Find your dream job - mobile app development

So, you want to be a mobile app developer? Maybe you have studied at Uni, maybe you have dabbled in your spare time. Maybe you have just daydreamed about being the next Jan Koum. Either way, with both the industry and salaries paid continuing to grow, it's no wonder you're interested. Here, as part of a new blog series , I am interviewing professionals who are fresh into the industry to get a recent and relevant perspective on how to land that first job. To kick us off, I am speaking with Sam Stone, a mobile app developer at Bright HR. You may remember Sam, as I featured his fantastic job application a couple of weeks ago as part of my "What a good job application looks like" series. Here, Sam gives us a unique insight into his journey, plus tips to budding app developers on how they can get a foot in the door. Hi Sam! Thanks for agreeing to do this interview. So, you’re a mobile app developer at Bright HR.Can you tell us what that means? I’m part of the mobile team that helps maintain and develop the apps in the Bright HR team. We currently have an iOS version of the Bright HR app out on the App Store, and an Android app mid-way through development. I deal with mainly the Android side of things at the moment, but the plan is to have me dip in and out of development of both of them. What does a typical day look like for you? I’m in a 9’ish, and the dev team have a stand-up shortly after that to discuss what we’re all up to that day so everyone knows what the team is up to. We usually then have a mini stand-up with the mobile dev team to make sure we’re all on the same page, and then dive into some coding. At some point during the day I like to check out the latest tech press to stay up to date with whats going on there. I feel thats incredibly important for this type of role. Tech moves at such a rapid pace and its so easy to get left behind, which obviously isn’t good for my career or the business. What’s your favourite part of the job? I actually applied to the iOS role at Bright HR, so the fact I’m being employed to learn how to develop for Android is amazing. Being able to stay up to date and learn about both systems is already making me a better mobile developer and I’ve only just started. Also being able to ‘nerd’ out with others who enjoy similar things is great as well. Our drawers are full of gadgets, and my boss likes to show off projects he’s working on and encourages us to do the same. Really cool to be able to bounce ideas around. How did you get the job? Ultimately I was browsing the various job sites and stumbled across Bright HR’s mobile position being advertised. The advert stood out as [it was] a very human approach to the language they were using. Recruitment in tech can tend to take quite a generic approach of trying to fit in as many buzzwords into an advert as possible. This can get pretty tiresome. So Bright HR immediately stood out because the position came across as personable.The interview was a 3-stage process. First was an initial telephone interview. Just a few questions surrounding my experience. I was successful in that stage so went onto the next stage of completing a technical challenge followed by a face-to-face interviews. The challenge revolved around building a piece of functionality that was in the iOS app. Its the first time I’ve done a technical challenge for a job role, and I think its a really good way to interview. Before you even get to the company for a face-to-face chat you get the ability to own something and it provides a focus for the conversation.The face-to-face was a fairly standard meeting of the team, and gave them a chance to ask me questions about the code I was using in my technical challenge. Equally, I got to ask some questions surrounding the business and the tech they we using. I got the call a few days later telling me I’d got the job. What did you do before this? I was an iOS developer at another company in Manchester. I knew from the get go that I wasn’t completely happy at that company, but I tried it out for 6-7 months before looking for other roles. Moving to Bright HR has made me realise how truly unhappy I was at my previous place so I’m glad I made the jump. I’ve done other iOS and Web work before that for other companies before that but that was my first permanent position. Prior to that it was University. During uni I mainly worked in retail, so the past year or so has been all new experiences and trying to figure out what I want in my career.

When did you decide you wanted to be an App Developer? I guess I’ve always known I wanted to be a developer. I’ve been dabbling in programming since I was 12. I took Computing at University in 2011. It was around about that time that the mobile world truly started exploding. I guess thats where the interest started. It wasn’t until the end of the University when I started seriously looking into mobile development. My final year project was building an app that connected to an API, and I’d say it was that that really catapulted me into looking at App Developer roles. Did you go to University, and if so, how much of an impact did that have on your success? Yeah, as mentioned above, I went to University for 3 years and got my degree in Computing. I was never sure about that decision. Even whilst at University I wasn’t sure.Now, having done University and starting my career, I can quite confidently say that if I had the choice again I would not have gone to University. One of the things I think my Sixth Form fell guilty of was making you believe University was the only option, especially if you were even slightly academic. This just isn’t the case, particularly in this field. I pretty much self taught myself mobile development, as is the situation with a lot of people, and I feel the thing that helped me gain interviews at companies isn’t the fact I’ve been to Uni, but because of various projects I can put my name to, no matter how weird and wacky they may be. Saying “I have 3 apps on the App Store” seems to get more attention then “I have a degree in Computing” and is definitely more of a talking point in interviews. What are your plans for the future? In the immediate future I want to grow at Bright HR. There appears to be so much room for growth and I want to take this opportunity to learn. I love hearing about what the API guys are up to because you get to know how their tech works, and its great talking to the business guys because you get to learn about what research is going on behind making the decisions to put certain features into the app.As a personal side project, I’m currently looking at how mobile tech can be used to help the homeless in Manchester. Its in the very early stages, but I’m excited for the future of that and where we can take it. I think ultimately in my career, I want to start a business. I think thats an aspiration a lot of people have at this age so we’ll see where that goes. We’re in such a great time with tech in that developing a great idea is accessible to a lot of people, and I want to take advantage of that. What are your tips for other budding app developers? Build something. Build anything. For reference I have a Kanye West quote keyboard on the app store - imagine how awkward it is bringing that up at interview, but people love it (or at least appreciate it!). Honestly, recruiters, interviewers - anyone involved in the hiring process - always likes talking to you about how you motivate yourself. Having mobile development as a passion outside of work is essential when it comes to this role and building stuff can help show that passion. Also something I’m really bad at is reading. I’ve been aiming to read 10 pages a day since October, and my depth of knowledge in certain areas has improved drastically, so I’d really recommend getting stuck into some tech books.

If you want to keep up to date with Sam and what he is working on, follow him on twitter - @Stonesam92