths I choose.
- Work from anywhere in the world (Dubai, Bali, Cape Town, Lagos)

Here's the takeaway from this newsletter:

## Have really realistic expectations. 

A career in tech is not fast. It's a slow burn. It takes time, sacrifice, and a long term mindset to rip the benefits.

## Prepare to be the best

Tech is competitive. Only those that strive for perfection and being the best will stand out. No more half ass coding. 

No more passive designing. You need a hunger to be world class in order to survive the industry.

## Have a strictly set career plan

Create a career plan set in reality. In year 2 of your career, your plan shouldn't be to chase remote jobs. You should be focused on building evidence and experience to prepare yourself for future success.

Know what to focus on at the right time, so you don't get confused or disappointed.


So I have just one question for you:

> Are you willing to pay the price for the next 3 years to build a long term successful career you can count on for the next 30+ years?

Tech is too hard. I quit

Hey {{ subscriber.first_name }},

~5 years ago I landed my first remote job. Since then I've landed many more offers for remote companies in the US, Canada and Europe.

I made so many mistakes that led to hundreds of rejections. In this letter, I'll tell you those 3 mistakes, so you never have to job hunt ignorantly again.

If you're applying to more than **2 - 4 jobs per day**, then you might be making some of these mistakes:

## 1/3 Applying for non global remote roles

Look at these two job postings:

![toggl job posting](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/7460/conversions/f4mnnkewwaapcim-image.jpeg)

![aha job posting](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/7461/conversions/f4mnnkbxgaaxd2n-image.jpeg)

Most remote jobs have something called called regional restrictions. This means that they can't hire someone from a different timezone or region even if they wanted to. They are limited by the laws of the country, or the structure of the company. 

So even if you're the best candidate, they won't be able to hire you. 90% of the time, you'll just get a generic rejection, and you'll keep thinking you're the problem.

You're not. 

Your location is just restricting you.

The only kinds of jobs or companies you should apply to are companies that are:

✅ Remote: Global 
✅ Remote: Work from Anywhere 
✅ Remote: EMEA (Double check the job description to confirm Africa)

## 2/3 Applying to jobs you don't match

There's a popular piece of advice you'll see online: Apply to jobs even if you ***meet only 50% of the requirements***.

That's old advice.

As you know the tech industry has tanked, and has been tanking for the past 2 years. Jobs aren't as available anymore, and there's a lot of junior talent, but only senior positions, and very few of them.

This means that competition is extremely high. Recruiters have to go through **3,000+ applicants** per job posting, and they get hundreds of highly qualified candidates that match 100%+ of the requirements, and dozens that are overqualified.

What you should do instead is:

✅ Find jobs where you're at least an 80% match 
✅ Take time to craft your perfect application for this role 
✅ Try to get a referral for the position but reaching out to employees or connections that work there 
✅ Hope for the best. Then rinse, repeat 

## 3/3 Generic Resumes and Cover Letters

With the spike in AI, everyone wants to use AI to generate their cover letter and resume for a job posting. While it can save you time, it could really reduce the quality of your application. 

And frankly, writing down a cover letter that outlines your strengths and why you are a great fit for this particular job won't take you up to 5 minutes.

Here's a sample cover letter I wrote some time ago:

![](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/7463/conversions/screenshot-2023-09-13-at-092645-image.png)

✅ I write down my top 5 achievements that are most relevant to the role 
✅ I write down my personal values most related to this company 
✅ And I show gratitude and send 

Everything I wrote is very relevant to this specific role, but it took me just a few minutes to write down. 

It takes just a few minutes to tweat your resume to match a particular job and company, but this could make a huge difference in the success of your application.

Thank you for reading. Book coming out really soon, and it's going to be 10x better than I ever anticipated.

Best regards,
Frantz

3 critical remote job hunting mistakes (and how to avoid them)

One of my strongest personal values is ***kaizen***: my value of **continuous improvement**. To continuously improve my life, career and happinness every month, I have a ritual I never miss.

At the end of every month, I sit on my balcony for an hour with my iPad, and ask myself 8 important questions every time.

If you're not intentional about your growth every month, then you can unconsciously stay stuck in the same position the entire year. It's happened to me before, and that's why I cultivated this ritual.

Today, I'm going to show you how exactly I continue growing and pushing my career forward with these 8 intentional questions:

## 1/8 What did I contribute ?

Your life and career become more rewarding when you make more and more valuable contributions to your industry, your company, and the people around you.

Every month, I find opportunities to make valuable contributions to my place of work, or to the people in my life. 

Some examples of my answers to this question in the past:

✅ Contribute to an open source community 
✅ Speak at a developer conference 
✅ Create a learning resource for beginners in tech 
✅ Cleanup tasks from backlog at work 

## 2/8 What did I achieve ?

After years of being at this career game, the months where I don't have a specific goal defined are the months when I achieve almost nothing. 

To answer this question, I look at my goals for the month, and see how many of them I was able to achieve.

Some of my achievements in the past month:

✅ Improved twitter impressions to 10 Million a month 
✅ Finished 2 more chapters of my Crushing Tech book 
✅ Completed a very long project at work 
✅ Finished 15 lessons learning the Spanish Language on LingQ 

I then proceed to set goals for the next month

## 3/8 Who did I impact ?

Impact is everything to me. That's what started this newsletter. Is someone's life, community or world better because of something I did ? Did my work create opportunities for someone ?

✅ Newsletter reader landed a contractor role as a software engineer 
✅ Mentee of mine landed an internship 
✅ Helped out a member of my family 
✅ Donated 2 laptops on Twitter 

## 4/8 What did I learn ?

I'm always growing. I always want to learn something new. Even when I think I understand something, I want to learn even more about it until I can call myself a master.

This month, I purchased a new course, and:

✅ Finished 4 sections of the Total Typescript course by Matt 

## 5/8 What did I procrastinate ?

Just like many people, I fight everyday to keep out procrastination from my life. When I say I'll do something, I do my utmost best to do it. But sometimes, I fall short. 

But I don't let this take me down. Every month, I write down all the things I procrastinated and why, then use this to make sure I do not procrastinate again in future.

✅ Delayed recording new videos for Tiktok and YouTube 

## 6/8 What feedback did I receive ?

When most people receive feedback, they either get mad, or annoyed, and just throw it away. Not me.

Feedback can be positive or negative, but either way, it can really help you see what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong. Sometimes I receive some cold hard feedback, but sometimes it's positive. 

Either way, this is my time to analyse the feedback, and make major decisions based on that feedback.

Here's some feedback I received in the last month:

✅ Your newsletters are good, but they haven't improved in a while 
✅ You're going great at work, but I think you have way more potential than you are using at the moment 

## 7/8 Who did I connect with ?

The people you know and connect with can really play a huge role in making your life easier. Connection goes both ways. I don't connect to people for selfish reasons. 

I always connect to receive and give value at the same time. 

This is also a moment to make a list of people I want to check up on, contribute value to, or just add to my contact list.

This month, I connected with:

✅ A student at University of London, to learn more about how to get an online Computer science degree 
✅ A YC startup CEO 
✅ 2 New Software Engineers living around me 

## 8/8 What made me happy ?

At the end of the day, happiness is the only reason we do all we do. If it doesn't make you happy, it might not be worth it. I document what made me happy, and what didn't make me happy.

I do more of what brought me happiness, and less of what took my happiness away.

✅ Planning for TenseiJS open source framework V2 
✅ Completing a project at work 
✅ Vacationing in Cape Town

8 questions to transform your career

Hello {{ subscriber.first_name }},

The only thing that is sure about your career as a software engineer is that you'll never stop learning.

> There is so much joy in learning a technology, and becoming a master at it

Here's a 5 step framework to learn any technology and become a master at it in as little time as possible:

![5-step-framework-to-learn-and-master-any-technology](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/7058/conversions/cream-professional-5-steps-digital-marketing-strategy-instagram-post-image.png)

## Research and Understanding

Never skip this step when learning a new technology. It is the most crucial. It is the difference between a developer that knows how to code React, and one who knows how to solve business problems using React.

In this first step of the learning framework, you focus on answering questions about the technology like:

✅ Why was this technology created ?

✅ What problem does it solve ?

✅ How do engineers use it in real life today ?

✅ When is the right time to choose this technology ?

✅ What are the other alternatives to using it ?

Before you go on to step 2, you should already have the strong confidence to be able to explain how this technology works, and when to use it.

***Example***: You want to learn React. You should understand that React is a frontend Javascript framework created at Facebook. The engineers at Facebook realised that they wrote the same Javascript over and over again, so they decided to bundle the repeated code into easy to understand patterns and use that to create a library called React.

Understanding is the key here. In the next steps, you have a much easier time if you had a great grasp of the problems this technology is solving.


## Follow along learning 

![youtube-tutorial](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/7059/conversions/screenshot-2023-08-23-at-115246-image.png)

You watch someone who is a master at that skill and do your best to follow everything they do. This could also be reading a book or blog article and following along closely, while doing exactly as directed. The goal is to get an overview of what you are trying to learn.

***Example***: You are learning React. You follow along an entire course or book about React. As you follow along, you do exactly as the learning resource instructs, writing every single line of code, and completing every exercise or task given to you.

You're not trying to do it yourself in this step, because you'll fail.

Instead, you are learning every single line of code and understanding what it does, then trying to replicate it.

Don't be shy to read or watch the resource again and again.

I recommend going through every learning resource at least 3 times. I read books at least 3 times, I watch courses at least 3 times, and even tutorials on YouTube. Your brain digests and understands what it seems a lot of times. 

> Even if you think you understand, follow along again. You'll uncover secrets in the technology you never even thought were possible.

## Practice 

Okay you're done following a learning resource. Next, recreate what you just learned without looking at the learning resource.

You are not trying to memorise, so you keep going back to the learning resource to refresh your memory, then come back to your project and practice.

You’ll usually be going back and forth a lot so that what you learned sticks.

***Example***: You are learning React. At the end of a book chapter, you created a landing page for a marketing website using React. To practise, attempt recreating the same landing page as closely as you can without looking at the book. You can keep referring to the learning resource until you understand all the principles and concepts.

> As from this step going forward, repetition is the ultimate secret to becoming a master of the technology.

Practice up to 4 times rewriting the same thing you just followed along. Whenever you are stuck, go back to the learning material, fill your knowledge gap, and get back to rebuilding what you learned.

## Mastery

You build 15+ projects with this technology. Not too big, but also not too small. These are all throw away projects, but they’ll help you master how to use the technology.

This is where my secret lies. Pick any technology from my resume.

I can confidently explain and talk about my experience in that technology because to learn it, I had to build dozens and dozens of projects so I can master that technology.

At this point, by the time you reach project 5, you'll begin to see that all technologies are extremely easy and a lot of fun to play with. 

> I remember when I challenged myself to build 100 React components. This was back in 2018. 5 years ago. And today, I consider myself a React Guru.

If you find yourself having to go back to the learning resource too often, you should go back to the practising step.

## Second nature mastery

You’ve mastered this technology. 

Now it needs to become second nature. 

> You can achieve second nature mastery in one simple way: Teaching. 

Teach someone else this technology. You can do this by creating a video tutorial explaining concepts, writing a technical article, documenting your journey, or mentoring someone else in just this specific technology.

<hr />

This is the strategy I've used for years to become a pro at what I do, and I have seen it work for hundreds of other people I've mentored and worked with.

I hope you use it and 10x your knowledge and expertise too.

How to learn and master any technology

Hello {{ subscriber.first_name }},


> This is the most important email I've ever written for your career, so please read till the end (3min read)

I post daily on social media so I can grow my audience. I got quite busy at work and decided to hire a social media manager to help me out. I had a very good budget, way above market rate for such roles. I was willing to pay even more if I found the right person.

I connected with **10 social media managers with over 5 years of experience** according to them. I set meetings with 4 of them, who looked like the best candidates to me.

The goal of this meeting was to introduce my brand to them and talk about their past experiences.

After speaking with all 4, **I hired none**.

They all had one major flaw in common. **Skill driven career focus**. They were proud to explain how long they had been posting on Instagram, Twitter and even Tik Tok.

They knew how to create video content, viral content, even podcasts. They could create slides on Instagram and beautiful grids.

That’s all fancy and fun. And these are definitely skills you need to succeed as a social media manager.

Well then what’s the problem ? And why is this a flaw ?

They thought I was willing to pay them for their skills. But no. I was willing to pay them to **solve a problem I was facing**.

A business will not hire you for the skills you have. A business will hire you to solve a problem they have.

Oh how I wish! Oh how I wish someone had told me to build my career around problem solving and not skill acquisition.

There’s a very thin line between the two, and I will break it down for you.

I will use the social media example to explain further.

This is the kind of candidate I would have hired.

A candidate that told me these 4 things:

> A problem they solved in the past

> A measurable negative impact caused by that problem

> The solution they brought

> A measurable positive impact by that solution

This is the problem solving mindset.

Here’s an example of how a candidate would show this skill:

Start quote _____

***I worked with Piggy Vest 2 years ago. They had one major problem. Gen Z and Millennials did not know about them.***

***They knew this when they realized 60% of the people who saved on their app were 85+ year old. This was making them lose over 70% of the market share to their competition.***

***We sat down and did some research. We realised that Millennials and Gen Z spent most of their time on Instagram and Tik Tok. We decided to create a strategy to reach this audience where they spend their time.***

***My team and I created a social media calendar specific to the Gen Z and Millenail audience.***

***We also came up with 1 social media campaign for that month. The goal was simple. Increase awareness of the Piggy Vest brand amongst this audience.***

***Using Buffer, we got automatic metrics showing us the metrics, performance and engagement of every piece of content.***

***Our content was very specific.***

***At the end of the month, we got 300,000+ impressions across all social media, 500 new Gen Z sign ups to Piggy Vest.***

End quote ______

How does that look ? Who will you hire ? This person said nothing about instagram grids, viral videos, or LinkedIn slides. They said nothing about all the hard core skills you need to get the job done.

Instead, they focused only on the business problem, the impact of the problem, the solution, and the impact of the solution.

***Problem***: Piggy Vest had low Gen Z users

***Impact of Problem***: Competitors had majority market share

***Solution***: Build brand awareness amongst Gen Z using social media engagement

***Impact of Solution***: 500 new Gen Z sign ups after 1 month of solution.

This is six figure material. This is the social media manager that gets paid $100k+ per year brands while working from anywhere in the world.

This translates to all careers in tech. Let me give you another practical example of how this applies to software engineers.

Say you’re hiring for a Frontend Engineering Role. In the job description, they mentioned their love for automated testing.

Here’s how you present your previous experience to them.

Start quote _________

***In my last job, I worked on a team developing the SAAS dashboard for our customers. Every month, we had 8 new customers that churned because the app was too buggy. Too many bugs.***

***During a strategy call with the head of engineering, we decided to add automated tests. I wrote more tests than anyone else. I enjoyed the process.***

***The tests helped us catch bugs early, and reduce regressions.***

***After a few months, we noticed the average number of bugs reported had reduced from 15 a week to less than 6. Also, zero customers churned because of the app being buggy.***

End quote_________

Now compare this to a frontend engineer who tells you I know Jest, React and Cypress for testing.

It’s a completely different mindset. It’s a mindset that let’s tech companies hire you despite your location.

Because you are just so good at what you do and think in a problem and solution mindset.

So, what's the most important skill a software engineer should have ?

> PROBLEM SOLVING

The Most Important Skill Any Software Engineer Must Have

The Most Important Skill In Software Engineering

![pragmatic-engineer-definition](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/6802/conversions/slide-1-2-image.png)

Hello {{ subscriber.first_name }},

I had a nice chat with a software engineer on Twitter. We'll call him Tolu.

He took my advice and reached out to a business.

This small business needed an ecommerce website to sell food online.

This was a great way for Tolu to provide real business value using his skills.

So Tolu started building the website using React, NodeJS and MongoDB. Everything was going well, and he had been coding for over 2 months now.

It was almost ready. But here's the problem.

2 months to write the entire code for an ecommerce shop ?

While I was very happy with Tolu's work, I had to tell him he was not pragmatic enough. 

Let's break it down. There are endless ways of building an ecommerce store today. Here are some options:

1. **Write the entire code from scratch using your preferred programming languages and framework**.
 In this option, you as the developer have to write the entire code, figure out the design, and will maintain the project for as long as needed. You will also have to monitor, backup and manage the database, pay for servers, and manage the frontend deployment.
 This is the option Tolu chose.

2. **Create a frontend only, and use a headless CMS to manage inventory, such as Commerce Layer**. In this option, you pay a monthly fee to a service to handle the backend, while you handle the frontend and consume the data.

3. **Paystack commerce**. In this option, you do absolutely zero work, and can have a shop ready in 10 to 30 minutes.


Which of these 3 options will you choose ? 

Option 3, obviously, right ?

But here's the thing. I asked **10 developers** how they would solve this customer's problem, and **7 of them described Option 1**. Even though they mentioned ways to build faster and take maybe 2 weeks to complete, they still chose Option 1.

This is not the way of the pragmatic software engineer.

> The pragmatic software engineer is a customer problem solver. A customer will 100% choose a free option that can be done in 10 to 30 minutes over a long paid option that might take months and will require months of bug fixes and maintenance after that.

![cost effective solutions](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/6808/conversions/slide-1-3-image.png)

Being a pragmatic engineer is the best thing you can do for any business.

Businesses want engineers who can solve their problems in the fastest and cost effective way possible.

Here are the 2 best ways to become a pragmatic software engineer:

## 1/2 Learn the WHY behind technologies

Can you efficiently choose between using Angular or React or Vue for your next project, without allowing your personal feelings get in the way ? 

Can you make that business decision ? The only way to make the correct decision is to study the technologies, the market you're in, and the current talent pool of the business.

And this applies to everything. Choosing the right programming language, the right database, the right services to build or the ones to pay for.

You can only make strategic technology decisions if you have a vast understanding of what problems the technologies solve and how they solve these problems.

## 2/2 Learn the business problems inside out

Businesses vary in size, revenue, and problems. Building solutions for a multi million dollar company is way different than building a solution for an idea stage startup.

**Example**: Building an ecommerce store from scratch might make sense for a large corporation business because they can afford it, and will pay designers to design something that matches their brand exactly. 

For a small business owner, using a free tool that allows the business owner get paid instantly is the best way to go.

Study the problems the business is trying to solve immensely, and find a solution that solves that problem in the most cost effective way.

![pragmatic engineer builds solutions to customer needs](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/6809/conversions/slide-1-image.png)

<hr />

In conclusion, learn how to make business decisions. The secret is studying varying technologies and learning what problems they solve.

This will strengthen your ability to contribute a lot more value by making the right technology decisions for a business, project or team.

Are You A Pragmatic Software Engineer ?

Hello {{ subscriber.first_name }},

I've mentored 100+ developers over the years, and there's a dark time that every single one of them have experienced:

> The Time Between Gaining Your Skills And Landing A Tech Job

This is the darkest time you'll ever experience. You just completed 4 courses on frontend engineering. You have built so many projects. You're ready to start applying for entry level jobs.

Then it hits you.

Stagnation.

*****50 jobs applied, 35 rejections, 15 didn't even respond*****. 

It almost seems like your decision to get into tech was a very wrong one.

I will tell you exactly how to overcome this darkest phase in your career.

Before that, here are **3 things you definitely shouldn't do**:

## 1. Switch career paths

![chat-on-twitter-about-transitioning-to-backend-and-machine-learning](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/6604/conversions/screenshot-2023-08-02-at-040227-image.png)

Please do not think switching your career path will give you more opportunities. It'll just confuse you more. Everyone is having a really hard time landing a job. Switching to AI will not make your chances any better.

As a frontend engineer, thinking you might **get more frontend opportunities** if you learn **UI / UX** design is a mistake.

## 2. Free work for equity and no pay

![work-for-equity](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/6605/conversions/3-image.png)

Just last week someone reached out to me. A company was asking him to build their entire application, but the terms of the contract were:

- No pay or stipend
- Free work for equity, with no contracts yet (Company is not registered)
- One man operation, no existing engineering team

99% of the time, you want to avoid such deals. You think they will help you grow. They won't. 

You think you'll gain real world experience. You won't.

If you get such an opportunity in future, check the following:

- The business is registered and has a great business model
- The founder has prior business experience
- There are potential real customers for the business
- Engineering is not the only department. There are huge efforts in other departments such as marketing, sales and funding.

## 3. Give up or pause tech

This is the easiest mistake to make. Because you applied for so many jobs but got no replies, you stop applying altogether and give up on your dreams. You slow down.

Do not slow down. 

Nothing beats consistency.

When you started your job hunt, you sent out **5 applications a day**. Now because things are hard, you barely apply to 2 per day anymore. 

This is a really easy mistake to make. Make sure you don't.

> Now here are the 3 things you should absolutely be doing while waiting to land your next job in tech:

## 1. Contributing to Open Source


Mentee of mine started learning to code in January of 2022. 

**Jan 2022 - Dec 2022**: Learning to code, building tons of practice projects

**Dec 2022 - March 2023**: Building realworld portfolio project heyme.io

**March 2023 - July 2023**: Contributing to Highlight.io open source project every single day

**Aug 2023**: Landed **Fullstack Engineering Internship at Mono** (Was one of the ~7 interns picked out of 2,000 applicants)

The secret to how she was top 0.003% of applicants and landed an internship in less than 2 years into tech: Open Source.

Because she had a **consistent track record contributing to open source**, she had a solid set of skills and experiences to convince the interviewers that she'll be a great fit for Mono.

Her resume was not empty anymore. It had **open source contributions** and an outstanding portfolio project to backup her experience. 

Not only that, but open source gives you the energy you need to not give up on your career.

Contributing daily, interacting with very talented people all over the world will give you a strong foundation for your career and **keep your energy pumping until you land that job**.

If you haven't started with open source, take my 100% free course to get started in less than an hour.

[Link to the 100% free open source course](https://www.crushingit.tech/courses/open-source/what-is-open-source-with-examples)

## 2. Build Your Portfolio Project

The best portfolio projects can be transformed into actual businesses. 

Take a look at this portfolio website:

![coverai.co](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/6608/conversions/wwwcoveraico-image.png)

This is a portfolio project that is solving a real problem for real paying customers, has real pricing, with all systems working and functional to 100%.

If you were interviewing candidates, would you hire someone with this quality of project in their portfolio ? Or another person that showed you a weather app ?

Your portfolio project should:

- **Be top quality**. Look exactly like any other startup out there
- **Beautifully designed** and fully responsive
- Have a **real world use case**
- **Fully functional** for real world customers
- Be able to **turn into a business**

How do you build such a top quality project ? I highly recommend assembling a team:

- **Product designer** to create a custom responsive design that looks amazing
- **Software engineers** to build the solution
- **Product manager** to research and coordinate product development
- **Experienced mentor** to give you feedback on building the product



## 3. Make a side income

I had a fun chat with someone a few weeks ago. She's a student living in the northern part of Nigeria. She started a career in tech ~9 months ago, and has already **made $5k+ USD** writing technical articles online. 

> Technical writing is still the best way to make a side income in tech

You can make anywhere from **$300 - $1,000** a month writing articles online.

3 simple steps to get started:

- Take the free [Google Technical writing course](https://developers.google.com/tech-writing)
- Write 5 solid articles for a free publication like Freecodecamp: This will create a writing portfolio for you that you'll use to apply for jobs. You'll also get free feedback on your writing before publication.
- Apply to technical writing jobs

Write 2 articles a month and do this consistently until you land your next job.

<hr />

Getting a job in tech isn't easy. But it doesn't have to be sad. You can be pumped with energy and doing a ton for your career while you wait for someone to give you a chance.

I hope this email gives you a ton of ideas on how to make your job hunt less dark, and use that time to push your career forward.

Thank you for reading.

Surviving Limbo: How To Overcome The Radio Silence In Your Tech Career

The Darkest Time Of Your Tech Career And How To Overcome It

Hello {{ subscriber.first_name }},

I've been a software engineer for 8+ years. On my career roadmap, I should be pivoting to developer advocacy this year. I've had 3 interviews so far.

- Rejected 2 offers because they didn't match my expectations
- For the third interview, I wasn't picked at the last stage (which I later realised the company lied, and just closed the position sigh. wasted my time.)

It would have been way easier to get a role if I had prior experience as a developer advocate.

So what do I do ?

Cry ? Complain ? No.

What we do is hustle. 

So this is what I did last week. 

I **found this really cool open source YCombinator startup** that just released their product. They have a **good product**, **good funding** and a **really strong founding team**.

So I messaged them.
![message-to-yc-startup](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/6107/conversions/img-0025-image.jpg)

The founder I messaged was really happy I wanted to provide value to their startup. So he replied, and we setup a call to talk more.

![call-with-yc-founder](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/6108/conversions/screenshot-2023-07-19-at-071503-image.png)

That call was 2 days ago.

Before the call, here's what I did:

1. Researched everything I could about the startup
2. Learned a ton about the founders
3. Used the product. Created my account, read the docs and learned how it works

I then created a developer relations strategy document for the company.

![strategy-document-for-yc-startup](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/6109/conversions/screenshot-2023-07-19-at-071832-image.png)

I spent over 4 hours preparing for the call. Then I created this document and presented it during the call. 

The next day, he sent me this message:

![response-from-yc-founder](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/6110/conversions/img-0026-image.jpg)

I was happy. My presentation was valuable and now I have a chance to contribute even more value to a remotely distributed team.

I will continue working on this weekly and provide value in any way I can.

So what's the takeaway for you ?

Ask yourself these three questions:

> What can I proactively do today to push your career forward ?

Is there anything you can do to push your career forward ? 

Maybe message an open source founder and ask that you want to start writing automated tests ? Or create a design system for them ?

Or just write a technical article for a start up ?

> How can I provide value ?

What are your strengths ? What can you do really well, and how can that benefit a project out there ?

> Where are opportunities for growth ?

Preparing that document helped me grow. This is a real startup with real customers and a real community.

Can you find an opportunity for growth in your own career ?

I hope my story, my hustle, and my experiences help you decide how you want to hustle for your own tech career.


My simple strategy for creating more career opportunities

How to hustle your way to success in tech

Hello {{ subscriber.first_name }},

Earlier this week someone asked me: 

> If these were your last moments, and you could give only one piece of advice to anyone building a career in tech, what would it be ?

If you never hear from me again, here are the 3 words that should never depart from your memory:

1. Career roadmap
2. Excellence
3. Visibility

## 1/3 Career roadmap

Is your career on autopilot, or do you have a strict career roadmap you are following for the next 2 - 3 years ?

I had a call with a friend and we talked about a simple career roadmap to becoming a developer advocate.

Here's what we came up with for the next 12 months:

![developer advocate roadmap](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5911/conversions/screenshot-2023-07-12-at-083305-image.png)

It's so simple, but yet so powerful.

Define what you'll be doing for the next 2 years. Don't allow your career be blown in different directions by Twitter posts, influencers, or new frameworks and AI hype.

## 2/3 Excellence

Just be good. Just be too good. There are thousands of developers all around the world. But you need to be excellent and better.

Be better. Don't just learn to code. Learn how to build world class solutions to problems. There should be almost no distinction between the work you do and the work delivered by Google level software engineers.

Take a look at the portfolio website someone sent to me for a job:

![porfolio-website](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5915/conversions/screenshot-2023-07-12-at-121527-image.png)

The title of the site, favicon, url are not the best. No production ready website on the planet looks like this.

Compare it to the Crushing Tech website:

![crushing tech](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5916/conversions/screenshot-2023-07-12-at-121926-image.png)

I built this myself, and spent many hours perfecting the Search Engine Optimisation, performance, design and accuracy.

Now it takes feedback to learn these things, but I want you to have a burning desire to do things the right and best way.

Care a ton about the little details, and you will deliver excellent work through out your career.

## 3/3 Visibility

I created a free course about React Testing, and also wrote an article on dev.to about JWT and frontend security.

Here's what happened a few months after that:

![linkedin-message](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5917/conversions/screenshot-2023-07-12-at-122426-image.png)

This person just reached out to me and offered me a job, including relocation to Berlin. I declined because we die here for Naija, but this was an amazing opportunity.

Do great things, document them, then talk about the great things you did. That's the way to get visible. Your work, efforts and experience will speak for you even in places you can't imagine.

Thank you for reading, and until next week, stay growing.

My 3 final words for your tech career

My 2 final words for your tech career

Hey {{ subscriber.first_name }},

In general, companies don't like junior talent. Junior talent requires a lot of hand holding and support for at least a year before they start to provide actual value to the company.

So, here's the bad news. If you're starting a tech career, you are not wanted.

It's sad, but it's true.

![andela-fires-400-junior-developers](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5728/conversions/screenshot-2023-07-05-at-053745-image.png)

Andela is the company that brought Mark Zuckerberg to Africa. And 3 years after that, they fired all junior developers, because nobody wanted them.

I'm angry.

Because it's not fair.

But we have to deal with the reality, so here are **3 important things** you can do to stop being a junior developer and **become a software engineer that companies want**:

 

## 1/3 Understand the fundamentals of the trade

 

There's something I see online all the time that makes me worry. Everyone is asking ***What skills do I need to learn to become a frontend engineer*** ?

Junior developers focus too much on skills. Senior develoeprs focus instead on problems.

Two engineers hear about GraphQL and want to learn it. One is a junior. The other is senior.

Look at the two approaches:

![learn-graphql](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5740/conversions/untitled-2023-06-29-1103-image.png)

Stop asking on Twitter if you should learn Tailwind or Bootstrap. Do your own research and form your own opinion. Follow these steps instead:


✅ What is Tailwind, and what is Bootstrap ?

✅ What problems are they trying to solve ?

✅ How do both technologies solve these problems ?

✅ What mental model do they use to solve the problem ?

✅ Those who aren't using Tailwind or Bootstrap, how are they solving the problem ?

✅ Which one is most used at companies and why ?

✅ Understand how both technologies work

✅ Make a choice

✅ Form an opinion

✅ Talk to other engineers who have an opinion

 

## 2/3 Don't Code, Solve Problems

 

![build-me-an-app-junior](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5735/conversions/1-image.png)

This literally happened yesterday. I gave my mentee an assignment: ***Build a Next.Js application that allows users sign in via phone number and OTP***. 

What do you think is the first thing she did ? Take a wild guess.

She picked up her laptop, immediately generated a new React app and started writing code. This was all in 3 minutes. I wasn't even done giving the requirements.

![build-me-an-app-senior](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5731/conversions/1-image.png)

Dear junior developer:

❌ Stop thinking code.

✅ Think solution.

✅ Think strategy. 

✅ Think architecture.

✅ Think documentation of solution before code.

Your first instinct would always be to write code. To stop being junior, force yourself to think strategy. Not Code.

 

## 3/3 Take Ownership

 

By the end of Chapter 4 of my book, you take a pledge. A pledge to be a world class software engineer. Junior developers think the role of a software engineer is to write code.

No.

Your role is to take ownership of the entire software development life cycle.

![plege-world-class-engineer](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5734/conversions/screenshot-2023-07-05-at-062433-image.png)

Taking ownership does not mean doing everything yourself and not asking for help. It means taking on the responsibility to make sure the work you do goes from start to completion.

This includes communicating with stakeholders, planning, architecting, coding, testing, and shipping the software solutions you build.

Ready to push yourself out of junior and move into mid level and senior ?

I'm here to help.

Stop Being A Junior: How To Accelerate Your Tech Growth

Hello {{ subscriber.first_name }},

3 years ago I worked at Turing, and I was part of the team recruiting developers. I've also consulted with global engineering teams in the past 2 years.

These two things have given me a chance to evaluate and observe tons of developers, how they work, and how they build their careers.

I've observed dozens of successful people in tech, and these are the top 6 rare traits that have made them successful:

## 1/3 Niche down and Specialise

Career success is not only about doing your job, closing your laptop and getting paid. It's beyond that. It's about creating an impact in the industry over time. 

The more time you spend on your career, the more impact you can create.

The tech industry is very large, so to create huge impact, you have to niche down and pick a specialty. 

A niche is a specific problem you are excited about solving.

I'll give you some examples:

- **@Samson_Goddy** : Niched down to being an open source advocate. Proceeded to create the biggest open source community in Africa
- **@AdoraNwodo**: Niched down to cloud engineering and technologies. Proceeded to write 2 books about the cloud.
- **@IkegahRuth**: Niched down to community leadership. Proceeded to organise the biggest open source conference in Africa, become a Github Star, and lead community at Chaoss Africa.


What are you passionate about ? I advice niching down even more. The more you specialise and master a specific area, the more impact you can create not just at your company, but for the tech community globally. 

> Don't niche down to being a frontend engineer. Niche down to being a frontend engineer specialising in application performance.

> Don't niche down to being a backend engineer. Niche down to being a backend engineer specialising in database query optimisation.

## 2/3 Aggressive value contributor

What can you do to create more impact? Both at your workplace and in the community ?

I used to work at a company where customers reported at least 5 new bugs a day. We'd have one developer dedicated to fixing bugs each day. The bugs just kept coming. 

I decided to take the initiative and create a test suite for the frontend and backend application. Every weekend, I would write around 20 tests. In about 2 months I had over **300 tests written for the application**.

I then automated testing on Github Actions. As time went by, the number of reported bugs kept reducing. 

No one asked me to do this. No one assigned me to it.

I saw an opportunity to provide value. So I was **proactive**, took **ownership**, put in the work, and contributed tremendous value to my team at the workplace.

To be a high value contributor, be:

- **Proactive**
- **Take ownership**
- **Strive for impact**

Here are some more practical examples of people who have contributed a ton of value:

- **@unicodeveloper**: Created and led multiple dev communities in Africa like ForLoop Africa. Proceeded to become an open source developer advocate (even as he runs his own startup)

- **@Dominus_Kelvin**: Contributed to SailsJS framework for the past 3 years and later proceeded to become global core maintainer.


## 3/3 Growth Mindset

Gone are the days when the most talented were the biggest winners. Today, it's the most hardworking that win. 

Here are some rules to cultivate a growth mindset:

1. The amount of success and achievements you get in your career depends on how much of the ***right hard work you put in***. Not your talents. 

2. Constructive criticism is the fuel you need to build a better career. Never miss a chance to get feedback about how you speak, work, write, code, collaborate, or respond in situations. Seek feedback at all times and in all situations.

3. Measure your improvements and failures. Don't go through your career blindly. Every month, sit down with yourself. Review your progress, review your short comings. Be conscious about where you are, and where you want to go.


## Summary

Let these 3 things fuel you into building a successful career in technology.

- Niche down and specialise to create more impact
- Contribute value aggressively in any way you can
- Develop a growth mindset for continuous improvement



3 Rare Traits In Every Successful Tech Career

Hello {{ subscriber.first_name }},

In a world where there are at least **1,000 people applying for every job**, building the perfect portfolio project is one of the things that will help you stand out in the interview process.

![advantages of building a real world project](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5220/conversions/slide-3-standout-image.png)

A standout portfolio project will:

1. **Help you ramp up your skills with real world experience**
2. **Give you stories for the interview process (Interviews are all about storytelling)**
3. **Boost your chances of getting noticed amongst the competition**

In this letter, I'll break down the 3 components of a standout portfolio project using a practical example.

It's an extract from ***Chapter 5 of my book: Evidence driven career development***, so enjoy it.

 

## Types of portfolio projects

 

In your career in tech, there are 3 types of projects you'll be building:

1. **Follow along projects**. These projects will help you learn the skills you need. You're just learning skills here, remember that. It's really good for a start, and I advice doing at least **12 follow along projects** before going to the next type of project.

![follow along youtube projects](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5221/conversions/screen-shot-2023-06-21-at-123837-image.png)

2. **Practice projects**. These are the projects you see online when you search for portfolio projects. Ecommerce stores, blog, personal website, todo list, and contact forms. This type of project helps you learn how to solve already existing engineering problems. This is where you actually learn not just skills, but solutions to problems.

For example, here's a problem you'll learn how to solve when building an ecommerce store practice project. 

How did engineers solve the ecommerce problem of too many products on the page at the same time ? ***Pagination***. So rather than displaying 1,000 products on the page, they show just 50 at a time. Now you didn't solve the problem. You just learned the solution.

![pagination](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5222/conversions/pagination-screen-size-image.png)

This is again, very important for your career so you can understand a large range of existing engineering problems and how to solve them. 

But how do you actually get to learn how to solve new problems and ***develop problem solving skills*** ?

You need to ***build a standout portfolio project***.

3. **Standout portfolio projects**. A standout portfolio project takes a real world problem, and builds a solution to that problem. A standout portfolio project will push you to the edge of your skills and beyond. It will teach your brain how to solve problems, and help you develop problem solving skills.

## Standout portfolio project

So picture this. I am going to take an example real world problem, figure out how to solve it, and turn it into a standout portfolio project.

 

### Stage 1: The real world problem

 

I live in Nigeria, and I see influencers sharing their bank account online everyday so their fans can support them and tip them. Influencers from other countries use apps like Cash App or Venmo, which allows fans to tip using many payment methods, and protects the influencer's private information.

Here's a screenshot of the problem:

![twitter account numbers](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5217/conversions/screenshot-2023-06-21-at-115745-image.png)

Fans can also participate in Giveaways just by sharing their handles.

 

### Stage 2: The real world solution

 

We'll build an app called ***tipme.ng*** that allows everyone receive payments easily using any payment channels such as transfers, USSD, crypto, credit and debit cards, or cash deposits.

Users will share their handle, for example ***@bahdcoder*** and other users can visit ***tipme.ng/@bahdcoder*** to send them any amount of money. 

So users will say "**Tip me ₦5,000 @bahdcoder**".

Some ideas about the solution:

- Downloadable from both Android and IOS stores. 
- Uses Paystack for FIAT payment processing and Buycoins for crypto payment processing.
- Users can cash out at any time of the day with a direct deposit to their bank account.
- We collect a 3% processing fee for every tip.

#### How to execute the real world solution

Building a real world project requires understanding the **Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)**. 

![sdlc](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5223/conversions/untitled-2023-06-21-1225-image.png)

1. **Founding Team / Product owner**: The person who has the business idea. Usually finds the problem to be solved, and tries to figure out a solution to the problem.
2. **The Product team**. Gets the problem from the CEO, talks to customers, and creates a solution to the problem. Also guides the entire team on building the solution
3. **The Design Team**: Gets the solution from the product team, and translates that into viewable and clickable prototypes. 
4. **The Engineering Team**: Gets the prototypes from the design team and codes them into functional working applications and websites
5. **The QA Team**: Gets the application and websites from the engineering team, and tests that it solves the problem correctly, and matches the specifications from the designers, product team, and founding team.
6. **The customer**: Uses the solution developed by the entire cycle, and gives feedback to the team.

After the customer gives feedback, the SDLC restarts all over again with the CEO using that feedback to think about the problem again, come up with other solutions, then it goes to the product team, and so on.

This is a short brief on the cycle. Developing a real world solutions requires that you bring all these pieces together.

1. **Founding team**: You come up with the idea, so you're the founding team.
2. **Product team**: You partner with a product manager who is just starting out their career to build this product.
3. **Design team**: You partner with a product designer just starting out their career to design the solution
4. **Engineering team**. You are the engineering team. If you can't do all of it, partner with someone or another person.
5. **Customer**: Two people. One is a mentor, and another is a user. This mentor should have a ton of experience in the SDLC so they can provide you feedback on the entire process. 

Don't build your standout portfolio projects in isolation. Partner with others from the SDLC to achieve a successful product. 

### Standout portfolio tips

- Strive for excellence. No mediocre work. 
- Pick an idea that is not too big, but also not too small. Ideally a standout portfolio project should take you 3 months to complete.
- Write dozens of blog posts about the problems you solve, your observations working on a team and building a product
- Finish the project
- Buy a real domain. tipme.ng is a great example of a domain I'll buy for the idea above. It cost less than $15 for domains these days.
- Follow a production checklist. Your product should use everything real teams from all over the world use to ship real products. For example, a standout portfolio project should have a well designed logo, favicon, optimised SEO, great performance, accessible, and well tested with automated tests. These are just examples of what a great production checklist looks like.
- Ship the product to customers. Get customer feedback.

## Conclusion

What did you learn from this segment ? How does building a standout project sound to you?

Here's a secret. 5 years ago, this is the system Andela used to train world class software engineers. 

So if you do this, you're one step closer to being world class.

Build your portfolio projects the right way

The Standout Portfolio Project: How To Sky Rocket Your Career Growth

Hello {{ subscriber.first_name }},

There's a dark reality going on in the tech industry that no one else is talking about.

In this newsletter I'm going to explain to you exactly what it is, but where did this all begin ?

## Mono is hiring interns

If you don't already know, **Mono** is hiring for their Summer Internship programme. Mono is a big tech company in Nigeria. It's prestigious, high quality, and a dream company for anyone to work at.

Last week they announced their summer internship programme on Twitter and here's what happened:

![mono ceo tweet](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5072/conversions/mono-image-image.png)

In less than 1 hour, ***960 people*** applied for an internship. That's a lot !

And they most likely won't take up to 10 people. 

Not only that. 

The ***job posting crashed because of too much traffic***. That means hundreds more were trying to apply but couldn't.

That's when I started digging.

## Alt school. 

Alt school is simply the best way to get into tech in 2023. I recommend it to every single person that reaches out to me.

And I love them.

Here's what happened last year:

![alt school registrations](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5073/conversions/screenshot-2023-06-14-at-095914-image.png)

They had a huge success. ***8,000 people applied*** for a paid school. I can't confirm how many of these are Nigerians, but my personal observation says a lot of them are.

That's not all. 

## Alx Africa. 

Also a very popular way of getting into tech in 2023. 

How many students do they currently have enrolled ?

Here's a screenshot of their Slack Community for enrolled students:

![](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5074/conversions/img-5344-image.jpeg)

***74,637 students !!!***

That's a lot of people getting into tech, most of which are Nigerians from my observations.

Now here's where things get interesting.

## The job market

I did a search to find out how many tech jobs are available in the market for all these people.

I did my first search on **Indeed**. 

Here's the number of software engineering jobs currently open in Nigeria:

![software engineer search on indeed](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5077/conversions/screen-shot-2023-06-14-at-100920-image.png)

Only ***376 open jobs*** for software engineers. And ***less than 5%*** of those are looking for people with ***no experience***.

Here's the number of ui designer jobs currently open in Nigeria:

![ui designer search on indeed](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/5078/conversions/screen-shot-2023-06-14-at-101121-image.png)

Only ***47 open jobs*** for ui designers. 

Searching on LinkedIn gives the same sad low numbers. 

Is the ***harsh reality of tech in Africa*** hitting you now ? 

Is the ***extreme competition of tech*** hitting you now ?

I didn't even talk about the ***10,000+ students graduating every year with a degree in Computer Scienc***e from Nigerian universities alone. Or the 100s of other schools bringing new people into tech.

Or thousands more learning on their own.

## Reflections

Honestly, I didn't want to scare you with this newsletter, but I think sometimes it's good to see the reality of things so you can wake up. 

You can't be trying to get into tech in 2023 and have an empty Github profile or portfolio. I'm sorry, but it just won't cut it. You can't just be a coder. The competition is really high.

It's going to take way more than just learning to code to build a successful career in tech.

And that's why I spend ***many hours everyday*** working on my book ***Crushing Tech***, because someone needs to show you the secrets on how to stand out and compete.

## Lessons learned

Africa, and Nigeria in particular is not ready for all the talent we're producing. We're creating so much talent, but our government is to blame for not having the innovation and tech to put this talent to work. 

It's quite sad to be honest. So many amazing people like you, but so little companies that can put your skills and talent to work.

So here's what to do. 

> Focus all your energy from day one on the European and North American (United States & Canada) tech market.

> Your networking, open source, portfolio projects, should all take you one step closer to building a remote and global career in tech.

That's the only way to survive, and that's my mission. To show you exactly how.

And I'll keep showing you.

Reply this email and tell me exactly how you feel about this newsletter.

I'll reply back.

Thank you again for reading.

Until next week, stay growing.

Bad News !! Harsh Truth about Tech No ONE is talking about

Hey {{ subscriber.first_name }},

It's finally here. The Complete Guide To Getting Started With Open Source.

It's a 3 part course (4 parts for software engineers), and will take you ~30 minutes to complete.

Open source completely transformed my life as a software engineer, and I strongly believe it can do the same for you too.

[Watch The Course for Free Here](https://www.crushingit.tech/courses/open-source/what-is-open-source-with-examples)


Now back to today's newsletter.

 

----------------------------------------------------


I've rejected 3 job offers this year. This means I successfully completed 3 interview processes and landed a job offer. 

True story. I am extremely confident in my interviewing skills. This is because of 2 reasons:

1. I spent countless hours practicing how to interview on YouTube and infront of my mirror
2. I spent almost 2 years on the other side of the table. I was an interviewer for tech talent at Turing, so I know how companies find and evaluate the best candidates.

This puts me at an unfair advantage.

If you're very going into an interview, you need to read this email.

I will outline 3 questions that will show up in almost any interview, and exactly how you should answer these questions (+ sample answers from my past interviews).

Always remember the ultimate secret to acing any interview:

> **Prepare ALL your answers before you walk into the interview. It's a game. Never go unprepared.**

For these 3 questions, we'll be interviewing for the role of **Remote Visual Content Creator** at a company called Pixellu. This is a real job and a real description:

![job description for remote visual content creator at Pixellu](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/4899/conversions/screenshot-2023-06-07-at-030643-image.png)

 

## 1. Tell me about yourself

 

The goal of this question is to get a sense of your past experiences, and see if they align perfectly with what the company is looking for. 

To answer correctly, talk about your previous experience and **EXACTLY** how it relates to this job.

Then, talk about your **FUTURE** goals and **EXACTLY** how this job will help you get there.

**Example answer**:

> Two years ago when I joined Simfex (where I currently work), we were about to launch the biggest update to our mobile application. The CEO walked up to me and said, we're counting on you big for this one.

>
> This was because I was in charge of creating all the graphics in Adobe Photoshop, animations in Adobe After Effects, and editing marketing campaign videos using Adobe Premiere Pro. 

>
> We had a successful launch, and accumulated a total of 800,000 impressions accross all social media. 

>
> I later went on to work at Akary where I was in charge of coming up with marketing strategy and design ideas. I helped them launch a successful short form video marketing campaign on Tik Tok that got over 400,000 views in the first week. 

>
> For the future, my goal is to get more into the marketing strategy of the business, while still being the best content creator on tools like Adobe Premiere Pro, Youtube and Tik tok Shorts, and I strongly believe Pixellu is going to help me achieve that goal.

Notice that in my answer, I mentioned a range of all editing tools I use such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects and Adobe Photoshop. It's not a coincidence that the job description mentions that ALL of these tools are required.

When answering this question, mention all the skills you have that overlap with the skills required in the job description.

Also notice how I mention 1 major achievement from my previous jobs ? This is very important. It's an opportunity to show that you are result oriented and have helped businesses achieve success in the past.

## 2. What are your strengths ?

This question can show up in different forms. It can be asked as:

1. What are your greatest career achievements ?
2. Why are you the best person for this job ?

The answer to all these questions revolve around one thing:

> Show the company how you will bring them value or make them more money

Here's an example response to this question:

> My greatest strength is understanding and breaking down the problems faced by a business, and coming up with a creative solution to solve that problem. I did this really well at Akary, where I found out that what we needed was more social media engagement. 
> 

> I proceeded to propose a strategy for creating more engaging Tik Tok videos by adding more Premiere Pro effects and using more interactive short video ideas. It led to a 40% increase in our total engagement in just 6 months. 


> If given the chance to work at Pixellu, this is the same problem solving mindset and creativity I'll be bringing to the table.

Always end your answers with a practical example and make sure it's focused on results for the business. That's why you need to prepare all these stories before you walk into the interview.

## 3. Why do you want to work at this company ?

The goal of this question is to test 2 things:

1. Have you done proper research about our company ?
2. Do our values and future goals align with yours ?

I went ahead to research about the company values and origin. 

Pixellu helps photographers create albums online. Pixellu started with 2 wedding photographers, and their core values are: **Beauty, Simplicity**, and **Reliability**.

Using this information I found out from the company website, here's how I would craft out a perfect answer:

> There are two reasons why I was extremely excited to apply for this position:
> 
> 1. Your values of reliability and simplicity 100% align with my personal values. I strongly believe the best solutions to problems are simple, and reliable people build reliable companies. 


> When I work at a company, I want that company to trust me to deliver on simple and beautiful solutions to the business problems.

> 2. I come from a small town where content creators are not very popular. 

> To see 2 amazing wedding photographers build a huge company like Pixellu really motivates me and shows me that there's a lot of room for me to grow at Pixellu.

That's it. This is how I ace interviews and land offers from companies all over the world. 

This is how I do it, and this is exactly how you can impress interviewers from all over the world even with little or no experience.

Thank you for reading. Until next week, stay growing.

How To Stand Out At Every Job Interview (3 Practical Examples)

3 Popular Job Interview Questions And How To Ace Them

This is something many people don't know about my career journey.

Before I came to Nigeria in **2017**, I was a student in Russia. 

I had been a software engineer for 3 years at that point. I knew I wanted to move to Nigeria and interview at Andela. This was my next big career move, but I had zero money.

How do I raise over **$6,000** for my flight, Airbnb and living expenses in Nigeria until I can land a job ?

It took me **7 months**, but I was able to raise that money as a student, thanks to the power of side gigs. It's been 5 years and counting in Nigeria.

I have hustled all the types of hustle when it comes to tech.

I have tried all of them. Failed some, and enjoyed some. And today, I am going to show you exactly the most rewarding sources of side income in tech today, and how you can get started.

**Side note**: I found an interesting project some weeks back. Fix a bug and get paid **$1,000**. Report a bug and get paid **$250**.

![expensify app github issues](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/4730/conversions/screenshot-2023-05-31-at-075313-image.png)

It's for React Frontend Engineers. Remember there's no easy money anywhere. 

This is me plugging you one of my side income strategies. Don't say I didn't cut you soap.

[Expensify Open Source App](https://github.com/Expensify/App/)

Okay back to business. The biggest misconception about side income in tech is that it has to come fast. It's not a fast game. It's a long term game. 

The Udemy courses I created 5 years ago, and have never touched since then still give me **$1,000 - $3,000** monthly in side income.

![udemy payments 2017](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/4731/conversions/udemy-side-income-2017-image.png)

Notice that within the first 5 months, I made a total of **$0**. If I was looking for quick cash, I would have given up and moved on to something else. 

But I persisted and knew I was **building for my future**, and today I lazy around and get side income every month.

A side income you start building today can save you in 2 years time when you are unexpectedly laid off. It has saved me plenty times.

Are you willing to learn proven strategies to build long term side income ?

Here are 2 tested and proven strategies to build a long term side income in tech:

## 1. BUILD AN AUDIENCE

Anyone can build an audience online. It is a long term, proven strategy that can give you a huge income advantage. Every week, I email **14,000** people tips on how to grow a career in tech.

From a genuine position of wanting to help. 

You don't need 10 years of experience in tech to build an audience. Budgeting 5 hours of your time a week is a great start.

Building an audience is two things:

1. Find a niche (group) of people who have the same challenges you've had in the past.
2. Help them go through that challenge and come out successful.

That's what I'm doing with this newsletter. I went through so many struggles building a career in tech, and today I'm trying to help others not go through that.

Building an audience opens you up to a ton of future side income possibilities.

You can sell online courses, provide 1 on 1 career coaching, sell digital templates, or write a book.

But it all starts with an audience of people who gain from your experience and you make their lives better.

Want to sell a course in two years time ? Build an audience now.

It's the most sustainable way to build a side income for the long term.

## 2. TECHNICAL WRITING

In **2018/2019** this is what gave me about **$700 - $1,000** a month consistently. I know so many people who actually started their careers as writers.

The beauty of this is, not only does it help you grow, but it also builds evidence you can use in interviews for opportunities.

Making a side income from this will come faster than building an audience. The disadvantage is, when you stop writing, you stop getting paid.

There are many websites that'll pay you **$300 - $500** per article you write. All you need is 3 well written articles in your writing portfolio to get started. 

You also do not need 10 years of experience. There are many technical articles that focus on HTML or CSS, which are entry level technologies.

To become a technical writer and pursuing this side income, follow these 4 steps:

1. Take the free [Google Technical Writing courses](https://developers.google.com/tech-writing)
2. Read the technical [writing Articles on Freecodecamp](https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/search/?query=technical%20writing)
3. Write 3 solid articles and get feedback from a seasoned technical writer
4. Apply for technical writing opportunities

Thank you for reading.

Until next week, stay growing.






Tech Hustle: How To Create Multiple Streams of Income

Hello {{ subscriber.first_name }},

First with an update on the open source course. It's almost ready to ship. 

I tried editing some of the content but it's a lot. So I've sent it out to a video editor to help me out. 

I promise you'll enjoy the content, and learn a ton from it.

Someone who read my previous newsletters on getting into open source sent me this last week:

![slack-congratulations](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/4459/conversions/1-1-1-image.png)

The team is congratulating her. She's building tons of experience, and creating meaningful connections. 

Also, she's setting herself up for a more successful career.

That's what I want for you. Course is coming out real soon, I promise. 

And also almost done with the book. This letter today is a snippet from a chapter.

Now back to today's letter.

# Are you a great deal for your employer ?

Software engineers are expensive. Designers are even more expensive. Data scientists as well.

Most roles in tech pay very well.

A few years ago, I joined a **San Francisco** based startup as a **Frontend Engineer.** 

They were building a **Shopify app**. 

Shopify helps merchants create e-commerce stores online. The startup was building an app that helps Shopify merchants deliver products to customers faster.

When I joined the team, there was a ***product designer on board***. His job was to create designs, while I implement them on the frontend.

So two weeks into the process, I noticed that we were moving too slow. The **CEO was complaining** about customers waiting for the product. 

The **CTO was also not very happy with the progress**.

I was moving as fast as I can, but we had to create components from scratch like custom drop downs, slides and pop ups.

It's time consuming.

So I took some time to do some research, and came up with a solution.

I had a meeting with the CTO.

I made 2 recommendations to him:

1. We're spending too much time on creating new components for the design system. It's not worth it in the long run. It doesn't add any value to our end customers. They don't care.

My recommendation to this problem was to **stop designing custom components**. The designer was designing very complicated components, which were impressive, but not necessary.

2. We shouldn't even need a designer in the first place. We're a technology startup, and Shopify already created a design system for creating Shopify apps.  

My recommendation was to **let the designer go**, and **use the Shopify design system** . This was going to save us at least 20 hours a week in engineering time (my time), so I could focus on building features, not UI components. 

This was also going to save us **$100k+** a year spent on a designer that wasn't providing the biggest of business value.

The CTO took my second recommendation. 

A sad one. Someone had to lose their job. But at that stage of the company, they weren't providing the amount of value it cost the company to pay them.

Was I a great deal for my employer ? 

They were spending about **$80k per year** hiring me. 

In less than two weeks, I helped save them **$100k+** based on my experience and recommendations. 

I also cut down engineering time by half, and shipped features much faster to customers. 

This ended up bringing them more customers and thus more money.

What does this mean ? It means to this employer, I was an amazing deal.

They spent $80k per year hiring me, and in turn made **$300k+ in customer billings**.

That's worth it.

Now why did I share this ? 

Because this is the six figure mindset I came to realise many years into my software engineering career.

Here's the one I have for you:

## Help your employer make more money

If you cannot explain how you help your employer make more money every year, there's a problem.

Either the work you do is not very valuable for the business, or you're not looking at the right things.

As someone in tech, everyday you wake up, ask yourself this:

What can I do to make my employer more money?

This question actually get's answered in subtle ways. Sometime in the past, I worked on a team and I noticed engineers spent at least 2 days out of their week fixing bugs.

Sometimes, customer support will distract an engineer for 2 whole hours trying to fix a customer bug. 

The problem was simple. This application has too many bugs. 

It's slowing us down so we don't ship fast enough, and most of all we're losing customers and losing money.

I came up with an action plan that included **writing tests** and **building a Quality Assurance team**. I took it to my team lead.

And in the end, it helped the company save lots of money.

As a designer, you can do this too. As a technical writer, you can identify problems that will save your employer money, or make them more.

That's been it for today. 

I hope you enjoyed this one.

Until next week, stay growing.

Are you a Good Deal for your employer ?

Are you a good deal for your employer ?

Hello {{ subscriber.first_name }},

A few weeks ago I was having a chat with someone on Twitter. He told me about his job hunt, and his expectations.

He said he started learning to code last year March, and has been job hunting for the past 3 months.

I asked about his expectations. He said he doesn't apply to any jobs that pay less than $70k USD.

**$70k USD a year**. With Zero Experience, zero evidence and if I'm being honest, mediocre programmings skills.

He's not the only one. Many people message me asking if they can land a remote job that pays in USD in 6 months if they start studying today.

Tech is not easy. It's hard. Very hard. There's a lot I didn't know when I started out. There's a lot I wish I knew.

There are three important questions you need to answer for your career growth:

1. ***Where am I in my career ?***
2. ***What is the next phase ?***
3. ***What do I need to do to get to the next phase ?***

Take a few moments to think about this carefully.

Can you confidently answer these 3 questions about your career at this moment ?

In today's newsletter, I will show you the 3 inevitable phases of your career in tech. 

By the end of this letter, I will ask you to answer these 3 questions again, and you will be able to.

![3 phases of a career in tech](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/4282/conversions/3-phases-of-career-growth-image.png)

## 1. Phase 1: Master the fundaments

It's 2023. It's not 2010. 

In 2010, here's how people got into tech with zero experience: Sign up for a 3 months bootcamp. Learn HTML, CSS, Javascript. Then learn Express, Node. 

Build a portfolio project, demo it, and in the 4th month, land a job at a promising startup. 

Yes. 3 months. 

That's the amount of time I recommend my mentees spend on just HTML and CSS if they are learning 8 hours a day.

The reason is because 15 years ago, there was a shortage in tech talent. So many tech companies, but so little talent available.

That was the best time to get into tech. Luckily, that's the period I got into tech.

Now what was the problem with this approach ? Fundamentals were missing.

You CAN'T master the fundamentals in 3 months. 

Now what do I mean by fundamentals ? 

It means having a great understanding of 3 core principles: how tools work, why tools work, and how to use those tools.

Everyone focused on the third part: how to use tools. For example: you know how to use HTML, but know nothing about why it exists, how browsers render it, it's specifications, and the problems it solves. 

You have no idea why CSS styles HTML. You just do it.

I'll be very honest with you. This no longer cuts it. You are competing against 1,000+ candidates for every job posting.

If you do not have strong fundamentals, you will be smoked out during the interview process. 

And every interview process will be a reminder to go back to the fundamentals.

Think about the most interesting thing you talk about with your friends. For me, it's anime. I can argue about anime for 24 hours straight and not run out of points.

Why ? Because I have shamelessly spent at least 25% of my entire life watching anime, reading about it, and consuming it endlessly.

For you, it might be football. Or makeup. Or celebrity news.

You really know it because you've spent the time and paid the price.

That's exactly how it should be for your career. No more mediocre.

No more using tools with no understanding. Build a very strong foundation for your career.

How do you know you're ready to go to Phase 2 ? That's why you need a mentor. Don't have one ? I'm here to help you.

It's not the focus of this letter, so I'll talk about it more on Twitter.

## 2. Phase 2: Gain real world experience

This is the phase everyone skips. But it is the most valuable phase you can be in.

You need patience. And you need to dwell in reality. Companies pay for value. And this is the phase in which you build yourself up to be able to provide value to a company.

Most people try to skip to phase 3, without building the skills they need to provide VALUE.

How do you train to be a value providing machine ? Two solid ways:

### 1. Open source

Working with a team of people to build in public. You get to experience the real meaning of being a software engineer, product designer or whatever role you have in open source. 

You work with a remote team, collaborate as you would in real life, and, contribute real value to a real company.

I have a complete guide on how to get into open source. It's 100% free. Here's a snippet. If you're interested, reply this email. If I get 100 replies I'll release it next week.

![sneak peek at open source course](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/4283/conversions/screenshot-2023-05-16-at-083902-image.png)

### 2. Freelancing

Work with a business founder to build a solution to the problem they want to solve. This is startup and indie hacker life. And it's a great way to build a solid backbone in tech. 

To use this strategy, you'll network with founders trying to start companies. Then, work with them in building their ideas. Stick to US or Europe based founders that have a proven record of building projects to completion.

You only succeed in this phase if you did so well in Phase 1.

Let me show you a painful example.

I've given advice to thousands of developers on how to get into open source. 

99% of them try, and then fail.

And I found out why most do. 

Because they didn't have the skills to actually make a valuable contribution. It's painful, but it's true.

They only learned HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Without mastering the fundamentals of software engineering.

So, when faced with a real world project, they get confused and discouraged.

Master Phase 1, then do Phase 2 for as long as you can.

## 3. Land a job and get paid

The phase we've all been waiting for. This is not as easy as it looks. You'll need incredible interviewing and job search skills. 

You'll also need to understand how to translate all the experience and evidence you gained in Phase 2 into value a company will pay you for.

We've run out of words for this newsletter.

So I'll stop here.

Now here are the three questions you need to ask yourself:

1. ***Where am I in my career ?***
2. ***What is the next phase ?***
3. ***What do I need to do to get to the next phase ?***

Reply to me if you need help answering these questions for yourself.

All the best to you.

Until next week, stay growing.

The 3 Phases of a Successful Tech Career

I know. I'm also tired of thinking about AI and if it's going to take my job in 2 years time.

![ui design for website by midjourney ai](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/4109/conversions/ai-driven-ui-design-with-midjourney-and-figma-image-2-min-image.jpg)

The beautiful UI above was generated by Midjourney AI. My favourite AI. 

Not gonna lie. That scares me. A lot. So designers will be overthrown by AI ? And they will no longer have a place in tech ?

I'll give you another example. 

On the Chat GPT website, the language model trained to write code can build any website. You tell it the programming language, and what you want, and it builds the thing.

It's crazy. 

This is the same thing with data analysis tasks, backend tasks and Figma tasks.

We should all go to another career. It's stressful to watch all the YouTube videos, read all the blog articles. 

The fuss is too much.

Well. I'm going to share a different perspective. 

Careers in tech are not as straightforward as they look.

I'll be giving you 2 reasons why you shouldn't worry about AI taking over your job anytime soon. And then I'll tell you exactly what you should be doing instead.

## 1. Careers in tech are not that straightforward.

I've read dozens of messages of people getting into tech, worried about AI. This is because a job in tech is often painted in the most beautiful light. 

Here's what people think it means to work in tech:

As a developer, you pick up your laptop and start coding.

As a designer, you open Figma and draw rectangles.

A job in tech is completely different.

As a developer, you don't just write code. There are so many steps that go into the process.

First there's user research. Then, consideration of company resources. Understanding the market. Consideration of company goals. Then timelines, investors. 

All these go into the job of figuring out what code to write and when to write it.

A developer's job is then to consider all these things and figure out exactly how to write the code such that it solves all these problems, while taking into consideration all the points above.

So no, it's not just writing code.

Same thing with the job of the designer. It's not just drawing designs on Figma.

It's much more than that.

User research, metrics, conversion, timelines, are a few of the things designers have to worry about.

## 2. AI cannot create beyond existence


Read my chat with AI this morning.

![chat with ai](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/4108/conversions/untitled-collage-image.png)

This is something a lot of people in tech don't realise. Every year, there's a new release of programming languages. New operating systems, new developer tools.

Also, new features for tools like Figma, Python and Excel.

These are tools created to help you create solutions.

So there's a group of tech people researching the needs of the tech industry, and building solutions out of thin air.

It's the most fascinating thing about tech. Apple released the M1 chip and it took decades of research to create. It's an impressive upgrade to computers.

They did this by studying the needs of those who use computers, thinking 30 years into the future, and innovating from scratch.

AI cannot innovate and create beyond what already exists today.

But we can.

Always remember that in all the AI stories, AI is still to, and most likely will never create something that does not exist.

But every year, tech teams create non existing solutions to new problems. 

That's what you're for. Your job is to build innovative solutions to business problems that are even yet to exist.

Well now that we've established AI will not be taking over for a long while, what do we do about AI ?

You can't just ignore it. You goal is to leverage AI as a personal assistant to get your work done. These are some innovative ways you can use AI today to speed up your work:

## 1. AI for job searching.

Post the job description to Chat GPT, post your resume, and ask Chat GPT to write a great cover letter.

Also, ask Chat GPT to rewrite your resume to match the job description.

## 2. AI for daily tasks. 

As a developer, ask AI to help you debug errors in your code. 

As a designer, ask AI to suggest colour schemes for your task, and have a range to pick from.

As a data analyst, give AI some sample data and ask it to write a function to normalise and clean up the data.

## 3. AI for learning. 

Learning new concepts in tech and finding it hard to understand ? Use Chat GPT to create an online course for yourself, including code samples. 

Ask Chat GPT to explain a code sample to you like you're 5. If you don't understand, ask Chat GPT to find 3 different ways to explain again and again.

Thank you for reading this newsletter. I hope you leverage AI and all it's power to make your life easier. 

I do everyday.

Chat-GPT Will Take Your Tech Job. Here's what to do


I'll tell you a secret. I'm old now. So I want to transition from being a software engineer to being a developer advocate. So this year, I've been interviewing for developer advocate goals.

Remember, I have ZERO years of experience as a developer advocate.

I applied to about 10 jobs and got 3 invites to interview. 

I've rejected a $140k offer, a $70k offer and I also dropped out of an interview where I was the best candidate.

That's this year alone. A 100% success rate on all my interviews.

I don't want to brag, but I'm so good at interviewing. Two things make me so good. 

I was an interviewer for 2 years at Turing, and I have spent hundreds of hours practicing this skill.

Today I will show you the secret formula that all great interviewers use to win all the time. 

It all comes down to these two things:

![hired graphic of competent and likeable](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3998/conversions/hired-image.png)

During my time interviewing, only two things mattered:

1. Is this candidate competent for the role ?
2. Does this candidate have a great personality ? Do I like this candidate ?

This wasn't a me thing. I once interviewed with a company that was very transparent about how they hire.

They didn't have any complicated processes. It was simple.

They all sat around the table and decided. A ***Hell Yeah!*** or a ***No***. Not ***Yes***, not ***Maybe***, not ***Looks Good***. Either it's a ***Hell Yeah !***, let's hire this person, or it's a no. And Everyone needed to give a ***Hell Yeah!***.

This means the decision largely depended on how the interviewers liked you as a person. 

With this knowledge, the question becomes, how do I show the interviewers I am the most competent candidate ? And how do I make my interviewers like me as a person ?

## 1. Show you are Competent

I have 4 different strategies to show your competence. I'll keep this letter short by showing you one. To show your interviewer you are competent, you need to:

***Map your past experiences and skills to the job requirements.***

I'll give you a practical example. Here are example requirements for a job, and how I would map past experiences to the job:

![mapping job requirements to previous experience](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/4000/conversions/map-job-requirement-to-experience-image.png)

This will guide every single question you answer. 

Tell me about yourself. You'll pick the requirements from the job, and highlight all your past experiences that 100% match with it. 

For example.

Say the job description mentioned how important automated tests are to them.

What you do is look for an instance in your experience where you wrote automated tests, and craft it as a significant achievement. 

Remember you don't need any professional experience to do this. You can CREATE your own experience. 

As a learner, you can write 200 automated tests for your open source project and brag about them in an interview.

The interviewer can even think you're a stronger candidate because of this.

Figure out exactly what your interviewer is looking for, and mapping it to your previous experiences.

That how I show my competence. And that's how you can too.

## 2. Be likeable.

Interviewers are human. And humans make split decisions based on how they feel. I once had an interview with a company. Because we had such a fun time interviewing, the interviewer decided to be honest with me. These were his exact words: 

> I really liked you, so I'll tell you this:

I'll never forget that statement. The interviewer then proceeded to tell me I made it to the next round and told me what's important about winning the next round. 

The interviewer rooted for me. they wanted me to make it past the next stage at all costs, so they gave me some tips.

That should be your goal.

Nice things happen when people like you. 

These 5 traits will put off anyone at an interview:

1. Bragging - You boast about your achievements without giving credits to your team mates or other people who helped

2. Arrogance - You think you are too important and have the best abilities

3. 100% perfect - You make no mistakes, and have a perfect past
 
4. Show off - You are too good for this position and they should be glad to have you

5. Nonchalance - You have many options and you don't care much about this interview

As a takeaway from this letter, answer these two questions:

1. Am I a competent candidate in every interview ?
2. Do my interviewers like me at the end of the interview ? 

You don't have to be searching for a job to master these skills. You can master them today, and increase your chances of winning big at interviews.

Thank you for reading. Until next week, stay growing.

Crushing the tech interview: The two secret formulas

I'm writing a book. This is the book that would have saved me 4 years of stagnation in my career.

Today I will provide you free access to chapter 4 of my book. Completely unedited or filtered.

I have something to ask of you. Please, read this chapter to the end. At the bottom of this email, please click the link, and give me your honest review of the chapter.

I want to create as much impact for your career as possible, and this will help me so much to do that. 

Thank you very much.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________

 

## Chapter 4: Problem solving driven career development

This is the story of how I got into tech almost 10 years ago.

I was in Russia, studying to become an aeronautical engineer. For the first year of university, I as a foreigner have to take a language course to level up on my Russian.

Monday to Friday, 8 AM to midday. I had the rest of the day to do whatever I liked. I was young and energetic, and like many university students, very broke.

A very close friend of mine showed me a freelancing site. There were many jobs asking for HTML and CSS skills. I found a course on YouTube titled learn HTML & CSS in one hour.

HTML and CSS are technologies for web development. You don’t have to understand any of these technologies or even understand what they mean. 

They are skills I had to learn on my journey and have nothing to do with the point of this story. Good ? Good. Back to my story.

So I could be earning money on the side in less than 24 hours ? 

I took the course. I finished it. Took several courses. It was fun. But finally, I finished learning HTML and CSS. I was ready to look for jobs. 

So I started searching. Unfortunately every job I found said I must know jQuery. 

I knew it couldn’t be that easy. I found another course on jQuery and finished it. 

Back to searching for jobs. Now the jobs want PHP programming language ? Okay. Back to learning.

I finally got my first freelance job.

But guess what. This was the beginning of 4 years of a skills focused career path. My entire career in software engineering started because I thought I needed skills so I can earn money. Because of this, I was stuck in the skill driven career development. 

Let me explain with another story.

I post daily on social media so I can grow my audience. I got quite busy at work and decided to hire a social media manager to help me out. I had a very good budget, way above market rate for such roles. I was willing to pay even more if I found the right person.

I connected with 10 social media managers with over 5 years of experience according to them. I set meetings with 4 of them, who looked like the best candidates to me.

The goal of this meeting was to introduce my brand to them and talk about their past experiences.

After speaking with all 4, I hired none.

They all had one major flaw in common. Skill driven career focus. They were proud to explain how long they had been posting on Instagram, Twitter and even Tik Tok. 

They knew how to create video content, viral content, even podcasts. They could create slides on Instagram and beautiful grids. 

That’s all fancy and fun. And these are definitely skills you need to succeed as a social media manager.

Well then what’s the problem ? And why is this a flaw ?

They thought I was willing to pay them for their skills. But no. I was willing to pay them to solve a problem I was facing.

A business will not hire you for the skills you have. A business will hire you to solve a problem they have.

Oh how I wish! Oh how I wish someone had told me to build my career around problem solving and not skill acquisition. 

There’s a very thin line between the two, and I will break it down for you.

I will use the social media example to explain further. 

This is the kind of candidate I would have hired.

A candidate that told me these 4 things:

1. A problem they solved in the past
2. A measurable negative impact caused by that problem
3. The solution they brought
4. A measurable positive impact by that solution

This is the problem solving mindset. 

Here’s an example of how a candidate would show this skill:

Start quote _________

I worked with Piggy Vest 2 years ago. They had one major problem. Gen Z and Millennials did not know about them.

They knew this when they realized 60% of the people who saved on their app were 85+ year old. This was making them lose over 70% of the market share to their competition.

‘We sat down and did some research. We realised that Millennials and Gen Z spent most of their time on Instagram and Tik Tok. We decided to create a strategy to reach this audience where they spend their time.

My team and I created a social media calendar specific to the Gen Z and Millenail audience.

We also came up with 1 social media campaign for that month. The goal was simple. Increase awareness of the Piggy Vest brand amongst this audience. 

Using Buffer, we got automatic metrics showing us the metrics, performance and engagement of every piece of content. 

Our content was very specific. 

At the end of the month, we got 300,000+ impressions across all social media, 500 new Gen Z sign ups to Piggy Vest.

End quote _________

How does that look ? Who will you hire ? This person said nothing about instagram grids, viral videos, or LinkedIn slides. They said nothing about all the hard core skills you need to get the job done.

Instead, they focused only on the business problem, the impact of the problem, the solution, and the impact of the solution.

Problem: Piggy Vest had low Gen Z users

Impact of Problem: Competitors had majority market share

Solution: Build brand awareness amongst Gen Z using social media engagement

Impact of Solution: 500 new Gen Z sign ups after 1 month of solution.

This is six figure material. This is the social media manager that gets paid $100k+ per year brands while working from anywhere in the world.

This translates to all careers in tech. Let me give you another practical example of how this applies to software engineers.

Say you’re hiring for a Frontend Engineering Role. In the job description, they mentioned their love for automated testing. 

Here’s how you present your previous experience to them.

Start quote _________

In my last job, I worked on a team developing the SAAS dashboard for our customers. Every month, we had 8 new customers that churned because the app was too buggy. Too many bugs. 

During a strategy call with the head of engineering, we decided to add automated tests. I wrote more tests than anyone else. I enjoyed the process.

The tests helped us catch bugs early, and reduce regressions.

After a few months, we noticed the average number of bugs reported had reduced from 15 a week to less than 6. Also, zero customers churned because of the app being buggy.

End quote_________

Now compare this to a frontend engineer who tells you I know Jest, React and Cypress for testing.

It’s a completely different mindset. It’s a mindset that let’s tech companies hire you despite your location. Because you are just so good at what you do and think in a problem and solution mindset.

Problem solving mindset as you learn

How do you start your career in tech with this mindset ? The two examples above are for people who already work in tech. 

How can you integrate this mindset from day one of your tech career, even before you start learning. 

I’ll show you. And this is the exact same advice I give my mentees who end up relocating with 5 figure jobs and leaving me in Nigeria.

Remember the mistake I made when I started learning ? Where I learned HTML, CSS, jQuery, and PHP ? The mistake I made was that I never really understood what my role was going to be in an organization. 

Remember the mistake I made when I started learning ? Where I learned HTML, CSS, jQuery, and PHP ? The mistake I made was that I never understood what my role was going to be in an organisation.

I didn’t know what it meant to be a software engineer. I had no idea what problem any organisation has that would need hiring a software engineer. I was learning random technologies I heard about on the internet.

A better approach would be to go like this. Remember the 4 steps: problem, impact of problem, solution, impact of solution.

1. Understand the fundamental problems that brought the need for software engineers. 
2. Understand the measurable impact of the problem to any organization. 
3. Understand the solution 
4. Understand the measurable impact of the solution.

Do this for any role. Product design, digital marketer, data analyst, devops engineer.


 

__________________________________________________________________________________

 


Did you learn and get value from this chapter ? 

Please take 30 seconds to share your feedback.

[Please share your review here](https://forms.gle/pm66gfT996d3z11r5)

Thank you very much.

Crushing tech book: Free Access To Chapter 4

![mentorship request message to unicodeveloper](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3541/conversions/ftwlcxyaeai1w8y-image.jpeg)

Hey {{ subscriber.first_name }},

The image above was me trying to get Unicodeveloper to be my mentor. When I realised I badly needed a mentor, I started reaching out to industry leaders in whatever way I could to get one.

Remember my career was in two phases ? Phase 1 where I spent 4 years doing nothing I loved, stressing, and making zero progress.

Phase 2 where I learned the deep secrets of tech and how to make a 360 turn around for my career.

One of those secret ingredients to improving my life in tech was finding the perfect mentor. 

I spent 4 years trying to become successful in the tech field without a degree and without a mentor. 4 Years. 

That was the most naive decision I have ever made. And frankly, I don't blame myself. No one told me.

A lot of the things I took 4 years to learn would have taken me 1 month if I hade a mentor. That's a huge difference. 

I'll give you an example of why a mentor is the most critical part of your career.

Back in 2016, I started creating courses on Udemy. I created my first course about PHP and Laravel.

I was so happy. I shared with all my friends. But, after 6 months, I got only 100+ students. What ?!

I knew my course was excellent, because I put my heart and soul into it, but 100 students ? That was so bad. I noticed others with the same course as me were having 50,000+ students.

After doing research for months and months, I realised the secret. Udemy students were not coming from Udemy. 

Udemy students were coming from YouTube! What ! The person with the best performing PHP Udemy course had a YouTube channel where he shared a discount to his Udemy course.

I was angry. All this time wasted. I immediately started a YouTube channel. In less than a year I had 10,000+ students on that course. And I created many more courses. Now I have 75,000 total students on Udemy.

Now here's where things get interesting.

Back in 2020, a young Nigerian reached out to me on Twitter and asked me how he could create courses and get many students.

Guess the first thing I told him. I gave him golden advice. I told him: "Start by finding students, then proceed to creating a course". 

That was the secret strategy that would have saved me 12+ months of pain, no results, sadness and self doubt. 

Just because this guy met me, he learned it in 5 minutes. I was even pained when I was sending him the free voice note.

That's the value of a mentor. You get to benefit from years of experience without having to make the same mistakes.

I'm sure you know why having a mentor is invaluable to your career. 

In this letter, I'm going to show you 3 simple steps to landing the perfect mentor for your career in tech

1. Make a list of potential mentors
2. Provide value
3. Reach out and ask

## 1. Make a list of potential mentors

What are the top 3 career goals you have ? Some examples are:

1. Relocating abroad as a software engineer
2. Working for big tech companies as a product manager
3. Earning $100k+ as a remote product designer

These are all valid and possible goals. You need to find a mentor that has either achieved these goals before, or has the proven potential to help you achieve them.

Example.

I met someone who wanted to become top 1% of designers and move to Canada. She was very talented.

She had a mentor. Her mentor believed that anyone in tech saying they work for international companies is a scammer.

What a mindset. Even though I'm sure her mentor had a lot of good things about her, this one thing meant she had zero experience landing remote or relocation jobs.

And thus her mentor would never be able to help her achieve her dream.

Now write down a list of 5 people you think would make a great mentor for you and your goals.

There are many ways to find potential mentors for your goals.

Twitter, LinkedIn, your personal network, attending tech events (virtual and in person).

The perfect mentor is probably not the person posting all the time on Social Media. They could also be a founder of a tech firm. Or, a speaker at conferences. Or, someone who volunteered for a good cause.

Sometimes, it's someone who got featured on a YouTube channel about something they achieved.

These are all valuable ways to find that perfect mentor. 

The key here is to remember two things that make the perfect mentor:

1. They have achieved at least 50% of the dreams you have
2. They have the potential to guide you on how to achieve all your dreams

## 2. Provide value

Okay. You have a list of 5 solid people you think would make great long term mentors for your career. 

How do you convince them to invest a few hours of their time every month talking to you ? 

This is where 99% of people get it wrong. 

Don't go ask them to be your mentor. They don't know you. They've never heard of you. They don't know your story.

It's like moving up to a girl you've never met before and proposing. 

It can't work. It'll rarely work.

So here's what to do instead.

Provide value to them.

Most people aren't just doing one thing in their career. 

The 5 people you wrote down might be into YouTube content creation, article writing, posting on  Twitter, or speaking on podcasts. 

They have a goal they're working on achieving. Providing value means finding out what goal they're working on, and figuring out how you can help achieve that goal.

I'll give you an example. I write a weekly newsletter. Every week you send me a list of 5 newsletter topics I could write about, with metrics based evidence that they will perform well. 

That's crazy valuable.

Another one. Here's a lesson from Benjamin on Twitter. He's been following me on Twitter and constantly supporting my content for the past few months now.

See his timeline:

![benjamin timeline on Twitter](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3542/conversions/fnjmrl9xgamwpw6-image.jpeg)

This is him providing value to me without asking for anything in return. Now guess what ! I know his name now. I know who he is. If he asked me for a 30 minutes call, I'm 100 times more likely to say yes than someone else I've never heard about.

Some potential mentors might be organising events. Compile a list of top ten venues in Lagos, with different prices and send to them.

Some might be public speakers. Compile a list of 5 events that are like where they usually talk. Send them 5 topic proposals based on their expertise.

Do you get the idea? There's something valuable you can do to get yourself noticed by this person.

First you get known by providing value. This softens the person's heart towards you, and gives you a much better ground to make an ask.

## 3. Reach out and ask

You've had several interactions with your potential mentor online, or at several in person events. Point is, you're not a stranger. Good. Now you want to make a formal ask. 

This could be by sending an email, or asking at an in person event.

Your ask needs to be direct and explicit. What do you want ? And what does mentorship mean ? 

Here are some not so good requests I've received from total strangers:

1. Mentor me. I will be coming to your house everyday for training.
2. Please be my mentor. Just 1 hour of your time every day to teach me.
3. Please mentor me and show me the way.
4. I face too many Javascript bugs. Please mentor me and solve these bugs for me every time I have an issue.

You have to be very considerate, and make a realistic ask. This is an example of an ask that I would personally consider:

> Please give me 30 minutes to 1 hour of your time every month. I will compile a list of everything I am doing for my career (online courses, meet up events, twitter spaces, etc), and will create an agenda for our call.
> 
> I will create a progress report and plan for the next month and present to you during our monthly call, and ask for your feedback. 

That's it. That's a great ask, and it's going to give you so much impact in your career. 

As you build a relationship with this person, they could do more for you at their convenience. This could involve applying for job postings with you, or doing live interview prep sessions.

It all becomes more natural later on.

That's it from me this week.

Stay growing, and I hope you're ready for my career changing book. You'll love it when it's ready.


3 steps to landing the perfect tech mentor

I'm writing a book. Not too big, not too small. But it's a career changing book. I hope you read it when it's done.

I made one big mistake when I started my career in tech. It cost me 4 years of turning around with no progress. 

> I spent 4 years learning to code instead of building a career in software engineering

And this does not only apply to software engineers.

*I've met designers who are learning to use Figma instead of building a career in product design.*

*I've met others who are learning to use AWS instead of building a career in cloud engineering.*

It cost me 4 years of my career. And I don't want the same thing to happen to you.

To build a career, you need to think like a business owner. 75% of business people fail because they lack one of three things:

1. **A good product**
2. **A good marketing strategy**
3. **A good sales strategy**

Let's say I make and sell cars like Elon Musk. 

First, I need to make an amazing car. That's a good product.

Next, I need everyone who buys cars to know that I made or am making a good car. That needs a good marketing strategy.

Finally, I need to convince any one that shows interest in buying a car that this is the best car for them. That needs a good sales strategy.


If any of these 3 core components are missing in your business, your business will fail.

Now how does this apply to your career?

1. **You are the product**. Your hardcore skills like coding, design, research, or data analysis.
2. **Your network and who knows about you** is your marketing strategy
3. **Your ability to sell yourself in interviews or opportunities** is your sales strategy.

Without a good product, no matter how good your network is, you'll never be able to make progress in your career.

Without a good marketing strategy, you might never get a chance at an interview or opportunity.

Without the ability to sell yourself, you might never pass stage one of any interview. You also may never get opportunities like joining programs or speaking at conferences.

My biggest career mistake is that I focused all my energy learning to code. I didn't know I had to build myself as a good product. 

I didn't know I had to to build my network. I didn't know I had to teach myself how to interview, how to grab opportunities, and how to convince people to give me a chance.

I hope this is the wake up call you need so you don't make the same mistakes I made. Don't waste 4 years like I did.

Stay growing. Best, Frantz









my biggest career mistake (and how to avoid it)

If you've been in tech in the last 2 years, you'd know that landing a job is hard. Very hard.

The recession, bank runs, layoffs are making it very hard to thrive in tech now. 

So going to a job board and applying for a job gives you a close to impossible chance of getting one. 

You have to use back channels. 

Today I want to show you 2 back channels that work really well, but it takes time, patience, commitment and sacrifice.

These are the strategies my mentees use all the time. And it works.

If you're reading this email and have been in tech for up to 2 years, and have a valuable skill, this is for you. It works for designers, data scientists, developers and all. 

I'm looking for just 10 serious people to support through this process. If you are serious about landing a remote job, please follow these exact steps. Then, reply this email with screenshots and let's talk more.

Are you ready ? Let's go.

Strategy one: ***LinkedIn Cold Emailing***
 
Strategy two: ***Funded Open source startup***

## Strategy one: LinkedIn Cold Emailing

In this strategy, we are going to leverage LinkedIn to find startups, and send emails to the startup founders.

If you prefer to watch me show this strategy, there's a link at the end of this email to a short video of me showing you exactly how to do it.

The secret job strategy is finding companies, not jobs. To be more specific, finding funded startup companies. Also they have to be funded, meaning they have money.

This is because as a startup with less than 50 employees, decisions are made very fast. So it's easy for someone to see your value and add you to Slack, or just reply your message.

Now, how do you find these companies ?

Using accelerators. An accelerator is a company that invests in companies. The one we'll use today is called YCombinator. One of the most popular accelerators in the world.

They also have a list of over 1,500 startups they've invested in in the past 2 years. You only need one.

So how do we find these startups on LinkedIn ? Using a keyword "***yc s22***". 

Now go to LinkedIn. Search for "***yc s22***". This means YCombinator Summer of 2022.

YC has summer and winter batches. To find companies in the winter batch of 2022, you'll search for "***yc w22***".

You can also search for "***yc s21***", "***yc w21***" and so on. I recommend searching only the past 2 years. Going farther makes your request less likely to receive a reply.

![Yc-s22-search-results](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3186/conversions/yc-s22-search-image.webp)

Next, click on "Companies" so the results only show companies. 

![YC s22 companies. Homli highlighted](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3187/conversions/yc-s22-companies-image.webp)

Now pick a company. Above I picked a company called Homli.

The less followers the better. Next click to view the company profile. 

![yc s22 company homli](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3188/conversions/screenshot-2023-04-04-at-110027-image.webp)

This Homli company has only 26 employees. Good. 

Select the "***people***" tab on the company profile. 

Scroll down to the "***People you may know***" section.

In this section it'll show the employees of the company.

![founders of homli highlighted](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3189/conversions/screenshot-2023-04-04-at-095138-image.webp)

Awesome. We found the founders of the company right there.

There are usually two or more founders. 

Next we need to send them an InMail. An InMail is a premium service on LinkedIn that allows you to send a mail to anyone on the network. Don't worry, you can sign up for a free trial for LinkedIn Premium and get 15 free InMail credits.

This is an example email to send to any of the founders:

![inmail to homli founder](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3191/conversions/screenshot-2023-04-04-at-100046-image.webp)


The key here is stating that your focus is not money for now, but you're willing to put in the work to prove to them you are worth it.

If you work with them for 3 months and they see how hard you work, now you have some leverage to make an ask.

I've seen this strategy work for so many people, but you need to send at least 10 - 15 InMails to different startups.

Wait for the replies. As you wait, move on to strategy two.

## Strategy two: Funded open source startups

In this strategy, we find open source startups and start contributing to their products.

This is my most favourite strategy because so little people do it, but it has worked 100% of the time.

I'll even show you a recent mentee of mine who used this to slide into a company and is now actively contributing to their product.

It's a 3 step process:

1. Find an open source funded startup company
2. Engage and contribute
3. Make an ask

If you prefer to watch me show this strategy, there's a link at the end of this email to a short video of me showing you exactly how to do it.

 

### 1. Find an open source funded startup company

 

To find startups, we'll use YCombinator also. This time, we'll go to the YCombinator website instead. Then, we'll find only the open source companies they have invested in. 

Now this is the secret link:

[https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?batch=W23&tags=Open%20Source](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?batch=W23&tags=Open%20Source)

Notice the batch in the URL. It's W23 (Winter 2023). We can switch this to S22 or W22 if we wish. Let's start with W23.

First, visit that link. You'll see all the open source startups that YC funded in the specified batch. 

![yc open source companies](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3192/conversions/screenshot-2023-04-04-at-110909-image.webp)

You can do this with any of the startups on the list. 

As an example, click on the first result. It's Moon repo. 

On the company profile page, you'll see a link to their website.

![moonrepo company profile. website highlighted](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3193/conversions/screenshot-2023-04-04-at-111028-image.webp)

Follow their website. From their website scroll down to the footer. You'll see a link to the Discord, Github and Twitter.

![moonrepo website footer. social links highlighted](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3194/conversions/screenshot-2023-04-04-at-111211-image.webp)

 

### 2. Engage and contribute

 

First, visit the Github. Confirm that you are proficient in the programming language they use. Also, make sure you understand what they are doing.

Another key thing to look for here is a small bug or fix you can work on for a start.

Then it's time to join the Discord and introduce yourself. This is the exact strategy a mentee of mine used. 

This is actually her exact message in the discord:

![mentee message on discord introducing themselves](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3197/conversions/screenshot-2023-04-04-at-102130-image.png)

Notice at the bottom that someone replied. They exchanged over 10 messages. That person is the cofounder of the startup. 

Excellent. Now she's working with them and has already raised her first pull request. They've been very supportive, and giving her help whenever she asks. 

 
 
### 3. Make an ask

 

After you've contributed at least 3 pull requests to an open source project, it's time to make an ask. This ask will be simple and strategic.

You'll ask them if you can join in on weekly team calls. You'll say you're a newbie, and you'd love to have the full software engineering team experience. 

They are most likely to say yes since they know you and see what you bring to the table.

This is what brings you to the inner circle.

In 3 months, I guarantee you this team will be very open to giving you a stipend of $1k - $2k when you ask for it.

It just takes time, patience, and sacrifice.

Well. Those are the two strategies. It's not easy, I know. But THEY WORK. Finally you have something that works. 

Will you use it? Or not ?

I am looking for just 10 serious people who will do these strategies, and reply to this email with screenshots. 

If you do, I will personally support you on your journey until you successfully start earning some money from this.

Waiting on your screenshots ! 

Also, here's a link to watch a practical guide showing you these strategies.

[Link to watch these 2 strategies practically](https://www.loom.com/share/392020c03a334b9f850c39498b87cc0e)

Land your first remote job with this secret strategy

![third and final round job offer](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3025/conversions/screenshot-2023-03-28-at-064926png-image.jpg)

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, I picked up my laptop to write this weekly newsletter. I noticed it wasn't charged. 

Picked up my charger and was wondering why it was so short. 

Only to find out that Elsa ate my charger. See the stubborn child here.

![picture of me and Elsa](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3024/conversions/0c2e88d8-ba8f-4c24-99e5-699fc4965ef2jpeg-image.jpg)

Well. As I was fuming in anger, I received the most wonderful message on Twitter.

A newsletter subscriber sent me a testimony about landing a dream role in tech. After she applied principles from some of the past newsletters, they offered her the job on the spot.

Let me tell you the full story.

She's been struggling to secure a job since last year. But it's not been easy. She gets the first interview, but never gets a call back for the next round.

![not getting calls after first stage](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3026/conversions/screenshot-2023-03-28-at-070622png-image.jpg)

There's a strategy to every stage of an interview. The strategy for the introductory call is always completely different.

After reading the newsletter, she saw that interviewing is a global competition. Every step of the way, your goal is to show them that you are the best person for the job.

This is exactly what she did. She prepared. She studied the company. She learned as much as she could about the company, their tech stack, and mostly about the role.

Thanks to all this knowledge she got to the technical assessment stage.

This is when the value of ***excellence*** came in. It's a global competition, so how do you stand out ?

Here's what she did:

![](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3027/conversions/screenshot-2023-03-28-at-071127png-image.jpg)

And they were impressed. That's the goal. To impress the people that interview you. These people need to know you are the best person for the job.

Remember that other very qualified people are also competing for this role. So whatever you can do to make a tiny different, please do it. It will be worth it. 

The efforts show. And people appreciate extreme levels of effort. 

During the next stage, she implemented one of our secret interview strategies. Finding out more about the interviewer, and keeping them happy and entertained.

![](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/3028/conversions/screenshot-2023-03-28-at-074723png-image.jpg)

Notice how much research she did on the product, the CTO and the company at large.

This is what I do every single time, and for the past 3 years it has worked like magic.

> Preparedness is the secret to winning. Not smarts, not IQ, Preparedness.

That's the short and sweet story of how this 100% free newsletter helped someone land a dream role in tech. 

It was all her hustle and excellence, but I'm happy this newsletter could be part of that journey.

I enjoyed this experience, and this is exactly what I want for you too. To go to the next level of your career.

I am willing to support you every step of the way.

As I write this newsletter, I'm sending a long voice note to another person who has an interview today. 

I'll do all this for free. DM me on Twitter [@bahdcoder](https://twitter.com/bahdcoder), or simply reply this email and I'll support you as much as I can.

Stay excellent, and I look forward to writing about your success this year.

how she landed a $60k/yr role, with relocation

Five years ago I made a huge mistake at work. Almost got me fired. And it was my very first remote work experience. This was during my time at Andela.

At Andela, after about 6 months of joining, you get to join a real partner project. I joined a project called Shiftboard as a frontend engineer.

They were all based in Seattle. My friend Kayode and I were the only ones from Nigeria.

I was a React wizard already by that time so the coding was going great.

On one beautiful Friday, I got a message on Slack from a product manager. He said "Hey Frantz, can you check out this JIRA issue ?".

It was a bug reported by an important customer. 

I answered "Sure. I'll do so now". After checking it out, I went home. In my mind, this issue was easy and I'll fix it first thing in the morning. 

Okay I didn't go home. It was Friday. we all went to watch Avengers.

Came back to my Slack on Monday and during the morning call, the product manager calls me out and says some painful things.

He said I don't care about customers, I ignored him on Slack, I didn't give him feedback. 

Ah. Omo.

My first remote job. 

Then it hit me. All I needed to do to avoid all this wahala was tell him I was going to work on it on Monday. 

That way he'll tell the customer to wait till Monday. 

It was hot. He notified Andela about what happened, and Andela had to call me and ask me questions about why a partner was angry.

This was just one mistake. But I'm very sure the customer was giving hell to the product manager too. So the hell transferred to me.

I explained and explained.

But I learned a very valuable lesson.

> Over communication is the best way to ever avoid a people problem at work.

Until then, I kept hearing communication, but didn't know how valuable it was. 

One of my personal values became over communication. 

How do I use it ? Three ways.

## 1. I double ask every doubt I have.

If you send me a message and ask me to work on something, I'll ask for a deadline, the goal and the scope.

I'm not taking any chances. Even after you explain, I'll thank you for explaining. Then I'll say it back to you just to confirm that I got the right things.

Great communication requires listening and comprehending. I listen very well to what you have to say. Then I double check that what I comprehended is exactly what you meant.

Don't take chances. People will notice when you become a great communicator. And they'll appreciate it.

## 2. I give regular updates, even when not asked

I was doing a freelance project for a client sometime ago. After kick off, the next day I sent an email telling him all I had done. 

Two days later, I sent another email. Every two days I sent in an update communicating what I had done and how much was left.

He was shocked. In his 3 years of hiring freelancers, he had never met someone who was so accountable and responsive. People appreciate when you tell them what's going on and not leave them in the dark.

## 3. I show gratitude and kindness

Most of my work is directly with a design team. Sometimes, I ask for an update. 

When the design team makes the update, I say thank you. 

I don't stop there. During a daily call, I mention that I asked for an update and the design team was graceful enough to give it to me. And I say thank you again.

From time to time, I post on Slack and say "Shoutout to design team for helping me resolve this". I mention the name of the person that worked on this.

I'm not only verbal about the things I need. I communicate gratitude and kindness as much as I can.

People see your kindness. People appreciate being appreciated.

Being kind and grateful at the workplace will help you win people over.

I've got a gift for you.

Here's a free online course that will take you less than 2 hours to complete, but will boost your communication skills and get you ready for the workplace.

[Link to the Free LinkedIn Communication Course](https://www.linkedin.com/learning/communication-foundations-2)

Thank you for reading. Go out there and become a great communicator.

How I almost got fired because of communication

This letter is not about money.

During the weekend I was sitting with my partner on our balcony. Reflecting on my career journey and how far I've come.

Thinking about how very hard it was at the beginning.

I realised my career was in 2 phases: 

**The hardcore programmer phase**. Where I coded every single day like my life depended on it. All I could do was code. I didn't want to hear anything. Have an idea ? Boom. We start coding tonight. By next week I have a demo.

I was at this phase for the first 4 years of my career.

I was also earning peanuts even though I was top of the game in talent and skills. I was working 16hours a day, and I thought this image was funny:

![facebook profile picture january 2018](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/2829/conversions/26166188_693297724201365_1644936597610981103_n-%281%29-image.jpg)

This was actually my Facebook Profile Picture in January 2018. 

You should love me right now because I had to login to facebook this morning just to pull this image.

Anyways. Whatever you do don't login to Facebook. I digress.

**The Software Engineer phase**. When I realised coding is just 50% of what I need to succeed.

I realised I can work for a very flexible company, where culture is top notch, and work is very impactful.

I realised the reason I was flopping all those interviews and never getting a callback. Even though I was a hardcore coder.

In many ways, my eyes opened to the career mistakes I was making.

That year, I landed my first 5-figure remote job that pays in USD. 

It was a complete mindset shift. How I talked, what I focused on, who I was completely changed.

4 things changed in my mindset. 

But today, I'll give you just one. If there's one thing you learn and stick with from these newsletters, it should be this.

> It's not about you and your skills. It's about the business and their success.

![tweet about business value](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/2830/conversions/oie_qFfAzzSk9u0K-image.png)

My mindset shifted completely from being code focused to being business focused.  

This completely changed my language. No longer was I talking about my programming languages and tech skills. I talked more about business and value.

Let me give you a practical example. 

Before my mindset shift, during interviews, they'll ask me:

What is your greatest strength ?

And I'll say: 

> I use design patterns, object oriented practices and write automated tests.

After my mindset shift, my answer changed:

> I can analyse the needs of a business, and contribute the specific value the business needs using my engineering skills.

Both mindsets look good, but one sells way more than the other.

Companies are looking for the best engineers. But they absolutely treasure an engineer that is business and value oriented.

Not only do you need to be very good at your coding skills, but you need to take it a step higher. 

Ask yourself everyday: ***what high value can I contribute to a company*** ?

Whatever value you contribute must convert to money for the business. 

This completely changed everything. My communication, my interviews, my portfolio projects, my open source work, everything. 

No more building YouTube clones. Those are great for practice projects and will definitely boost your portfolio. But there's a next level.

Building real products that solve business problems. This is the year I built Nesabox: an automation tool to deploy NodeJS applications to the cloud. 

A real product solving a real business problem.

I have so many examples, but I'll stop here. 

As a takeaway from this letter, ask yourself these questions:

> Am I a developer or designer that thinks business value, or think coding and figma all the time ?

> Do I care about the business success and how I can contribute ?

> Can I derive solutions to business problems without thinking code first ?

This mind shift has helped my mentees skip my first 4 wasted years and land 6-figure jobs in the first 4 years, instead of 8 years like I did.

Until next week, stay value focused.


How I 100x-ed my career by learning this career secret

From ₦83k/m to ₦4,530,000/m: Story of my unusual tech journey

When job hunting, my best jobs are those that say "send an email to apply". When I see that, I scream jackpot ! 

Why ? Because I can write my heart out. And there's a very good chance that the hiring manager will read my email.

No automated systems, no bots. You send an email, hiring manager reads it, and if it's good, you get an invite. 

Simple.

If you haven't landed your first job in tech yet, this is the best strategy to follow. Forget job boards. The chances are very very low.  

Spend your time sending out emails instead, whether there's an opening at that company or not. This is something I'll teach later. But let's not digress now.

This secret cover letter strategy will work for applying to jobs on job boards too, so it's got you covered there.

It'll also be perfect if you're sending in applications via email, which are the best.

Today I want to show you how I wrote a cover letter that landed me a $160k job offer with no technical interview.

Before you say of course Frantz, your resume is mad, hold on. 

We'll write a cover letter together right now. Let's write a cover letter for a newbie in tech, with zero work experience, looking for a junior position. Or internship.

This is my 4 step secret cover letter strategy. I didn't copy this from anywhere. I didn't read this online. I started applying it to my job hunt strategy a few years ago, and it works.

I teach this same thing to all my mentees, and the hiring managers are always shocked by how good the letter was.

Okay let's dive it. This won't take long so stick with me.

## 1. Find the hiring manager's name. 

You're writing a cover letter. You need to know exactly who is going to read it.

Starting your cover letter with Dear "Sir" or "Ma'am" is okay.

But if you've read this newsletter in the past, you know we don't do okay. We stand for excellence.

You know what's excellent, spending 1 - 2 minutes doing the research to find out the name of the person who is hiring. 

It might be tricky, but I'll show you. It all depends on the size of the company. 

For a newbie in tech, you should be applying to very small companies that have raised funding so it's easier. 

a. Visit the company website and check the team. If there's no hiring manager on the team, or HR, then the person in charge of hiring is the CTO of that company.

If you're applying for a design position, then the person will be the design lead. If the CEO is a designer, then the CEO will read your email.

b. If the company has 70+ employees, chances are there's a dedicated hiring manager. The team on their website would have someone.

If not, LinkedIn is your friend. 

LinkedIn shows you everyone who works at that company. 

Go to LinkedIn and search "recruiter _company-name_".

Here's an example showing you how I found the recruiter at a company called Fingerprint.

![finding fingerprint recruiter on linkedin](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/2707/conversions/Screenshot-2023-03-07-at-08.17.17-image.png)

c. Scout the internet for previous job postings. Chances are, the company has posted on LinkedIn or Twitter about hiring.

The person hiring would post on their social media. Search Twitter or LinkedIn for "_company-name_ hiring".

Here's how I found the person hiring for Media Associate at Paystack.

![media associate recruiter paystack from twitter](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/2708/conversions/Screenshot-2023-03-07-at-08.16.40-image.png)

All this work just to find someone's name ? Yes. It's that important. We're excellent in this community, and we go the extra mile so we can boost our careers.

Still with me?

On to step 2.

## 2. Add a personal touch

You're speaking to a human. This person reading would know if you are applying to 500 jobs and this is just one of them.

This person reading would also know if you put in your heart and soul into this cover letter.

Make it personal to the company. Did they recently raise funds ? Start your email by saying "Congratulations on your Series A raise". 

Did they recently make a big announcement ? Congratulate them.

Maybe none of this happened. Is their website very beautiful ? Compliment that. This is a real intro to a cover letter I wrote years ago:

> Hello Brook,
> 
> First of all, who built Tanther's website ? 
> It's so beautiful, easy to use, and the UI is world class.
> I couldn't stop scrolling when I saw it. Amazing job here. Wow.

That's it. Short and simple. Now they know you researched their company and love the quality of their work.
	
You have to make sure your compliment is directly related to the person hiring. For example, the compliment above would work if you were writing to the CEO, CTO or designer at the company.
	

This is the second part of your cover letter. It should be short and sweet, but should contain information very specific to the company. Make sure to stay real and sincere in your writing.

On to step 3 of your cover letter.

## 3. Tell them why you're the best.

This is your time to shine. I hope you prepared all your evidence. From my last newsletter, I stressed a lot about having a ton of evidence. 

Evidence is what will get you an interview. All the other parts of your cover letter is how you butter up your evidence. 

If I were a junior developer looking for my first role, I'd have at least 3 real apps built and shipped to my Github.

So here's how I would present that evidence:

> I am writing to show you my interest in the Junior Software Engineer position at Tanthers. 
> 
> I love your culture, focus on integrity, excellence and growth. My personal values are Ikigai(growth), honesty, and excellence.
>
> Here's why I'm the perfect candidate for this position:
> 
> 1. I built a Twitter Analytics tool to help content creators understand their follower demographics. Over 13+ signups in a week and 400+ followers analysed. 
> 
> 2. I built a tip collecting tool for Tik Tok creators in Nigeria to receive tips from their fans. Currently 7 creators use my tool and have collected 23,050 Naira so far.
> 
> 3. I built an AI profile picture generator to help professionals on LinkedIn improve on their personal branding. Over 25 people have used my tool to generate headshots already.
> 
> The code for these 3 projects are live and open source on my Github (Link to Github Profile).
> 
> I'm also excited about writing automated tests and measuring performance.
>
>
> Most of all, I receive user and team feedback and use that to improve the user experience.
> 
> I am very confident I'll contribute value to Tanthers from day one. I love your team.
>
>
> I can't wait to work with the other team members to build the best customer support platform in the world.

Notice that the numbers on these projects are very low. That's very fine.  No one is expecting you to go out there and run your project as a business.

You create a project, share with your friends so it gets some product use, and open source the project.

That's how you get some numbers to show that your project was of value to someone.

## 4. Show them you're awesome

This is the conclusion of your letter. This is where you can add fun facts about you as a person, your hobbies or the latest articles you've written.

What I usually do here is record a 1 minute video of myself saying why I'm awesome, and why I love the team.

I recorded a sample video for this job application.

[Watch the sample video here (Only 1 Minute long)](https://www.loom.com/share/fef4412788214011b3e6239068e279e2)

Many hiring managers end up watching this video and are always impressed by the extra effort I put in. 

If this is something you want to add to your application, have a script you write so you can reuse it. 

Have you tried something similar in your job hunt? Reply this email now to tell me about your experience.

Thank you for reading this far.

Stay excellent,
Frantz





Write killer cover letters: my secret strategy

![henry kaiser quote](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/2492/conversions/Tweet-by-Frantz-Kati-%281%29-image.png)

I was reflecting a lot this weekend. Trying to understand what made me achieve the success I have in my career. And how I'm going to achieve the next 5 years of success. How to go to the next level.

This is the blueprint I used. And this is the exact same blueprint I'll be using for the next phase of my career.

## 1. Build evidence

90% of the workforce today is all talk, no build.

I'm interviewing for a social media strategist role right now for my personal brand.

90% of all applicants with 3+ years of experience cannot provide one case study of how they grew a brand or company. They can't measure the direct business impact their work had on a business.

You're a social media strategist? How can you convince me when you don't have one piece of evidence? Even if you're starting your career, you've learnt the skills. 

Apply them to your own personal brand and have some numbers. Then in interviews you can say I grew my social media following from 400 to 2,000 in 6 weeks.

This same thing happened two years ago. I was a senior consultant for a fintech startup, and part of my contract was to hire a senior engineer for the team.

I received hundreds of applications, with 90% of applicants having zero evidence.

Many years ago, the one thing I did that brought me tons of success was build provable evidence for my skills.

Here's a project I built 5 years ago. 

![nesabox landing page](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/2490/conversions/Screen-Shot-2023-02-28-at-08.24.23-image.png)

Even though the project did not take off, to this day you can appreciate its quality, beauty, and value.

To achieve even higher career success in the next 5 years, I am starting on a journey to building evidence.

Are you joining me? If yes, read on.


## 2. Build even more evidence

I remember 5 years ago, I was on fire to build my first piece of evidence. I was motivated and just started building.

The one thing I didn't know is how much evidence I had to build to make big career gains. 

Most of my mentees underestimate the amount of work and evidence it takes to hit high levels of success.

In a world where competition is very high, there's only one way to win.

Excellent quantity.

For every piece of evidence I created, I did it to the best quality ever. But I didn't forget about quantity.

I have so many examples of evidence I have built in the past. So many examples of high quality evidence.

I built a CMS. Then I built a newsletter. Then recorded a coding course. Then created a YouTube video. Then joined Auth0 as a security ambassador. So many things I can use to prove my expertise at any given time.

The more doors you knock on, the more chances you get at seeing an open door. 

It's the rule of life.

The more I can do, the better I get at mastering those skills, and the more valuable I become to others.

## 3. Turn my evidence into my gospel

In today's digital world, my career is my business. You are your own sales person. You are your own marketer, your own product and your own CEO. 

Early in my career I learned something. You can be the best on the planet. If no one knows how valuable you are, then it's almost a waste.

I see people with average amounts of talent, including me, making millions of Naira a month.

How ?

With the little evidence I have, I sing it at the roof tops. I tweet about it, create courses and content around it, and share it with the world.

I know that this has contributed a lot to my career success.

Reflecting more on this, I also realised this does not mean being popular on the internet.

Not everyone wants that.

This means having evidence on the internet, and using that evidence to knock on doors. 

I create a piece of evidence. I document it on YouTube, blog, website, and write a case study.

I send cold emails about the evidence. During interviews, I become a sales man to sell this evidence and land the opportunity.

In my next 5 years, I will be taking online courses to learn how to communicate my evidence better. I will gain more opportunities by selling my evidence more.

I will be my own sales man. 

I will win.

How ?

By building evidence, building even more evidence, and turning my evidence into my gospel.



How to crush your career: 10x your efforts. 10x your results

Hello again {{ subscriber.first_name }},

I'm writing a book, and creating a course. This book has one purpose: showing you how to become a high earner in tech from anywhere in the world.

For the past 3years+, I've earned Silicon Valley salaries living in Lagos Nigeria. There are thousands of Africans and Nigerians doing the same thing.

I didn't realise it until late last year, but I've actually figured this thing out. There's a mindset that every high earner in tech has that enables them to compete on a world class level.

Building a world class career in tech is even more difficult to do when you come from Africa. Not only do you have to prove that you are competent at that level, you have to exceed expectations at that level too.

I will show you 3 mindset changes that the top earners all share.

## 1. From consumer to maker

![consumer mindset vs maker mindset](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/2366/conversions/consumer-mindset-vs-maker-mindset-image.png)

When I first learned React, I fell in love. I couldn't keep quiet. This was an amazing piece of technology. Top engineers in the world created a solution to a problem, and millions of companies now use it.

I wanted to know more. How did they come up with this? What are the underlying technologies ?

That thinking led me to understand React at a fundamental level. I proceeded to create tutorials about React, and I developed many controversial opinions.

This enabled me to join an engineering team, make suggestions on the technologies, and improve frontend workflows.

I wasn't comfortable being a React developer. I needed to be more. I became more. 

A few years later, I developed a headless CMS based on React. To create something like this, I mastered React design patterns.

This is the exact mindset that allowed me demand what salary I want, and reject many offers.

If you're a UI designer, you've used icons on Figma. What's the science behind those icons ? What concepts do you need to master to create yours ? Are there any advanced books on icon design fundamentals ? How can you move from icons user to icons maker?

Take on a mindset shift today. Create a package for your favourite programming language. Create a tutorial for a concept you understand very well. 

To compete globally and enter six figure territory, become a maker, don't stay a consumer.

## 2. Practice excellence

3 years ago I joined a marketing startup to build a dashboard for their customers.

Before the interview, I tested their website. I also created an account and logged into the dashboard I was being hired to work on.

I saw two problems: performance and accessibility.

Most people would not even care much, because the application was working fine.

During my first week, I studied the code. I analysed the packages used, the workflow, and made a detailed presentation on my finding. 

To my presentation, I added some notes about why these mattered, and how they would affect the business in the long run.

During the next engineering call, I presented it to the team and they loved it. I proceeded to fix all performance and accessibility issues. 

Customers gave positive feedback. They noticed the changes. I set up the business for long term success. 

There's some things I didn't have to do, but I did because of my value of excellence. 

I didn't have to make a presentation. I didn't have to do the research on how performance would affect this specific business in the long run. I didn't even have to care that the dashboard was not working at peak performance.

But I did. And I did it well. It was excellent. 

This is something I see in every high income earner. 

It's not enough that the design looks great. The design needs to be exceptional. It's not enough to design a landing page.

Excellent designers go the extra mile like design across 5 devices, create an interactive prototype, publish a case study.

Have a burning desire to make everything close to perfect, even with the limited time you have.

 
## 3. Global networking

Last week I had a Twitter Space with Samson Goddy about open source. He founded OSCA Africa, the biggest open source community in Africa. 

It was a great conversation. 

During the conversation, he kept mentioning people he had a chat with last week. 

"Oh last week I had a chat with the CEO of Github". 
"The VP of developer relations at Microsoft just called me to have a quick chat".

Lol. Okay. That's impressive. 

He's networked himself to having global connections.

One of the best ways to grow your global network is via open source.

In open source, I see people from all over the world having casual conversations with leaders in tech.

Network from a genuine place of care and value. Take part in global programs such as competitions, hackathons or open source.

This will increase your chances of going global. Also, it'll teach you fundamental skills you need to know before joining global teams. 

Working for a global team in different timezones and different cultures is a whole new game. This has to become second nature to you to compete globally.

There is so much opportunity to go world class. We are no longer limited by location, origin, race or gender. 

It's the best time to take part in the global tech industry and create impact.

It takes time and consistency, and I hope this is something you greatly desire.
 
 Thank you for reading this week's letter. 
 
See you at the top. Until then, stay growing.

Best, Frantz.

The 6 figure earner mindset: How to earn big in tech

Before you read, two weeks ago I asked you to watch The Batman. You didn't. It's my birthday today.

So watch The Batman. Or next week the $1 billion I'm sharing won't reach you.

Okay.

I'm going to tell you a very short but exciting story about why I began believing in the power of networking.

In March 2018, I received an anonymous message. This was a kind and young university student from Accra Ghana. 

He had taken my Udemy course, and had gotten so much value that he reached out to say thank you.

I was very happy to receive his long message, so I replied. 
Since then, he's sent me projects to review, asked for career advice and guidance.

I had no idea who he was. All I cared about was providing value to someone somewhere in the world.

To this day, we still haven't met.

Fast forward 4 years to 2022. My junior brother decides to go into Tech. He came to Nigeria, lived with me for 6 months, and was ready to get a job.

After 6 months of intense training, he needed a job. Guess what ! 
My Ghanian friend is now a cofounder and CTO at a popular Fintech in Ghana.

My junior brother moved to Ghana and joined the company as a frontend engineer. He's currently in Ghana, working as a developer.

A connection I made 4 years ago, and kept alive, landed my brother a job with zero experience and zero interviews.

This is the power of networking.

Over 50% of jobs in tech get filled by referrals and personal networks.

This means that by mastering the art of networking, you increase your chances at landing a high paying job by 50%.

I'll give you 3 strategies to networking that work today.

 

## 1. Target the right people

 

Your network is only valuable if its made up of people connected to your industry.

As a developer, I would target technical company founders that love open source. They are most likely CTO or Lead Engineer at their company.

Your goal is to network with people that have a higher career net worth and are in a hiring position.

Make a list of at least 10 people to target. Your goal should be to get noticed in a positive way by at least 3 of them.

When targeting someone, you should know their blog, LinkedIn, Github, Twitter.

If they tweet on Twitter, reply to the tweet and add more value. If they comment on LinkedIn, like the comment.

You can also ask meaningful and valuable questions in a fun, conversational way. Ask conversation provoking questions and not questions that try to use people.

Something I've seen some powerful networkers do on my Twitter is, they help me reply to questions on my post. They provide support and defend me when someone attacks. 

It's funny, but it's true, and it's amazing.

Go to their website, read their blog or newsletter. If they write a newsletter, be sure to subscribe and reply meaningful replies via email.

In less than 2 weeks, you'll already get noticed. Do this in the most positive way you can. People detect bullshit very fast, and if you're doing this for your personal gain, it will never work.

 

## 2. Contribute value without expectations

 

So you found 10 people you want to network with. Now it's time to contribute value with zero expectations. This is the most difficult part. 

What most people do when they find someone influential is immediately start asking. 

What you should do to stand out is do deep research to find a pain point in this person's life that you can fix.

I'll give you an example. My good friend Kelvin landed a job last year with a company called Trebble. How did he do it?

![chat with Kelvin](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/2266/conversions/Screenshot-2023-02-14-at-09.21.19-image.png)

He found the company online, noticed they were open source, created a tiny open source package.

This package was less than 12 lines of code.

He knew this would have value for the founder because they had talked about it on YouTube.

Guess what. He did this with zero expectations, and they hired him for a developer advocate position.

That should be your goal. Contribute value in any way possible, with no expectations. Good things would begin to come.


 

## 3. Join industry related programs

 

I'll tell you a big secret. My good friend called Gift. She's one of the most amazing people I've met. 

![gift twitter profile](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/2267/conversions/Screenshot-2023-02-14-at-09.34.16-image.png)

She's met and has a good relationship with world class people in tech.

How did she do it coming from Lagos Nigeria? Amongst other things, she applies for any opportunity she finds online. 

When Cloudinary announced they are looking for Media Developer Experts, she applied. 

When Auth0 was looking for ambassadors, she applied.

When Storyblok was looking for ambassadors, she applied.

I can keep going, because this woman does not allow any opportunity pass her by. Keep in mind that none of these opportunities pay.

They're all volunteering positions. 

But, she had the chance to meet with Fortune 500 CEOs, technical leaders in the industry.

A great desire to provide value in whatever way she can. In less than 4 years as a developer, she has travelled to dozens of countries, and made life time connections. 

I'll stop talking about her now before her head will swell. But you get the point.

These opportunities are everywhere. Companies are looking for people willing to dedicate their time to contribute value. 

Move your focus to finding the value you can provide, and watch your career go to the next level.

I hope you enjoyed this letter. 

Stay growing. Best, Frantz.

Top 3 strategies to becoming a networking expert

![tweet about getting your first developer job](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/2096/conversions/Screenshot-2023-02-06-at-08.32.42-image.png)

 

Last month I attended a friend's wedding, and I got to meet so many past colleagues.

I was very happy to meet them. We had a chance to talk a lot about how it's been going since we last met.

I got a lot of amazing news from them, but I got one that shocked me. 

Some of the people I knew, who are amazing engineers, and amazing designers, were looking for work.

At first it didn't make sense. How can someone with 6+ years of experience be looking for a job for the past 6 months now?

I thought it was a beginner thing. I thought only beginners were having a hard time.

I searched more on Twitter. So many amazing techies with incredible skills are looking for work. 

It was shocking. The market is extremely bad at the moment. 

Here's a breakdown of what's happening in the market:

 

![graph of tech jobs vs talent over the years](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/2108/conversions/tech-jobs-vs-talent-over-the-years-image.png)

 

I'll explain what the graph above means.

1. **2015 - 2021**: If you got into tech between 2015 - 2021, things were hard, but the normal level of hard. The strategy for finding jobs was to prepare your Github and apply online until you get an interview. 

This worked well because there were more jobs and more money than there was talent.

2. **2022**: In 2022, things began to change. This was because of a post COVID 19 world amongst other things. Stocks crashed, crypto dipped, many companies began to downsize. 

Venture capitalists started reducing the amounts of money invested into tech companies. This is when the layoffs began.

The strategy for finding jobs was still the same. Apply a lot online until you get an interview. Though it became much more difficult.

3. **2023**: In 2023, things are bloody. Google, PayPal and Microsoft have laid off. There's a flood of talent in the space looking for work.

The old strategy of job hunting is difficult. You have a less than 1% chance of finding a job by applying online. The competition is extremely high. 

This is even worse if you are living in Africa, and trying to work remotely for a company that'll pay you in USD. Your job options are very restricted and the competition is high.

So what works in 2023? What can you do? 

Is it the end of tech? Is it too late? Should you consider another career path?

I've got some answers for you. 

No, it's not the end of tech. It's a down market. By the end of 2024, things might start to pick up. Might take longer, might be this year. 

But you can't wait for favourable market conditions and stay stagnant until then. 

You have to compete aggressively to beat the hundreds of thousands of talent out there and land a job.

Here are 2 strategies that give you a much better chance of landing a tech job in 2023:

 

## 1. Open source contributions

 

No, fixing the documentation of a project isn't going to cut it here. You need 3 projects you contribute to. I'll show you how to find those projects. 

First, start by going to the [YCombinator Startup directory](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies?regions=Fully%20Remote&tags=Open%20Source).

YCombinator is an investment firm that invests in tech startups all year round. There are so many other investment firms out there investing in tech startups.

My link above already filters by open source companies.

When finding a company, confirm that they can hire remotely from anywhere in the world. Choose very young projects over older ones, so that you can create more impact.

There are also closed sourced companies with open source packages and SDKs. These are also very good candidates for contributing.

Let's assume you work with them for 4 months and they don't hire you. That's fine. Don't expect anything in return. 

You now have the entire history of your work contributions. This means your portfolio and Github profile are stronger. 

Keep on contributing, and ask them for their help getting a job.

Referrals are the secret strategy for landing jobs through backdoor channels. 

I recommend having 3 projects that match your skill sets, and contributing 1 hour of your time daily to each.

Only 2% of people are doing this consistently. So you have a great chance here.

A final option I need to mention is creating your own open source projects.

Create a valuable product, not too big, not too small. But it should be valuable. Make it free and open source. Approach people to use it. Write about it. 

In my previous letters I've talked about how to build valuable portfolio projects.

Now onto the next strategy.

 

## 2. Networking

 

Who do you know, and who knows you? Connecting with people online is a great strategy for landing jobs. You want to connect with people in hiring positions. 

These are CTOs and Lead engineers on social media. Commenting meaningful value under their posts, attending their Twitter Spaces and having conversations. Replying to their newsletter with valuable contributions.

Following up on their product launches and open source contributions. Contributing so much value that they feel they owe you something in return. 

Many people I see think Networking means sending someone your CV and saying you're looking for a job. It's time to stop thinking about what you can get from people and start focusing on what you can give. 

To those that give value without expectations, much value will return to them. That's the meaning of networking.

The less of networking you do, the lower the chances you have of ever getting a job in 2023. 

This is what the hustle looks like in 2023. This is what it means to land a job.

If you add these two strategies to your job hunt, you will place yourself at a much better position of landing a job.

This was a sad letter to write, and I hope you got value from it nonetheless.

Stay hustling,
Frantz.

You can't get a job in 2023. Here's what to do

![tweet from flybayer](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1992/conversions/Screenshot-2023-01-31-at-05.35.13-image.png)

Hey, happy new week!

In the past 2 years, I realised a super power I have. It's interviewing. To give you some context, I haven't failed ANY interview in the past 2 years. And I've had at least a dozen.

This is real. I had to search my emails to confirm this. If I am invited for a first interview, I ALWAYS end up being an amazing candidate. That's why I have many offers to choose from.

The past few weeks, I've been interviewing for a Developer advocate position. I applied to exactly three open positions, even though I saw at least 20 positions I qualified for.

Two invited me for a conversation, one hasn't replied yet.

I'm not gonna lie, I aced these two interview processes with flying colours. But it took radical preparation and excessive attention to detail.

I have 3 guiding principles, and I'll give you practical examples of how I use these principles to win.

## 1. Excellence by exceeding expectations.

The first company I applied to is a security focused company. They sent me a coding challenge. Here's a brief of what it looks like:

![company take home challenge description](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1994/conversions/Screenshot-2023-01-31-at-06.20.37-image.png)

In summary, build a login form that shows our technology and how it works.

Notice they said simple ? Simple ? Me ? Lol. No way.

Let me tell you something. There's nothing simple about interviewing. I love Batman. One thing I learnt from him is excessive preparation before going into battle.

And yes. Interviewing is a battle. You are competing against talent from all over the world. So whatever you do, you have to win against whoever else is applying for this role.

Okay.

Here's the submission I presented less than 48 hours after I received the take home challenge:

![redacted result of take home challenge](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1995/conversions/Screenshot-2023-01-31-at-04.59.53-redacted_dot_app-image.png)

They asked for simple login form. Nothing else. What did I give them ?

- A high quality 7 minute video demonstrating what I did.
- 2 login forms, 1 with their technology and another without. Best way I could think of to make the content the most educational.
- Project README was a blog post educating on the technologies.
- Added sign up functionality.
- Added form validation and company brand colors.
- Not so simple login form. Bought a Chakra UI License so I can use Chakra components for the Best in class design.

Here's how the form looks. Spent hours so it matched the company's logo, brand, and had a great user experience.

![take home challenge form](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1997/conversions/Screenshot-2023-01-31-at-05.14.38-redacted_dot_app-image.png)

My goal was to execute this challenge with excellence, and outcompete everyone else. I paid attention to every single detail.

The result ? They loved it. A lot. They even said I was their strongest candidate.

Nailed it. What makes me the most excited is that I put in the work, and in the end, enough preparation brings you more luck.

My lesson here is to apply excellence in everything you do. 

## 2. Time investment and research

The second company's initial application took me 3 hours. Yes, 3 hours applying for one job position. 

I spent time researching the company origins, the cofounders, and the product.

I read at least 500 tweets from the company's founder. Then I read his code on Github.

I proceeded to his LinkedIn. I spent an hour there. I watched every single video I could find. From interviews, podcasts to tutorials he created.

It didn't end there. I started researching all their seed rounds. I read about their business and how they raised funds, and all the posts I could find on the internet about them.

I did all this so that my application could stand out. And it did.

To be very honest, you can't do this with every job posting. But, when you find a job posting that matches your skills 100%, you absolutely should put in the time.

## 3. Storytelling

There was a time when I interviewed at least 2 candidates a day. For a very long time. Most of the time, I got bored at the interview. 

The candidates would go on long rants about stories I didn't ask. And I didn't care a lot.

This taught me the importance of keeping the interviewer entertained and focused on you.

The person interviewing you is human. 

How they feel talking to you will influence what they think of you after the interview.

For the longest time, I've been watching videos on how to tell exciting and impactful stories. 

Because that's exactly what you do during interviews. You are there to tell stories that show the interviewer you are the best for the job.

I practiced for many months how to tell stories the right way. 

This also has a lot to do with your ability to communicate and share your ideas.

Like any other skill, there's an online course out there, or a book you can use to level up.

Thank you for reading this far. I hope this gave you enough insight to understand how I think about, and approach interviews.

## Conclusion

In conclusion to this letter, watch The Batman movie from last year. I'll know if you don't watch it.

If you have, watch it again. Thank you.



 




How I ace developer interviews, every single time

How I ace job interviews, every single time

Hey {{ subscriber.first_name }},

Personal branding is HARD. When I started my career, I hated it.
 
I was also one of those that used to think real developers are busy writing code, while fake ones are online.

I also used to believe that building a career in software engineering means only writing code.

Then something happened. I started looking for jobs. I would apply to 10 jobs, 20 jobs, 50 jobs, and got zero replies.

The replies I got from time to time were painful rejections.

I knew I was 200% competent for the job, but almost no one even gave me a chance.

That's when it hit me. I didn't give anyone any reason to care. Why would anyone consider me when no one knew me?

The moment I started working on my personal brand online, I experienced a complete change.

I got three times more opportunities, doubled my yearly salary, and had the luxury of picking where I work.

I started getting emails like these. Notice this was coming from an article I had written.

![linkedin invite to move to berlin](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1791/conversions/Screenshot-2023-01-24-at-03.11.34-redacted_dot_app-redacted_dot_app-image.png)

Personal branding changed my life.

Personal branding changed my life.

I now apply for 1 or 2 top tier jobs, and have the flexibility of choosing from many offers.

In this letter, I'll show you 3 simple steps to starting your personal branding journey. Put in the work now, and never have to struggle as a developer again.

## 1. Value for value

The key principle to creating a strong personal brand is the desire to provide value. To get value from people, you need to make the attempt to provide an equivalent amount of value back to them.

![adam wathan tweet about being helpful on the internet](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1792/conversions/Screenshot-2023-01-24-at-06.12.00-image.png)

To better understand it, think of ways to be helpful on the internet. How can I be helpful to someone on the internet today ?

Here are nine ways to be helpful on the internet:
1. **Start a podcast**. Invite a developer friend, and have a conversation that would create value.
2. **Organise and lead Twitter spaces**. Send cold DMs to top techies who love talking in spaces. Invite them for a space and moderate. Bonus: This is currently the best way to gain Twitter followers if you're starting from zero.
3. **Create a YouTube channel**. On your channel, provide valuable content with a specific target audience.
4. **Join and contribute to company ambassador programs**. Think Auth0 Ambassador, AWS Builders, Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals.
5. **Share your knowledge by teaching**. This could be an online course, in person classes, or creating educational articles.
6. **Build a social media audience**. Tweet or share posts daily on LinkedIn that focus on helping developers.
7. **Build helpful, valuable products and launch them**. Find product ideas that take less than a week, build them, and share them with a target audience that would use it.
8. **Organise a tech meet up**. Bring people together, and invite one experienced developer to talk to them for an hour or two.
9. **Build open source packages**. Find startups that recently raised funds and have an open source community. Contribute to their projects by building SDKs or a core feature.

To provide value on the internet, pick 3 out of the 9, and start doing them. When I started my journey, I focused on Number 3,  5 and 7.

Once you identify how you want to provide value, go to the next step.

## 2. Market your value

When you create value on the internet, you need to make this value known.

During an interview for a job, mention all these helpful and valuable things you did with your time.

Talk about the meet-ups you organised, the open source SDKs you created and how they were helpful.

Whenever you get a chance, do not be shy to bring up your value and use that to network. 

3 years ago, I had a nice lady walk up to me at a conference and introduce her non profit foundation to me. Fast forward a few years later, I saw her announced on Twitter as a Github Star. 

Her career is now 10 times easier because everywhere she went, she made her value known.

Do not hesitate to send direct messages to other developers on Twitter. Share your work, and tell them exactly how valuable it will for them.

I also recommend becoming active on one social media platform. You don't have to, but it helps a lot in this world where everyone is on social.

## 3. Stay consistent

Consistency beats skill and talent 100% of the time.

Doing any of the value providing ideas I shared above wouldn't change your career. But, doing them over and over and over would compound. 

It is the consistency of doing that that will change your life and career.

Do not underestimate the value of showing up every single day. 

Commit to a goal, and keep doing it the right way, and do not back down. That is how you leave a mark that the industry can't ignore.

Writing a blog post once won't help you much. But, writing and marketing a blog post once a week for 1 year straight will make a huge difference. 

In conclusion, building a personal brand is a painful and annoying thing to do besides learning to code. But, do it right, and you never have to worry about jobs again. You never have to worry about networking. You also won't need to worry about the next steps to take for your career. 

It gives you a boost, and that boost is real.

Triple your success in 2023: my ultimate guide to personal branding

Hey {{ subscriber.first_name }},

Last year, I interviewed at a San Francisco based startup. They needed a Founding Full stack Engineer.

After I applied, I had 4 meetings with the team. They completely skipped the coding interview because of my Github.

They loved me. They offered me **$120k/yr** and some equity. I told them it's too small.

They raised the offer to **$160k/yr.** But because I wasn't too happy with their culture and attempt to pay me less, I declined the offer.

![redacted gmail chat](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1643/conversions/IMG_1008-redacted_dot_app-image.png)

The next month after that I accepted a **$130k/yr** offer from another company.

I didn't share this to brag.

I want to show you that even in a down economy with no jobs, some people are still in high demand and can afford to be picky.

How did I get here ? It was intentional and took a lot of hard work.

When you're junior or mid level, this tech industry does not respect you too much. When you become senior, they start asking you how much you want to make.

Your goal in tech should be to become senior as soon as possible.

Becoming a senior engineer comes in two ways: either you get promoted to senior, or land a job as a senior.

Today, I'm going to show you 4 practical steps to speed up your career and become a senior engineer.

![quote about becoming a software engineer: The fastest way to become a senior engineer is to start acting like one](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1645/conversions/c09e1916-f4c0-4514-83a9-55e421efef3b-image.png)

 

## 1. Adopt big picture thinking

 

As a junior developer, all you care about is submitting your task for review and having it approved.

You wait until a senior or product manager tells you what to do next.

This is nice, and even very comfortable. But that's why you're paid the small bucks, because you take on much less responsibility.

As a senior, you need to understand three things: 

1. Where the business you work for is going
2. How the business plans to get there
3. How the engineering team will help in achieving that goal

This means you'll have to seek this knowledge, by asking important questions. 

Guess what. You can start doing this today, irrespective of your level.

Ask your team lead or CTO what's next on the agenda. Ask them to explain to you why they made certain architectural decisions.

Seek understanding of the entire picture. You can't create big impact if you don't understand how everything works together.

Worry about much more than the task you're working on. 

Think about your team. What can I contribute, no matter how small to make this team better?

It could be as little as adding prettier, or as big as recommending a migration to Vercel for performance.

This takes time and being intentional. Those who seek will find. If you're looking for ways to improve your team and company, you'll find them.

 

## 2. Become a technical wizard

 

During my first 2 years as a developer, I created a Udemy course. At one time, it was the most popular Laravel course on the platform.

This is because I had a great understanding of the concepts I learned. 

I wasn't only interested in doing my job. I needed to be a subject matter expert of everything I ever learned. 

I would spend hours researching specific topics. Sometimes, I get lost on my phone reading documentation.

I also began to care about the four pillars of healthy code. This was the subject of a previous growth letter, so you can [check it out here](https://frantz.mailcoach.app/the-software-engineer-growth-letter/792d903b-bb5a-4f00-9697-7f09aa91c4a7).

Invest in the best training material. No more introduction courses. More courses about advanced testing, design patterns, and architectures.

The types of projects you build too should improve. Start by creating your own version of your favourite NPM package.

I remember in 2018 when I built a Redux clone and showed every one of my coworkers.

I had an extreme and unconventional passion to be better.

Today, I still take courses and learn impactful things every day.

You command respect as a senior when you code like a wizard.

 

## 3. Master communication

 

![graphic with difference between junior communication and senior communication](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1647/conversions/Untitled-2022-12-10-2223-image.png)

 

When you're a junior or mid level, someone will message you asking for the progress on your task.

As a senior engineer, anyone messaging you is already disappointed.

Remember the fastest way to being a senior is to act like a senior. 

LinkedIn has free and great online courses on how to upgrade your communication game. Take them.

Be proactive about following up, sharing feedback and asking for what you need.

Show up to meetings on time, communicate when you can't make it. 

The little things matter. Give an update every 24 hours on what you're working on, whether you're asked or not.

Communication is the most important skill you can gain for your career. Start practicing great communication and see how it takes you to the next level.

 

## 4. Market yourself as a senior

 

Someone asked me what my strongest skill is as a developer. Even though I'm a coding wizard, you don't need to have as much technical knowledge as I do to succeed.

My biggest skill by far is my ability to communicate, and use that ability to market myself. 

First of all, I **DO** and **BUILD** a lot. This gives me a ton of technical experience, and a lot of senior evidence too.

Here are some things that I do every week: 

* I write articles that talk about senior level topics like growth, testing, security.
* I create online courses that train developers on senior topics
* I join and take part in communities like Auth0 ambassadors.
* I run a weekly newsletter.
* I mentor junior developers
* I contribute to open source

To market, you need to build your products. And the list above is a list of some of my products.

Next, I sell these wherever I am. 

During an interview, I mention the numbers I got from doing all these like how many views my videos got. 

I talk about the impact I had. I explain how I demonstrated big picture thinking and technical wizardry.

This is capitalism. You are in extremely high competition, and you have to learn the art of selling yourself to stand out.

Here's what I hear other developers say: ***I used React and Vercel***.

Here's what I say:

> I performed a performance evaluation using Lighthouse and noticed some bottlenecks. I recommended a migration to Vercel and we saw a 70% increase in performance. This led to a 30% increase in average time on site, and more customers.

That's how you sell yourself. Do senior stuff, sell yourself as a senior.

 

I leave you with these parting words: 


> If you want to become a senior, start being a senior. Be a senior everyday, and soon someone will pay you for being a senior.

From junior to senior: how to upgrade your career in 4 simple steps

![tweet about ire aderinokun having a hard time landing a job](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1535/conversions/Screenshot-2023-01-11-at-05.59.43-image.png)

 

Hey {{ subscriber.first_name }},

Getting a remote job that pays in USD right now seems impossible. It's even worse for someone living in Nigeria.

I visited a popular remote job board, saw a job that was amazing,. When I was about to apply, I noticed that 3,000+ people had already applied in the past week.

That's a lot of competition. How do you stand out in such a crowd?

In this letter, I'll show you exactly how I apply for remote jobs and land first interviews.

I get quite a lot of interview invites, and a lot of rejections too. Over the years I've learnt a lot of tricks that helped me get more and more invites.

Three things you have to keep in mind when applying for remote jobs:

 

## 1. I search for companies, not job boards.

![remotehunt website landing page](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1534/conversions/Screen-Shot-2023-01-11-at-00.24.47-image.png)

 

This is the first mindset shift that helped me increase my chances even more. I don't apply for jobs through job boards like Indeed or RemoteOk. Instead, I have a list of all companies hiring remotely from anywhere in the world.

[List of fully remote companies](https://remotehunt.com/fully-remote-companies)

The list above will show you companies that hire from anywhere in the world, including their tech stack.

Next, I go to each company's website and check for open job positions.

This is the best way to find jobs that aren't listed on job boards. Now instead of competing against 3,000 applicants, you're competing against 300.

## 2. I target my resume to the job description

Most of the developers I talk with don't know about ATS (Applicant tracking systems).

90% of the time, when you receive a rejection mail, it's not coming from a human. A computer scanned your resume, compared it to the job description and rejected you.

If you don't make an effort to make sure your resume targets the exact job description, an ATS will reject you.

I'll give you examples of how to target your resume:

i) Make sure the job title appears in at least one of your experiences. If the job requires a Frontend Engineer, change the "Frontend developer" role in your resume to "Frontend Engineer".

ii) Add all the programming languages from the job description to your resume. If the job asks for Typescript, MongoDB, Github, make sure to add these in your resume "Skills" section.

iii) Add all the soft skills mentioned in the job description to your resume. If the company has values, add these as soft skills. 

iv) Identify the keywords in the job description and include them in your resume. Keywords are indicators that ATS scans for to know if your resume is a good match for the job. 

Examples of keywords could be algorithms, design patterns, team work, customer obsessed. 

You'll usually find these keywords in the part of the job description talking about the team, and what they expect from a new hire.

 

## 3. I manage my expectations

 

The average callback rate in a down market is about 0.5 - 1%. This means for every 100 jobs you apply to, you get one invite for an interview. 

This is very low, but it is the reality. With the tips I shared with you, this percentage might increase to 6%, so you get 6-10 jobs per 100 applications. 

Applying for remote jobs is a full time job on its own. If you don't put in the work to research companies, target your resume to the job description, your chances will be very slim.

I encourage you to be honest with yourself. Don't say it's hard to get a job when you only applied to 10. Apply to a hundred over the span of 2-3weeks. 

***Remember: You only need one yes.***

I'm going to attach the latest copy of my resume 

[View my latest resume here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lRFQebwnCdKVIWe0v8FIqiTlnnhuud5Xu-w1IIgtVKA/edit)

Thank you for reading this week's edition of the Growth Letter.

See you next week!

how i apply for remote jobs: a step by step guide to competing globally

how i apply for remote jobs: a step by step guide to competing online

In 2019 - 2021, I was a technical screener at Turing. 

I evaluated take home projects as part of the interview process.

My biggest takeaway was that everyone could build the take-home e-commerce application. But, not everyone paid attention to the quality and health of the code they submitted.

What differentiates healthy code from bad one? Especially when they both do the same thing?

In today's letter, I'll present you four pillars to think about every time you write a single line of code.

For every function you create, or contribution you make, keep these 4 pillars in mind. Healthy code is:

1. Maintainable
2. Scalable 
3. Testable
4. Secure


 

## 1. Maintainable code

 

A maintainable codebase is easy to understand, easy to change and easy to extend. 

Let's take a practical example of some code I found in a real codebase on Github:

![hard to maintain HTML code sample](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1426/conversions/carbon-%282%29-image.png)

At first glance, you can't even tell what this code does. You also cannot add another list item to it without some challenges.

The code needs better formatting, and also better naming of HTML classes.

Now take a look at the revised version of this code:

![maintainable HTML code sample](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1427/conversions/carbon-%283%29-image.png)

Something I do every time I write code is do a self review of my code. 

Is this code clean ? Can a random person looking at this code immediately tell what it does ? Would another engineer be comfortable modifying this code in future ? 

These questions will help you learn the best practices and write better code over time.

 

## 2. Scalable code

 

Scalable code is code that not only works well when you test on your computer, but will also work well when millions of people are using it.

Let's say you work at Github, and your task is to display the total number of contributions made by a user in a year.

Look at these two approaches and try to determine which one is more scalable ?

![approach 1 of code using for loop](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1430/conversions/carbon-%287%29-image.png)

![approach 2 of code using array length](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1431/conversions/carbon-%286%29-image.png)

Approach 1 uses a loop to go through the list of contributions. Approach 2 returns the length of the list.

If you test these two functions for a user with 5 to 10 contributions, there won't be much difference.

But, if you test for a user with 5,000 to 10,000 contributions, that's where you see how inefficient Approach 1 is.

As an engineer, you want to strive to write Approach 2 style code, where you consider the future use cases.

Spend some time to understand the Big O notation, and how to test your application for performance.

 

## 3. Testable code

 


Writing tests for your code will do two things for you: 

Increase your value as a developer, and force you to think about how best to write code that is easy to maintain. 

Testable code is well structured, and divided into components that are easy to test.

Testable code has a clear separation of responsibilities between different parts.

It takes a lot of practice to write code like this, but should be the goal of every engineer.

Here's an example of code that is testable:

![testable and modular code sample](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1432/conversions/carbon-%288%29-image.png)

Notice that the code for logging in a user has 5 steps, and each of these steps is a separate piece of code with a clear responsibility.

Writing testable code takes time, and it gets more natural with the more tests you write.

 

## 4. Secure code

 

When growing as a developer, this is one of the things I struggled the most with. 

It's human nature to think about the happy path that our code will take, while forgetting dozens of sad paths.

Let me give you an example. 

You're working on a login form. Here's a breakdown of the tasks you need to complete:

![login tasks](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1428/conversions/Screenshot-2023-01-03-at-05.23.25-image.png)

Your task is to collect email and password from the user and make sure the credentials are correct.

Most developers think this is where the job ends. Rather, this is where you double down to write code that protects against bad scenarios. 

Your code should assume the worst possible use cases from your users. That's what it means to write secure code.

As an engineer that writes secure code, this is how your tasks will look like:

![login tasks with security in mind](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1429/conversions/Screenshot-2023-01-03-at-05.23.40-image.png)

When you get a chance, take some time to study the [OWASP Top Ten Security Checklist](https://owasp.org/www-project-top-ten/). 

Security is not an afterthought. 

In conclusion, It's your responsibility to write scalable, maintainable, testable and secure code. You'll be much more valuable than a software engineer that ignores any of these pillars.

GL#3: The four pillars of healthy code

***Reading time: 3m 43s***

 

Hey {{ subscriber.first_name }},

Before our letter for today, I'm excited to share with you **The Software Engineer Growth Tracker**.

It is a powerful and flexible template to track your growth as a software engineer in 2023. It also has 100% free resources, projects and everything you need to level up. I've included a video in the template to walk you through.

[Get the Growth Tracker here for free](https://bahdcoder.notion.site/bahdcoder/The-Software-Engineer-Growth-Tracker-757282c4c19d4b4982818cee23607ac6)

 

<hr />

 

**Two years ago**, I joined a Canadian company as a lead software engineer. 

My role included leading and managing a team of six engineers.

As part of my job, I needed to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each team member.

So I got on a call with the product manager and VP of engineering.

During the call, they kept praising a team member named Lee and said nothing but great things about him.

I was curious. What's so special about Lee? 

Does he contribute more code and finishes his tasks faster?

So I checked Github. From the insights, Lee didn't have more commits than the other team members. 

I then searched through messages on slack and found something interesting.

![message from lee lowe on slack](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1316/conversions/Screenshot-2022-12-26-at-00.28.14-image.png)

Wow. I loved this message. I finally had my answer. 

Lee was value-driven. That's why he made a great impression. That's why other stakeholders thought he was exceptional.

Some engineers get assigned tasks, focus only on their task, get it done, and move on to the next task. This is meeting expectations, and that's great.

But, value-driven engineers want to do more and exceed expectations. They want to think of ways to provide more value to their team and company.

Being value-driven has taken me places in my career.

In today's letter, I will give you 3 simple steps to becoming a value-driven software engineer.

 

## 1. Think in problems and solutions, not code and languages

 

There's a statement I tell my mentees every single time we get on a call:

![you are paid to solve problems, not just write code](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1332/conversions/Screenshot-2022-12-27-at-05.58.44-image.png)

Before you write a single line of code, even in practice projects, ask yourself this question: 

How am I creating value with the code I want to write? 

What's a real use case for the work I'm about to do? 

Let's say you're on the job and your task is to create the sign in page for a user.

Your implementation and how you work on that task becomes drastically different if you begin to use a problem and solution mindset. 

I interviewed hundreds of developers during my time at Turing. I was able to tell those that think in problems and those that think in code.

I challenge you from today. Before you write a function, start a new task, or learn anything new, ask yourself these questions:

1. What job do I need to get done?
2. What value am i provided?
3. How can I provide the best possible value?

Once this becomes second nature, you'll talk differently, speak differently and interview differently.

Once this becomes second nature, you'll talk differently, speak differently and interview differently.
 

## 2. Genuine care for your company and team

 

When I saw that message from Lee, just one question came to mind. Every engineer on that team had been using Create React App for months. They all saw how slow it was, and they all accepted this outcome.

No one thought about suggesting something faster. 

No one felt maybe we should switch Redux for state management. 

But Lee did. Because as a value-driven engineer, everyday at work, you spend time thinking about how you can provide more value to your team and your company.

Think about those things you can do to improve everyone's lives. Your team, your company, your customers. 

How can I help my company make more money this year ? 

Can I make our website 2 times faster ? 
Can I take on the QA role at the company without anyone asking me?
Can I do a deep study and improve the Search Engine Optimisation of our entire brand online?

These are the thoughts I encourage you to think. And these thoughts can only come if you have a genuine care for where you work and the team you work with.

 

## 3. Don't stop growing

 

Every month there's a new framework. Many developers think to continue growing means to learn every new framework that comes out. No.

To continue growing as a developer is to do 2 things:


**1. Better use the technologies you already know**

Back in 2016 when I learned React, I knew there was a better way to write code. I had a great desire to learn even better ways to write. 

And every week, I learned a new design pattern. I learned a new performance optimisation. 

And I kept doing so. This is how I grew. 

Every week, I pushed my limit.

And got better with the technology I already used everyday.

![The more value you add to yourself, the more value you can add to others and the company you work with.](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1333/conversions/Screenshot-2022-12-27-at-10.29.30-image.png)


**2. Understand the new solutions released every week, the problem they solve, and how they solve it.**

I've never used Svelte before. The week it came out, I immediately went to Youtube and watched a long talk from its creator that talks about the reason it was created, and how it solves the most common frontend problems.

Now I know that a shadow DOM is one out of many ways to create a frontend framework. I understand how other engineers think about this problem and how they are solving it. 

I did the exact same thing with Qwik.

Thank you for reading to this point. 

If you loved this newsletter, please reply this email and tell me what you would love to read about next week, and where you'd like to grow.

GL #2: Become a Value-driven Software engineer: How to stand out globally

Hey ::subscriber.first_name::,

It's Frantz here, [@bahdcoder on Twitter](https://twitter.com/bahdcoder).

In today's letter I'll show you how to enter 2023 with a growth mindset and achieve your career goals.

As I reflected over the year 2022, I realised that I achieved 2 out of 3 of my goals for this year. 

I had two major goals for 2022: 

1. Find a cofounder to build a startup with, and join them as CTO(Chief Technology Officer). This December, I joined [Otto](https://ottogoes.com), an early stage mobility startup with two amazing cofounders.

2. Increase my yearly income from $90k/yr to $160k/yr. This was no easy fit, but I have managed to get it to about $140k a year, and sometimes I have better months.

I use a simple formula for setting goals for the new year, and working extremely hard to achieve them. 

I will be doing the same for 2023, and I would love for you to join me on this journey.

Here's my 3 step process to setting goals for 2023 and actually achieving them:

 

## 1. Write down where you are, and where you want to be.

 

At the start of last year, I knew I was already working at Staff Engineer Level, but I wanted more. 

So here's what I did. 

I wrote down the responsibilities of a Staff Engineer, which I was at the time, and wrote down the responsibilities of a CTO.

I pointed out exactly what skills a CTO needed to have, some of which I didn't have at the time.

This was a huge part of me achieving my goal last year. Every month, I would find an online course that teaches me one of those skills. 

Here's a sample of the CTO responsibilities I needed to prepare myself for:

![CTO responsibilities for Kati Frantz](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1189/conversions/Screenshot-2022-12-20-at-08.30.03-image.png)

If your goal next year is to create an online course, write down all the skills you'll need to successfully achieve that goal such as video editing, landing page creation, curriculum development, and audience building.

 

## 2. Create a progress tracker

 

As an instructor for software engineering, I meet many developers stuck in their growth journey, and most of the time, it's because they don't have a tracker to follow their progress.

A tracker could be anything. The goal is to be able to look at your goal at a glance, and tell how far away you are from achieving it. 

This is also a huge part of setting goals. A great goal should be measurable and trackeable.

Consider using software such as ClickUp, JIRA, Asana to track your progress.

I use Notion for tracking my progress.

When I look at my Notion board, I can immediately tell I'm 80% done with my goal, and see all the pending milestones I still have left.

I'll be releasing a free Notion Template that can help you track your career easily goals in 2023, so stay tuned for that.

 

## 3. Create a morning routine

 

Starting my day by working on my goals is one the most valuable things I've done in my adult life.

Everyday, I do something that allows me mark something as completed on my goal tracker.

Here's a skill tracker for one of my mentees learning software engineering. Every morning, she makes sure to check off at least a few items on the skill tree.

![a notion board tracking skills to be acquired](https://mailcoach.mailcoach.de-fra1.upcloudobjects.com/8aba450d-80f3-4a9e-ad63-c591a99e4788/1190/conversions/Screenshot-2022-12-20-at-08.45.57-image.png)

A morning routine doesn't have to be boring and long. It can be short, precise and still very productive. 

The morning time is great because you can just get it out of your way before you start your day.

I remember earlier this year every morning, I would watch 1 video from Y Combinator about starting a company and running engineering teams.

This was in alignment with the goal I had, and it only took me 20 minutes on average.

The little time you spend every morning accumulates and translates to an immense amount of progress.

In summary:

1. Write down where you are, and where you want to be. Know exactly what you are lacking to go to where you want to be.
2. Create a progress tracker. A visual display of your goals, and how far along you are in achieving them
3. Create a morning routine. Do a little work on your goal every day. 

That's it for today's letter. 

If you loved this letter, please reply this email and tell me what your goal for 2023 is. I would love to talk about how I can help you achieve that goal.

Having A Growth Conscious Mindset for 2023

GL #1: Growth Mindset for 2023 - How to set career goals and achieve them

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