Introduction
Struggling to break into tech? You’re not alone. But the good news is, you can turn those challenges into real opportunities! In this article, you’ll learn how Marko Denic—full-stack developer, educator, agency owner, and tech community leader—grew his combined audience from zero to 300,000, and you’ll discover actionable steps to kickstart your own journey!
In this exclusive podcast coverage article, Mike Karan sat down with Marko to uncover his top strategies for standing out in a tough job market, building real connections, showcasing your work, and using AI as a developer. You’ll see how Marko leveraged social media and authentic relationships to turn his following into job opportunities and sponsorships. His practical advice can help YOU reshape your approach and fast-track your tech career!
Here’s what you’ll find inside:
- Leveraging Social Media: Strategies for using platforms like X and LinkedIn to build your reputation, share your work, and attract opportunities in tech.
- How to Provide Real Value: Ways to offer genuine help, resources, or insights to the tech community, making yourself memorable and valuable to others.
- Building Connections: Practical advice for forming authentic relationships with peers, mentors, and industry leaders that can open doors in your career.
- How to Stand Out: Tips for showcasing your skills and projects effectively so you get noticed by employers and collaborators in a competitive job market.
- Navigating AI: Guidance on integrating AI into your workflow, using it to boost productivity, and understanding its role in learning and career growth as a developer.
Leveraging Social Media
Marko’s success in building his large social media following didn’t come from gaming the system or using hacks. He gained it by being genuine, providing real value, and making meaningful one-on-one connections.
When you’re genuine in your interactions and content you post, people notice. But if you’re only posting to make a sale, people notice that even more! In the long run, being disingenuous works against you.
You can provide real value by sharing your learnings, no matter where you are in your coding journey. Even if you’re just starting out, your experiences and insights can help others who are a few steps behind. Sharing what you’ve learned not only supports the community but also deepens your own understanding and builds your confidence (and your reputation)!
When you’re starting out on social media, your goal of gaining a large following may be too ambitious. Instead of trying to attract the masses all at once, focus on building meaningful one-on-one connections. Take the time to reply to comments, answer questions, and reach out to others in your community. These personal interactions will help you stand out, create trust, and achieve real engagement. This authentic approach will lay the groundwork for genuine growth.
How to Provide Real Value
Feeling like you need to become an expert before sharing your learning on social media is a common pitfall. As the wise saying goes, you can learn something from anybody, so just start! Some of the best teaching advice my father gave me was to simply stay one page ahead of the students. That same approach works for sharing what you’re currently learning: aim to teach a coder who is just one step behind you. This way, you can get started at any point in your coding journey, without fear.
When you share what you’re learning, include the difficulties you faced as well as the solutions you found. By bonding over these learning struggles, you’ll provide real value and make genuine connections with others.
Another famous saying I find helpful when contemplating a programming topic is this: If you can’t thoroughly explain a topic, you don’t thoroughly know it. If you're like me, most of the time you’re just trying to get a part of your program to work, no matter what the problem is. Once you overcome the problem, you’re right back to working on your project, and when the project is done, it’s on to the next one. Without understanding the underlying issues and learning from them, you’ll most likely run into similar problems again and not grow as a developer. Taking the time to step back and figure out how you got your code to work—and then sharing it, whether in a post, article, video, or any method you like—will reinforce what you’re learning, help you get better at articulation, and provide real value to the community.
Building Connections
Once you start sharing your learnings on social media, you will organically gain genuine followers who resonate with your content. When that happens, consider following them back, interacting with their posts, and offering further insights or solutions to their problems. Doing so will help you build connections that can be mutually beneficial in the future.
Quincy Larson, the founder of freeCodeCamp, shares this valuable insight in a previous podcast coverage article: companies often search within their networks for candidates—sometimes even before, or instead of, advertising the job. Building connections through consistent networking can bring job opportunities directly to you, just as it does for Marko!
The key to successfully building connections is to be genuine. Avoid reaching out to others, especially those with larger followings, with the intent of personal gain. A better approach is to connect with people who share your interests and offer your help. In fact, Marko reached out to podcast host Mike, making the initial connection even though Mike had a much smaller following than he did!
If you’re looking for inspiration on how to build real connections, Richard Choi is a perfect role model. In my journey, I have never met anyone better than Richard Choi at making meaningful one-on-one connections! He attends conferences, meetups, online events, and has plenty of one-on-one coffee chats. The background collage of his website, shown in the image below, features pictures and screenshots from his events. It’s extremely impressive. I’ve met Richard in person, chatted with him online, and worked with him in the Gridiron Survivor Apprenticeship Program. I can vouch for him—he is genuine! If you want to learn firsthand how to make meaningful one-on-one connections, connect with Richard!
How to Stand Out
How do you stand out in a tough job market, where demand is low, and expectations are sky-high? Marko’s advice: make something that works! It could be a website, project, app, or anything, ideally something you are passionate about. First, focus on making it work. Then, improve it to make it better. After that, get feedback and, if it’s good, implement it as well. Showing you can create something that actually works demonstrates your skills and can open up new opportunities when you put it out there.
To really showcase your work, share your project and its process on social media. Show that you can take a project from start to finish, including deployment. Don’t worry if your project’s concept has been done a dozen times before. Even if your project is similar to others, they might not work well; yours could be better! Marko says, market it well and market it often. That’s what will make you stand out!
Another way to stand out is by working on an open-source team project. This demonstrates that you can collaborate, have acquired real team experience, and can use team-based tools such as version control. I’m in the Gridiron Survivor Apprenticeship Program, and I can vouch for how much you’ll learn and the experience you’ll gain building open-source projects with a team. Having team experience also makes you a stronger job candidate and a more enticing hire, since your onboarding process will be much quicker and smoother.
One of Marko’s best tools is his free custom QR code generator. You can make QR codes for links, text, and more in just a few clicks. You can also tweak the color, adjust the size, and share your codes with friends using the social media share buttons. Below is a custom QR code I made for my personal blog using Marko’s tool.
Using AI Effectively
Jokingly speaking, to prevent the HTML All The Things podcast from being canceled, Mike asked Marko for his take on AI and how he uses it.
Marko uses AI daily, but he’s clear that he remains in control—not the AI. He handles all the complex coding himself, relying primarily on AI as an assistant for writing tests, handling utility tasks, brainstorming ideas, and creating project scaffolding.
In Marko’s experience, letting AI take control can be counterproductive. The more complex the app, the more time he spends refactoring AI-generated code. Marko notes that he often ends up dedicating so much time to cleaning up the output that he could have finished the app faster if he had built it from scratch!
Mike has a similar perspective on AI; he uses it as a tool to increase his efficiency. However, he has mixed feelings about the use of AI in coding and is sometimes reluctant to prompt code into existence because he prefers solving problems on his own without interruption. Specifically, he finds the AI auto-correct feature disruptive at times.
As an experiment, he turned off the AI and coded a custom feature himself, which took about an hour. Then, he prompted the AI to write the same feature. As expected, the AI completed it in just 2 to 5 minutes using similar code, though not in the style he would have chosen. This realization, as he put it, “took the wind out of his sails” and only added to his impostor syndrome. On a positive note, Mike points out that he still outperforms AI at certain tasks, especially complex problem-solving and reasoning. He’s also found that AI currently struggles with long-term project management.
Mike uses AI to increase his efficiency by first prompting it to write a feature, then reviewing and editing the code as needed. Especially when working with clients, this approach streamlines his workflow and improves time management, making his work more cost-effective. However, Mike adds an important caveat: to achieve this, you need a solid grasp of programming fundamentals to effectively review and refine the code produced by AI.
How does one truly learn programming fundamentals? If you rely on AI to learn how to code before mastering the basics yourself, you limit the depth of your understanding. This makes it much harder to review and improve the code that AI generates for you. Consider turning off AI when learning the fundamentals—the struggle is where real growth happens. Be like Mike! Mike learned to code in a pre-AI era—a time of learning through trial and error!
With how easy AI makes coding, it's tempting to skip the hard parts and rely on it for everything. But as Mike points out, if you don’t learn the fundamentals through struggle, you’ll end up with only a surface-level understanding. When you put in the effort to really learn, make mistakes, and grow, and then use AI as a tool, not a crutch, you’ll stand out. Share that journey online, and you’re not just learning; you’re showing the world what you can do. That’s how you turn learning into opportunity!
Marko’s Links
- Website: https://markodenic.com/
- Newsletter: https://markodenic.tech/newsletter/
- X account: https://x.com/denicmarko
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denicmarko/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkoDenicTech/featured
About Marko Denic
Marko Denic is a software engineer, content creator, and community builder dedicated to helping developers improve their skills and monetize content. As the founder of Marko Denic Tech, he creates a variety of free tools and resources to streamline workflows and enhance productivity. Marko is passionate about web development, shares real-life tips and resources through his writing, and maintains an active presence in the tech community.
My other related articles
- Navigating Your Tech Career: Proven Strategies for Success
- Thriving in Tech: Securing Your First Job, Leveraging Side Hustles, and Overcoming Layoffs
- Navigating Your Tech Career: Proven Strategies for Success
- How Learning in Public and Networking Can Advance Your Career
- Learn to Code for Free and Land Your First Developer Job
- Bridging the Skills Gap: Empowering Junior Developers Through Apprenticeship Programs
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Conclusion
Marko Denic did not gain a combined audience of 300,000 followers by gaming the system. He built it through authentic engagement, consistently sharing his learning journey, providing real value, and forming genuine connections in the tech community. By helping, collaborating, and showcasing real projects, Marko turned steady effort into lasting influence and new opportunities. If you follow these proven strategies, you can build your own reputation and unlock doors in tech!
Don’t wait to get started! You don’t need to be an expert to start sharing what you’re learning. Help those just one step behind, and be open about your struggles as well as your solutions. This not only provides real value but also makes you relatable and authentic, helping you form meaningful connections. Teaching and explaining what you learn deepens your understanding and supports your growth as a developer. Reflecting on and sharing how you solved problems strengthens your skills and benefits the entire community.
Meaningful connections start with genuine interaction. Engage with others by following back, communicating, and offering help. Focus on shared interests and supporting others, rather than just seeking personal gain. Regardless of an individual’s audience size, reach out and make real connections as Marko does. Remember, many job opportunities come through networking within your community, not just from job boards. Sometimes, all it takes is one authentic connection for someone to recommend you for your next role.
To stand out in a crowded job market, focus on building projects that actually work, especially ones you’re passionate about, and keep refining them. Show you can take ideas from start to finish by sharing both your projects and your process. Don’t worry if your project isn’t original; as Marko says, execution and consistent marketing matter most. Participating in open-source team projects also highlights your collaboration skills and experience with tools and workflows, giving you a competitive advantage as a candidate to hire!
When it comes to working with AI, it can be a powerful ally, but only after you’ve mastered the fundamentals. Learn the basics first, then use AI to speed up tasks and spark new ideas, but never let it replace your core skills or critical thinking. Use AI as a tool to increase your efficiency, not as a crutch. In today’s tech industry, programmers who use AI effectively will have an edge over those who do not.
The tech world rewards those who learn, share, and connect, so start today! Put yourself out there, help others, and let your work speak for itself. Your next opportunity could be just one project, post, or conversation away!
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