how to find a job in Drupal ?

Question

Hi,
I'm an IPhone developer who wants to change to Drupal developement.
I have already read some books, coded some samples and stuff like that.

I feel like my level in Drupal is not that bad now but I have no experience, how can I find a job? How can I show off my level in an interview?
* Coding a module? And posting it on Drupal.org?
* Coding a template? And posting it on Drupal.org?
* Coding a sample website? And posting on a website?
* Other ideas? I'm open to everything...

Martin Magkian

Answer 1

Best thing you can possibly have happen in a job interview is you to be an author or contributer of a library your potential employer loves.

After that, having code available to show you know what you are talking about, even if you don't have the professional experience.

After that, just the ability to speak passionately about it, and demonstrate a breadth of knowledge.

All of those things (except maybe the last) are as good or better then professional experience. Another thing to keep in mind is that if you don't have the bullet points on your resume, you really need to make up for it in your cover letter. Show the above things, but take the time to research the company, and write a customized cover letter for each application.

Answer 2

Drupal is known for its capabilies, but also for its steep learning curve.
This is why I believe the right way to get into the Drupal world is by demoing your capabilities.

Think about a certain content you want to work on, and build a demo site around it, including all of the different aspects of it.

Try not to write code, but to find the existing modules that fit to your needs, and to implement them properly. From my experience I know that in most cases you will get 80% of the features ready, but will need to handle the rest of the 20% yourself.

Those 20% are the hard stuff - you will need to debug code you didn't write, find yourself between all of those hooks, and solve the bugs properly.
A solved bug, combinning features from several existing modules, is a great achievement, much bigger then just writing some new module out of some code examples.

Same goes to themeing - select a well-known theme, and make it yourself ! Use advanced themeing modules like Skinr and don't just play with CSS files.

These are the main things, as far as I see them.

Good Luck !
Shushu

Answer 3

All of the above.

If you want to be a well known themer - build you own theme, host on drupal.org, tweet about it, offer help to others, support your issue queue, etc. If it's a nice theme, you should get a decent spotlight from that.

Outside of that, if you want to be a well known developer, you might jump on in with an existing module rather than build your own. There's thousands of modules out there all doing just about every task imaginable. It would take some imagination to come up with your own.

If you are a good developer, and are willing to learn drupal, a great idea would be to get in on existing projects. Most module developers would welcome help from others to keep things moving along. Big projects like Views, Context, Features, etc, would love to have you combing through their issue queues.

I've seen these scenarios several times before: guy helps with issue queue, guy gets named co-maintainer + gets mention on company blog, guy gets job there or with another company.

Issue queues are the perfect place to show your wares. best of luck!

Terry

Answer 4

Your username on Drupal.org, your reputation in the community (see certifiedtorock) will help.

Many good drupal jobs (I was looking about 4 months ago), ask for your drupal.org username before interview. They can track from this, your modules, themes and patches you have written for core or for other modules.

Having a portfolio of other site you have worked on will help. Even if they are hobby sites you have set up yorself it at least shows that you can do something.

You need to let your competence and your personality shine though. Hint having a username like user119333 with no link to a further profile may not help.