TechNative Digital - Week 2
Day 1:
Wednesday was our first in-person day at the Clarendon Centre. The foundation and advanced courses briefly met up again as we welcomed the new starters, followed by a round of introductions.
Pete then introduced a new ritual for our in-person Wednesdays. Before we start work, we’re going to spend the first 30 minutes discussing the wider tech landscape and the complex world we’re building software for. He made the point that we aren’t just learning to type syntax in a vacuum - we’re entering an industry that shapes society. This led into an interesting discussion about the platform formerly known as Twitter, algorithmic radicalisation, and the ethics of the digital environments we inhabit.
The theme of this week was CSS. For the uninitiated, if HTML is the structure of a house, CSS is the paint, the furniture, and the landscaping that makes the structure look visually appealing. For the past couple of years, I’ve been exclusively using a framework called Tailwind, which uses an alternative (and, in my opinion, easier) approach to styling pages, so it was a useful exercise to revisit the nuts and bolts of vanilla CSS this week.
The morning exercise was a guided ‘Space Adventures’ tutorial, a fun refresher designed to build a responsive, space-themed web page from scratch. Later in the morning, Pete ran a ‘masterclass’ session covering the developer ecosystem, file management, browser dev tools, and configuring VS Code.
At one point, we did a roll-call of operating systems and I was a bit sad to learn I’m the lone Linux (Ubuntu) user in the room. I naturally took this as an opportunity to evangelise about the virtues of Linux when the opportunity presented itself in the form of a struggling Windows user.
To be honest, I love Ubuntu. Before Northcoders, I’d been a lifelong Windows user, starting with Windows 95, and I genuinely hadn’t realised things could be different. Northcoders required either a Mac or Linux operating system, which meant installing a dual boot and learning Ubuntu before starting the course. I didn’t love the idea of having to find my way around a new OS, but I knew within a day that I'd found my new computer home. It’s faster, safer, infinitely customisable, and open-source!
I go back into Windows sometimes for Adobe reasons (the only software I haven’t found an equally good equivalent for in Linux-land), and quickly get annoyed with the aggressive telemetry and forced updates. Windows feels like a black box where I’m just a guest, whereas Ubuntu hands over the keys and the blueprints.
The afternoon CSS challenge was similar to the first but without a helpful guide this time. It was to take a design file for a fictional company (‘My Company London’) and build it. I paired with Warren, a former journalist on the course. We decided to tackle the homepage structure together to get the skeleton right, then split up to handle the specific styling. It went well and we had something presentable at the end-of-day retro.
Day 2:
Thursday was remote, starting on Google Meet at 8:55 am (the new 9:00 am!). We covered the more advanced side of CSS, including animations, transitions, and 3D transformations, as well as CSS variables and architecture. I really enjoyed today’s challenge, which was to put another website together using HTML and CSS.
Today was also our first group work coaching session with Dave Roberts from Crushing Digital. As much as I’m enjoying the course so far, this is the bit I’m really here for - how to get a job!
Dave introduced himself and talked about his background before delivering a fascinating half-hour on how tech recruitment actually works day-to-day. He walked us through the life cycle of an advertised role and exactly what a recruiter is optimising for during the process.
One of the biggest takeaways was learning that recruiters aren’t necessarily looking for the ‘best’ developer - they are optimising for speed and ‘good enough’ candidates to beat their competitors to the placement.
He also talked about why real junior jobs often aren’t really advertised, and how we can become ‘our own recruiter’ by strategically targeting the opportunities that do exist. He explained that job boards are often a black hole for juniors because of the sheer volume of applicants and that relying on ‘Easy Apply’ is pretty much a lottery ticket, not a strategy.
It was somewhat depressing to realise how many textbook mistakes I’d made in my own job search so far, but also genuinely motivating to hear how they can be avoided in future.
I see the career aspect of TechNative as a second chance to put right what went wrong at Northcoders. Previously, I went into the job search carrying a lot of apprehension about my employment gap, and I let that fear dictate my strategy. Looking back, I can see I held myself back by a fear of making myself visible, perhaps hoping that if I just kept my head down and wrote good code, the work would speak for itself.
Dave’s session was a reminder of how futile this approach was and that technical skills are only half the equation. You have to let people know that you exist. This isn’t something that comes naturally to me, but on this course, I’ve been making a conscious effort to lean into that discomfort. A lot more needs to be done, but I feel much more confident that I can make it work this time around.
Extra Credits:
In other news, I'm studying for the CompTIA Security+ exam, which I plan to take in late February.
I had a conversation over the weekend with the CTO of a US-based software company and asked him which certification could help someone at my level stand out in the current market. Without hesitation, he said anything AI (because it's trending) and Security.
He recommended CompTIA as a solid industry standard. After doing some research, I realised this is very attainable alongside the bootcamp. The syllabus is broad and covers a lot of material, but it doesn't go into overwhelming depth.
Better yet, I realised I already have a passing interest in many of the areas covered, and I’m really enjoying learning about them in a structured context. Essentially, the certification demonstrates that you understand the security landscape and how to mitigate risk, which feels like a strong differentiator to add to my CV.
Week 2 down. 10 to go!