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Currently I am studing the Android Developer Nanodegree by Udacity. It is the best online course out there as it teaches you things you won't find on tutorials or books. So far I completed Popular Movies 1 & 2 and the Baking App assignments.Now I am reading about gradle.

Anyway a job agent called me and said that he never heard of Udacity and I dont have the necessary experience even for junior android roles. This is bad but I will continue the Udacity's course and do the capstone project. Maybe then I will have more chances to find an android job. But in general if you dont have commercial experience, you have zero chances really. So self learners like me don't stand a change right? I think that's a case.

Other job agents are asking from candidates to be proficient in both iOS/android as well as in frameworks like Java Spring or Play. Is this possible?

To be honest I am really tired hearing "wow you are very intelligent since you know this and that, but I can't help as you are not experienced enough".

I am trying to find entry level jobs for android developers, but it doesn't seem there are any out there. Where are they???

Thanks

Theo.

Theo
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    I think you'll find that the old "need experience to get experience" conundrum is not limited to android dev positions. This is something everyone faces, regardless of vocation, when they're just getting started. – Steve-O Mar 31 '18 at 13:33
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    That was rude from the recruiter. Maybe you are entry level not junior but he should not have said that anyway, don't listen. – Sandra K Mar 31 '18 at 14:01
  • Your question is unfortunately still not on topic. Discussing specific career paths is outside of the scope of what's appropriate here. – Bernhard Barker Mar 31 '18 at 14:33
  • Related: How can I overcome "years of experience" requirements when applying to positions? What should a recent graduate list on a resume if they have no work experience? – Bernhard Barker Mar 31 '18 at 14:40
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    I see you listed 3 released apps on your profile (with broken links...) - if you developed those (and they're at least half-decent), you definitely should be prominently showcasing them in job applications (they may even count for more than the online course). – Bernhard Barker Mar 31 '18 at 14:44
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    checked out your profile - you do have a degree, which is good. your OCJP certification really is worth something, that's good, although it is only 6, I'd shoot for 8 if i were you, android supports 8 now. a certificate of accomplishment by an online course is worth nothing, don't "!" it. none of your links for your projects worked for me. – bharal Mar 31 '18 at 14:45
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    "Android Developer Nanodegree by Udacity. It is the best online course out there" - according to who? – HorusKol Mar 31 '18 at 15:56
  • @ HorusKol. I followed some udemy android courses too. They were good. But no one in udemy has answered me the questions I asked. However, in Udacity the phorums are so much better and I solved my problems. – Theo Mar 31 '18 at 16:10
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    @HorusKol pretty sure the answer to that is "Udacity's marketing team" – bharal Mar 31 '18 at 21:49
  • Do you have a app in the android store? That might be helpful in that regardless of how well known Udacity is because it'll show that you were able to learn from it. – Dan Apr 02 '18 at 16:29
  • In my experience just like "new age" medicine and "alternative" news, when you have to add a modifier to something like, for example, a "nano" degree, it generally really means "not really" [whatever]. – Ethan The Brave Apr 02 '18 at 19:00

3 Answers3

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Regarding programming at the moment,

  1. There is an insane demand. I doubt any profession has ever been in as much demand, in the whole of world history

  2. But this only applies to those who have experience

  3. Thus, you often hear it said "It's the hardest thing in the world to get your first job programming, and the easiest thing in the world to get your second"

A fascinating realization is that ..

Strangely enough: programming is exactly like being a musician.

Weird - but true.

Imagine you needed to hire a guitarist. So, you're making a music track (perhaps for a TV commercial or movie). You already have drummers, string section, etc, but you need a rock guitarist.

Imagine a candidate said this:

"Sure man! I picked up guitar nine months ago, and I've been playing since then!"

What would you say? Would you hire them? No, it would be so funny you wouldn't even reply - you'd assume it was a joke.

Here's another imaginary candidate:

"You really need a guitarist! As you know due to the demand for guitarists, Udemy now offer courses in Being a Guitarist! They are the best course for guitarists. I have done four of the courses!"

What would you say? Would you hire them? No, it would be so funny you wouldn't even reply - you'd assume it was a joke.

The analogy is perfect because, regarding degrees and other qualifications..... Say the hypothetical guitarist said to you "Actually, I did a masters degree in music at NYU". That would be good, you'd be like "Fair enough, that's a good thing." But would you hire the person for that reason alone? No.

In contrast, say the guy said to you "I'm Mike Campbell. I played guitar for Tom Petty for 10 years." Would you hire him? Indeed, just as with experienced programmers, you wouldn't be able to hire Mike Campbell, because he's in so much demand you wouldn't even be able to call him. Which is exactly how it is with experienced programmers.

Thus,

I am trying to find entry level jobs for android developers, but it doesn't seem there are any out there.

There are none. Who would hire a guitarist, or a programmer, with no experience?

proficient in both iOS/android as well as in frameworks like Java Spring or Play. Is this possible?

This is a remarkable misconception. Real programmers are incredibly good at many, in fact all, platforms, languages and APIs. The most fundamental nature of programming is that you have to pick up new languages, APIs etc on the spot. You can't be like "a java programmer" or "I know Cocoa" (except at the lowest levels, basically an assistant).

Programmers get hired to do shit like, make a realtime massively multiuser synchronization geometry engine with heuristic reasoning and, uh, make the API for it. Knowing the syntax of Swift or c# is really trivial and irrelevant.

Unfortunately the things you describe ("a baking app") would be like saying: you want to be the CFO of an organization, but you're qualified to do that because you know how to open a spreadsheet.

Sadly, the news is just all bad here:

I am trying to find entry level jobs for android developers, but it doesn't seem there are any out there.

There are none. Who would hire a guitarist, or a programmer, with no experience?

Community
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Fattie
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    "Knowing the syntax of Swift or c# is really trivial and irrelevant" - only according to like half of employers and a quarter of recruiters. – Bernhard Barker Mar 31 '18 at 16:01
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    @Dukeling well, that's just a function of how poorly coding is being taught rather than the difficulty of knowing the basics of a language. We're churning out developers who "feel" the code and "understand" the concepts, but can't actually implement. It's laughable - it's like saying "i'm great at maths, i understand the concepts of differentiation" and then when someone asks you what 5*5 is you don't know. Understanding something but being unable to implement it is useless. – bharal Mar 31 '18 at 17:14
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    @bharal I'm not sure what you were replying to, but I mean a lot of employers and recruiters require demonstrable expertise in certain languages or with certain libraries or tools. Yes, there are plenty who don't, but there are also plenty who do. – Bernhard Barker Mar 31 '18 at 17:32
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    @Dukeling right - i was just making the point that the only reason employers want that as the baseline is that they've been burnt so often by hires who don't understand the fundamentals, mostly uni hires. And that's because too many schools churn out people who "know how to look things up" rather than, you know, actually do anything. Using google isn't a "skill" in any way shape or form - it's a text box and a button! Hm... maybe i had too much coffee this morning, huh? – bharal Mar 31 '18 at 17:39
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    I think the bottom line is, it's incredibly difficult to be a programmer... Notice the OP made a comment "Now I am reading about gradle". As anyone knows, handling the whole Android build environment is INCREDIBLY difficult, subtle and difficult. If you are really, really good at that you can name your own price. Conversely the vast majority of even good programmers are useless at that difficult skill. (cont...) – Fattie Mar 31 '18 at 22:26
  • ... The idea of someone being able to get a job when they are "reading about gradle" is a very long way from reality. It would literally be like wanting to be Elton John's guitarist and saying "guitars have strings - six strings! you buy them in a string shop! i know that!" It's just a very great distance from reality, sadly. The scam sites that try to "teach people programming" are just a scam. – Fattie Mar 31 '18 at 22:27
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I learned Android development from online courses. I have a degree in finance, but never took a formal course on Java. I am now a full-time professional software engineer who regularly mentors junior developers. So I can attest that the path you're on has the potential to meet your goals.

Some advice:

  • almost no one is going to care about credentials that aren't from a university or well known boot camp.

  • lots of people will tell you to learn some other piece of technology, ignore most of them and focus on being good at what you want to be good at.

  • build a portfolio. These are your own projects, not just capstones from courses. Use GitHub and have public projects you can show off. Show them off.

  • network. Go to meetups about programming. Be social.

Glen Pierce
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  • Hello Glen, I have a github account but no one looks at it. I mean download any of my projects and run it. That was I was hoping for anyway – Theo Mar 31 '18 at 15:34
  • @Theo how many people's projects do you run on github? Are your projects apis or just rando apps? – bharal Mar 31 '18 at 15:53
  • @bharal. They are not random apps. It took me lots of thinking and effort to complete. ie. https://github.com/theo82/Baking-App-Udacity. Basically I would love to have technical interviews with android developers. But job agents seem to find me incapable so I can't get to that point really. – Theo Mar 31 '18 at 16:06
  • @Theo no, in terms of usefulness. GitHub is neat and all, but unless your code solves a problem i'm facing, i'm not going to use it, and i'm unlikely to bother searching for it. The android app store is littered with cute projects that don't solve a need - which is the point i'm trying to make. Code isn't useful just because it's code, even if it's well-crafted. – bharal Mar 31 '18 at 17:04
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    @Theo also, you're based in Larissa. Nice as it might be, you'll find it easier if you're based in Silicon Valley, not in a collapsing economy. Maybe the US is too far - but what about Berlin? – bharal Mar 31 '18 at 17:08
  • @Theo also, your code is what, 1000 lines? I'm sure it was very hard to do - but this amounts to roughly 1-2 weeks of actual developer work. My intention is not to belittle you, I merely want you to notice that if it was that easy to get a tech job with just 1-2 weeks of work, then tech jobs would be easily filled. If i were you I would use a more unique language - Kotlin. There is less competition so you'll stand out more. This level of Android would have got you a job 7 years ago... but now there are a lot more developers. – bharal Mar 31 '18 at 17:12
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    Don't worry that no one's looked at the GitHub code – Glen Pierce Mar 31 '18 at 18:52
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    That is just one step in the process. Also, don't worry about what recruiters say, they don't typically understand many of the technical details, they mostly understand what resumes have resulted in people getting offered jobs from their own limited experience. – Glen Pierce Mar 31 '18 at 18:53
  • I have some well known certificates that recruiters did not know of. So I wouldn't feel too badly if a recruiter told me he didn't know what something was. – Dan Apr 02 '18 at 16:30
  • What specific Task domain knowledge do you bring to the table? Amateur java programmer? Ten a penny, Amateur Java programmer who happens to have expert level understanding of international freight logistics or something? VALUABLE to the right employer. You are not going to compete with the folks with real CS degrees, and probably should not try, but add the programming to whatever thing you have actual real expertise in, now that's the ticket because you don't actually need to be that good to solve a lot of pain points for your employers. – Dan Mills Apr 02 '18 at 23:26
  • You're perfectly capable of competing with people with degrees. – Glen Pierce Apr 03 '18 at 01:45
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Originally as a comment, but got unwieldy:

I have no idea about the depth of an udacity course, but i somewhat doubt it's the "best online course" and that it "teaches you things you won't find on tutorials or books". That stance makes you seem arrogant. This might simply be because you're a bit bruised after a recruiter was rather rude to you - but you have to take the knocks from recruiters.

Recruiters don't have time to help grow developers - that's not what they're paid to do, and it's a pretty cut-throat business. Every moment she/he spends helping you, is a moment some other recruiter is talking to someone they can place. So you can't expect to get help from them. But equally, respect the pressure they're under - if they're not delivering they're fired - and learn to not take it personally when a recruiter is short with you.

Thoughts:

  1. do you have a degree? if not, you're going to have to spend a lot more time learning online. It's pretty hard to be hired without a degree and just an online course
  2. maybe you can go for Kotlin, which seems relatively up-and-coming, and maybe if few enough people know about it will help you side-step some requirements.
  3. go to company events and talk to staff there. Tech staff are more forgiving about credentials and will happily talk to someone trying to break into the industry, while recruiters (especially external) will brush you off.
  4. network. Cannot understate this - given going through an interview process with one person or hiring someone personally known, most people will choose the personally known option, it's just simpler.
bharal
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  • This seems like a shallow copy-and-paste of Glenn's answer but being negative. – Dan Apr 02 '18 at 16:28
  • @Dan I know right? and even worse, I posted it before he posted his! I'm like the worst – bharal Apr 02 '18 at 17:38
  • Sorry for the late response to your comment. I have a bachelor(Electrical Engineer) as well as a master degree(High Voltage Systems). Believe me, they are useless and a waste of time really. Universities nowadays don't give you the experience companies want. I mean it's impossible for a recent graduate electrical engineer to have three years experience. Also, internships require from candidates some experience which I didn't have back then. That's why I am trying a career change to Android development. – Theo Apr 05 '18 at 06:31