How to become a programmer in California and earn $ 10 thousand per month

The hero of this article moved from Russia to the United States and found work at a large company for 10 thousands of dollars a month.

Photo of the author of the article

In Moscow, Andrey worked as a business analyst, and in California it turned out that nobody needs it. Then he mastered the profession of a programmer and got a job in a large IT company. It took him a year. Recently a site journalist Journal tinkoff I visited him and asked him to share my experience.

The story of Andrei is the story of Andrei. Even if you do the same thing, the result may be different. But perhaps his experience will help you weigh everything and decide to move to another country - or, on the contrary, stay at home. By the way, Andrey is a pseudonym, the hero of the article does not want to disclose the name and the name of the company due to the confidentiality clause.

Word to Andrew.

How I moved to the USA

To find a place in a large American company, you need to come to an office for an interview at some point, so I don’t know if this can be done from another country. I first settled near the major city, and then began to look for work.

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In 2016, my wife and I won the green card lottery and moved to the USA. Were settled in the city of Walnut Creek in 40 km from San Francisco: there is a warm climate, and in Silicon Valley there are many large companies with good vacancies. In addition, my wife has relatives in the neighboring town - at first they helped us.

Accommodation in Walnut Creek is expensive. Rooms cost 800 — 1200 $ per month, one-bedroom apartments around 2000 $. At first, we pulled only the room for 900 $ per month.

On the advice of local housing searched on the sites "Craigslist" and "Zillow."

When we settled down, I started looking for a job in San Francisco. Getting to it is most convenient by train: one trip to the center takes 40 minutes and costs only 6 $. By car, almost as much will have to pay for travel on the bridge - and also gasoline, maintenance, traffic jams. Parking is also hard to find, and it can cost up to 40 $ per day.

The job search took a year, and along the way I had to change my profession. But in the end, the income of our family grew four times: from 2500 $ to 10 000 $ per month. We changed the room to a nice apartment in the same Walnut Creek - with a living room and two bedrooms.

Но обо всем по порядку.

Фото: Depositphotos

How I was looking for a job in the old specialty

Job search in the United States consists of four main stages:

• Resume writing. It is posted on thematic sites or sent directly to employers.
• Telephone interview. The applicant is asked to tell about himself and about what he knows about the company he is joining.
• Technical interview. Ask questions on the theory and offer to solve problems in their specialty.
• Interview in the office. They invite him to go through the first three stages. Few reach this stage.

At first I tried to get a job in an old specialty - a business analyst. I took the old resume and adapted it to the American realities: removed the photo, date of birth and marital status. In the US, an employer is forbidden to use such data: it is illegal and considered discrimination. At work, only work, private life does not concern anyone.

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I translated the summary into English, and my American friends corrected unnatural phrases. It can also be asked to make a translator, for example, on the Firer freelance market, performers are asked to correct the summary for 10 $.

I posted a summary on the website of “Dys-com” - this is something like a Russian “Headhunter” for technology companies. Along the way, I tracked the vacancies of large companies and responded to some of them myself. But in a week nobody called me back, and then I decided to approach the matter differently.

When I worked as a business analyst in Moscow, I collaborated with developers, and they taught me some techniques. It was interesting, but I did not have time to fully study. Now I’ve got into IT paradise: California has headquarters for giants like Apple and Google, thousands of job openings for software developers are open here. Therefore, I did not lose time: a week later I removed the business analyst’s resume from the site and decided to learn how to program.

How I learned to program

I learned programming in Java - with the help of a friend-developer, tutorials and training videos. A friend gave assignments, and then we examined errors together. Study took two months. In my experience and the experience of friends, in most companies, developers do not ask for a diploma or certificate. They are not afraid of deception: all the same skills are checked at interviews.

Every day I solved a lot of problems. One of the first interviews with any company is a technical one, when a recruiter asks for a theory and offers to solve test tasks. Therefore, the problem solving skill is the main one. You can prepare with the help of sites that lay out such tasks, such as Litkod-com. My reference book was Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions, where questions from real interviews are collected.

If there is no programmer friend or if you don’t like this way, you can go on development training courses - in the USA they are called bootcamps. Courses are full-time and distance, and training lasts from 3 to 9 months. They cost a lot - say, a three-month full-time course will cost about 18 000 $. But, according to reviews, it is very effective.

Various ratings help choose courses, for example, “Best coding bootcamps”.

There is a lot to learn. For example, for the first five weeks, students of the intensive courses “Hakreaktor-com” study 11 hours per day.

Jobs

To pay for life while studying, you can find a side job. The main condition - you need a work permit in the United States. There are enough possibilities: waiter, builder, furniture assembler. Pay 12 — 14 $ per hour or as agreed. Temporary vacancies are usually posted on local sites - this is the site for part-time work in San Francisco.

14 $ per hour I was paid at a construction site in San Francisco

But if you work along the way, you will have to study longer. I was lucky: my wife worked and agreed to hedge costs. Her support and patience are invaluable, and I am very grateful to her.

I took up part-time work when I finished my studies and started looking for a job. I got a job at 14 $ per hour. Everything was strict: they issued workwear, followed security. The work was simple, but dusty: we prepared the premises for repair and broke down the walls of drywall.

Job search developer. First approach

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After studying, I updated my resume and started looking for a job as a software developer - software developer. I posted a resume on the sites and he responded to interesting vacancies.

I also updated my LinkedIn profile, but I didn’t look for work through it. There, a Facebook recruiter once wrote to me and offered to phone me. I agreed, but did not prepare for the conversation. When the recruiter asked me about my latest projects, I didn’t think anything connected, I began to mumble and realized that I was in danger of failing the first interview for a cool company. In the end, I did not think of anything better than to drop the call five times in a row, to refer to a bad connection and ask to postpone the interview. It never happened.

Along the way, I tried to respond to vacancies from company sites. So I went to "Amazon": filled out a form for applicants - and they answered me.

To respond to the vacancy of "Amazon", you need to fill out a form in several pages. Mostly asked about technical skills and experience. The form does not work from Russia - you can only respond to a vacancy by regular mail.

I passed the first interview at Amazon, the second was a technical interview. I was given a link to a general screen like Google Documents and offered to solve three problems in real time. They had to be solved in turn, but in any programming language. I coped with the first task, and at the second I realized that I didn’t draw, and this was despite the fact that I was studying for similar tasks, and five days before the interview I had already decided on 30 pieces at Litkode. The next day I was called back and refused.

The next six months, I continued to look for work, but calls from recruiters were still isolated and unsuccessful. I realized that you need to prepare better. Here is what I decided to do:

• Correct resume.
• Prepare a story about yourself and the company.
• Actively write companies directly.
• Practice - solve a lot of problems.

This is the first version of my developer summary. Below, I will write what is wrong in it, but for now I suggest looking for common mistakes yourself

When working on a resume, I was mainly focused on tips from the Russian-speaking Facebook group on finding work in San Francisco. The best thing I remember was a recruiter’s comment: “Imagine that you need to paint the fence with a toothbrush. You are looking for someone who can do this. You get hundreds of hits. Someone painted the ceiling with a roller or a machine from a spray. Someone brushed fences with a brush or shoes with a toothbrush. Only one person wrote that he had painted fences with a toothbrush for five years. Who will be chosen? ”

The vacancy already has everything that is expected of you. The employer has pain, you are a tablet against this pain. It remains only to decide how to file it. You can make a resume, where there is everything that the market needs, you can redo it for each job. While the benefits from you are obvious, both options work.

In my first resume, the benefits were buried too deep for the recruiters to want to look for her, so it didn’t work. I began to correct mistakes.

Can you move to the USA?

Extra experience. Employers did not understand that in the developer’s resume, my past work experience is being made a business analyst. He was not interested in any recruiter with whom we spoke. I cut it off first.

Lack of details. In my resume, the development experience was too general. For example, I wrote that I participated in a volunteer project: we made this site for a charitable organization. In America, numbers are important: how many sites and for which companies. In the summary here it is better to write not “selling refrigerators”, but “selling 100 refrigerators”. Proof numbers in the resume are not needed, but if they are greatly overestimated, they will understand this when they test their skills in a technical interview.

To add specifics, I pointed out all the companies where I had at least done something as a developer, and listed in the skills everything that I knew how to program.

Registration. Unwritten rule that can not be broken: ten years of experience - one page. If the resume is longer, the recruiter may decide that the person does not know how to separate the important from the secondary.

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In Russia, resumes like to draw up tables. I have always thought that so clearer. In the USA, I did not see any tables: summaries are written in plain text with indents and markers. This is also done because the resume is often processed by a program that does not work well with tables. It may not even reach the recruiter.

Salary. It is not necessary to specify. I didn’t make this mistake: I didn’t mention my salary on websites, resumes, or job vacancies. But this is a very important point, so I want to write about him separately: the desired salary is always asked, but no one expects you to name it.

It is believed that high salaries everywhere and good specialists do not think about them, but about the benefits that companies will bring. The sites have a special field for the desired salary, but they all leave it empty. They may be asked at interviews - but to correctly answer that money is not important. If you still name some amount, it will immediately lower your rating in the eyes of the recruiter.

They say salary only at the last stage - during an interview at the office. But even there, it is better to wait until the sum is called by company employees. You can not agree with her: a little bargaining is considered normal. According to the experience of my friends, it is quite possible to get interest on 20 — 30 is more than the first sentence.

The new resume fit into the page, and there was nothing superfluous

Job search developer. Second approach

After updating the resume, I began to actively look for work. I decided to act on all fronts: I posted resumes on websites, wrote to the company directly, used Linked-in, talked with recruitment agencies.

Sites. I posted a new resume on the sites and wrote a program that updated my profile every day on all sites - so it always turned out to be closer to the top of the list. I began to receive a lot of calls - sometimes on 50 per day.

Job Responses. I sent my CV directly to some companies. I consider this option to be the best: the recruiter immediately sees that the person wants to work in his company, and if you show knowledge of the company, he also understands what the candidate is interested in. With this approach, the recruiter has more reasons to continue communication. In addition, in my experience, such letters are usually answered by employees with understandable English - and this can be said far from all recruiters. The disadvantage of this method is that sometimes you have to wait a few months for an answer, so you need to write to many companies at once.

Linked-in. In Russia, the resource is blocked, and in America it is very popular. Here they make useful contacts, communicate in groups of business interests, share knowledge. But first of all - they are looking for work. Recruiters post vacancies here and hunt for professionals.

There are many articles on job search on Linked-in on the Internet. I used the resource in my own way: I looked for companies about which I had heard something, then I looked at their vacancies, went to the site and responded directly. About half the time I received a callback.

Recruitment agencies. A lot of calls came from agencies. Often this recruiters with a terrible accent, which had to constantly ask again. True, after a couple of days of such communication, I learned to guess the question by one word, because they are all the same.

Dialogue is built like this. The recruiter calls and says: “We found your resume, it's cool. We have a very good offer for you. We can arrange you in a great company. ” Then he asks questions from the prepared list. In my opinion, recruiters do not particularly delve into the answers of candidates, rather they simply compare them with a list of ready-made answers. If the answers with them are about the same - go to the next stage. I got to technical interviews twice, but I couldn’t go further.

The agency receives a reward from the one who turned to him for help. If it was an employer, the candidate does not pay any commissions.

Telephone interview

The next stage after preparing a resume is an interview by phone or skype. Here, recruiters evaluate how the candidate communicates, what he has already achieved and how well he is able to separate the most important from the secondary. It is important not to fail two main points: a story about yourself and a story about the company.

A story about yourself. Usually the conversation begins like this: “Tell me about yourself”, “Tell me your story”, “Walk me through your resume”. About yourself - this is not what you are good and what you like. A recruiter wants to hear what you have achieved in your work and how you will benefit the company. A good story about yourself helps to make a favorable first impression and continue the conversation. On the answer give one and a half to two minutes. At first I rehearsed my story in front of a mirror, over time I learned it by heart and polished it.

You can build a story about yourself in different ways, the main thing is not to forget about the benefits. If you are talking about career growth, you must necessarily associate it with useful skills. The recruiter will not be told anything that two years ago you were second from the third junior gardener. But if you add that the increase was due to the ability to plant forget-me-nots with a diamond, then this is already something.

You can talk about how you build up skills in one position. It was just my option. I used the resume as a plan and talked about different projects and what I learned there. A good idea is to have a recruiter in familiar waters. For example, if you worked a lot with databases, it is worth mentioning it several times: “I worked a lot with such databases, it gave such and such a result”. If your recruiter is interested in your databases, the conversation will go on a well-known topic.

Story about the company. No less important are questions about the company: “What do you know about us? Why do companies want to work so that their employees share their mission, and not just follow their salary. Therefore, it is necessary to show that you are interested in working from them: you know what the company lives with, love their product and want to change the world for the better.

I also carefully prepared each story for this story: I found details about the company on the Internet, wrote them out on a separate sheet and during the conversation I checked it all the time. I searched for details on the company's website, on the stock exchange, on Wikipedia, and wherever I started a search engine. Worked smoothly. Sometimes I knew more about the company than the recruiters themselves, and I was incredibly impressed.

Technical Interview

If you successfully complete a telephone interview, they appoint a technical interview and then an interview in the office. It rarely comes to a technical interview, an invitation to the office even less often.

Technical interview. I have already told you how the technical interview with Amazon took place. For other companies, it looked about the same: we called up with a company employee and solved problems in some kind of shared environment. There were three or more tasks, and there were several interviews. Sometimes interviews were even conducted by staff from different countries, unfamiliar with each other.

The main thing on a technical interview is not to give an exact result, but to show the course of reasoning. Everyone understands that an interview is stressful, and no one pays attention to a random error. It is important for the interlocutor to see that you understand the essence of the task and see how to solve it, therefore, you must explain each step. They may even give you some advice or point out a mistake: if you know how to accept other people's advice, a company employee will also appreciate it.

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At the interview, after which they took me to work, I was offered to solve three problems from different areas. When preparing, I resolved 100 tasks of each type, so I already knew two, and decided the third after some hesitation. The next day, the recruiter called and invited to the office.

Interview in the office. When they call to the office, it means that the company is already very interested in the candidate, otherwise they wouldn’t spend more time on staff. But this is still not a simple formality: I talked for an hour with five different employees, everything went all day. And it happens that there are even more meetings and several people each.

When a recruiter makes appointments in the office, he will tell you in advance how many meetings are expected, how long they will take and what will be discussed. The recruiter can also tell you what to pay special attention to. It looks like this: “In our company, the transfer of knowledge is the most important skill for a candidate. You will need to show how you play the role of a mentor and explain to a new employee a specific topic. ”

Meeting formats can also be different. For example, one of my friends was somehow invited to lunch with a future leader in order to learn his interests and appreciate how he keeps and communicates.

Questions at meetings I was asked mostly around programming. The experience indicated in the summary at this stage is no longer important, I was never asked about it. The main thing - to confirm the skills.

Only one manager began to ask in detail what I know about the company: what strengths and weaknesses it has, what I would improve, what competitors I know and how they outperform the company. I already knew the answers to these questions by heart. I even managed to impress the recruiter: when I studied the company's website, I found mistakes in his work, and showed them at a meeting.

The only question about personal qualities was: “Who do you see yourself in five years?” Indeed, Americans absolutely do not care who you are - only how you can help their companies.

After the interview, I thought I looked weak, but the next day I was called back and invited to work.

The results

Salary. When you are ready to offer, they usually tell all the details: bonuses, salary, insurance. I learned about my future salary only at this stage.

Before that, I never spoke about the desired salary anywhere, but just in case I still looked at the average amount on the market. In San Francisco for a junior developer - junior software developer - with experience of up to a year is 72 000 $ per year, or 6000 $ per month, for a full working day. I was offered 10 000 $ per month, and I did not bargain.

Salary called before taxes. The tax is progressive and depends on various factors: annual income, marital status, the presence of children, staff, and much more. Part of the taxes paid can be returned, it is an analogue of Russian tax deductions. All this is so complicated that many Americans file a tax return and deduct only with the help of consultants.

I pay about a third of my salary on taxes, but I don’t bother to say how much I can return with deductions: the consultant doesn’t pick up the phone.

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Financial bonuses consist of an annual bonus and promotions. The annual bonus is a fixed percentage of the salary in the contract and will not pay it anymore. Stocks motivate an employee to work better: if a company is doing well, it gets richer. When Facebook came up for an IPO, my friends became millionaires at once.

The process of transferring shares is prescribed in the contract. The first 25% of my package I received after a year of work in the company. The remaining shares are issued every three months in equal shares for another three years. If I leave earlier, I won’t get some shares.

There is still a one-time bonus "for agreeing to join the company" - it is paid on the first day of going to work. The size of this bonus depends only on the skills of the negotiator during the last interview.

I have standard social bonuses, they won't surprise anyone in IT. The office has a massage room, a gym and a relaxation room with video games. If I go to another gym, the company will also pay for the fitness card. My medical insurance is complete, and my wife is given a discount. In the kitchen - a variety of sweets for tea.

I can work as much as I want from home, but I hardly use this right, because it is easier to concentrate in the office. About sweets in the kitchen, I mentioned?

And during the break I can walk along the embankment and watch the fur seals.

About life - briefly. Our family income has quadrupled. We changed the room to a nice apartment in the same Walnut Creek - with a living room and two bedrooms. We go to concerts and travel. I recently started investing.

Seals are resting on the waterfront in San Francisco, and still shout loudly and smell bad. Photo of the author of the article

Our family budget per month

Before working in IT After device
2500 $ 10 000 $ revenue
Accommodation 900 $ 2500 $
Food 1000 $ 1500 $
Transport and communications 350 $ 500 $
Entertainment and more 250 $ 2000 $
Savings, Investments 0 $ $ 3500 $

In short: how to find a job in the USA

In the summary - only about work. In the US, nobody cares when you were born, how many children you have and how you look.

About work - only in the specialty, everything that you remember, even if these are educational tasks. But no more than one page on 10 years of experience.

Nowhere do not write and do not talk about the salary, even if asked. Answer that money is not important to you.

The most effective way is to send a resume to the company where you want to work. But you can wait for an answer for several months.

Prepare yourself for all telephone interviews: rehearse a story about yourself, study a company, solve problems and repeat a theory. Pass all the stages and get an invitation to the office rarely manages.

If you are called to a meeting in the office, lay on it all day. Before the campaign, examine the average salary in the market, but you don’t make a sound about them: let the interviewee be the first to call the amount. After that, it is not a sin to bargain a little.

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