Job-hunting season is here! "Engineer" is currently one of the most popular career choices. A search of job banks shows more than 100,000 related openings in June 2022 alone, with positions for candidates with less than one year of experience making up over 40% of them. Whether you're a graduate about to enter the workforce or a professional from a non-CS background looking to switch careers, are you ready to join the ranks of engineers? 5xRuby invited its two co-founders and a career consultant to share their firsthand experiences as tech professionals and their view of industry trends, taking an in-depth look at what you should prepare for your first step into a tech career.

Image source: Pexels, Mikhail Nilov

Sometimes, You Need to Listen to Your Own Inner Voice

Tsehau Chao, co-founder of 5xRuby, got straight to the point: "Rather than chasing a vague dream, follow a genuine passion." Because she excelled at writing from a young age, Chao studied diplomacy at National Chengchi University. But that dream, defined by others, didn't match the passion for programming she gradually developed through her own life experience. That's why Chao encourages everyone, before choosing any career, to first ask themselves honestly whether they have a passion for that profession's core skills, and only then think about the next step.

No Technology Stays Current Forever: Find What Sets You Apart 

Before deciding to apply for a position, the most important thing is to read the job posting carefully. A job posting reveals what the company needs, and in response, your resume should present qualifications that match those needs. A tech professional's resume in particular should demonstrate expertise in and passion for programming. Beyond listing the essential technical skills, the contents of your portfolio matter even more.

Your portfolio should describe in detail the projects you've worked on, and provide the code (e.g. on GitHub), links (e.g. on CodePen), or at least screenshots of the product. It should also explain the technologies used in each piece, the role you played, and how the team collaborated during development. These are key reasons a company will pick you out of a sea of resumes.

"No technology stays current forever. The only thing that never goes out of date is language ability." Chao reminded everyone at the end of her talk that language skills let you absorb first-hand information from around the world and communicate with team members at home and abroad, and communication is the most important hurdle in any cross-border work. Certificates in different languages, such as a TOEIC score of 730 or above or JLPT N2 or higher, are the kind of qualifications that actually mean something on a resume.

The Workplace Demands More Learning Than School, but What Should You Learn, and How?

Mu-Fan Teng, co-founder of 5xRuby, came from a non-CS background and grew step by step: starting as a game planner, he taught himself software development all the way to founding an internet startup, eventually becoming a senior tech professional. In the second session, Teng generously shared his own approach to building skills and self-directed learning as a tech professional.

"Once you enter the industry, only continuous learning will keep you alive!" Drawing on his own experience, Teng encouraged students to look for learning opportunities in every project at work: "First watch how others do it, then create opportunities to put it into practice yourself. Only once you have that experience can you gradually internalize it into your own skills."

Beyond opportunities to learn, Teng put even more emphasis on mindset: "Thinking independently with a broader perspective is essential. It helps you make the right choices. After all, the world is a realistic place, and sometimes making the right choice matters more than hard work." At the same time, you should know how to use and contribute to open source communities. Not only can you gain knowledge from the community, but giving back in a spirit of learning together often benefits your own abilities as well: on the one hand it deepens your understanding of programming itself, and on the other it gives you the chance to discover blind spots along the way and break through existing limitations.

Keep Up with Industry Trends So the Tide of Change Doesn't Leave You Behind

The finale of the session was given by GiGi (Yu-Hsuan Li), a career consultant at Yourator JobMenta, who shared the industry's demand for engineers and broader industry trends.

GiGi noted that demand for full-stack engineers in the software industry is rising markedly, especially since the industry mainly works in an agile style of small, fast steps, placing particular weight on whether engineers can build an MVP quickly in a small team. In terms of industry trends, demand for talent in social platforms, blockchain, artificial intelligence and data analytics will grow steadily in the future, with the required skills and knowledge including Solidity, Web 3.0, Python, Golang and cryptography.

Want occasional free industry insights, tech news and community event updates? "Subscribe to our updates" and become a friend of tech.

---

About 5xRuby

5xRuby is the largest Ruby / Rails system development company in Taiwan, providing companies with system development, technical consulting and corporate training services, with clients around the world. We have also long been deeply involved in the tech community, working to foster its growth and help engineers advance their careers. Our corporate value is "Use tools that make engineers happy to create services that the world loves."

※ 5xRuby (五倍紅寶石軟體開發) is not affiliated with any other educational institution of the same name, and our business and operations are entirely independent. We make this statement to avoid confusion. Our company website is: https://5xruby.com/

Media Liaisons
[email protected]