What a Modern Engineer Looks Like in 2024

What does a modern engineer look like in 2024? Darren started his tech career in 2006 but took time off in 2012 to raise children. When he was ready to re-enter the tech job market, he knew he needed to elevate his skill set. He chose Codesmith to become a modern software engineer and stand out in a competitive tech job market. Thanks in large part to the Codesmith and its alumni network, Darren landed a job as a software engineer at Amazon Web Services (AWS)! 

You had a lot of tech experience before enrolling at a coding bootcamp last year. Why did you decide to enroll at a bootcamp at this point in your career? 

I have a lot of coding experience from over a decade ago when I began my career in 2006. In 2012 I had a one-year-old child to care for and stepped out of the workforce to be a stay-at-home dad until 2023. With 11 years of lag (a lot of time spent outside of tech!) I felt I needed some way to get myself back in. 

I had experience with JavaScript from doing web development work before, but a lot of the technologies and libraries used now were brand new to me. During my time as a stay-at-home dad, I did some Udemy courses and coding for fun using Unity and Unreal Engine, but I wasn't confident that I could solve a real-world task. I thought enrolling in a coding bootcamp would be a great way to brush up my skills and gain experience before I applied for jobs. 

What sets Codesmith’s coding bootcamp apart from other programs? 

My wife and I did a lot of research before choosing Codesmith. We liked several things about the program. We liked the intense, rigorous schedule of the bootcamp, and their CIRR reporting assured us of good job prospects after graduation. 

We also liked that they sold themselves as building software engineers — not web development engineers, not just getting graduates a job in tech, but helping their students become software engineers. I figured that there would be a broader set of skills learned at Codesmith, and I think that that was accurate! 

Did you have to do any preparation before beginning the Codesmith bootcamp? 

Yes! I wanted to ensure I was confident about starting the program, so I attended their free courses, including the free online JavaScript bootcamp. 

How did Codesmith prepare you to be a “modern engineer?”

When I re-entered the job market in 2023 many things had changed since I left it in 2012. In 2023, there was more reliance on libraries, new vocabulary (like microservices), and more reading and documentation. Codesmith helped to solidify the things I didn't know, and how to gain access to the resources I needed to learn those things that I didn't know. They taught me to be more open-minded about what sort of solutions might exist out there. 

How would you describe a “modern engineer”?

A “modern engineer” pulls from a lot of different sources, such as:

• API work. There’s a lot of taking what has already been built and building upon it. When I was doing work in the past, there was more low-level coding and Linux knowledge. I was able to do Codesmith on a Windows desktop using the inbuilt Linux for Windows. 

• Architecture. There are more architecture decisions that modern engineers have to make than I recall from my early days in tech. 

What skills and languages did you learn at Codesmith?

My background in JavaScript was relatively weak because it wasn’t the robust language that it is today and wasn’t used as widely. It was used on top of PHP to make your websites a little flashier, not to build an app like Slack or Discord! So, my skills in JavaScript certainly increased by going through Codesmith. 

More importantly, I worked with Apache Kafka on a project at Codesmith, which is a very similar technology to what I'm working with right now at AWS. I don't think I would have looked down that path if I hadn't gone to Codesmith. They pushed me to find new technology and learn a lot about it, which is what I'm doing today: working with brand-new technology and learning new things daily!

What kinds of projects did you work on at Codesmith?

We got to choose a technology and then pitch some ideas for what we wanted to build. We chose Apache Kafka, a messaging service that moves a lot of messages from a lot of different sources to a lot of people who want to read those messages. It's a complex technology, but it's also used very widely in the industry, so we wanted to develop a way to view the metrics for it. We knew that certain technologies existed, like Confluence, to determine how your Kafka's broker was working. They were very heavy and they relied on other libraries, like Grafana. We wanted to be able to read directly from our broker using the JMX endpoints, little bits of Java that were exposed to us to see how many messages were being read and how many bytes were moving through. We use that in combination with JavaScript to create an application that would show the metrics of your broker at any given time.

Did Codesmith teach you about AI for software engineers?

AI and machine learning were being added as my bootcamp was winding down. We were given opportunities to do AI courses afterward for free, but my first job after graduating included building an API that would connect to some AI. Since I was getting that hands-on experience to learn, and because I had a job that took a lot of time, I chose not to do the AI and machine learning courses that Codesmith offered. 

What were your instructors like? Were they software engineers?

They were all very knowledgeable and extremely helpful. They did encompass that modern engineer persona; they were fearless in diving deep into things to learn what they needed. 

How did Codesmith prepare you for the job hunt? 

Codesmith career services included: 

• Weekly meetings that boost your confidence to keep going through the strain and struggle of applying for jobs.

• Support on how to write a resume, how to fill out an application, and how to behave within an in-person interview both technical and behavioral. 

• The alumni network was the most supportive career service offered by Codesmith, which included people willing to do mock interviews and offer personal insights on their experiences in the job market.

What types of tech roles did you feel qualified to apply for after graduating? 

I was primarily looking for senior-level positions, but I was also open to other mid-level positions that sounded interesting to me. 

It’s been a topsy-turvy job market the past year — What was the benefit of working contract roles before landing a salaried, full-time position? 

The most obvious benefit is that contract work is paid work. It also gives you something on your resume that is recent and provides experience that you can speak to in an interview. Contract work is generally shorter term than a full-time job, so unless you're searching for the same contract all the time, you get the opportunity to look through a wide breadth of different areas within the industry. You can do it for a short time and feel out if that's something you enjoy doing! Even if you don't enjoy doing it, you at least have that experience to rely upon in the future if you encounter it again. 

Now you’re a Software Engineer II at AWS — Congrats! How did you get the job? 

I had a recruiter reach out to me! I don't know exactly the path that got me in front of a recruiter. I got advice from an old colleague to clean up my LinkedIn, which was how I was contacted. It’s possible that they saw that I had worked with Kafka and thought it would be great for this role. All I know is that I was incredibly lucky. I know this is not the standard path to a first full-time job after 12 years. I feel incredibly lucky to have this role. 

Did you feel prepared for the AWS interview process?

My first interview in the tech industry ever was an all-day interview with Microsoft, so I’d had a little bit of an experience with a rigorous tech interview before, but that was in 2006 so I was nervous going through interviews again. I had practice doing algorithms thanks to Codesmith and the alumni network. The technical interviews that I practiced with other people in the Codesmith alumni network, and with the job hiring portion of Codesmith's program helped me feel more confident and more able to put my best foot forward. I'm also glad that it was not my first job interview after leaving Codesmith!

Was AWS interested in your Codesmith bootcamp experience?

They never brought it up in the interview, but I did not hide my bootcamp experience. It's on my LinkedIn and my resume. They asked a lot about different projects I've worked on and software companies that I've worked with, and I mentioned the project I did with Codesmith that directly relates to the work I'm doing now. 

AWS is a big company — What team do you work on now? 

I work for Kinesis Data Streams, which is very similar to Kafka. It's a messaging service that AWS offers. It's one of the lower-level services that everything is built upon. The scale is daunting and it's been a bit of an adjustment!

Are you using what you learned at the bootcamp now on the job?

It seems like what I learned at Codesmith gave me the background needed to get up to speed here. The technologies are similar. More than that, the ability to spend long periods of time diving deep, reading lots of different documents, and coming up to speed on new technology (which is certainly one of the biggest skills that I learned from Codesmith!) has allowed me to move much quicker and I'm very thankful for that. 

At this point in your career, was Codesmith worth it for you?

Definitely! I would not have had the confidence to apply for the jobs that I applied for and I would not have pushed myself as hard as they did. When I did self-study as a stay-at-home parent, there was no motivation to keep pushing when the going got tough. It was encouraging to be told I could work this hard and learn new things. I’m extremely grateful for the experience and the connection to the alumni network of people I met along the way! 

What is your advice for others with tech experience considering a bootcamp like Codesmith?

The bootcamp is an intensive experience. Often it can feel like you're sprinting because the days are long. It runs six days a week, but it is a marathon. Try not to burn yourself out too fast. 

You're there to learn. Try not to take too many shortcuts. I knew people who started off using ChatGPT to try to solve their problems, but once they set it aside and used it as support, rather than to speed themselves along, they started learning a lot more. AI is a valuable resource, but don't rely on it too heavily. 

Find out more and read Codesmith reviews on Course Report. This article was produced by the Course Report team in partnership with Codesmith.