New Junior Developer Here - Are Tech Co-Ops Good Places To Start Out?

Hi all,

I have been self-teaching front end development since last November and am currently interviewing for junior roles.

I am however becoming increasingly disenchanted with the idea of working for a boss who has the power to make my working life unpleasant for completely arbitrary reasons, and at companies where I have no say as someone on the shop floor.

I’d love to start my career (and hopefully continue it!) at a co-op, but don’t know if there is capacity to train juniors. I am looking for my first dev job at the moment.

It’d be great to hear some advice from people about how feasible this is.

Cheers all! :slight_smile:

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but don’t know if there is capacity to train juniors

This will totally depend on the co-op. Some will, some won’t.

I’d advise you to apply to suitable jobs, making clear your current status and ask them what training and support they can give you in interviews.

Best of luck, and welcome to Co-ops! :slight_smile:

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Hey @rizwansyed357, definitely stick to your guns, keep an eye on this community discussion, reach out to coops and see who has space to hire, all of the usual things you would do to hustle a job! It will work out.

I know that at some point, you could volunteer with Aptivate (see Join us | Aptivate) and that led to people getting hired. I am not sure of the details now but it isn’t available now.

You can post here to have yourself announced too:

Good luck.

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Hi @rizwansyed357

We (Agile Collective) have taken on two apprentice developers in the last two years, though I doubt we will take another next year. It may be worth looking at the government apprenticeship portal to see what’s out there, but be careful as many companies don’t offer the necessary support / guidance.

Since you’re in London, I would strongly recommend keeping tabs on events at Space4 and having a look at Founders and Coders, who run an intensive coding bootcamp that is geared towards getting into the tech for good industry.

Hope this helps,

A

thanks @aaron!

I am a computing student studying part-time, so a bootcamp course not might be right for me.

Cheers!

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