HACKER Q&A
📣 djellybeans

Larger but overlooked companies that have a great training culture?


I'm searching for any job opportunities at larger companies that can "get you back up to speed" on required peripheral knowledge with some on-site training/mentoring, provided that you can take care of most of the core knowledge yourself. I want to look beyond FAANG, for other places that have a lower barrier of entry, but still provide a good training regimen.

I'm a software programmer who's been out of work since late 2019 and have roughly 10 YOE (though I fall usually in junior or mid-level rank).

What are some larger companies that can provide adequate training for people lagging behind? Perhaps consultancies and body shops are for me... if so, which in particular would you recommend?

I know the core knowledge of my job to be:

- Algorithms and data structures - Imperative and OO programming - Control flow - Design patterns

And peripheral knowledge:

- Front-end frameworks - Back-end frameworks - Cloud services - Testing - Automation and Deployment

I'm fairly good with a lot of the core knowledge, although with data structures and algorithms, my ability to solve problems using them are mostly limited to Leetcode easy problems. My peripheral knowledge needs a lot more work- many companies I've interviewed have rejected me for it. I know very little about most of them and rather out of date with frameworks. I need to get hired to begin with a training period on such knowledge before they expect me to be productive.

Also, I'm interested in startup or freelance opportunities. I have already been freelancing since 2011, and for smaller companies. Trying to pivot to a steady route that is also "low pressure" with the interviews.


  👤 tacostakohashi Accepted Answer ✓
You are going to have more success if you take ownership of this yourself.

At any given job / company, you will 'learn' / become an expert in their internal legacy systems, while your knowledge of "Algorithms and data structures - Imperative and OO programming - Control flow - Design patterns" + "Front-end frameworks - Back-end frameworks - Cloud services - Testing - Automation and Deployment" will atrophy.

You mention that you have 10 YOE, and let you are lagging behind - it seems you have already experienced what happens during employment.

Employers look for people who have learnt this stuff outside the company, and bring them in to teach their current staff who haven't kept up to date.


👤 giantg2
You might end up waiting for a while. It seems like most places that make any mention of training are just talking about it and not really doing it. My company talks up training. It's basically "here's a Coursera login to use in your spare time". But of course nobody has spare time. Even if you do use it, it better be related to your job or you'll never get the chance to actually work on and retain the knowledge for the topic.