I'm a MERN dev who just lost my job, I could really use a few leads (if possible)

[FanIn80]

Hey folks,

I apologize for getting somewhat personal here, but I just lost my job due to a lack of projects. I know times are tough for a lot of people, and I appreciate that, but I thought I'd reach out and see if anyone here knows of any opportunities... or maybe even if someone here runs their own shop and would be willing to try me out for a bit and see if I'm worth keeping around?

I have two years experience as a developer. Predominately working in a MERN stack. Aside from that, I have 25 years of IT experience starting from a software help desk guy all the way up to designing/implementing/managing and supporting the entire IT needs of a company with 75 employees across four offices in Alberta and BC.

I mention my IT background because I think it makes me a bit unique as a developer, since I'm always able to think beyond whatever line of code I'm working on. I can think in terms of how everything fits together within a stack (like any other full-stack dev would), but also in terms of the IT manager who's deciding between multiple solutions to buy/recommend, as well as licensing, rollouts, support (as in the parts of apps that users can sometimes struggle with), security concerns with protected data and various specific use cases around access levels and removals etc.

Also, I am an AWS Certified Developer. My dev cert with them expires in 2024. I love learning - I have a 79 courses in my Udemy account. Many of them partially completed, but quite a few fully completed. Basically, I'm always trying to learn something new.

Last point: when I say "full stack" I mean full stack. Like the last project I just completed, I designed and built the entire thing. UI/UX, database and data layer (incl models etc), backend api (completely detached from the front end), full react frontend with state, redux, context, material-ui for the controls, a complete role-based authentication system... I even had to write a Business Central plugin to expose some data to the app that Microsoft's public api didn't offer.

Really last point: I've also been able to leverage my IT background into taking care of a lot of devops tasks. Environment containerization, apache, nginx, EC2 deployments etc etc.

Anyway, first I'm asking for help, then I'm hitting you with a wall of text. Apologies for that, there's just so much I've learned over the last two years - and I just really want to keep working.

[photon]

Today I learned what a MERN stack is

[Locke]

Originally Posted by photon

Today I learned what a MERN stack is

I didnt. I read that whole post and felt my eyes gloss over...

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by Locke

I didnt. I read that whole post and felt my eyes gloss over...

lol, pretty much same as me while I was writing it

[MelBridgeman]

https://kudos.bamboohr.com/jobs/view.php?id=101

[Locke]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

lol, pretty much same as me while I was writing it

Thats okay, I talk about Taxes at parties so I'm used to it. That moment when you can practically see people's brains melting.

[Shazam]

Would you be amenable to Angular?

[MelBridgeman]

https://careers.neofinancial.com/?lo...tments&search=

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by photon

Today I learned what a MERN stack is

When I did my internship in 2020, it was to work on MEAN stack, so I bought a bunch of courses on MongoDB, Express, Angular and Node. I wanted to be able to hit the ground running on day one.

When I finally got set up and cloned the project, I was like... what is this? Turns out it was a MERN stack, subbing React in for Angular. The boss (really cool guy) was just like... oh yeah, same thing though.

I had to teach myself React overnight just so I could do anything. Probably not a big deal for a dev who'd been working for a few years (like I wouldn't really have any problems today with something like that), but as a brand new intern fresh out of a program that focused on Microsoft tech it was... fun lol.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Would you be amenable to Angular?

Yes, absolutely. I learned it a couple years ago and would gladly revisit my Udemy courses to refresh myself on it. Like, as in I would cram all night to be ready to start tomorrow.

[MelBridgeman]

Would suggest a GraphQL course

Kubernetes, Docker, REACT Native ect

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

https://careers.neofinancial.com/?lo...tments&search=

That's pretty wild. I met with Chris (don't want to say his full name on a public forum like this) in between the place I interned at closing down and getting the job I just lost.

We seemed to hit it off pretty well, but after meeting with their devs, they went in a different direction. Completely understandable. I had no experience at the time and was struggling with a bit of "imposter syndrome," so wasn't really able to sell my abilities.

Thanks for that link!

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Yes, absolutely. I learned it a couple years ago and would gladly revisit my Udemy courses to refresh myself on it. Like, as in I would cram all night to be ready to start tomorrow.

Let me check with the other boss. I have a bunch of work but we've gone apepoop with the hiring recently so I'm not sure how much budget is left.

[MelBridgeman]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Last point: when I say "full stack" I mean full stack. L

Ha ha ya most people who claim to be Full Stack aren't. You need to know from conception to production maintenance and everything in between, including working all types of devices to truly be full stack.

[photon]

Yeah CI/CD aspect of it would be really valuable.. In the same way that IT experience can help with development having a developer that understands ops is great too. A dev that can just deliver me a container image rather than me having to relearn the Javascript build process flavour of the week would earn lots of free caffeine from me.

(I'm sure the build process for such apps isn't as bad as it used to be)

EDIT: Unless the dev tells me that this container is for test and this other container is for prod, then it's going to be a bad day.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by photon

Yeah CI/CD aspect of it would be really valuable.. In the same way that IT experience can help with development having a developer that understands ops is great too. A dev that can just deliver me a container image rather than me having to relearn the Javascript build process flavour of the week would earn lots of free caffeine from me.

(I'm sure the build process for such apps isn't as bad as it used to be)

EDIT: Unless the dev tells me that this container is for test and this other container is for prod, then it's going to be a bad day.

Don't you just Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V the files over? Or use File Explorer?

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by MelBridgeman

Would suggest a GraphQL course

Kubernetes, Docker, REACT Native ect

Yes!

I currently have these three courses lined up in my Udemy account:

• https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-typ...verless-react/
• https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-app...raphql-course/
• https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-amplify/

I also have these two that I would love to get to

• https://www.udemy.com/course/the-com...eloper-course/
• https://www.udemy.com/course/python-...to-deployment/

I have a docker course that's about 80% finished, and I've actually built and deployed (stored in a private ECR and deployed on build via CloudFormation) a couple of containers used in larger projects.

I have not yet ventured into Kubernetes (which, from my understanding is a a different container management system... like use Docker or use Kubernetes... although I seem to remember reading that Kubernetes can work with Docker images, so it might be more than just a container service?). It's on my radar as something I want to learn though. I've got years of virtualization experience in IT, not to mention supporting multiple end user environments, and so the idea of containerized dev environments as an onboarding process or even just faster project spinup in general is right in my ballpark of things I'm interested in.

(sorry, I kinda rambled a bit there)

Edit: I just realized I pasted the same course link twice. Fixed!

[GirlySports]

could you work for startups? could you work remotely?

I don't now what MERN is either.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by Shazam

Don't you just Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V the files over? Or use File Explorer?

Or a Bash terminal in linux (or WSL2)

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

could you work for startups? could you work remotely?

I don't now what MERN is either.

Absolutely! I was working remotely for a year and a half at the position I just lost. In fact, I've never once been inside their office from interview to hire to... well, ever.