My experiences in getting a new job as a Front-End Developer

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February this year I started looking for a job as a Front-End Developer in a new company. After almost four years at jambit it was time for me to leave the contractor business behind. My main motivation for leaving jambit was, in fact, that I didn’t want to work as a contractor anymore but rather work directly at a product company.

Good bye, jambit

View from jambit’s terrace on the third floor.

I want to emphasize what a pleasant time I had at jambit. It was my first real job after university and I couldn’t have asked for more. It really is an employee-friendly company and it has a lot to offer (check out what jambit is all about). I met and worked with great colleagues and had the opportunity to work on exciting projects in the newspaper industry (my main clients were the Süddeutsche Zeitung Digitale Medien GmbH and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH). For that, I’m grateful.

Hello, Stylight

I will join Stylight’s website team in July, and I’m excited about that. Stylight is Germany’s leading style and shopping guide and has over ten million users world-wide. Since last year Stylight is a subsidiary of the ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE. What I love about Stylight is that they have an interesting and popular product, are tech-oriented as a company and they give a lot back to the community. Check out the tech blog, the tech Twitter account @StylightTech, and the events and meetups taking place there. I can’t wait to meet my new colleagues!

Companies I applied for

I applied for ten companies in total. These are (in alphabetical order):

Generally speaking I noticed that the vast majority of front-end job listings in Munich focus mainly on JavaScript application programming. At the same time I was surprised that job positions that understand front-end development in broader terms (like accessibilty, semantics, CSS architecture, performance, being an interface between design and IT, etc.) are rather scarce.

It was interesting getting a sneak peek into how companies think, what is important to them, what their pain points are, how their processes work (or not work), how they communicate with you, etc.

Numbers, numbers, numbers

  • Time span of actual job search: around two months.
  • Total amount of invested time during that period (job search, phone calls, on-site interviews, etc.): around 60 hours.
  • Companies that rejected my job application: three.
  • Companies I rejected a job offer from: two.
  • Companies where I canceled the ongoing job application process due to time restrictions caused by other offers: four.
  • Phone and Skype interviews: six.
  • On-site interviews and team sessions: six.

Best line

During an on-site interview the CEO and the head of software engineering of a company said to me:

Your letter of motivation is the best we have ever received from an applicant.

Worst line

In a feedback phone call discussing the reasons for a poor job interview performance on my part, the head of software engineering of a big German website said to me, after I pointed out my areas of interest, passion, and expertise (such as making content as accessible as possible on the web):

Accessibility is irrelevant for us.

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