So you want a programming role in 2025? Let's go back over the basics in two minutes.

So you want a programming role in 2025? Let's go back over the basics in two minutes. There's going to be two things that you need to do: build skills and then the job search itself. These are two distinct skill sets. I'll do a minute on each. And the basics still apply with one little wrinkle for 2025 and later, and I'll mention that new wrinkle. And it's generative AI is the wrinkle basically. So to get your tech skills, I'm going to recommend full stack development. So this is HTML, CSS, JavaScript, upgraded to TypeScript, React, Next.js, and you're good. And you should have your GitHub portfolio. Make this public. Deploy a site. You can use Vercel to deploy everything for free, and that will take care of your portfolio. If you want to get into generative AI, you can make a case that you can start with AI, particularly if you have an AI degree or a background in Python, fine, go for it. If you're starting from blank, I'm going to recommend go full stack first and add AI on as a second step. So you can take that full stack blog application that you made and you can add Gemini. I like the Gemini API because it has a generous free tier. So you can start with a basic chat tool and then upgrade to the Google ADK, the Agent Development Kit. Now we're using Python, and you can do this for free because of Gemini's generous free tier. So that's the path that I would recommend to have full stack development or AI engineering with generative AI. Now you have your skills taken care of. Let's talk about the job search. You need to have a LinkedIn, a resume, and your portfolio, and then you need to be doing active outreach. So what does active outreach look like? Punch up, down, and sideways. So if you're a mid-level engineer, connect with people at your level, above your level, and below your level. Don't be afraid of reaching out to a CTO or a staff engineer. And don't identify yourself as junior. Even if you are junior, on your LinkedIn profile, put software engineer. You're still a software engineer. You've built software. You're a software engineer, you're a software developer. These are synonyms. So you also want to learn the job titles and the job boards. This is all documented at Ladderly on the blog for free. Check out the article on recommended job boards. And there's even social networking scripts, like what should you talk about? You can go check all that out. Um, creating content is a good idea, it's not required, but that's like a bonus tip for you that can accelerate your career. So in my job search in 2024, I had 50% of my first round interviews were inbound, in large part because of content creation. So that can give you a sense of some of the value that you can bring. How to interview prep? It's all on the blog. So, track the companies to which you apply, social contacts for every company that you apply, and you're going to be funneling it first. So take the snowball method, start with least preferred companies, work up to most preferred companies. By the time you get there, you'll be sharp, you'll be practiced on your behavioral anecdotes and your LeetCode. You want to still be doing LeetCode in 2025. And that should be a really solid base path. If you're still having trouble after applying these steps for a month or two, reach out for additional help. Hope this helps, follow for more.