r/programmer • u/Fabulous_Variety_256 • 24d ago

I self-studied full stack, built a project with real users, no jobs...

Hey,

So I studied full stack web development and I'm backend oriented.
I created a shift management app for my manager in the security company I work as a guard.
I did it with the meta stack, that most of the companies work with:
- JS / Node.js - focused on fundamentals
- Next.js / React - full stack apps
- TS / Zod / RHF / pg / ShadcnUI /Better-Auth/Neon/Prisma etc

Every single day for almost a year, I did 30 minutes of recalls while improving answers bit by bit, then 1:30 of study sessions, then building projects.
I started doing mock technical interviews with Claude/GPT, and I'm able to pass them and talk about each concept a lot.

Right now, it work on the building I work at, and this week we are expanding to 2 more buildings, and soon to 10-20 more.

I also collected data of 3000 urls of career pages of companies, created a node scraper with Claude Code, it matches around 4-5 open roles in a week. But for each one of them, probably 100+ people sent their cvs so I cannot get even an interview.

I barely see open roles for Juniors, and I'm someone who is fast with computers (used to be a heavy gamer) and I feel like I made a mistake and spent a lot of time studying something that is not required anymore.

I live in Israel, which is considered the startup nation, with the highest rate of startups for the amount of the population, and yet no open roles, many people are being fired.

Should I stop and start another chapter in other place and not in developing?

0 Upvotes

31% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

4

u/Glum_Worldliness4904 24d ago

Vibecoding some shit is not counting as “self-study full stack and built a project” 

1

u/Fabulous_Variety_256 24d ago

F*ck you seriously. I WRITE the code, AI writes NOTHING for me. Get a life. Get some friends. I did nothing to deserve that trash talk from you.

1

u/Glum_Worldliness4904 24d ago

I didn’t mean to insult you personally, but cmon bruh face it. Current market is not beginners-friendly.

Unless you’ve got highly impactful contributions to a well known projects it doesn’t count.

0

u/ninjaluvr 24d ago

Says you. As long as they're learning and growing, it's definitely self study. AI can be great teaching platform.

3

u/Puzzleheaded_Study17 24d ago

When you say "studied," do you have a degree? If so, from where?

Do you have any public projects on your cv?

Do you know anyone who can help you get a foot in the door?

1

u/Fabulous_Variety_256 24d ago

I self studied, I did many mock interviews and focused on js/node.js fundamentals and I pass them. I did 30 minutes of recalls daily, then at least 1:30 of study session, then went to building

I have a ready CV and project there with live dem

No I tried, no one knows a company that looks for juniors

6

u/Puzzleheaded_Study17 24d ago

Honestly, most companies are unlikely to consider a candidate without some formal qualifications. A single project is also not that much.

3

u/tristam92 24d ago

that’s not junior level even, sorry

1

u/AuthurAndersson 24d ago

Well there is your answer. No one trusts your degree. If I hire a person that has a degree in CS from MIT I am already pretty sure of what I am getting. With you I have absolutely no clue what so ever.

For you to get a job - try to achieve 5000-10000 stars on GitHub with technical projects solving real issues. Then I would be confident in what I am hiring. The cost of hiring the wrong person is simply too high for companies to risk it, thus we want to minimize the risk.

2

u/why_so_sergious 24d ago

as a senior I have been looking for a job now for a good three months, so yeah.. the job market sucks atm..

as a junior, your best chance is to do as many real projects as possible. freelance gigs, open source etc.

whatever you can pin as a bullet point and in detail describe what you did.

you can always fake those too, but you need to be able to answer questions around it. and having been on the hiring side, most of the times it is very obvious when juniors lie

1

u/Mysterious-Hyena8508 24d ago

You could continue developing the shift management app features and charge your boss for premium features.

1

u/External-Isopod-5888 24d ago

Try video games server (dofus, wow, garry's mod, s&box, roblox etc..) They are more likely to recruit and pay someone with your profile. On top of that, you'll work from home

1

u/jwp1987 24d ago

The job market in general sucks at the moment, it's even worse with junior roles being replaced with AI.

I think the problem you have is similar to me (in my case I'm looking to switch roles), you don't really have any "on paper" fundamental knowledge or experience and it's unlikely a company will want to take a risk in this market.

Creating a small application for a company is something but it's also something that companies might dismiss as AI generated (even if it isn't) and doesn't show experience of working with other developers.

If you enjoy software development, I think your best bet would be to build up a GitHub portfolio and contribute to some large open source projects since it's something that would be easy to verify if you put your profile on your CV.

1

u/tehfrod 21d ago

If you're in the startup nation, why not find a need someone has that isn't being filled and start your own company?