15 Takeaways From "Breaking in the Mindset That Gets You Hired" With ALX

11 Sep 2025 #career #coding #writing

This week, I had the chance to share some of my career lessons with the ALX Africa community.

I joined Shehab Abdel-Salam, a Senior Software Engineer at Proofpoint, to share the mindset shifts needed to land a coding job for the first time.

Here’s the recording of the session—In case you want to watch it, there’s some back jokes:

And here are 15 takeaways from the session—In case you don’t want to watch the recording:

Career Growth

#1. Identify your gray zones vs growth zones.

A gray zone is doing comfortable work. And a growth zone is doing work that stretches your skills.

To grow your career, do the things that scare you. Comfort zones kill growth.

#2. Forget the corporate ladder.

Hard work alone doesn’t guarantee results.

Instead of chasing the corporate ladder, define your own success metrics and climb your own ladder.

#3. Stand out at work by doing the work nobody else wants to do.

And make sure you’re able to do it.

By the way, that’s only one way to stand out besides hard work. Here are another 9.

#4. Be aware of cultural expectations when working remotely.

Coming from LatAm, when I started working with American companies, I missed the chitchat and off-topic conversations before starting meetings. The American way is direct and to the point.

#5. As a junior coder, stand out by showing you’re able to learn new subjects and follow instructions.

As a senior coder, it’s the opposite. You stand out by showing you don’t need many instructions.

#6. Rely on your personal and professional network to look for your first job.

Shake hands online and offline and skip the hiring lines.

Over ten years ago, I didn’t apply through a job portal to land my first job. I knew someone who knew someone who made an introduction. Then when I left my first job (fired actually), my ex-boss arranged an interview for me. That’s the power of your network.

It sounds like a cliche, but your network is your net worth.

#7. Listen to feedback, say thanks, and act on it.

Avoid the temptation of explaining and justifying your behavior.

Writing

#8. Writing online is one of the most rewarding skills for your career.

It improves your research and communication skills.

For example, my blog has opened many career opportunities. Thanks to a link to my blog on my CV, I turned a failed interview into a content collaboration… And I made some lunch money.

#9. Your writing and online presence can replace your portfolio.

Every time you finish a project (or move to another job or achieve a milestone), write about the lessons you learned and what you would have done differently. And showcase those posts in your LinkedIn profile or CV.

#10. If you’re completely new to writing, start with a worklog.

If you have only written README files for your GitHub repos, you don’t need to write deep dives.

Start with “Today I Learned” posts. That’s exactly how I started writing. My very first post ever was a word vomit pretending to be a coding tutorial about Aspect-Oriented Programming in C#. (I’m so embarrassed by that post, but I still keep unedited to remind me how I started).

Document what you’re learning and the resources you’re using. That’s the easiest way to start writing.

Technical Skills

#11. Build simple apps and projects to practice.

Or even clone existing apps and some of their features.

#12. Understand you don’t need many programming languages to be a good coder.

You can make your way with HTML/CSS/Javascript, one backend language (JavaScript counts here), and SQL.

#13. Read engineering blogs:

#14. Embrace the struggle.

It’s part of the learning process.

When you’re stuck with a coding problem, don’t rush to AI for a quick answer. Try solving it yourself and don’t hesitate to ask for help.

#15. Don’t be scared of AI.

Use it wisely. Otherwise, your coding muscles could atrophy.

If you’re starting out, keep learning and having fun. This is the best time to learn coding. Always be a beginner.

Starting out or already on the coding journey? Join my free 7-day email course to refactor your software engineering career now–I distill 10+ years of career lessons into 7 short emails.

Just Some Code