Thanks for your story, I'm graduating this Fall with a CS degree and my independent study will be creating my first mobile app. I am learning Swift through a free course and listening to your story has given me a lot of insight that hard work will pay off!
Love your story Dave, especially the fact that you pulled it off on the side and your resilience with the applications. I can relate on different levels. Can't wait to see all the great things waiting ahead for you!
Things have changed so much since I started out. 1. It used to be super difficult to learn. Barely any materials/courses BUT it was easy to make money on the App Store as a solo dev. 2. It's much easier now to learn, BUT it's super hard to make money on your own content.
Yeah that's so interesting. I think people like me who started in the past couple years take it for granted that there are so many quality resources for learning as well as all the updates Apple has made that make it easier to build stuff.
Great video! I like the minimalist approach of just you in front of your workstation talking about the subject of the week. I agree with you on the unpaid internships. If someone is having issues getting call backs for jobs then an unpaid internship is an alternative for furthering your skills and getting more experience on your resume. You will learn more about the day-to-day of what a developer is in an unpaid internship than you'll ever learn at a bootcamp. Don't think of it as an unpaid internship but as graduate school for your bootcamp that you don't have to pay for. I just wish it didn't take me six months to realize this! One thing I must mention. Your intro and outro volume is considerably higher than the rest of the video. I have to hover over my volume to change it. As a developer I can multi-task doing it while drinking my coffee but as that developer I do not want to do that. 😂
Thanks Jimmy! And yeah, really the only things I'd change if I could go back is to start an unpaid internship right away. And appreciate the feedback! I will definitely reduce the volume level there for upcoming vids🤘 Still new to this whole thing but slowly learning :)
This is one of the biggest issues with people wanting to break into this field. Companies don't want to hire someone without proven, paid experience. One of the biggest problems is that there is no standard in programming. It's not like becoming a dentist or a welder where you get certified or it's straight forward to see what skills you have. With programming, you can google and Stack Overflow your way thru a problem, you can do tutorials to make apps and make it look like you know what you're doing. The main concern is that a new dev is the one that is most likely to screw things up and they can learn on someone else's dime, then quit to get a higher paying job.
Thank you Kyle! My goal with is was to paint what I believe to be an accurate picture for the majority of people attempting to break into iOS. I think there can be harm to people who are only seeing the sensationalized success stories that can be like "McDonalds to $250K Google developer in 60 days!!!!". The reality is for most of us(without a CS background) it's a long dark road to finally come out on the other side. Thanks again for stopping by.
Thank you very much for these powerful tips. I'm following your footsteps and the guidance you provide has given me a significant boost. Thanks you so much!
I'm also a self taught dev that got a job in less than a year and something I think its extremely important to emphasize in these types of videos is the importance of "certain types" of privilege and the huge amount of luck that goes into doing this. The extreme amounts of hard work should be a given for anyone who wants to break into tech but being able to quit your job, having a supportive family, or in my case the ability to study at work and my natural ability to function without much sleep are/were HUGE advantages/privileges that the lack of may mean people might have to work 5 or 10 times as hard to find a job. And of course luck is probably the most important thing, catch an interviewer on a bad day and your resume may end up in the trash instead of them thinking you may be a good addition. I'm not criticizing your journey its just something A LOT of people need to hear when they read/watch stories about people breaking into the business in less than a year.
I'm having the same experience here. This Friday I had final interview and it went well but after that I didn't get further response. And I tried to contact back but no response. It really 😞 frustrating.
Thank you for sharing your journey! As someone trying to break into mobile development this is very inspiring. Did you feel like you were prepared for your internship through your bootcamp experience, or did you end up learning a lot on the job?
Glad to hear it! I did feel pretty prepared for the internship in my case but my first job it was a lot of learning on the job. Good luck with your journey!
Hi Dave, I have almost 1.5 years of experience in iOS development. Just wanted to know if I try go for an interview now, what are the major topics my interviewer will expect me to know.
Question! do i need to learn and finish the basic first like freecodecamp course then start getting IOS Dev path ( like codecedemy/seanallen course)???
Great story! I am in the position where I think an internship would be great, but I also have a lot of health issues that I am currently addressing and I am desperate to find something that is going to give me health insurance. I am off of my parent's insurance in June and am hoping to have some sort of role by then that can offer something to ease that worry haha.
That's tough my dude. I totally agree though, there are so many different life situations for different people that ultimately determine what is best. I know you're grinding, just keep trusting the process!
Hello Dave, I don't know if your familiar with concepts of CSS which is primarily used for web development. What do iOS developers use to style their mobile apps? I am only familiar with HTML, CSS and JavaScript so I am ignorant to that technology which is Swift and X-Code. Is it similar to CSS where you add styles into your Swift code like background-color: blue? Also, do you guys have built in widgets when you're developing your app? I think I heard something with Flutter and dart where you can add widgets or built-in styles for your mobile app. Forgive me for my silly question, I am curious about how things are done with other technologies like Swift and X-Code. I am pretty sure I could easily google the info, but I feel you get better insight when you get someone's personal experience on the subject matter, thanks Dave in advance!
How did you deal with the technical interviews? I’ve been a professional iOS developer for about a year now. But I’m looking to move on to bigger higher paying roles. But having no comp sci background I get completely trashed on technical interviews.
I mostly just put together a big study of common iOS technical questions. Things like ARC, class vs struct, etc. I did most basic algorithm studying too but didn't go too deep into that since most places I interviewed weren't asking algorithm based questions. I can relate though of not always knowing what to prioritize to take yourself from a jr to the next level of experience and pay. Good luck!
Hello Brent I am Looking for an IOS/MAC OS Developer. Position: IOS/Mac OS Developer (W2/1099) ( NO C2C) Location: Sunnyvale, CA, Austin, TX Experience 5-12 years Key Skills: iOS/macOS developer Solid understanding of good object-oriented principles Experience with asynchronous/synchronous technologies (i.e.., GCD, Operations) and patterns Experience with Swift specific language features (e.g., generics, Enums with associates values, Table Views and Collection Views, etc) Experience with Swift 5.1/5.2 standard library methods Experience using Instruments to debug performance and memory issues Experience in unit testing with XCTest Experience with building UIs without storyboards (i.e. in code) Knowledge of other architectures besides Model-View-Controller (i.e.., MVVM) is nice to have Familiar with reactive/functional patterns are nice to have Experience with dependency managers such as Cocoa Pods, Carthage, or Swift Package Manager is nice to have. Contact Me on deepak@flexontechnologies.com
Man this sounds rough. Quit your job, buy a $10k bootcamp, and spend half a year unemployed and getting rejected. The opportunity cost is simply huge. I wish I could afford to do something like this, but I don’t think I can.
My opinion is that because the competition is so high for entry level roles, it is not enough to just know the skills of iOS development anymore to get you a job. What gets you a job is knowing the skills COMBINED with separating yourself from all the other candidates. My latest vid talks about this and provides tactic to do that.
I found it on AngelList. It's mostly young companies on there looking for unpaid interns. iOS internships(for non students) are almost non existent outside of that.
That's a really tough question. People have built successful startups from both routes but native iOS has its advantages so what a lot try and do is launch for iOS first and then do Android later on.
@@DaveJacobseniOS I am starting my journey. Literally just playing on Swift Playground and I really enjoy it. Just like you, I always used apple products so this makes me want to learn swift and Xcode. Your videos are very helpful to understand how to start with all of this!
I’m happy to hear that! One step at a time and remember to enjoy each step. It’s a long journey. Reach out to me anytime I can answer questions for you👍
I think it can be a great way to give yourself an edge over other candidates since most don't do that. I open sourced all my app store apps and there were several times that employers mentioned they looked through some code. It can help some concerns from employers vs if they can't see any of your code.
