How To Get Your First Gig As A Software Engineer

So you have mastered the art of software engineering. You went to a fancy university or either way you self-taught yourself how to code.

And now it’s time to make some money doing some software development and monetize all these months if not years worth of hard work and dedication.

But how do you earn your first gig and get started?

This is a problem which a lot of early software engineers and web developers face when starting off.

As most of them have zero connections and they haven’t worked for someone previously, and no doubt it’s pretty tough getting your first gig.

But if you follow the tips and strategies which we mention in this guide, then you can easily get your first gig in your software development career in no time.

So without a further ado, let’s jump straight into the real deal.

Earn your first gig as a software engineer through freelancing sites

Freelancing sites are probably the easiest way for you to earn your first gig as a software engineer.

There are freelancing sites like Upwork and Fiverr through which you can get various offers from different people.

You can also offer various different gigs apart from software engineering as well. Such as helping someone solve a problem in their Windows 10 PC. Or either way, photoshopping an image.

Special tip: you can visit your top competitors in your software engineering niche and see all the negative reviews they get for their work and reach out to the people who gave them the negative reviews and ask them to give you an offer for a gig.

Get your first gig through Facebook

There are various different facebook groups specially made for web developers and software engineers where people can offer them gigs and various transactions happening online.

You can simply upload a post of your recent works (such as an app or a software which you recently created) and give a reasonable price for it and you’ll get your first gig in no time.

There are also options such as Facebook ads through which you can find targeted people who will be interested in hiring you and eventually what you’ll see is that they are either reaching out to you or direct messaging you through your inbox.

By asking websites or apps to make changes in their sites

This is one tactic which I often use. You simply go out and check as many software or apps available in the market which is a bit old or outdated. Make a list of at least fifty sites/software/apps. And then you simply reach out to the owners of the sites through their contact page asking them if you can bring any improvements to their product/service.

You can either give a better custom look to a website or give an app or software a better design or a cool functionality.

By implementing this method you will get a ton of opportunities as a new starting off software engineer.

Additional tips:

Intern: You can go out work for various different companies for free for a few months and later on apply to become their full-time employee.

Network with the people you already know: Ask your various relatives or friends in different niches or sectors whether they need some help with coding.

Forums: Join various different forums in case you might get an opportunity to work for someone. As people on a regular basis give job opportunities there.

Advertise: Advertise your gigs on various platforms like Google AdWords or Instagram ads. Leverage the opportunities.

Job vacancies: You can go on sites like craigslist or your local newspapers if there are any possibilities of getting a gig as a software engineer.

Set a career goal: Make a list of goals you would like to achieve through software engineering in a particular year. Either how many clients you wanna get or how much money you would like to make, make a goal.

Conclusion

You will have to network a lot while starting off.

If you follow the tips which we mentioned in this article, then you can easily get your first gig as a software engineer.

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