I didn’t know that I’d go on to Create 55 PluralSight training classes on topics ranging Java to Python to iOS to GoLang or write the best-Soft Skills The, a book for sale Software Developer’s Life Manual. And I really had no idea that I’d achieve my lifelong dream of early retirement and that I’d reach that goal before my 33rd birthday.

John Sonmez – How to Market Yourself as a Software Developer

 

Your development stack is cutting edge—for 1999…

Your coworkers chuckled when you said it.
caught you learning on your lunch break…

Your boss is only “agile“ when he’s
dodging questions about that raise he promised…

And as You can also add another bug fix to that
monster 10,000-line class you wonder…

Are I in this trap?

“Code Monkey” Job

For the rest of my life?

Or can you finally find work that energizes you…

Realizing challenging problems is possible-world problems…

With a team of professionals who take pride in their work…

And even get paid what you’re actually worth?

Dear Fellow Software Developer,

I still vividly remember the moment my boss pushed us over the edge.

Tom Shirkey is my boss and he’s pulling me into the conference room. a Very little “sidebar” chat…

Next thing I know, something inside me snaps and I’m screaming into his face at the top of my lungs—while he yells right back.

It took everything in me to not to…

Punch That Micro-Managing Weenie
Right in Your Face!

Now I’m not proud of this shouting match. It was definitely a Low point in my career as a software developer.

But he really did have it coming…

Tom was the worst part of the worst job that I have ever had.

Every morning, my stomach tightened up as I walked through the front door. I counted down every second of every day, and when 5 p.m. rolled around I hit that door running…

Hi, I’m John Sonmez.

And back in the day when Tom was making every moment count a I was living in absolute hell. I had no idea what my future would bring.

I didn’t know that I’d one day become a Thanks for being a leader in the developer community to Simple Programmer, my blog that has reached more than 1,000,000 developers a year.

“Office Space” Wasn’t Just
A Funny Movie Anymore—
It Was A Documentary Of MyLife

To be honest, I did it out of desperation.

I’d been out of work for 3 months.

My wife and I lived with my parents near Orlando. We slept on their sofa in the living room, while I job hunted.

And then a After a few months of scouring resumes and hearing nothing but silence, you finally get to the point. to believe that…

The Deck is stacked against you

Because of my role as a mentor to Software developers from all over the globe, I hear from a There are many developers in the same boat as I was.

Here’s the real problem:

Programming has taken on a new meaning. a commodity.

As in a product that’s bought by the pound, usually from the lowest bidder.

Many years ago, the word spread about all the possibilities in software development.

It is. a great career choice…

You won’t find it anywhere else. to Your working hours can be spent pursuing this goal a Creating challenging craft, solving important and meaty problems-world problems, building products that change the world, working with some of the best and brightest minds out there…

Learning and stretching every day…

Enjoy a trendy office space, free snacks, and a break room ping-pong matches…

And how can you make serious bank?

No wonder a “gold rush” Many eager young programmers were attracted to the job market. And that trend continues—40,000 new computer science students enter the U.S. job market every year, and that’s not counting self-Bootcamp graduates and taught developers

These are the most prestigious jobs available today.

But once you’ve been around the block a You only need to do it a few times. to Realize that there are many opportunities, salaries, and perks in software engineering. “asymmetrical.”

What I mean by that is that…

The Top 3% of Developers
Grab All the Best Opportunities Before You Hear About Them

That leaves you to Slug it out with a growing number recent graduates who will happily work for peanuts to get a Step in the door.

The hiring process for software developers is broken, making it even more difficult.

Let me lift the curtain for you and show you just how bad it is…

When a company posts a Job on a site like Monster or Dice, it’s like tossing chunks of bloody fish into water that’s teeming with Great Whites—a A vicious feeding frenzy can erupt.

The first application is received within seconds. They keep going to You can continue to send in your contributions for several days until the posting expires.

Companies get 250 applications for every job they post, and that’s just an industry average.

Developer jobs can be more lucrative than that. as Trying to find a job in a desperate situation (like me!) Spam their resume to Every company that appears when someone searches the term “developer” on Monster…

75% of the time they’re not even qualified.

Think about all the NOISE.

Are you assuming that companies carefully weigh every application by their top developers?

No. Your resume gets “screened” By low-Level HR lackeys who think “for loop” Is a golf term…

They have the final say on whether your resume is accepted. a hiring managers hands… Or gets tossed on the “unqualified” slag heap.

And since the HR screeners can’t tell the programmers from the posers, they just scan for buzzwords—an average of just 6 seconds per resume.

Here’s a It’s scary:

98% of Candidates Are
Eliminated
Based on their Resumes Alone!

Your chances of getting an INTERVIEW are 1 in 50.

And your chances of actually getting an actual offer? Just 1 in 250

Again, that’s an AVERAGE.

You are looking for to Google is your job? Good luck—it’s 10X harder to get a There is more job opportunities than there to Harvard is your best bet.

Could things get worse in the near future?

Just about every week there’s word of another round of mass layoffs at major tech giants like Microsoft, Yahoo, and IBM.

And according to Business Insider…

Industry leaders anticipate the recent “Tech Bubble” To burst at Any Time

Why isn’t anyone telling developers about this new reality?

It’s the reason why I spent months sleeping on my parents’ couch, applying for job after job, never getting so much as a polite rejection notice in return…

And it’s why I agreed to Interview with Tom from the New Jersey consulting company.

The dysfunctional crew seemed determined to Make me miserable from my first minute. They forced me to. to Wear a Complete suit and tie to the interview—which happened over lunch in a Chinese restaurant

The whole time they’re chowing down on egg rolls, and they didn’t ask me a single technical question.

(Later I realized that they didn’t really care if I could program—they were hiring me to Be a fall guy. More about that in a minute.)

And as I’m fielding their softball questions, I’m thinking, “I do not want this job, I do not want this job…”

So I get the job

The hourly rate was also too high. a Down–out developer like me to pass up. After all, my family was counting upon me to Put a Once again, roof over our heads.

We packed everything into our Xterra and headed for the coast. to New Jersey—and thus began the longest 11 months of my software development career.

Day 1 to Hell, We Have T-Shirts

My new boss Tom was an ex-High-With school football coach a bushy brown mustache—the stereotypical overbearing step-dad.

He was there to Make your plays run like a good linebacker, and if you didn’t, Tom was going to Do wind sprints until exhaustion.

Tom had just enough Visual Basic under his belt to Make him a Software development is a certified area expert.

Tom had to review all of my code before I checked it in—even though he didn’t know a vector from his… Well, anyway…

Tom had to give his blessing before I could install any new tools on my dev box—and man did he ever pitch a fit when I installed.NET framework without running through it by him first.

Later I’d discover that Tom even wanted control over what I did when I WASN’T under his paternal eye…

Anyway, my first day on the job I hadn’t quite figured all this out yet. Tom begins explaining my assignment to It was unbelievable to me.

And I started to realize that…

This Whole Gig Was A Setup From The Start—They Expected Me To Fail

Their little racket was like this:

Take on a With filthy, lucrative consulting projects a A set of requirements is impossible for humans.

Then, hire the first hourly contractor who walks in off the street. as your fall guy.

You can fire him if he fails.

You and your good ol’ boy FTEs escape scot free, and you’re laughing all the way to The bank.

Tom didn’t clue me in on that though.

Instead, he provided me with files in this proprietary format from Xerox called Metacode.

My job was to These chunky binary files can be broken up, and you can then go through megabytes after megabytes of raw Hexadecimal code to find the answer. a Way to yank out fonts and images—WITHOUT access to Metacode documentation and the source files.

Good luck, son!

I Can Read The Matrix

UltraEdit opened the first Metacode file I had ever opened and I felt sick. Pure hexidecimal gibberish.

But after a After a few minutes of feeling sorry for me, my QA training came home. to me…

In college I’d worked for HP as a Tester for their printer drivers. My job there consisted of studying reams of printouts and looking for patterns, so that’s exactly what I did.

Finally, I realized something:

The pattern “1A 1B,” This is repeated over and again. A header!

I’d found a crack in the fortress wall, and 2 weeks later I had written the world’s first Metacode decompiler.

Now after this you’d think that Tom and the gang would finally start to Give me some respect.

Instead, they accused my of CHEATING.

I had to Walk them through the full demo. “See, now I’m extracting a font file. Look ma, no hands!”

“Well Crap, If We Can’t Fire Him,
Maybe We Can Make Him Quit“

Looking back I realize that I’d put them in a They didn’t intend on me staying, so I was put in a tight spot.

But since I’d just pulled off this “Metacode miracle” (which was worth many millions). to the company) they couldn’t exactly fire me either.

So Tom took every opportunity that he could. to crank the screws tighter and tighter…

Like the tongue-lashing I took the amount of time it took me to finish a Start planning early and get it done! to Add a A couple of “nice to have” I wanted to include features that I knew my users would love.

And the all-consuming work-Day trips to Customer sites on Long Island to Installers can be babysat and CDs can be swapped.

Tom was trying to to Keep me grounded.

Instead, he lit a fire under my ass, and…

I Was Determined to Be The Best C++ Programer In The Country

I spent every “spare” Minutes of studying.

I learned everything there was to know. to Know about pointers, vectors, and memory management. I am proficient in advanced algorithms. I even built my own app—a Magic the Gathering has a life counter

When the smoke cleared, I was one among the best-Top Coder ranked C++ developers around the world

My confidence in my abilities was high.

Tom would remind me every day that I was boss at work by kicking my teeth in.

They finally got me too far

Tim announces that the entire team will be taking Tim’s advice. a MANDATORY week-Long journey to Manchester, England, for training

Now I’m the only contractor in the group—everyone else is on salary. I get paid an hour. And all that time I’d be spending in jolly old England was time away from my family and my all-important side projects.

So I pull Tom aside. “Are you planning to pay me for 24 hours a day on this trip?” I ask.

Tom laughs. “No, you’re getting a free trip to London,” He said.

You’re gonna go, and you’re gonna like it, sonny.

And that’s when I snapped. Tom and I were belly-to-belly before I knew it.-to-Like a belly a A few trash items-talking linebackers after a nasty play.

I was out of line as a Contractor, I had no leverage in this situation, but I was DONE being pushed around.

There was no way that I was getting on that plane.

Oh Goodie! Now We Can Fire Him

I sat in the empty office over the next 7 days, under the humming fluorescent lights.

Everyone knew that my days were over. They let a A few weeks pass to Save your face, and then the axe fell.

Even though I had no job prospects I was SO relieved.

We jumped in the car and arrived at my parents’ house at 2:30 the next morning.

“Surprise, Dad! I’m Back!”

This time, I knew things would be different.

Many thanks to My daily Top Coder bench pressing, C++ muscles were bulging. Good luck with my puzzles a tech interview.

And I’d racked up a A list of accomplishments that would impress any hiring manager.

So I jumped back into now-familiar routine of surfing Monster and Dice for job openings, typing up cover letters, emailing out my resume, submitting online forms…

Let me tell you, that moment of stony silence was a shock to me.

My applications were not acknowledged.

No replies to My follow up emails and calls.

No rejection notices.

You can start to Wonder,
Am I “Hell Banned”?

Meanwhile the clock is ticking, and I’m getting desperate again.

I somehow managed to get into interviews for 2 different positions at HP.

They flew me out with my suit and I was 100% successful in both interviews.

Imagine my shock when I received the rejection letters!

This was similar a bucket of ice water in the face—a rude awakening.

That’s when I first realized that:

The Best Jobs Are Rarely Available
Go to The Most Talented
Knowledgeable Developer

It was the first time that I saw it. to Landing a great job, your technical skills won’t take you all that far.

This discovery turned my entire world upside down.

Here I had invested months of my life studying and hustling on side projects…

And in the end it didn’t count for much.

The game was actually rigged.

Even my “interviews” HP were a complete sham.

HP is a good ol’ boy’s club, and I was just a “token” External candidate

They were wasting my time, and they were raising my hopes when I really had no chance.

The same applies to most companies.

There’s a “shadow job market” that’s invisible to outsiders.

Because to the U.S. Department of Labor…

85% of jobs are never advertised

Internal candidates or insiders almost always get the best jobs.-Track referrals LONG BEFORE they ever hit Indeed or Monster

When you’re searching those sites, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel.

In fact a A good rule of thumb is:

If You See a Job advertisement
You Don’t Actually Want It

After my fingers were slammed into the door, I decided to go. to see if I couldn’t make this “shadow job market” work to My advantage.

So I went up. a Former boss, the guy who hired my first job at HP.

He was still there. as It turned out that he was actually looking for something. a QA Lead

I accepted his offer—at a Pride-Busting rate of $35 an Hour

Finally, I had a job again, but I was still pretty discouraged, because…

In Just 4 Short Years, I’d Gone from Teenage “Boy Wonder”
75 Dollars an Hour
in California…

To Get My Head Bashed In
For $45 An Hour…

And Even As One of the Top
C++ Developers In The Country…

I’m Forced To Take A Job In QA That Pays 1/3 What I’m “Worth”

It was absurd.

Why didn’t anyone seem to value my my coding skills?

But I was finally beginning to catch on, because I understood…

You need an “In” to Get the job

I was a terrible QA worker. “in,” I swore to myself I’d be writing software again soon.

One day I overheard a developer named Brian talking about a Brian was struggling with a problem. Brian was a He was a new developer and was in a lot of trouble.

So I went over to We thrashed out his cube with ours a solution.

I was soon there. a “stealth member” of the dev team, a Trusted mentor and advisor

Finally they got there to Their boss said, “You have to hire John. We can’t hit our deadlines without him.”

I had the principle that would lead me to it. to Define my career:

The Way to Live a Real Life-Opportunities for Change Yourself Is It To First Give Value to OTHERS

The most successful people in any walk of life are successful because they’ve created massive value for others.

Take a “famous” software developer like Robert “Uncle Bob” Martin, for example.

Uncle Bob built his reputation by sharing his wisdom on UseNet, and now he’s one of the most trusted and talked-About experts in the field.

What type of consulting fees do Uncle Bob think he can command these days, and what are your thoughts?

Scott Hanselman, a builder, is another option. a His blog, podcast, conference presentations and teachings have earned him a large following.

How long would it take Scott to decide tomorrow that he is done at Microsoft? to Find a new job?

In every job I’ve made it my aim to Add more value to your business. “just” code.

When I took a contract with the Idaho State Government, I made it my goal to Help every member of my team to become successful a Simple Programmer is a more productive and fulfilled developer. as a Way to Please share my learnings with your team.

My blog became popular and soon thousands of people were visiting it each month.

These developers started to Look to Please send me as a Leader, someone whose voice was heard and whose opinion was respected

As a I was promoted as a result to project lead—at the highest hourly rate of any contractor in Idaho state history.

I learned another lesson the next day.

Opportunities abound when you are a recognized authority