Applying for a job has never been as competitive as it has become in this era especially if one doesn’t have the right skills. Therefore FreeCodeCamp is a platform that offers people with some of the most sought after skills these days that multiple big and small organizations require.
Speaking about her experience with FreeCodeCamp and getting a job at their website blog is Syeda Aiman Batool. She shares, “I started the freeCodeCamp curriculum along with a couple of other tutorials to learn and polish my JavaScript skills. After grasping a good amount of knowledge and making a fully functional web app in Express.js, Node.js, Handlebars and MongoDB, I got some confidence and decided to jump on the front-end and learn React.js. Then I got hold of some basic knowledge of React and made some throwable apps.”
She reported that even though she applied for two different jobs, she received rejections and later realized that most companies are not interested in hiring a junior developer remotely. She states that, “I decided to fully focus on completely learning React, and went back to my freeCodeCamp curriculum. I decided to make a portfolio in addition to making myself worthy enough to get a fine remote job.”
She also talks about Outreachy, a program that provides 3 months paid internships in Free and Open Source Software for people who are typically underrepresented in those projects. In that program interns are paid a $5,500 stipend and a $500 travel grant to attend any national or international event related to their project approved by their mentors.
It is to be noted that Outreachy internships are not limited to programming only. They also includes UI/UX, documentation, data science, graphic design, video documentation, and illustration. Furthermore, Outreachy also gives one an opportunity to work with Mozilla, Debian, Git, GNOME, Kubernetes, and OpenStack etc.
Outreachy at one point only accepted Women, Transgender, Trans-men, gender-queer and other under-represented people in Tech, but now it open for all.
Through Outreachy, Aiman also managed to win an internship at Mozilla. Along with a travel grant and stipend, she also got the latest MacBook Pro with cool heavy specs that all interns at the organization get. Along with an Invitation to Mozilla All Hands.
To find out more about the internship and how to win one yourself, you can visit Aiman’s blog.
