Tech Job Tracker

Over the years our students and coaches spent time interviewing with various tech companies for senior developer roles. Here is a list of outcomes from past interviews.

Recommendations

• Find a niche eg. Mobile, AI, Blockchain, or Game Dev. There are so many JavaScript developers and the market is competitive.
• When applying to jobs online, the best tool to use by far was Otta compared to applying on LinkedIn or Google
• Prioritize reaching out to your network to get referrals. That was the easiest way to get interviews.
• In order to maximize your salary, look for remote jobs in US cities. Note that there are some disadvantages to remote work and there is value in going into an office regularly with people and working on projects together in person with your team.
• Don't spend all your time on Leetcode. Many companies are moving away from that style of interviewing in favour of live project building/debugging.

Observations

• The job market is heavily skewed towards senior level developer roles.
• A large number of companies are remote friendly and let you work from anywhere in the world. These companies save money on office space and also get to hire good people regardless of where they live.
• A select number of remote companies provide location agnostic pay. These companies hire the best people from anywhere in the world and offer a Bay Area salary to all employees.
• Most companies offer a salary that is dependent on where you live. These companies look at the supply and demand for developers in your local area and pay you accordingly.
• Android roles were easier to get compared to frontend or fullstack roles. The market is competitive for JavaScript developers.
• Some companies offered additional stock equity bonuses as part of total compensation but this is harder to value given that you can not easily sell your stock. The value of the stock depends on the value of the company which is hard to predict.
• Lots of roles got cancelled after starting the interview process. This was frustrating as a job seeker, but this could mean many companies are actively trying to pull back and slow down hiring.
• Many companies pay based on geographic location of the employee even if the work is remote. The Canadian market is lower than the US market so a candidate applying to the same roles from the US could earn a higher salary.