Landing your first developer or engineer role straight out of college (or a bootcamp) is sometimes difficult. Luckily, AngelList compiled a list of companies hiring professionals without any prior work experience in tech, so you know exactly which companies to target.
AngelList does note one important caveat: you can’t just apply and get a job without the necessary skills. “While all of these companies hire applicants with no work experience, this does not necessarily mean they have no barriers to entry,” it says. “Some of these roles (machine learning roles, for example) may have knowledge requirements, while others may require certain credentials, like a CS degree.”
We should add another important footnote: you won’t see major tech companies on the list. Landing a job at Apple, Google, Microsoft, or another tech giant is definitely possible without experience, but they typically find graduates via their own recruiting programs. AngelList’s – umm, list – is comprised of startups and smaller tech companies. While it doesn’t say as much, we’d imagine this list is populated by companies AngelList has a (literal) vested interest in.
The list is 63 companies strong, which is impressive. Here are the first ten:
- Airtable - San Francisco
- Standard Cognition - San Francisco
- Hatchways - Toronto
- Quant Five - Berkeley
- Lucid - Santa Clara, Taipei
- Nzyme Inc. - Columbus
- Opener - Palo Alto
- Theodo - New York City
- Passfolio - San Francisco
- Gravity Technologies - New York City
(While AngelList ranks the companies, it’s unclear if that’s simply how they chose to list them, or if there’s some methodology behind the ranking system. Across the companies listed, there’s a mix of company size, stage of venture capitalism, and jobs available.)
Companies on AngelList’s roster are all hiring for unique positions, ranging from QA technician to the ubiquitous Software Engineer. There are also tons of dedicated roles such as Python Developer, Java Developer, iOS Developer, and Backend Node.js Software Engineer.
We should also caution many companies and jobs on the list are in or near Silicon Valley and San Francisco, which is an economic time-bomb at this point. Housing costs are out of hand, people are going into debt living there, wages have been in decline for decades... and you can just plain do better by avoiding it, financially speaking. But, if it’s a matter of getting your first gig in tech, a short stay in Silicon Valley might be worth the trouble.
Any job that matches your skills and interests is worth applying to; just keep in mind you stand a better chance by targeting your applications to jobs truly best suited for your abilities. For new graduates, job titles with ‘junior’ in them are a safe bet, as are those with startups and other companies seeking entry-level developers and engineers.