Ruby is keeping you interested in transitioning to the software development world. But you’re not sure you’re gonna be employable. You might have heard that you should just choose JavaScript because, you know, everyone is saying Ruby is a dying domain.

But you don’t see yourself keeping up with the Kardashians traditional JS web dev world.

You’ve heard that there are plenty of Ruby/Rails jobs out there. But how do you get your first one as an early career dev?

Here’s a fun activity you can do today to get you moving towards finding your first Ruby/Rails job:

  • Find a local (regional, national) Ruby/Rails community. Check out the Ruby meetup calendar or this list of upcoming Ruby conferences;
  • Choose one active person in that community. Tip: look for people who give talks regularly or are mentors. Or even someone who had a similar journey as you*.
  • Send them a message asking how they got their first job.

If you don’t know what to send, here’s a template that you can use: “Hi! I’ve been practicing Ruby and I found you from this community! I hope you don’t mind reaching out. I’d like to ask you how did you get your first Ruby job?”.

Asking specific questions like these shows that you did your research, and helps people understand how they can help you. It’s great to meet more experienced devs and potentially create a mentorship relationship.

By reaching out to someone from the Ruby community you will see opportunities you never thought of before. I bet worrying about the market is not helping a lot, so go out there and start creating your opportunities today.

*Please keep in mind that reaching out to people with a genuine connection request is different than spamming them. Check out this thread about reaching out to people respectfully:


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