Job opportunity: Want a job in software engineering but lacking work experience or qualifications?

The job description does mention this:
Although we are embracing remote working, applicants would need to be able to travel to our Southampton HQ frequently if required.
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We're fully remote at the moment, but due to the nature of the role, we felt that meeting in person may be required.
 
MrRockliffe said:
Hi there, would this be based in Southampton? :-)
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Appears to be the case, the headquarters is listed at the top, allbeit a bit small.

Not often opportunities like this come around, and personally i think there should be more. Too many people going to Uni studying random degrees. And typically many don't really know what they want to do come at a young age.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
The job description does mention this:

We're fully remote at the moment, but due to the nature of the role, we felt that meeting in person may be required.
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Brill - wanted to double check :-) I’m up the road, just the other side of Chichester so I’ll get an application together.

The link provides some info on things to include within a cover letter, but is there anything else worth considering over the standard cover letter content?

Thanks in advance
 
MrRockliffe said:
Brill - wanted to double check :) I’m up the road, just the other side of Chichester so I’ll get an application together.

The link provides some info on things to include within a cover letter, but is there anything else worth considering over the standard cover letter content?

Thanks in advance
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Seeing I wrote much of that, no, it's pretty comprehensive :p

I hoping that the themes come through:
  • Being able to learn independently
  • Being able to learn from the team - ask lots of questions, even ones that seem silly
  • Being able to help a team work effectively - without everyone putting effort in it's easy to get into disarray and not do the right thing
  • Show us your code!
Evidence how you do this, your approach, what worked and what mistakes you learned from.
 
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Burnsy2023 said:
Seeing I wrote much of that, no, it's pretty comprehensive :p

I hoping that the themes come through:
  • Being able to learn independently
  • Being able to learn from the team - ask lots of questions, even ones that seem silly
  • Being able to help a team work effectively - without everyone putting effort in it's easy to get into disarray and not do the right thing
  • Show us your code!
Evidence how you do this, your approach, what worked and what mistakes you learned from.
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Excellent - thanks, very much appreciated :cool:
 
The_Arbiter said:
Not often opportunities like this come around, and personally i think there should be more. Too many people going to Uni studying random degrees. And typically many don't really know what they want to do come at a young age.
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You will occasionally get companies hiring for junior non-grad type roles like this, have seen it in software a few times... circa 25 for a non-grad hire, circa 35-40 for a grad granted the starting salaries don't seem to have changed in 15 years!!! Difference is those people studying random degrees at uni have a wide selection of grad roles where they can get into a firm and explore different career paths etc..

Typically the non-grad roles would be in CS or QA mind, not dev roles like this (though again if you can show your work then it shoulnd't be too much of an obstacle) - once you're in somewhere then do your 2 years or so and pivot to a different role... internal career changes for people who are keen and who've proven themselves in an entry level role can certainly happen in various employers, it's often cheaper for the employer and good for the team getting the new junior as the individual knows the company, product etc..etc... There are various non-grad developers out there (and BAs, product managers and project managers) they didn't all start in those roles.
 
Great to see opportunities for those with very little experience, there really doesn't seem to be much available in the current climate for people who are starting out or having to change career (which is me! see my other thread sadly) Its a position that sounds really interesting to me, but with near zero level of coding knowledge its still sadly out of my reach :(
 
Blinkz said:
Great to see opportunities for those with very little experience, there really doesn't seem to be much available in the current climate for people who are starting out or having to change career (which is me! see my other thread sadly) Its a position that sounds really interesting to me, but with near zero level of coding knowledge its still sadly out of my reach :(
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Well it doesn’t look like they’re looking for a huge amount beyond some online courses etc..

I mean you could start working on that sort of thing right now, there are other employers out there who might well be interested in a few months when you have stuff to show.
 
dowie said:
Well it doesn’t look like they’re looking for a huge amount beyond some online courses etc..

I mean you could start working on that sort of thing right now, there are other employers out there who might well be interested in a few months when you have stuff to show.
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I'm curious what you think someone is going to be able to show after a few/couple months of online courses? You're not really going to have produced anything by that point.

I stopped applying for dev type jobs because employers always go for young people with no (commercial) experience or older people who have done the job for years. What they don't go for is older people who just do a little messing around with code on the side. Fair enough, probably. I was never committed to trying to become a dev just applied on the off chance someone might take a punt. Which nobody ever did :p
 
FoxEye said:
I'm curious what you think someone is going to be able to show after a few/couple months of online courses? You're not really going to have produced anything by that point.
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Well the stuff worked on when completing those courses for a start! Plus any little side projects created in that time too. Did you not read the OP and the requirements? They weren't looking for a load of experience.
 
dowie said:
Well the stuff worked on when completing those courses for a start! Plus any little side projects created in that time too.
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The point is, starting from scratch, it's going to take you more than a few months to learn the simplest language constructs. You're hardly going to be creating a portfolio from the word "go".

Or do people start creating useful apps in the first weeks of picking up their first book on programming?

Heck in the first weeks I just about managed "Hello, world".
 
FoxEye said:
The point is, starting from scratch, it's going to take you more than a few months to learn the simplest language constructs. You're hardly going to be creating a portfolio from the word "go".

Or do people start creating useful apps in the first weeks of picking up their first book on programming?

Heck in the first weeks I just about managed "Hello, world".
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Eh? How did it take you weeks to write hello world? You can do that on day 1.

Various MOOCs are a few weeks duration. Why would it take you more than a few months to learn the very basics of a language?

Again it doesn’t look like the OP was looking for an experienced hire, rather someone whose shown a bit of enthusiasm and perhaps has done some MOOCs etc..
 
FoxEye said:
I'm curious what you think someone is going to be able to show after a few/couple months of online courses? You're not really going to have produced anything by that point.

I stopped applying for dev type jobs because employers always go for young people with no (commercial) experience or older people who have done the job for years. What they don't go for is older people who just do a little messing around with code on the side. Fair enough, probably. I was never committed to trying to become a dev just applied on the off chance someone might take a punt. Which nobody ever did :p
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I'll tell you now, you're wrong and I can tell you this after going through ~200 applications to shortlist 10.

What I'm looking for is independent, self motivated learning, curiosity, team working and evidence that you've developed yourself - which online courses are good examples of.

I can also tell you that several of the shortlisted candidates are not on their first career.

Edit: Just for any of those who applied through this thread, if you didn't get an interview, my commiserations, however, we usually take on many more than 4 trainees. The last intake was closer to 20. We had to reject candidates that would have previously been interviewed. Please apply again when we advertise, it's usually every 6 months. Just because you were rejected this time doesn't mean you won't be successful next time and you've got 6 months more to continue learning.
 
FoxEye said:
The point is, starting from scratch, it's going to take you more than a few months to learn the simplest language constructs. You're hardly going to be creating a portfolio from the word "go".

Or do people start creating useful apps in the first weeks of picking up their first book on programming?

Heck in the first weeks I just about managed "Hello, world".
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We weren't even looking for completed projects. We're looking for someone who has been self motivated to learn the basics from all the resources available and be able to demonstrate making mistakes and learning from them. Many of the people who impressed us don't have any code that demonstrates anything up and above their learning - it's ultimately throwaway code.
 
FoxEye said:
I'm curious what you think someone is going to be able to show after a few/couple months of online courses? You're not really going to have produced anything by that point.

I stopped applying for dev type jobs because employers always go for young people with no (commercial) experience or older people who have done the job for years. What they don't go for is older people who just do a little messing around with code on the side. Fair enough, probably. I was never committed to trying to become a dev just applied on the off chance someone might take a punt. Which nobody ever did :p
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I know this is an old thread but what you say is nonsense. My friends mum learnt ton programme(self taught)when she was 39, no previous experience. 15 years later she has had a number of development jobs and she has just started a new one wheres shes on about 70k.
 
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