Ask HN: What's the easiest way to land a job in RoR? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What's the easiest way to land a job in RoR?

3 pointsgamechangr5 comments

I'm new to learning RoR and read blogs that talk about how impossible it is to land an entry job (every job require 2 yr experience).

I plan to take 2012 to learn RoR full time. I imagine that working for a company (vs self learn) would expose me to more environments.

I applied to Hungry Academy, and will apply to either Code Academy or DevBootcamp. After that, I want to know what to focus on.

What is most important to learn to get employment? What companies or industries are most likely to employ newbies?

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It may not be the best "overall" advice but I've met a lot of people looking for freelance developers or simply rubyists to hire by going at local ruby meetings.

I can't say anything about Ruby groups other than Paris, but at each of our meetings I talk with people having trouble to hire a ruby or rails developer.

Conclusion: Get there and even try to do a lightening talk ! You'll learn a lot, create your network with Rubyists. It's simply about getting closer to other people working in this field.

I'm from Kansas City (in the middle of the US) where they lack good Ruby groups. I may have to move to make it happen. I appreciate the feedback.

I should add that I'm working on the basics now (CSS/HTML)

Try doing a small project yourself. This can help in a bunch of ways:

- Learning is quicker. Till the time you can not get a job in a company, why not build something yourself?

- Familiarize yourself with real world and give you the ability to design an end-to-end system.

- You will have a portfolio to show off your skills.

- Using open source tools/scripts on the way will allow you to make contributions to them later. Contributing back to the community helps deepen your understand, gain valuable feedback and also get visibility.

I just opened a github account and will post an easy to deploy project soon.

Is there a link or site that has step by step for more complexed ones?

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