After dedicating time and energy to learning how to code, the natural next question is: What’s next? How do you actually find a job in tech?
As we explain in our breakdown of the journey to your dream tech job, the next steps will involve improving your coding skills by building projects, creating a portfolio, and preparing for interviews. And now, you can do all this right here on Codecademy with workspace.
Workspace is an integrated development environment (IDE) you can use to practice unguided coding right in your browser. Plus, it supports many of the most popular programming languages and frameworks, so you can use it to build on the skills you develop in your courses by tinkering with code in a pre-setup coding environment. Currently, the languages workspace supports include:
- HTML & CSS
- JavaScript (and TypeScript)
- Python
- Ruby
- Kotlin
- Swift
- Java
- Go
- PHP
- C#
- C++
So how, exactly, can workspace help you build your portfolio?
Build your skills and experience
Our courses are a great way to learn basic programming concepts and syntax, but to truly master the tools in your tech stack, you’ll need to take your learning into your own hands. That means experimenting with code — testing out different functions and methods to see what works and what doesn’t.
It also means building projects. Building projects will deepen your understanding of not only your preferred programming languages but also the overall development process.
With workspace, you can copy over the projects you built in your courses and then expand on them to test new ideas. Or, you could start from scratch. Workspaces are also shareable, so you can send them to other developers for tips and feedback or even practice code reviews.
Code reviews are when two programmers go through each other’s code to find bugs and potential optimizations. Development teams are often collaborative, so learning to work with other developers’ code will help give you an edge over the competition when you’re applying to jobs and also give you a glimpse of real-life software development.
How do you use workspace for code reviews? It’s easy. Just copy and paste a project that’s been shared with you into a new workspace, add your comments line by line, then send it back to your partner. There’s no limit to how many workspaces you can create, so no need to worry about running out of space.
Develop your portfolio
After making sure your coding skills are up to par and getting some experience with code reviews, it’s time to start looking for jobs. That means you’ll need to create a portfolio, and with workspace, it’s super easy.
To start, check out our Portfolio Projects. Included in each of our career paths, Portfolio Projects are more complex than the projects you complete in your other courses.
Essentially, you’ll be given a headstart with a set of requirements and some starter code — then the rest is completely up to you. Upon completion, you’ll have a full-featured, unique project that you can share with recruiters and hiring managers to showcase your skills.
Get ready for technical interviews
You can also use workspace to prepare for technical interviews. During a technical interview, you’ll be asked to solve a coding problem. This helps the interviewer assess your technical skills, and it also gives them a peek into your approach to problem-solving.
Many developers point to technical interviews as the most difficult part of finding a job. But, with a little preparation, you can wow your interviewer and improve your chances of getting hired. All you need to do is find a couple of technical interview questions on Google and solve them in a workspace.
Or, you could use Codecademy’s Code Challenges, which are coming (very) soon — stay tuned. Code Challenges are real coding challenges pulled from some of the top tech companies. After completing a few, you’ll be able to more confidently take on technical interviews.
Learn how to use workspace
Ready to get started with workspace? On Wednesday, October 20th, 2021, at 1PM ET, we’ll show you how.
Click here to register for our Getting Career Ready with Workspace event, where Curriculum Manager Alex Kuntz and Curriculum Developer Jamie Rich show you how to use your favorite new IDE. Or, if you can’t wait that long, click here to create your first workspace and test things out yourself.
Wanna learn more about finding a job in tech? Check out our Career Center for tips on finding the right role, advice from tech recruiters, interview prep resources, and more.