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How to Land Your First Tech Job: Or at least what I will tell you

By In Technology


Ah, the age-old question that haunts every college graduate’s dreams: “How do I get a job?” But not just any job. A job that doesn’t involve asking, “Would you like fries with that?” unless it’s a cheeky Slack message to your new tech team while deploying code (because, let’s face it, multitasking is key).

So, you’re fresh out of college, armed with a degree, and ready to conquer the tech world. But there’s a catch – everyone wants experience, and you’re fresh out of that. It’s like needing a job to get experience but needing experience to get a job. A real chicken and egg situation, except less philosophical and more annoying.

Now, before you start sending LinkedIn invites to every CEO with a pulse, hoping one of them will notice your enthusiasm (or desperation), let’s talk strategy.

1. Start a Blog – No, Seriously

First things first, start a blog. I give this advice to everyone, and you’re not going to take it, but I will keep trying.

“But I’m not a writer,” you protest. Well, guess what? Neither are most of your competitors when it comes to that job interview. But here’s the thing – writing helps you articulate thoughts, share knowledge, and most importantly, shows you’re committed. Write about what excites you in tech. Dissect the latest AI breakthrough, or maybe just rant about why tabs are better than spaces. It’s your stage. It’ll also help you greatly when interviewing. If you’ve actually researched and forced yourself to write about a topic, it’s WAY easier to talk about it.

If the thought of cranking out 500 words twice a week makes you sweat, consider this: if you can’t commit to a blog, how will you commit to a job? Harsh but fair.

2. Ship Something… Anything!

Next, if you’re a coder, designer, or any species of maker, you need to create something and get it out into the world. A portfolio is great, but a product is better. It doesn’t have to be the next Facebook. Heck, it can be a to-do list app that makes a satisfying ‘ding’ sound when you check off an item. But it shows you can see a project through from start to finish. Plus, nothing beats the thrill of seeing your creation out in the wild, even if it’s only used by three people (including your mom). And three users is way more than what most juniors come to interviews with.

3. Polish That LinkedIn Profile

Ah, LinkedIn, the worse MySpace of the professional world. It might not be the most exhilarating social network, but it’s where the grown-ups and LinkedIn Lunatics go to humble brag. So, get your profile in tip-top shape. Showcase your blog, add a professional photo (no, your beach selfie doesn’t count), and maybe sprinkle in a few insightful comments on posts. Show the world you know how to play the game. It’s only for show as a junior, and everyone knows it, so don’t go overboard.

4. Read. Then Read Some More.

While not the world’s biggest Jim Mattis fan, I got a bit of a kick in the pants after reading his Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead. In it he said “If you haven’t read 100 books on the field in which you claim to be an expert, then you are functionally illiterate.” That was a bit of a wake up call for me as a CEO. So if you’re a junior, lets make that rule “If you haven’t read at least five books about your chosen profession, you’re not ready to be a junior anything.” It’s a bold claim, but let’s face it, you’re competing with people who live and breathe this stuff. Catch up.

5. Network, Even If It’s Painful

Finally, networking. Yes, it’s awkward. Yes, it feels like speed dating but with business cards. But knowing what’s happening in your field and who the players are is invaluable. So, go to those tech meetups, chat with people, and yes, maybe even endure a few boring conversations about someone’s revolutionary blockchain startup. Try and meet one or two people who know me before you reach out to me. Then we can have someone to gossip about, and it’ll feel more personal. Tampa has a few good tech networks that throw decent, free events where you can find people who know me. Check out Tampa Bay Wave, Embarc Collective, and Tampa Bay Technology Forum.

And there you have it. Five steps to improve your odds of landing a job in tech. Most won’t follow this advice, but if you do, you’ll be ahead of the game. And who knows, one day, I might be asking you for a job. Or at least, for some tips on my blog.

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I help companies turn their technical ideas into reality.

CEO @Sourcetoad and @OnDeck

Founder of Thankscrate and Data and Sons

Author of Herding Cats and Coders

Fan of judo, squash, whiskey, aggressive inline, and temperamental British sports cars.

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The Internet Doesn’t Have Enough Love In It (And How We Can Fix It Easily)

In Technology

I’ve been thinking about all the wrong things when it comes to AI writing code.

Everyone else seems to be too. Job displacement. Security vulnerabilities. The ten-times-faster developer who now bills the same and delivers four times as much. These are real conversations worth having, just not the one I want to have right now.

The one I want to have is about teaching a six-year-old multiplication.

Here’s what I mean. Imagine you’ve been sitting with your kid every night for two weeks trying to explain multiplication. You’ve tried drawing rows of dots. You’ve tried songs (don’t judge me). You’ve tried the “just think of it as groups of things” approach that works for literally every other math concept but, mysteriously, not for your kid. Then one night, something clicks. You found the explanation, YOUR explanation, the one that worked for your actual kid with your actual kid’s brain, and it finally, beautifully, clicks.

Now imagine you could spend a Saturday morning turning that into a small web app. Not a startup. Not a SaaS platform. No login. No backend. No one’s going to hack it (there’s nothing to hack). Just a little thing that walks through multiplication the exact way you figured out it works, step by step, the way you’d explain it. You send it to the WhatsApp group for your kid’s class. Some of those other parents, also quietly losing their minds over multiplication, try it. And it helps.

You just made the world a tiny bit better. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

Claude Code exists now, and a handful of other tools like it, and the reason I think this matters isn’t productivity. It’s access. The barrier between “I have an idea for something that could help people” and “I have a thing that helps people” used to require knowing how to code, or hiring someone who does, or talking a developer friend into your project over enough beers that their guilt exceeded their better judgment. Now it’s a Saturday morning and a good description of what you want to build.

The internet already has beautiful things in it that were built out of love. Free coding education for kids. Open-source video editors. Someone’s incredibly detailed home-brewing app with no monetization plan whatsoever. Artists making interactive experiences because they wanted to see if they could. These things exist because someone cared more about making the thing than making money from the thing. I think that ratio is about to shift dramatically in favor of the people who just want to make something good.

I’m not saying we should all stop paying for Salesforce (we should probably keep paying for Salesforce, there’s a reason that thing costs what it costs). I’m saying the category of software that was previously not worth building because it wasn’t commercial enough to justify the cost, that category just got a lot more interesting.

What’s in that category? Things like:

  • An app that helps beginning judo students understand the concepts behind a throw, not just the mechanics, because judo is where I learned confidence and discipline and I want other kids to find that
  • A private family memory vault (not Instagram, not Facebook, not anything with an algorithm deciding what matters), just a place where the people who love my son can send photos and stories somewhere safe, for him to open when he’s older (Maybe I’ll turn this into something?)
  • A system that reminds companies to send their employees gifts on the days that actually matter to them, because I know from running a company that it fills the cup of the person giving just as much as the person receiving (Thankscrate, if you’re curious, and yes, that one is turning into something real, but that is genuinely not why I built it)

None of those were commercial ideas first. They were just things I cared about.

I think the most interesting software that gets built in the next few years won’t come from developers moving faster. It’ll come from people who previously had no path from “I care about this” to “I built something about this,” and now they do. Parents. Coaches. Teachers. The person in your office who could explain that one complicated process better than anyone and has always secretly wanted to turn it into something.

The stakes are low. The bar to launch is low. The cost is low. The only thing required is that you actually give a damn about what you’re building.

So… What do you give a damn about?

Go build it. I still sometimes have to count on my fingers, but I’m told the app helps.