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Find out what it’s really like going from University student to landing your first full-time…

by Mark O'SullivanJune 9th, 2017

Too Long; Didn't Read

Tuesday 6th of June 2017 marked a year since I made the transition from University Computing Science student to full-time Android developer at Shot Scope, a golf tech startup based in Edinburgh. I feel that whilst I’m still relatively inexperienced as an Android professional, I feel that I can offer some insight for those aspiring Android developers on transitioning from University student to working full-time.

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I knew whenever I was graduating that I wanted to work as an Android developer regardless of how big the firm was or if I had the chance, work in a startup. Thankfully I was extremely fortunate to land two in the one go whenever I joined Shot Scope.

If you are reading this and are wanting to know how I managed to land my first Android job well I’d argue that having a side project was key.

A side project has helped me tremendously throughout my short career in the IT industry. Following both my interview with my placement employer SAP and with my current employer Shot Scope, I was informed that they were impressed with what I had done with my side project and this helped set me apart from other candidates as I had demonstrated a passion for Android development outside of University in Android development.

Life before being an employed Android developer

Going into the job I knew the basics of making an Android app, take a look at the app which I worked on as a side project. By comparison you can take a look at the latest version of the Shot Scope app which I work on full-time in my job. There’s a lot of major differences, not just design-wise (working with a UI / UX designer is great) but also in terms of core functionality of the app.

My side project was not the only project I had worked on before working full-time. For my final year project at University I had developed a booking system for Android devices.

Since working full-time I’ve learnt a great deal such as:

Connecting an Android app to a HTTP API using Retrofit
Using Realm database for internal storage (Super nice to use with Retrofit!)
Fabric’s Answers (analytics) and Crashlytics (crash reporting)
Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) - communicating between Android devices and BLE devices
Making use of the Google Maps Android API
How to make use of Constraint Layouts
How to write better unit tests than I previously was doing
Improving my code reviewing skills

Getting feedback on code reviews and my unit tests was down to the great team I work with, I’m grateful to be working with a team who have on numerous occasions pointing out ways where I could improve my code / unit tests.

Being an Android developer is tough

Don’t be fooled, being an Android developer is tough. You will have times where you will be extremely frustrated to the point where you’re ready to chuck your PC / mobile out of the nearest window.

Every developer goes through similar frustrations, you are not alone. If you hit a brick wall and can’t get a feature to work, don’t worry, relax, you WILL get it eventually. Sometimes all it takes is a fresh pair of eyes, I’ve had days where I sat in the office wondering why I couldn’t get something to work, only to come in and get it working within 30 minutes the next morning.

You are not expected to know everything

Being the sole Android developer in my first job post university was daunting but thankfully I work with a great team and was often reminded that I wasn’t expected to know everything. There were plenty of times where I was asked to implement something which I had never previously done before in an Android app.

Believe me, all of us have been there before

Try and avoid putting pressure on yourself if you’re struggling to implement something new, it won’t do yourself any favours. I found that it was useful for me to create a mini project to get something new working on it’s own first before incorporating it into the main app.

If you’re unsure what you should do it’s good being involved in a community to seek guidance on how to implement a feature, especially whenever you’re first starting off. I fully recommend getting involved with a community like /r/AndroidDev, the Android dev IRC channel or the Android chatroom on Stack Overflow.

I find /r/AndroidDev fantastic for keeping me up to date with the newest Android libraries or interesting blog posts from Android developers on a wide range of topics. They also have good pinned posts from time to time such as the Weekly Questions Thread or the Weekly “who’s hiring” Thread (if you’re looking for an Android developer job).

The chatroom’s like the IRC channel or the SO one is great for having discussions with fellow developers but perhaps the best benefit of these chatrooms is for having a place which you can turn to if you need Android developer related advice.

It’s amazing getting paid to work on something you love doing

How many people get paid to do something that they love? I am lucky enough to be one of these people. I love Android development. I fell in love with it whenever I first started between my first year and second year of university and now I’m working full-time as an Android developer. I still love doing Android development.

If you love making apps for Android in your spare time, believe me it’s even better once you get paid to do it. Yes it might come with added stress of working on an app for a company which you don’t want to mess up but you’re still getting to do on a daily basis something you love.

When you think of those who don’t get paid to do what they love

As you get more and more experience as an Android developer, doors will open for you to get paid even more money to keep doing what you love, how great is that?!

Know your worth

You will get better at this over time but it’s extremely important to not over value or under value the skills that you possess and what you can offer prospective employers.

A good resource to help give you an idea on the salary you should expect is Glassdoor. Using Glassdoor I can quickly find out that the average graduate developer salary in London is just over £26,212 whereas the national average is roughly £25,375.

Furthermore it would be wise to get in touch with recruiters on LinkedIn and asking them how much you can expect to earn in a graduate developer role. While a lot of developers find recruiters annoying, I personally try and stay friendly to them and always reply to their messages (or at least try to) because who knows, maybe you might urgently need one of them to get you a job in the future… hopefully not though.

Once you know the average salary you can use this to your advantage when it comes to salary negotiations during interviews. Speaking from experience, I was nervous about asking for anything more than the average graduate salary for graduating developers when being interviewed for my current role, mainly because I didn’t want to price myself out of the job!

Note: If you are keen to work as an Android developer in Edinburgh, reach out to me and I’ll put you in contact with some of the recruiters who have got in touch with me.

Sell yourself!

A lot of us are short of confidence when it comes to blowing our own horn but you have to learn how to sell yourself whenever it comes to writing your CV as this is most likely the first form of contact you will have with an employer / recruiter.

I found it quite difficult to know what to write for my CV at the time but to hopefully help all of you readers I’ve decided to share the CV I used whenever I applied for my current position of Android developer at Shot Scope.

Whenever you apply the finishing touch to your CV

Whilst it might not be the perfect CV, it was good enough to get me an interview and eventually the job. If you have any suggestions on how I and others could improve a CV similar to this, I’d appreciate it if you could reply to this blog post.

If you are looking for feedback on your CV, I’d recommend checking out r/CSCareerQuestions they have daily threads for CVs (resumes) and interviews

Interviews

Doing interviews is much like many other skills, it needs practice! Don’t be disheartened if you don’t get the job following an interview, follow it up and ask for feedback and most importantly learn from your feedback so for the next interview you’ll be even better.

I’m afraid it’s all you on your during interviews, so no, there wont be an assistant there to sing your praises

Fortunately there is a number of things you can do to help prepare yourself, such as familiarising yourself with common topics which come up in interviews. If you have no idea what sort of questions would come up in interviews here’s a list of interview topics which might be useful to you.

Jobs? Where’s the jobs?!

There’s a number of websites I’d recommend trying to help you with your search for an Android developer job. Talking from personal experience, I managed to find my current job on http://workinstartups.com/

Here’s a couple other websites which could help you with your search.

Useful resources

To conclude I wanted to share some useful resources which I use on a frequent basis as a reward for getting to the end of this blog post. I hope some of these will be of some benefit to you.