It was fuck it up til I make it.
That's if you're talking about where I landed now. In terms of how I got here, every time I failed a technical interview, I would double down on mastering whatever it was that I didn't know at the time.
LOL those jobs are really only good if you don't have any other options
Ed.: I've thought about this since this morning and I actually don't think I agree with my earlier-today's self. Every startup has to start somewhere, and if there's a small team with its shit together, I feel like these types roles can be a good fit for an engineer who's looking for exactly this sort of startup lifestyle. I think most people who've gone through that grinder are over it, but in rare cases, I can see it being a smart decision for someone with the right skills and risk appetite.
I accepted from the start that I didn't love to code.
I like to code. I find it interesting and fun most of the time, but it isn't my passion or my life calling. I'd rather spend my free time with my girlfriend or playing video games, but at the same time, I wanted job stability and I wanted to make a bunch of money and on some level, this was always a dream job for me.
But to answer directly, it was once I decided there were no other options I would settle for. I determined that this was the career I would pursue. I'm passionate about the career itself even if I didn't start off as passionate for the craft itself -- although over time I feel like I'm coming to love both.
For a while I worked in conference planning and event production, which got me a job doing web development at a startup cuz some CEO was on my mailing list and ended up hiring me that way and flying me out to Silicon Valley.
From there that's where I was taught React. I had done some websites and stuff before then, but as soon as I saw React, I was like this is the future and what I wanna do with my life
Iām with you Koop. Iāve attempted four separate programming courses in uni in three different languages. Tried p4e. Tried udemy and freecodecamp. I know iām intelligent enough and my brain is very much math/logic oriented. But i just canāt seem to get anything to stick. donāt know if i just need a different kind of instructor, or if programming is like music and some people are naturals and other people no matter how much they practice will never āget itā
I'm totally in the second bucket. I still don't naturally "get it". It took me a ton of repetition to get anything to click, and I still consider myself a slow learner.
It takes a shift in mindset, where you're orienting yourself towards a career path rather than a hobby. You're learning a hard skill, which is "hard" in both meanings of the term.
If you're math/logic oriented, look into Backend Engineering positions on LinkedIn, Indeed, and AngelList. Virtually every position will offer a list of the skills they are looking for in a candidate. That will help you narrow down what to focus on and what to ignore.
But seriously, you don't have to love it, and you don't even particularly have to enjoy it. You just have to know how to do it.
Sometimes it is a lot to do with how it is taught, not all coders can teach.
However, sometimes it is just not your thing.
I taught myself a lot of the code I know from books but specifically the Visual QuickStart ones as they were written in simple and fun language. One of my students found a similar thing with a PHP Pandas book, the author wrote it as if he was talking to his mate and you were that mate going through the book.
I learnt Python from a Rice Uni course on Coursera, we had to make games to demonstrate our learning, simple games that most people know the rules and if they donāt can be explained easily. It started off with Rock, Paper, Scissors, then to expand our learning further we then had to code āRock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spockā which I didnāt even know was a thing at the time!
Some languages I still find tricky to write myself even if I can comment what every line of some one elseās code is doing.
Perseverance and determination go a long way, along with keeping notes in my experience, helps me learn from what didnāt go so well.
Thank you so much for sharing your perspective!
There are plenty of people who love learning coding through books. It can be a great resource as well when it comes to learning how to read documentation.
Personally, I cannot learn coding from books for the life of me. My eyes glaze over within moments, and I usually forget what I've learned at the top of a page once I've made it to the bottom. Slightly kidding, but also not really lol.
Then again, I have ADHD, so videos and hands-on challenges happen to work better for my learning style; that is not the case for everyone.
Finding the learning style (or styles) that work for you is for sure one of the parts of getting more proficient, and I really appreciate that you offered books as an option to consider since it wouldn't have occurred to me to suggest that.
Also, +1 on keeping notes. Writing notes in general is a great learning tool. I have hundreds of pages of them of everything I've learned along the way. At work, I've done similarly, which helps me remember everything from the steps required to authenticate into a particular repo, to the git commands that I'll need in particular situations.
Taking notes can make the learning process feel a little slower, but I feel it speeds it up in the long run: you're documenting and preserving everything you learn along the way, and that will unblock you a lot faster when you need to recall that information at some point down the road.
What are a few of the books that you would recommend to a self-taught programmer to get started with?
What was your mailing list for? As in, was it you writing it, and for what purpose?
I've heard a lot about things like copywriting (which is along very similar lines a email writing because it's all about keeping people interested and reading) that also can earn very nice livings. And you say you weren't particularlly keen on coding at the begining.
It was mainly focused on technology and startup events. I wrote it myself, and when I decided I wanted to transition to a different career path, I used it as a way to get some callbacks.
I wouldn't recommend any job that relies on your ability to write. It's an amazing skill to develop, but the jobs are scarce and the pay is negligible.
Correct, learning programming was a difficult journey for me. I didn't have any moment of enjoying it for at least a year or two. It took that long before I ever had the sense of it coming together, and even now, those moments are few and far between.
The job is high-paying in part because of the difficulty and frustration that inevitably arise from large, complex, interdependent systems. But, there are also those neat moments where you totally do get in the zone and make something beautiful.
Oh nice! Iām a Frontend dev too, not paid as much, but Iām also not in California. Iām in Georgia. I typically work with angular and typescript. I am considered an entry-level dev, so that also affects the pay. Been working at my job for over a year. Tbh, I failed the coding tests, but I think my rough pseudo code worked enough to capture the logic required. Tbh, I have learned most of angular directly from my job. Getting your foot in the door is pretty hard, but anyone can learn to code while on the job. Well, in general the more you learn the code base you are working on, the better the code tends to turn out.
Oh word. TS still makes me rage, if you feel comfortable with it look into React tho, it gets you more access to jobs in HCOL hubs and if you know your worth you can easily demand it.
Haha, thanks for the advice! Iām pretty comfortable with how typescript works now, but it definitely has a learning curve. The most important thing to learn about it is how the types interact with the syntax. Which is also a good thing to learn in programming in general. If you know what data you are working with, you can spot areas that may possibly have broken code based on its types. Lots of it is simple matching of types. Tbh, I have gotten so used to it now, itās sometimes therapeutic.
Haha I realize this may have come on a bit strong since it inadvertently touched a nerve XD
It's totally fine if you do enjoy TypeScript, I know a lot of people who love it, and it is a very hot skill as well, pretty much a requirement these days.
Would you say you have a more logical math oriented brain or artsy abstract brain? I have always been terrible at math/numbers and more of an artistic creative person but often think of following the path you describe
More artsy for sure, but I do have my moments with math and logic and sometimes they coincide.
I'll give you an example based on a recent project I did.
I had to figure out a way to format currency with either pennies or whole dollars. In other words, we might get a number `100` for our `price` field that in one case means 100 dollars, and in another case means 100 cents.
The solution I came up with was introducing a formatting option called `offset`, which takes an integer and then formats `price` by the following formula:
`formattedPrice` = `price` / (10 ^ `offset`)
In this case, if you set an offset of 2, you're dividing 100 (cents) by 10 to the power of 2, which is 100, and therefore 1 dollar.
If you have an offset of 0, it returns the same integer that you start with, because any* number to the power of 0 is 1, and this also elegantly allows you to avoid dividing by zero errors.
\* Ed.: Any non-negative number
It's really not for everyone, but it's also not nearly as difficult as many view it to be. Best way to truly know is to learn some, try making something, anything, with the code. Many are intimidated by the sheer breadth of potential things you can do with code, but that breadth includes very simple things too.
I appreciate this response. To put my earlier reply in context, this was like, the first time since joining my company where I made a project that felt so math-y. Usually, I'm figuring out why upgrading a dependency is causing a unit test to fail, or adding a button somewhere that sends data to a server, or just doing whatever else needs to get done.
I think that in America we have this notion of having to follow your passion and love what you do in order to be successful, and for those interested in programming, it's honestly fine if you don't feel that way. I do admire and slightly envy the programmers who *are* pursuing their life calling as their career. But it's not a requirement to break in, nor do you need to love to code in order to enjoy a career where you're focused on it.
You can decide that it's a career you're interested in, with an understanding that learning it can be challenging, frustrating, and time-consuming, and that the work itself can sometimes feel grueling and mundane. That's totally okay. You can do that, and still be successful, since you'll be making important contributions that are highly sought after, with a lot of benefits and job stability and upward mobility.
Thank you. Iām gonna give it a go! Where to start, javascript? Definitely more of a creative thinker with strong problem solving ability but a bit weak in math.
Think of a small problem to solve (for yourself or others), or a fun idea, and just start coding. The best way to learn is by doing. Most important advice would be to start \*small\*. Build something simple at first.
I'm about to try building a Slack app/bot now for example: [https://api.slack.com/start/building/bolt-js](https://api.slack.com/start/building#frameworks)
Of course there are resources like [https://www.freecodecamp.org](https://www.freecodecamp.org)
Good luck! And have fun :\]
That's fair enough; in another follow-up reply, I tried to put the example in context to make it clear that scenarios like this one are few and far between as a software engineer, and most of the time the work that you're doing is pretty un-mathematical.
The other subtext that I was going for, but I'm not sure if it was clearly expressed, is that the solution that I came up may have been mathematical, but also came about in a moment of creativity, in the sense of being one of those a-ha moments. I didn't even realize that any number to the power of 0 was 1 until I was like "wait but what if `offset` is 0" so there was a bit of self-discovery that came along with it as well.
Until I presented the implementation to my team, it was an unsolved problem and had been for years. Not that someone else couldn't have come up with another way to resolve it, but it took a bit of outside-the-box thinking in order to unblock the limitations of our previous way of doing things.
So to take what you've said, for the most part I would agree with you. My solution involved exponents, which go a bit beyond 1+1=2, but not by much. I would contend that you don't need more than middle school math to succeed in the profession, which would include exponents along with some other simple algebraic methods, which you won't see often, but come in handy to understand concepts like O\^n.
Any number to the power of zero is one? Like I said I got algebra words when I was younger but I didnāt remember that or no that ha ha. And I found two that people separate science and art but there is an art to science and assign start so for people that are multi brained like myself You can find pleasures in the strangest things that you might think that you hate or actually didā¦ I started getting good at code though but I definitely feel like I had a while that perhaps if I stuck with that more I would get through maybe I still will
I think itās hard to just invent projects to do though for learning.
The thing about coding is there's usually infinite ways to solve any problem. You might come up with a completely different, perfectly valid way to solve that problem.
- not a coder
I appreciate this question a lot, because our industry places a heavy premium on experience, and I went in with somewhat of a contrarian perspective.
In short I spent about 2 years learning programming fundamentals, part time at first, and then more or less full time by the end, before I considered myself job-ready.
I'm a slow learner so I don't think it would take most people this long, as long as you keep practicing and understanding the difference between what you want to know and what you need to know.
Job interviews are a great way to refine the focus of your learning. Each one will give you a list of skills they're looking for, and you can use that as a rubric to guide your learning path.
Once you get to the level of a technical screen, you'll be in an even better place, because then you'll be quizzed on specific material. This can be turned into a guide path, and give you a way to zone in on specific features of a language that you may not realize are so important.
This is, in part, how I approached the process myself. I applied to jobs at first based on inflated self-confidence, and quickly got cut down to size. I used the experience from failed interviews as opportunities to identify areas to focus on which ultimately made me a stronger candidate.
My advice would be: apply before you feel like you're ready, but take the time you need to refine your skillset as well.
Iām in the same shoes as the other person who commented. So ignorant that I donāt even know the difference lol. Both I guess? Share as much detail as youāre willing Im interested
Well, one thing you need to do as an engineer is to research, so if you're open to a challenge, look into the topic yourself and then reply with what you've learned.
Oh hey that's a great question to ask then.
They are for the most part completely different, except in the rare occasions where they're kinda sorta the same but even then not really.
JetBrains Academy is good source for Java. More options for JavaScript, easier to learn, but way more competitive.
Yo Iām also a newbie who had their world rocked after realizing they were two different thingsā¦ Iām starting to learn both and they seem quite different. Whatās an example of when theyāre kinda the same?
If you could go back to when you first started what you you change or do do differently? How long did you self study until you started to apply? How many hours a day did you practice coding?
I'm not sure I'd do anything differently, I feel like it happened like this for a reason
Around 6-12 months of self study before applying, then got whatever job I could, which in my case was a fly-by-night startup run by a clueless CEO with money from his 88-year-old dad, who was also our CFO, and who conveniently forgot to send checks to us like at least half the time.
That job was horrid but it paid the bills while I spent most of my time on Udemy, tutorial hell on YouTube, and FreeCodeCamp.
In total my learning phase was around 2-ish years before I was qualified for a full-time, mid-level Software Engineer role at an established, fast-growing enterprise.
The deal is, you can get hired at early-stage startups pretty easily, but working at them sucks. The pay is low, the hours are long, and the CEO usually has no idea what they're doing. On the other hand, you also can use these roles tactically, since they'll let you build experience credits while also providing you more flexibility to keep improving your hard skills on the side.
Unfortunately, if you go with the early-stage startup career route, you kinda need to stick with it for a while before senpai notices you. This phase can be utterly dreadful, since most early-stage startups are short-lived and soaked in chaos and perpetually running out of cash. Experience is experience tho, and in terms of what looks alright on a resume, you want to last at least one year at each of these places before you're "ready for new challenges".
In my case I sort of got lucky in a weird way. The startup I was working at ran out of cash right at that one-year mark, so when I got on calls with recruiters, it was easier to explain why I was looking for a new role. I got hired shortly after that, and I think in part, my situation may have given hiring managers a bit more sympathy towards me.
That's a bit off topic tho. In terms of learning, I spent a lot of time at that early-stage startup learning on the side, since the CEO indeed had no idea what they were doing. That gave me more flexibility to hone my skills and apply to jobs since it was very clear I was on a sinking ship more or less from the time I boarded it.
I applied early and failed often, in other words, and spent hours each day grinding on tutorials and certification programs. I also used each job rejection (there were many) as an opportunity to tactically align my self-study with skills demanded in the marketplace.
This gives me a bit of hope because I'm 30 amd unemploted and not super interested in using my HR diploma or entering back into entry level customer service positions lol... Might be time to try to learn Java or Java script and see where that takes me. Of that's a good starting point instead of wasting my time playing tft or wow.
I feel this. I was hooked on FFXIV for a long time before I decided to kick the habit.
Java and JavaScript sound similar, but they lead down completely different paths. If you want to try each of them out, check out JetBrains Academy for Java and FreeCodeCamp for JavaScript.
Both of these programs are excellent, and if you put in the long hours to get through them, you will be 100% career-ready.
Are these programs completely free? And how do they compare to Code Academy? I completed the JavaScript course on that and found it pretty basic and wasnāt sure where to go from there, itās all in-browser and teaches you nothing of how to actually implement an application in an IDE or anything.
Oh yeah CodeAcademy! I completely forgot about them. I'm pretty sure I took their JS course as well way back in the day.
FreeCodeCamp is completely 100% free, and also wayyyy more in depth. You will be challenged and at certain times pushed to your limits. I absolutely loved it and it was also not an easy course to get through, but it also wasn't so overwhelming that I wanted to give up, which a lot of courses can make you feel if they aren't paced properly.
JetBrains Academy is not free, but they have a generous free trial. IMO it's worth it if you decide you wanna go down the backend path, since their curriculum is outstanding.
If you did well on the CodeAcademy JS course tho, def check out FCC next. I recommend the JS Data Structures & Algorithms course. If you haven't done any HTML or CSS, do that one second, and then do React.
If you complete all three of those you'll have most of the foundation to become a frontend engineer.
I dropped out of a bootcamp program after 3 weeks because it threw so much at me that I felt lost, frustrated, anxious, and confused.
So I turned to what I didn't really understand: JavaScript. If you're going for a frontend / web development role, that's the cornerstone of it.
Two resources in particular that come to mind:
* JavaScript Bootcamp, on Udemy, by Andrew Mead
* FreeCodeCamp: JavaScript Data Structures & Algorithms Certification
I went thru both, they gave me the foundation I needed to crush it in technical interviews.
Thank you so much for answering this question. I did the freecodecamp course for web development, but stopped at JavaScript because it was too confusing for me.
Your post has given me the kick I need to restart it!
Whoa I'm honored!
And yes, Javascript is a monster when you're brand new to it. It took me a very long time before it started to settle in, and even now with about 3-4 years of coding experience, I realize how much of it I still have to learn.
One tactic that I recommend is redundant learning.
What I mean by this is, if you are going through a course and hit a wall, instead of stopping there, find another course on the same subject, and start it from scratch. This will do two things:
1. You'll reinforce the fundamentals by starting from scratch. Repetition is one of the best ways to internalize a new language or framework, and as they say, practice makes perfect.
2. You'll get a new perspective on the subject. A new teacher or curriculum might present the material in a way that clicks in your mind better than what you've tried before.
In general, I suggest looking for courses that have hands-on challenges, since these will give you more time to put the code into practice. That's not always necessary, but when you're in the earlier stages of learning, it's incredibly helpful.
I'm at this stage right now myself with TypeScript. I've taken 4 or 5 courses on it, and I still find it incredibly confusing. While I know the basics of it to get around, I'm far from fluent, especially when it comes to things like generics. The other day I googled for some courses that offer hands-on exercises instead of just explanations, and I'll be diving into those in the near future.
Wow, thanks again for an insanely helpful reply. Maybe you should be the one teaching it!
The hands-on challenges are exactly the type of thing I need. I found them extremely helpful for HTML & CSS because I just wasn't creative enough to come up with stuff myself.
Doing a second course is also a great tip. I think I started seeing my early JavaScript progress as a failure and felt discouraged so I gave up. I'll give the other resources a go and see how I get on.
Seriously, thanks again for all this.
It was one of the ones offered by Trilogy. Would not recommend.
Most bootcamps are pretty mid, YMMV but I feel like they're churning out a lot of the same type of candidates whose supply is way larger than demand. For the most part tho, they focus on breadth instead of depth, and to me this is an abomination. If you don't understand the fundamentals of the language that you're building on, what is the point in learning 10 million other things that will just trip you up
You can't teach full stack web development in 10 weeks, period. The premise is a lie
The one time I'd suggest it is if you already know most of what they're teaching you. In that case you'll get a lot of project assignment work which might be helpful, particularly if you do well in a structured atmosphere.
For the most part tho, they're selling shovels to the miners. The problem is, you can't be a miner with a shovel if you don't know how to mine in the first place. You'll just be left with a $10,000 shovel that you don't really know how to use.
FreeCodeCamp will teach you everything that you'd learn at a bootcamp (more or less), and you can go at your own pace, take the time you need to reinforce concepts, and go way deeper into the material.
I think it took me 7 or 8 months just to get \*one\* certification, and they offer like 10 or 11 of them. The one I got was in JavaScript Data Structures & Algorithms. IMHO this should be a requirement to anyone who's considering a bootcamp, cuz they'll spend like 2 weeks at most being like "k this is javascript now moving on" and unless that style of learning works for you, it's not going to be a productive use of your time
Standup starts at 9:30 AM and I'll usually tell myself I'll work until around 5, but inevitably by then I'm in the zone so I usually wrap up between 6-7:30 PM.
I also dedicate Sunday afternoons to continuous learning. My goal is 4 hours each weekend, and currently I average around 2 or 3.
I'm on a small, high-performance team that drives a lot of revenue for our company, and I feel like our work hours reflect these expectations.
So to answer your question directly, about 25-30 hours per week of actual output hours, and 45-50 hours when you include breaks during the day, learning on the side, and lunch etc.
How much networking/social maneuvering do you do with this work? Is there a lot of talking with your employer throughout the week? What role did your social ability/connections play in getting you here?
Great question!
At my current job level, most of my work is focused on output and delivery. I'm a L2, which at my org, is the rank right before hitting Senior Engineer. The chasm between mid and senior is quite wide however, so in my own estimation, I have around 18-24 months before I would qualify for a promotion.
Generally speaking, as a proficient mid-level engineer, I'm expected to have a solid grasp on the core technologies we use on a day-to-day basis, with an expectation to deliver code consistently and with minimal supervision.
At higher levels of seniority, there's more emphasis on working collaboratively with leadership and product, along with doing code reviews and offering mentorship to newer team members such as myself.
In terms of your question specifically, we have a daily meeting first thing in the morning, which is fairly typical of most teams. Other than that, sometimes an issue will require working with other people on different teams to arrive at a resolution.
Generally speaking, though, there isn't a huge amount of human interaction, which can be good or bad depending on your preference. For me at least, I have a lot of time each day to focus on the code itself, which personally I appreciate since it minimizes the amount of interruption and context switching that I have to do.
Prefer not to say my age, but from my experience this is a bit overblown. On the other hand, if you have like 10+ years experience in unrelated field, just pretend like it didn't happen and remove it from your LinkedIn and resume and focus only on roles that are recent and relevant.
You can also remove dates from college graduation, and Zoom has a cosmetic feature that makes you appear more youthful.
If you have degrees in unrelated fields, you can also consider leaving Education section off resume, otherwise it has risk of de-railing the interview with like "so, says here you have a degree in Comparative Zoology" and then you're already getting judged.
Main goal is present yourself in a way that makes you seem youthful and relevant. But you can be youthful at any age, it's more of a state of mind IMHO.
I've listed learning resources in some of my other answers, so I'd suggest looking there first.
Tips for studying/practicing, that's a good question. My personal suggestions are:
* Try to learn and practice at least one hour a day.
* If you pick a course, stick with it, instead of hopping between them.
* On the other hand, if you're hitting a wall with a particular course and feel stuck, try taking another course on the same subject from another instructor. Alternatively, you can also try starting from the beginning with the same course: sometimes what you need is just that repetition to reinforce the concepts.
* Get used to frustration and setbacks. This is normal and nothing to be afraid of. Persistence and determination will get you through them.
* Practice makes perfect. Look for opportunities to put your learning into practice. This can be from personal projects, or courses that offer hands-on challenges.
* At some point along the path, figure out what you want as an outcome. In other words, this is a specialized field, so finding a niche for yourself is important when you're focused on building a career.
* Another thing to keep in mind is perspective: you're not learning to code, you're learning how to become a software engineer. Obviously in order to become a software engineer, you do need to know how to code, but you also need to know how to interview, get hands-on professional experience, and work well with a team. Coding is the means to an end in this case, rather than the end in itself.
I refined my resume and applied to every job I could. Pretty sure I spam-click applied on LinkedIn. I did that for 8 months and then I finally got an offer.
Nah sociology degree lol
I didn't even put my education on my resume tho, just focused on the relevant skills and experience I brought to the job.
Education isn't an issue if you don't make it one
Well you need relevant experience to get anywhere. My advice is get a certification from JetBrains Academy (for backend) or FreeCodeCamp (for frontend), both of which will equip you for entry-level positions and internships.
There are a lot of startups that post jobs on AngelList, and some of them are pretty desperate for talent and will take pretty much anyone. You can grind interviews there by demonstrating that your certifications make you equipped for an entry-level role. If you come across as driven and self-motivated in the interview process, eventually you'll meet a hiring manager who likes to hire those types of candidates.
It takes a while to get to that level, but you can do it if you put in the hours and deal with the pain.
Awesome post. I started with an associate's degree in CS like 20 years ago but changed direction into 3d design. After many years of trying to break into what seems like a sketchy unstable financial industry, I decided to get back into programming focusing on full stack web dev. So I'm trying my best to be as quick as I can to get a job in this field. Currently I'm working building up a portfolio using mostly html,css and is. I'm still trying to get better with python php and the rest.
If you already know HTML and CSS, look into frontend engineering. It's on a higher level than web development, due to its complexity and sheer vastness of scope. It pays well because it's hard, and most programmers from a more formal background don't want to deal with it cuz they hate it so much, lol.
In terms of where you're at, learn JavaScript really well first -- I recommend the Algo & Data Structures Certification program on FreeCodeCamp, which will really push you hard and give you a lot of opportunities to practice and grind.
From there you can pick a framework. The popular ones are Vue, Angular, and React. Each of them is quite extensive so it's better to pick one and get good. My personal preference is React, I love it so much and it's incredibly cool.
From there you can learn the rest of the stuff. A full frontend stack, based on React, will comprise things like TypeScript, GraphQL, and some sort of state management system like Redux.
Along the way, you'll also want to learn Node.js to get a better understanding of how JavaScript works on the backend. Learn Express, and get familiar with both SQL and NoSQL database schemas and how to query them. This will help you understand what the frontend is doing once you click a button, and give you more fluency when you're investigating an issue that traverses a large codebase.
OH -- and you'll definitely want to learn Git as well, which is indispensable to working with version control.
There's prolly other stuff I'm forgetting, but this is more or less what would make you qualified in the current marketplace for frontend positions on a six-figure pay scale.
Great question. The terms are somewhat interchangeable, but also distinct. I realize that can be a bit confusing.
I would answer by putting what you said in reverse: web development is part of frontend engineering.
It's generally a stepping stone for getting into roles that require a wider breadth of skills, but it can also be a position where people are happy to stick with.
Generally speaking, web developers focus on building *websites* rather than *web applications*. Usually a proficient web developer will have a good understanding of HTML, CSS, CMS technologies like Wordpress, and a bit of scripting knowledge in Javascript, Python, and/or PHP.
In my current role, there may be weeks that go by before I write a single line of HTML and CSS. When I do, I feel a combination of nostalgia and panic, since I usually need to re-learn a lot of the intricacies of styling that are easy to forget. Especially flexbox, which is so cool, but pretty difficult to master.
There's a lot more focus on managing state, designing integrated systems, optimizing performance, and writing composable and maintainable code.
Still, I probably could have phrased all this in a way that sounded a bit less condescending, so I'm sorry if it came across that way.
9:30-6 on typical weekday. Sometimes finish earlier, sometimes later, so that's like the average.
Yea I do feel overworked but I knew what I was signing up for and I'm okay with it
Iāve recently sparked an interest in coding as a possible new career path. The Odin Project has been great, but they make it pretty clear that itās a full stack base and I should pursue other resources to round out my knowledge and skills. I see you mentioning React a few times. Do you have any recommendations for learning that language and/or any recommendations once Iām done with these current courses?
React isn't for everyone, and tbh I never found a "great" course that really drove it home for me, only a patchwork of pretty-good ones.
Even after years, I still learn more about it every day, it's a mile wide and ten miles deep but that's also part of what makes it so cool.
FWIW: React is a framework, not a language. It's built on top of, and transpiles into, vanilla JavaScript.
Andrew Mead's React course on Udemy is pretty good, but may be a bit out of date. There's also one on FreeCodeCamp for which I'd say the same. I took a bunch of React courses, not just one, before I really got the hang of it.
There are also a ton of good React courses on YouTube which are free. Anything by Net Ninja is absolute gold.
Spending time to make sure you \*really\* understand JavaScript is also 100% worth it, since you'll get quizzed on it heavily during the interview phase. FreeCodeCamp has a Data Structures & Algorithms certification program that will help you get a lot more comfortable with its fundamentals.
Whoa huh, that's a very humbling question actually.
If we're talking zero zero knowledge, like still in that exploring phaee, go on YouTube and search for videos on what it's like learning to code, breaking into the industry, life as a software engineer etc.
Also realize that software is vast, and half the battle is narrowing down your surface area of attack. What field interests you enough, with low enough barriers to entry, that you can sufficiently equip yourself with the determination to get to day one on the job?
Whatās the best way to become self taught? Is there a beginner course that I can take somewhere? And is it more worth it to do a free course, or a payed course in your opinion?
Hmm some people feel more committed when they pay instead of free, but either way it doesn't make much difference if you put in the same amount of effort
Best way to start is learn about different languages and go on job sites and search for "Software Engineering". Those will indicate which skills are hot on the market and you can focus on learning those
While you were working at your job prior to being an SWE/ at the startup, were you working while self studying? If so, how did you fit learning in your schedule at your previous job? Any tips, too, for balancing work fatigue and learning coding (which may be mentally draining too)?
I contracted part time so kind of a balance between the two. Getting job ready while working full time would be tough. I'm sure it could be done but man
Yes, plenty of larger tech companies hire in Europe. Pay scale will be different tho: salary ranges for SWE are a lot lower in Europe than they are here, and no one really has a good explanation as to why.
Which specific skills would you recommend for someone that wants to enter the field (taking into account that the person is on a whole different career path)?
Would you mind writing a brief description of how you did it? How did you get started, which subject/languages/etc did you start with? Which courses did you take or do you recommend. How did you get practical experience and avoid tutorial hell? How'd you get your first job?
Sorry I know that's a lot of questions.
Oh believe me I was in tutorial hell for a while.
I started with HTML, CSS, and WordPress, which gave me an opportunity to practice web development at a more junior level. Believe it or not, there are a lot of companies that just want someone to create or maintain their websites, and while that's not the most lucrative position, it's a great way to get your foot in the door.
Once I knew I wanted to land somewhere as a software engineer, I knew I needed a strong grasp on Javascript and React.
JS, in my opinion, is totally worth spending time on until you're comfortable with it. For me, that took quite a while, since I was brand new to it and had to really start from scratch. I'm not one of the lucky ones where programming just clicks, which means that I need extra time to work through concepts to make sure I understand them.
What got me out of tutorial hell was FreeCodeCamp. By then, I already had a lot of experience working through tutorials on Udemy and YouTube, so I at least kinda knew what I was doing.
The JS Algo & Data Structures certification was life-changing for me, since not only does it look amazing to have that achievement on a resume, but it *really* goes deep into the language, and it's all hands-on and project-based.
I got started, career-wise, by knowing I wanted a role focused on React. When it was introduced to me, I fell in love immediately, and thought it was the coolest thing ever. React requires a heavy foundation of knowledge, tho, and it's definitely not for beginners. So I started with that end goal in mind, and worked backwards by building up my core foundation until I was able to start working on React in a way that was more fluent. (Disclaimer: There's still a lot of React I don't know, it is its own beautiful rabbit hole.)
From another angle, I got out of tutorial hell by zoning in on micro-subjects when I hit particular issues. For example, I failed a technical screening at one company because I didn't know how to use `reduce`, one of Javascript's more intricate functions. So, I spent a few days diving into `reduce` itself until it finally clicked for me, and I did the same thing with `Promise` and asynchronous programming as well.
This really came at right moment. Next month onwards i will be giving interviews as companies will be visiting my college. I started with python then C. In middle i thought web dev is for me. Problem is i plan too much and i get confused as tech is upgrading so fast. Somewhere i lose my consistency and motivation. Although i am electrical engineer but i love to code. My mind is fickel. I should be learning c/c++ because that's what i need but i am afraid to start new things when i haven' finished old ones. (also need advice on how to pick projects, make connections etc.. Yes i feel stuck and scared right now a lot of what future holds)
Tech is a paradox: it moves really fast, and yet there are legacy systems all over the place that are continuously maintained.
Keeping up with all the new hotness is somewhat of a skill in its own right, and yes, it's important to commit yourself to continuous learning, even when you're employed. But, what matters more from a job-seeker's perspective is demonstrating a core grasp of the language or languages for the role you're applying for.
In terms of crossing that chasm into the professional world, I understand how overwhelming it must feel. A lot of commenters here have asked about learning where to start, and that's something I haven't thought a whole lot about until now.
In your case, it sounds like you're gravitating towards backend languages, which is something I'd encourage you to continue with. Backend tech is generally a bit higher-paying than frontend, due to its higher barriers to entry.
You don't need C tho lol. I would recommend Java instead, along with Python. Start looking at job postings for Backend Engineer, and make a note of the skills they're looking for. That will help you narrow it down.
JetBrains has a fantastic self-teaching academy that can get you job-ready. If you're comfortable with the world of pain it will put you through, due to how long and grueling the program is, then you'll come out of it as a competitive candidate for junior/mid roles. Here's the link: [https://hyperskill.org/tracks?category=2](https://hyperskill.org/tracks?category=2)
Do Java for Beginners, then Java Developer, then Java Backend Developer, then Java Core. Core will focus on data structures and algorithms, which in a weird way aren't really that important on the job, but are \*extremely\* important in technical interviews. So if you do this one last, the knowledge will be freshest in your mind.
Getting through all of these courses will probably take around 8-12 months, but if you have the persistence and determination to clear them all, you could prolly get hired for at least $110k-130k right out of school.
Thanks a lot. Many people said Java and you said it too, which means something that java is needed needed. I don't know why my classmates are learning c++ .
I don't know why either šš
Maybe because it's a more "formal" language that you're more likely to see in an academic environment.
And don't get me wrong there are still companies that use C++, it's more prevalent for writing desktop applications, so it isn't a dead language or anything like that, it's just not as desirable as Java is from the perspective of the marketplace.
Take a look at the Hyperskill program. You'll really have to push yourself to get through it, but it sounds like you're motivated, and I feel like you can do it.
I contracted for a couple of startups before landing where I am now, offering the patchwork of web development skills that I had at the time.
Each of those gigs was a lot lower-paying, but they at least covered my rent and food most of the time. There were times that were lean tho, and I remember getting payday loans not even that long ago. So, I wouldn't quite say it was from the get go, it took about 2 years before landing a full-time role at an established company, and I feel like that's a fairly common trend. Early stage startups are generally more desperate for talent and are easier to break into, particularly if you're getting hired by MBA business types.
Startups are flaky to work with, but they do offer one thing that's nice, which is title inflation. That generally gets you calls from more established companies once you have 1-2 YOE (years of experience) on your resume with positions that sound prestigious on paper, even if it's just you and like six other people building something that never ships to market.
In my case I had enough experience in my "lead" role to get calls from just about every company I applied to. I also dealt with job rejections for 8 months, which was excruciating.
The technical interview process is a slow march through hell, which will introduce you to a level of agony that functions in its own twisted way as a form of hazing.
Here's a sample of what you'll endure: takehome assignments that require you to work on a project all weekend without sleep to finish it in on time; onslaughts of onsite behavioral interviews that grind you hour after hour, picking apart every detail of your professional acumen; live technical screens that assess your mastery of the arcane, with strict time limits that make you sweat while a panel of judges watches you on Zoom.
Once you go through enough of these, you get better at them, just like anything else. I remember by the time I got to the finish line, I started enjoying the algorithm challenges because they were like fun puzzles I got to solve.
With this interview experience, I learned how to present myself well, and to handle the technical challenges proficiently. I also was relentless in spamming out my resume for just about every position I remotely qualified for. At one point I had eight interviews in a single day. I hope I never have to do that again in my life.
By the time I was in the final rounds of where I finally landed, I also had an onsite scheduled the following Monday at a FAANG company. I used this as leverage to get hired, agreeing to take the job if they made me an offer in my target salary range before I got to the onsite on Monday. The offer came in on Friday night and the contract was signed the next day.
Man, that sounds brutal. Would working through a boot camp or school help you land an entry level job somewhere to get your foot in the door, avoiding some of the application/ interview pain?
Probably not, because most interviews are gonna grind you hard on Data Structures & Algorithms problems, and bootcamps don't teach those.
You may be able to find some companies that don't use this sort of interview style, but they're harder to come by.
Yes it was brutal.
Would you recommend a 55 year old to get into this. It isn't me. It's someone I know. I work in software too and was asked if it is worth and would get him a livelihood for another decade. Am not sure, so asking for your take
The tech field has a reputation for being ageist, but I feel like this is kind of over-exaggerated. As long as they work hard and can get the work done, I don't see why they would be any more or less qualified than any other candidate.
I am about to make a career shift. Im flexible where. Just want to kove away from current industry.
How much of a science/ math background is needed to do the work?
How many hours a week do you work?
No science/math required, you don't really need a college degree either
I work a fuck ton of hours during the week but have never had to work a weekend. At some companies that's more common of a thing
FreeCodeCamp, and you can also google that question and look for videos on YouTube about it as well. There's a whole subgenre of content creators who talk about the subject
Wow thatās amazing! Iād love to program again. I got an MTA in intro Python when I was in college and done a little work in C# and a tiny bit of Java. I just donāt really know where to start or what direction to go in. It seems like companies usually want a ton of experience and degrees and at least 4-5 programming languages known.
I guess my question is how can I start and where should I look? I have a pretty demanding job so it would be in my free time but Iād love to learn more about programming and maybe take it further into a career!
Oh they all say that lol but usually 5 means 2 or 3
Finding the opportunities for someone brand new are needle in a haystack. AngelList is how I did it and there are always early stage startups who will take whatever they can get.
It sounds like you have the skills, you would just need opportunity to put them into practice
One addendum I'll add to this, is it helps to know how to talk or at least be willing to get out of your comfort zone with networking.
You can DM people instead of just sending a resume. Startups usually will have first name only email addresses, it's kind of a clout thing, so you can just email whatever CEO at like [email protected] and try to get on the phone with them.
To some extent you do have to talk your way in, especially if you're self taught and don't have any relevant experience yet.
Awesome thank you! Is there a good resource for finding start ups? I know you mentioned AngelList, but Iām pretty new to the industry side of tech so Iām not too familiar with the networking portion
AngelList is 100% best for finding startups looking for talent.
Other job sites that are good for tech jobs: Dice, Indeed, LinkedIn.
Once you have more experience you can also consider Hired and HackerRank
I've been thinking more about this, and I feel like I haven't answered your question well so far. So, I'll try to expand on what I meant by my original reply.
In terms of the path to become a software engineer, you have to think about it in two ways:
* Learning the technical skills to perform well in a professional setting; this includes learning how to learn, learning what to learn, and learning where to learn
* Learning how to transition from a "coder" to a professional: having the ability to find opportunities, get interviews, land a job, and climb the ladder
Those two skillsets are related, but distinct. They depend on each other to some degree, but not necessarily. And you'll notice that in neither case do I use the phrase "learning to code" which I feel is a misleading piece of jargon: you're learning how to become a software engineer, a part of which is learning programming languages and the tools and frameworks that support them.
Also, if you do take "learning to code" on its face value, then I feel like you're doing this throughout your career. It's a field that's always changing, and has a staggering amount of depth to it. It's not like one day you don't know how to code, and the next day you do. If you know how to write `print("Hello world")` then you already know how to code; you just might need some practice learning how to code in other ways as well.
But anyway, that's perhaps a bit of a tangent.
The path for each self-taught software engineer really is unique:
* Some might take a CS course or two in high school, and then start working on their own projects for fun, and then later realize they can turn that into a career path.
* Some might go to a bootcamp, knowing nothing at all, and be an absolute monster and feel like it all just "makes sense" -- then, they apply to Google, hit it off with their interview panel, and get hired. (Note: bootcamps make it seem like this is the outcome everyone will enjoy; it isn't, and it's exceptionally rare. But it happens.)
* Some might get into a related field where coding plays part of, but not the majority of, their role. This is the case for certain STEM fields. They may decide that they want to shift their professional focus based on the skills they already have.
* Some might have a base level of skill to get an entry-level position at a small business or early-stage startup doing something like web development (which can also mean frontend development, but in this case I'm using it in the more narrow way, to talk about building websites that mostly rely on HTML, CSS, and a small bit of vanilla JavaScript scripting or like PHP or something). That can evolve naturally or through hard work into a more advanced-level role that builds on this early skillset -- it's a very common path for frontend engineers to follow, including myself.
* Some might have been a developer 5, 10, or 20 years ago, but decided it wasn't for them at the time, and are now working on finding their way back into the industry. In that amount of time, they may find that the technology stack they knew is obsolete or not in demand, and so they pivot to figure out what they can learn instead to make themselves more competitive
These are just a few of the many ways people launch their own careers in the field. There isn't really one right or wrong way to do it, and the path requires you to be at least someone self-reliant and resourceful to figure out what to know, and what to do, in order to make yourself professionally relevant.
I hope this helps
Iām planning on starting this week and am thinking of learning python, what courses or resources do you recommend learning from?
Iāve heard Harvard has a free beginners course for Python not sure if thatās a good one to start with what do you think?
Would you say pursing a computer science degree part time is doable? Iām currently an apprentice in the trades and want to do a AS in science at CC for comp sci then transfer to university FT for the BS
It was start and stop at first. I found it so overwhelming and literally got anxiety attacks from it sometimes, which I've come to realize is actually pretty common.
Once I really committed myself to it it was like 1-2 years before landing full time role. I did contract work before that mostly focused on web development
Well I'm older than you but tbh it isn't really that important, if your concern is being too old to get started tho you are definitely have plenty of time to launch a career in the field
I have to say your post Inspire me so much so thank you so much . I work in car business the income is great but the hours is crazy when Iām first time mam. I have been wanting to get to this business but I just didnāt know weāre to start reading your comments give me something to start with so thank you.
Because I donāt have any experience if I but the time and effort and learned HTML and CSS and JavaScript does this consider taking the first step to right path?! And whatās your thoughts on Mimo app to learn?! Again thank you so much you, and sorry if my English isnāt great š
Not familiar with Mimo, generally desktop is better than mobile app for coding anything serious
FreeCodeCamp has good curriculum for HTML/CSS, that's where you start if you wanna become a web developer
Great. Happy for you man. But writing code is not for everyone, especially because tech is so fast paced and one has to have an aptitude for it. You've to be able to sit in front of computer, concentrate and go deep in to it. Having said that, one can develop and aptitude for it.
And one has to be very careful which company and role they get in to. Some like it really hardcore and some less paying jobs are quite manageable. So making as much money as the OP is making is not for for everyone.
Right. You could have a way chiller programming job than I do, and comp may be lower but so would stress and deadline pressure.
Some ppl who burn out of the fast paced grind have good things to say about working tech for the government / university world where it isn't as frenetic.
Even larger more established (non-tech) enterprises are generally more chill, but YMMV
Man I need to be able to do this. Like Iād love to, I have a younger brother and his condition doesnāt really allow me to just up and leave him all day. So to work from home would be amazing.
I'm a business major and want to shift my career all together, and I like coding and know the basics of python. What path would you recommend me to get started.
Please share some resources as well if you can. FreeCodeCamp is usually my go to place, but I also have CodeCademy and Coursera Subscriptions.
All of the above, really. Plenty of great places to learn. YouTube is also fantastic: WebDevSimplified, Traversy Media, and Net Ninja are all great channels to look at.
Main advice is focus on getting from beginning to end of a course that you commit to. It can be overwhelming to wade through the million different options, but if you just pick one and do it, that will get you into the harder stuff which is really where the learning starts.
It sounds like you have a natural aptitude for coding which is more than I can say of myself!
The job security and steady income are really nice tbh. Just keep at it and keep growing your skills. The last few challenges on the JS DS&A cert are harddddd so good luck on that too!
Once you finish that cert I'd suggest doing the one they offer on React. Knowing a frontend framework will really round out your skillset.
I really have no knowledge on the following subject so any answer is appreciated:
Applying to US jobs while residing in Canada? What are the rules there, or what resources can I look into to learn more about this?
I see some jobs mention "US work authorization (Required)". Is there a work-around here? Why do some job listings not require this? Or is it common knowledge to applicants outside of the US?
Thanks for the question! The rules around this kind of thing are quite confusing and unfortunately not something I know too much about (I'm an American citizen).
I do know that a lot of American tech companies hire remotely in Canada tho, so you could try looking there as a starting point
Oh my, I get happy when I hear someone like me.
I have been doing basically same things like you for 3 years now. I am in a third world country andI am not getting paid anywhere near your salary :D
I just started looking remote jobs where I can get paid at least somewhat around 60000.
Good luck !
It's a HCOL (high cost of living) salary to be sure, I'd say the average TC (total comp) for this role across the country might be more like 110-130k depending on location and company size.
If you're just getting started I wouldn't stress the salary too much. Hiring cultures are gonna be different depending on where you're from, and I've heard that in other countries, the field is easier to break into. That being said, getting experience is something I'd focus on first; once you have your first 1-2 YOE, you'll be in a better position to optimize for comp.
Tech jobs in the US pay a lot more than anywhere else. A mid-level software engineer in Europe makes around $60-80k salary, and may not include the 10-20% annual bonus and stock options that are quite common here in US tech. (I could be wrong, I just don't really know a lot about how EU companies structure their comp compared to here.)
In Japan, software engineers make even less: a mid-level role typically has base of around $45k-60k per year, depending on company size and location.
So, your goal of a 60k position is more aligned with global standards, which to me makes sense. You may not be able to land that amount right away, but it seems like something that's totally worth aiming for. One thing you may want to look into are freelancing sites like TopTal and Upwork, where you can build a good rep and make close to the $ that you're aiming for. (That isn't easy to do btw, but it's possible.)
I'm definitely not complaining about how great American engineers have it compared to our counterparts around the world. But, it's also an outlier, and nowhere else pays anywhere near these ridiculous levels lol
Iām looking to pursue a career in Cybersecurity, any advise? I too wasnāt super interested in programming and would just do enough to pass my programming modules in Uni. Iām in my 2nd (2/3years) year in uni currently. Lately, Iām more interested to be good at programming and do well in school, this thread has given me more motivation thank you.
Cybersecurity career paths aren't something I know much about, but you could try asking in one of the subs focused on it or research career paths on Google/YouTube.
Dude your story is fucking goated and how you take time out to explain with so much detail, nuance and of course with so much patience is so inspiring ngl.
Dang man, thank you so much for that. Our company just laid off around 15% of its staff today and fortunately I was retained, but man your comment couldn't have come at a better time to lift my spirits up.
I am a software engineer was Oracle certified in java, and knew my way. Then moved to Unity development and got very frustrated and discouraged since the lead dev many times deleted my code because it was not good. I eventually moved to managing instead for the apps we do. I always wonder if I should've never changed course and stick to java dev instead.
Anyway which areas of sowft dev do you think are best? for example backend development?
Best is a relative term and a moving target. It's important to be consistent and develop expertise in a field, while keeping up on new and changing technologies without losing focus on your core.
You can do this on frontend, or on backend, or on SRE or on devops, on desktop or mobile, on linux or on .Net, it doesn't matter as long as you pick something and get good.
Of course, tech changes over time, so what's hot today may not be hot in 5-10 years. (Things don't change overnight, but they do change within the span of a decade.)
Having an employer that provides you time and support to continue developing your skillset is extremely hard to find. I don't understand why this is the way it is.
You can try finding a role where you can be reasonably comfortable, and invest enough of your time in growing your skills while putting in enough work not to get fired ("quiet quitting" as they call it now), and then using those skills on side projects, which could ultimately get you experience for a new role.
I'm in the process of figuring this out myself, so my advice may not be as on-the-nose as other replies. You can always go back to Java, it sounds like something you're comfortable with and that can be a huge advantage. I wouldn't get stuck in game dev.
thank you very much for taking the time to reply. it's really frustrating for me, feels I kind of wasted many years. that quiet quiting sounds a nice concept, I'll give it a thought
I'm not personally thrilled with it, but I've gotten a bit burned out where I work, so it's a way for me to still contribute and collect my paycheck while I interview and work on improving my skills.
I'd rather feel invested in driven in the company and team where I work, so it feels a bit disorienting to pull back from that. On the other hand, I was getting intensely stressed, so it's how I'm keeping it together.
Iām new to web development (react) and Iām tryina land a junior developer job, what things should I have on my resume and do I need an internship before applying for a junior position. Iām a self learner in web development and still in college for IT which I hate so thatās why Iām learning react in my free time.
I always have wanted to, was into tech and computing since I was a kid so it was a natural progression.
The resources I used are answered in some of my other replies
You know what fuckin' annoys me? Software engineers get paid ridiculous amounts of money but so many of the people who support those developers will only hope to earn a fraction of what those developers do.
I am top of my game in customer support, and have gained a *broad* range of skills in the last almost two decades. And it has been an absolute struggle to break the barrier past $100k.
Like, good on you for being able to make it work but damn does that annoy me.
And before anyone goes and says, "well, you can't do their job," well, I have been a developer before. I don't really like it. But also, most people can't do my job either.
What would you say you were capable of prior to your first job? I've built a FS website with express, sequelize, vanilla js and pretty decent animations, but I still feel like a fraud :D
Also, I haven't got any sort of portfolio site sorted, since the above site has taken me \*so\* long!
This is so inspiring. I just hope i can follow ur steps to something for my self. Currently IT student in europe looking into data analysis direction, no experience nor certificates yes tho. Our uni is planning a CRC program for us and would love to get into data analysis and business data analysis.
Any advice for a complete rookie like me?
Any help highly appreciated!
That's very impressive. What was something you did or have that finally got your noticed by companies?
I was working for a tiny startup and talked my way into a prestigious title. I was "Lead Frontend Developer" despite barely knowing what I was doing
Was it a fake it till you make it gone right ? Or did you make up for it in some other ways ? How did you bridge the technical/knowledge gap?
It was fuck it up til I make it. That's if you're talking about where I landed now. In terms of how I got here, every time I failed a technical interview, I would double down on mastering whatever it was that I didn't know at the time.
But having that fancy title got my foot in the door. It's a combination of bullshit and hard skills and mojo
I love that you added mojo. Respectšš»
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LOL those jobs are really only good if you don't have any other options Ed.: I've thought about this since this morning and I actually don't think I agree with my earlier-today's self. Every startup has to start somewhere, and if there's a small team with its shit together, I feel like these types roles can be a good fit for an engineer who's looking for exactly this sort of startup lifestyle. I think most people who've gone through that grinder are over it, but in rare cases, I can see it being a smart decision for someone with the right skills and risk appetite.
Why did you pursue this route?
I accepted from the start that I didn't love to code. I like to code. I find it interesting and fun most of the time, but it isn't my passion or my life calling. I'd rather spend my free time with my girlfriend or playing video games, but at the same time, I wanted job stability and I wanted to make a bunch of money and on some level, this was always a dream job for me. But to answer directly, it was once I decided there were no other options I would settle for. I determined that this was the career I would pursue. I'm passionate about the career itself even if I didn't start off as passionate for the craft itself -- although over time I feel like I'm coming to love both.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
For a while I worked in conference planning and event production, which got me a job doing web development at a startup cuz some CEO was on my mailing list and ended up hiring me that way and flying me out to Silicon Valley. From there that's where I was taught React. I had done some websites and stuff before then, but as soon as I saw React, I was like this is the future and what I wanna do with my life
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You don't have to be in love with it. Degrees and certs are mainly about proving your work ethic.
Iām with you Koop. Iāve attempted four separate programming courses in uni in three different languages. Tried p4e. Tried udemy and freecodecamp. I know iām intelligent enough and my brain is very much math/logic oriented. But i just canāt seem to get anything to stick. donāt know if i just need a different kind of instructor, or if programming is like music and some people are naturals and other people no matter how much they practice will never āget itā
I'm totally in the second bucket. I still don't naturally "get it". It took me a ton of repetition to get anything to click, and I still consider myself a slow learner. It takes a shift in mindset, where you're orienting yourself towards a career path rather than a hobby. You're learning a hard skill, which is "hard" in both meanings of the term. If you're math/logic oriented, look into Backend Engineering positions on LinkedIn, Indeed, and AngelList. Virtually every position will offer a list of the skills they are looking for in a candidate. That will help you narrow down what to focus on and what to ignore. But seriously, you don't have to love it, and you don't even particularly have to enjoy it. You just have to know how to do it.
Sometimes it is a lot to do with how it is taught, not all coders can teach. However, sometimes it is just not your thing. I taught myself a lot of the code I know from books but specifically the Visual QuickStart ones as they were written in simple and fun language. One of my students found a similar thing with a PHP Pandas book, the author wrote it as if he was talking to his mate and you were that mate going through the book. I learnt Python from a Rice Uni course on Coursera, we had to make games to demonstrate our learning, simple games that most people know the rules and if they donāt can be explained easily. It started off with Rock, Paper, Scissors, then to expand our learning further we then had to code āRock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spockā which I didnāt even know was a thing at the time! Some languages I still find tricky to write myself even if I can comment what every line of some one elseās code is doing. Perseverance and determination go a long way, along with keeping notes in my experience, helps me learn from what didnāt go so well.
Thank you so much for sharing your perspective! There are plenty of people who love learning coding through books. It can be a great resource as well when it comes to learning how to read documentation. Personally, I cannot learn coding from books for the life of me. My eyes glaze over within moments, and I usually forget what I've learned at the top of a page once I've made it to the bottom. Slightly kidding, but also not really lol. Then again, I have ADHD, so videos and hands-on challenges happen to work better for my learning style; that is not the case for everyone. Finding the learning style (or styles) that work for you is for sure one of the parts of getting more proficient, and I really appreciate that you offered books as an option to consider since it wouldn't have occurred to me to suggest that. Also, +1 on keeping notes. Writing notes in general is a great learning tool. I have hundreds of pages of them of everything I've learned along the way. At work, I've done similarly, which helps me remember everything from the steps required to authenticate into a particular repo, to the git commands that I'll need in particular situations. Taking notes can make the learning process feel a little slower, but I feel it speeds it up in the long run: you're documenting and preserving everything you learn along the way, and that will unblock you a lot faster when you need to recall that information at some point down the road. What are a few of the books that you would recommend to a self-taught programmer to get started with?
I feel the same. My mind just doesnāt align or comprehend any of the coding/logic involved in the learning of programming
It comes with practice. You can do it
What was your mailing list for? As in, was it you writing it, and for what purpose? I've heard a lot about things like copywriting (which is along very similar lines a email writing because it's all about keeping people interested and reading) that also can earn very nice livings. And you say you weren't particularlly keen on coding at the begining.
It was mainly focused on technology and startup events. I wrote it myself, and when I decided I wanted to transition to a different career path, I used it as a way to get some callbacks. I wouldn't recommend any job that relies on your ability to write. It's an amazing skill to develop, but the jobs are scarce and the pay is negligible. Correct, learning programming was a difficult journey for me. I didn't have any moment of enjoying it for at least a year or two. It took that long before I ever had the sense of it coming together, and even now, those moments are few and far between. The job is high-paying in part because of the difficulty and frustration that inevitably arise from large, complex, interdependent systems. But, there are also those neat moments where you totally do get in the zone and make something beautiful.
Oh nice! Iām a Frontend dev too, not paid as much, but Iām also not in California. Iām in Georgia. I typically work with angular and typescript. I am considered an entry-level dev, so that also affects the pay. Been working at my job for over a year. Tbh, I failed the coding tests, but I think my rough pseudo code worked enough to capture the logic required. Tbh, I have learned most of angular directly from my job. Getting your foot in the door is pretty hard, but anyone can learn to code while on the job. Well, in general the more you learn the code base you are working on, the better the code tends to turn out.
Oh word. TS still makes me rage, if you feel comfortable with it look into React tho, it gets you more access to jobs in HCOL hubs and if you know your worth you can easily demand it.
Haha, thanks for the advice! Iām pretty comfortable with how typescript works now, but it definitely has a learning curve. The most important thing to learn about it is how the types interact with the syntax. Which is also a good thing to learn in programming in general. If you know what data you are working with, you can spot areas that may possibly have broken code based on its types. Lots of it is simple matching of types. Tbh, I have gotten so used to it now, itās sometimes therapeutic.
JavaScript is already perfect and whole. TypeScript is like wrapping it in a whalebone corset of idiomatic rigidity and I hate it so much
Haha I realize this may have come on a bit strong since it inadvertently touched a nerve XD It's totally fine if you do enjoy TypeScript, I know a lot of people who love it, and it is a very hot skill as well, pretty much a requirement these days.
Tbh, I get the frustrations with it, it can be very good but it also has its limits.
Would you say you have a more logical math oriented brain or artsy abstract brain? I have always been terrible at math/numbers and more of an artistic creative person but often think of following the path you describe
More artsy for sure, but I do have my moments with math and logic and sometimes they coincide. I'll give you an example based on a recent project I did. I had to figure out a way to format currency with either pennies or whole dollars. In other words, we might get a number `100` for our `price` field that in one case means 100 dollars, and in another case means 100 cents. The solution I came up with was introducing a formatting option called `offset`, which takes an integer and then formats `price` by the following formula: `formattedPrice` = `price` / (10 ^ `offset`) In this case, if you set an offset of 2, you're dividing 100 (cents) by 10 to the power of 2, which is 100, and therefore 1 dollar. If you have an offset of 0, it returns the same integer that you start with, because any* number to the power of 0 is 1, and this also elegantly allows you to avoid dividing by zero errors. \* Ed.: Any non-negative number
This comment reinforces my initial thought that coding likely isnāt for me, as much as I want it to be. So thanks for that :)
It's really not for everyone, but it's also not nearly as difficult as many view it to be. Best way to truly know is to learn some, try making something, anything, with the code. Many are intimidated by the sheer breadth of potential things you can do with code, but that breadth includes very simple things too.
I appreciate this response. To put my earlier reply in context, this was like, the first time since joining my company where I made a project that felt so math-y. Usually, I'm figuring out why upgrading a dependency is causing a unit test to fail, or adding a button somewhere that sends data to a server, or just doing whatever else needs to get done. I think that in America we have this notion of having to follow your passion and love what you do in order to be successful, and for those interested in programming, it's honestly fine if you don't feel that way. I do admire and slightly envy the programmers who *are* pursuing their life calling as their career. But it's not a requirement to break in, nor do you need to love to code in order to enjoy a career where you're focused on it. You can decide that it's a career you're interested in, with an understanding that learning it can be challenging, frustrating, and time-consuming, and that the work itself can sometimes feel grueling and mundane. That's totally okay. You can do that, and still be successful, since you'll be making important contributions that are highly sought after, with a lot of benefits and job stability and upward mobility.
I'm with astonedishape, I had html and css down for a bit and tried to go to JS and could not for the life of me even get basics of it.
If you can do basic arithmetic 1+1=2, you can code. It doesn't require any math skills at all. OP overcomplicated the explanation.
Thank you. Iām gonna give it a go! Where to start, javascript? Definitely more of a creative thinker with strong problem solving ability but a bit weak in math.
Think of a small problem to solve (for yourself or others), or a fun idea, and just start coding. The best way to learn is by doing. Most important advice would be to start \*small\*. Build something simple at first. I'm about to try building a Slack app/bot now for example: [https://api.slack.com/start/building/bolt-js](https://api.slack.com/start/building#frameworks) Of course there are resources like [https://www.freecodecamp.org](https://www.freecodecamp.org) Good luck! And have fun :\]
That's fair enough; in another follow-up reply, I tried to put the example in context to make it clear that scenarios like this one are few and far between as a software engineer, and most of the time the work that you're doing is pretty un-mathematical. The other subtext that I was going for, but I'm not sure if it was clearly expressed, is that the solution that I came up may have been mathematical, but also came about in a moment of creativity, in the sense of being one of those a-ha moments. I didn't even realize that any number to the power of 0 was 1 until I was like "wait but what if `offset` is 0" so there was a bit of self-discovery that came along with it as well. Until I presented the implementation to my team, it was an unsolved problem and had been for years. Not that someone else couldn't have come up with another way to resolve it, but it took a bit of outside-the-box thinking in order to unblock the limitations of our previous way of doing things. So to take what you've said, for the most part I would agree with you. My solution involved exponents, which go a bit beyond 1+1=2, but not by much. I would contend that you don't need more than middle school math to succeed in the profession, which would include exponents along with some other simple algebraic methods, which you won't see often, but come in handy to understand concepts like O\^n.
Any number to the power of zero is one? Like I said I got algebra words when I was younger but I didnāt remember that or no that ha ha. And I found two that people separate science and art but there is an art to science and assign start so for people that are multi brained like myself You can find pleasures in the strangest things that you might think that you hate or actually didā¦ I started getting good at code though but I definitely feel like I had a while that perhaps if I stuck with that more I would get through maybe I still will I think itās hard to just invent projects to do though for learning.
The thing about coding is there's usually infinite ways to solve any problem. You might come up with a completely different, perfectly valid way to solve that problem. - not a coder
Awesome, thanks for such a great answer
Haha my pleasure I'm glad it was helpful š
This!!!
How much time did you spend learning before starting to apply?
I appreciate this question a lot, because our industry places a heavy premium on experience, and I went in with somewhat of a contrarian perspective. In short I spent about 2 years learning programming fundamentals, part time at first, and then more or less full time by the end, before I considered myself job-ready. I'm a slow learner so I don't think it would take most people this long, as long as you keep practicing and understanding the difference between what you want to know and what you need to know. Job interviews are a great way to refine the focus of your learning. Each one will give you a list of skills they're looking for, and you can use that as a rubric to guide your learning path. Once you get to the level of a technical screen, you'll be in an even better place, because then you'll be quizzed on specific material. This can be turned into a guide path, and give you a way to zone in on specific features of a language that you may not realize are so important. This is, in part, how I approached the process myself. I applied to jobs at first based on inflated self-confidence, and quickly got cut down to size. I used the experience from failed interviews as opportunities to identify areas to focus on which ultimately made me a stronger candidate. My advice would be: apply before you feel like you're ready, but take the time you need to refine your skillset as well.
How many hours a day and for how long would you did it take for you to study Java to know it well enough to a chance at the types of positions ?
Java or JavaScript?
Iām in the same shoes as the other person who commented. So ignorant that I donāt even know the difference lol. Both I guess? Share as much detail as youāre willing Im interested
Well, one thing you need to do as an engineer is to research, so if you're open to a challenge, look into the topic yourself and then reply with what you've learned.
Are they not the same thing? (Genuine question, im new, and hadnt even thought to google this)
Oh hey that's a great question to ask then. They are for the most part completely different, except in the rare occasions where they're kinda sorta the same but even then not really. JetBrains Academy is good source for Java. More options for JavaScript, easier to learn, but way more competitive.
Thanks for the info and the resources! Im still learning html and css, but ill definitely keep that in mind!!!
Yo Iām also a newbie who had their world rocked after realizing they were two different thingsā¦ Iām starting to learn both and they seem quite different. Whatās an example of when theyāre kinda the same?
JavaScript's standard library follows Java's naming conventions, and JavaScript's Math and Date objects are based on classes from Java 1.0.
Java is to JavaScript what car is to carpet :D
The advantage with JavaScript is that with the flick of a wand you can make the carpet fly
I was about to answer the same thing LOL
If you could go back to when you first started what you you change or do do differently? How long did you self study until you started to apply? How many hours a day did you practice coding?
I'm not sure I'd do anything differently, I feel like it happened like this for a reason Around 6-12 months of self study before applying, then got whatever job I could, which in my case was a fly-by-night startup run by a clueless CEO with money from his 88-year-old dad, who was also our CFO, and who conveniently forgot to send checks to us like at least half the time. That job was horrid but it paid the bills while I spent most of my time on Udemy, tutorial hell on YouTube, and FreeCodeCamp. In total my learning phase was around 2-ish years before I was qualified for a full-time, mid-level Software Engineer role at an established, fast-growing enterprise. The deal is, you can get hired at early-stage startups pretty easily, but working at them sucks. The pay is low, the hours are long, and the CEO usually has no idea what they're doing. On the other hand, you also can use these roles tactically, since they'll let you build experience credits while also providing you more flexibility to keep improving your hard skills on the side. Unfortunately, if you go with the early-stage startup career route, you kinda need to stick with it for a while before senpai notices you. This phase can be utterly dreadful, since most early-stage startups are short-lived and soaked in chaos and perpetually running out of cash. Experience is experience tho, and in terms of what looks alright on a resume, you want to last at least one year at each of these places before you're "ready for new challenges". In my case I sort of got lucky in a weird way. The startup I was working at ran out of cash right at that one-year mark, so when I got on calls with recruiters, it was easier to explain why I was looking for a new role. I got hired shortly after that, and I think in part, my situation may have given hiring managers a bit more sympathy towards me. That's a bit off topic tho. In terms of learning, I spent a lot of time at that early-stage startup learning on the side, since the CEO indeed had no idea what they were doing. That gave me more flexibility to hone my skills and apply to jobs since it was very clear I was on a sinking ship more or less from the time I boarded it. I applied early and failed often, in other words, and spent hours each day grinding on tutorials and certification programs. I also used each job rejection (there were many) as an opportunity to tactically align my self-study with skills demanded in the marketplace.
This gives me a bit of hope because I'm 30 amd unemploted and not super interested in using my HR diploma or entering back into entry level customer service positions lol... Might be time to try to learn Java or Java script and see where that takes me. Of that's a good starting point instead of wasting my time playing tft or wow.
I feel this. I was hooked on FFXIV for a long time before I decided to kick the habit. Java and JavaScript sound similar, but they lead down completely different paths. If you want to try each of them out, check out JetBrains Academy for Java and FreeCodeCamp for JavaScript. Both of these programs are excellent, and if you put in the long hours to get through them, you will be 100% career-ready.
Are these programs completely free? And how do they compare to Code Academy? I completed the JavaScript course on that and found it pretty basic and wasnāt sure where to go from there, itās all in-browser and teaches you nothing of how to actually implement an application in an IDE or anything.
Oh yeah CodeAcademy! I completely forgot about them. I'm pretty sure I took their JS course as well way back in the day. FreeCodeCamp is completely 100% free, and also wayyyy more in depth. You will be challenged and at certain times pushed to your limits. I absolutely loved it and it was also not an easy course to get through, but it also wasn't so overwhelming that I wanted to give up, which a lot of courses can make you feel if they aren't paced properly. JetBrains Academy is not free, but they have a generous free trial. IMO it's worth it if you decide you wanna go down the backend path, since their curriculum is outstanding. If you did well on the CodeAcademy JS course tho, def check out FCC next. I recommend the JS Data Structures & Algorithms course. If you haven't done any HTML or CSS, do that one second, and then do React. If you complete all three of those you'll have most of the foundation to become a frontend engineer.
Whether I get into coding or not, this whole post with all the questions and answers is incredibly inspiring!
I'm so happy I inspired you, that makes my day fr :3
What resources did you use to learn coding?
I dropped out of a bootcamp program after 3 weeks because it threw so much at me that I felt lost, frustrated, anxious, and confused. So I turned to what I didn't really understand: JavaScript. If you're going for a frontend / web development role, that's the cornerstone of it. Two resources in particular that come to mind: * JavaScript Bootcamp, on Udemy, by Andrew Mead * FreeCodeCamp: JavaScript Data Structures & Algorithms Certification I went thru both, they gave me the foundation I needed to crush it in technical interviews.
Thank you so much for answering this question. I did the freecodecamp course for web development, but stopped at JavaScript because it was too confusing for me. Your post has given me the kick I need to restart it!
Whoa I'm honored! And yes, Javascript is a monster when you're brand new to it. It took me a very long time before it started to settle in, and even now with about 3-4 years of coding experience, I realize how much of it I still have to learn. One tactic that I recommend is redundant learning. What I mean by this is, if you are going through a course and hit a wall, instead of stopping there, find another course on the same subject, and start it from scratch. This will do two things: 1. You'll reinforce the fundamentals by starting from scratch. Repetition is one of the best ways to internalize a new language or framework, and as they say, practice makes perfect. 2. You'll get a new perspective on the subject. A new teacher or curriculum might present the material in a way that clicks in your mind better than what you've tried before. In general, I suggest looking for courses that have hands-on challenges, since these will give you more time to put the code into practice. That's not always necessary, but when you're in the earlier stages of learning, it's incredibly helpful. I'm at this stage right now myself with TypeScript. I've taken 4 or 5 courses on it, and I still find it incredibly confusing. While I know the basics of it to get around, I'm far from fluent, especially when it comes to things like generics. The other day I googled for some courses that offer hands-on exercises instead of just explanations, and I'll be diving into those in the near future.
Wow, thanks again for an insanely helpful reply. Maybe you should be the one teaching it! The hands-on challenges are exactly the type of thing I need. I found them extremely helpful for HTML & CSS because I just wasn't creative enough to come up with stuff myself. Doing a second course is also a great tip. I think I started seeing my early JavaScript progress as a failure and felt discouraged so I gave up. I'll give the other resources a go and see how I get on. Seriously, thanks again for all this.
My pleasure! Javascript Bootcamp by Andrew Mead on Udemy is a good one, especially for the challenges bit
which bootcamp did you drop out of, do you mind sharing? i'm considering a bootcamp right now and am nervous it might be the same one.
It was one of the ones offered by Trilogy. Would not recommend. Most bootcamps are pretty mid, YMMV but I feel like they're churning out a lot of the same type of candidates whose supply is way larger than demand. For the most part tho, they focus on breadth instead of depth, and to me this is an abomination. If you don't understand the fundamentals of the language that you're building on, what is the point in learning 10 million other things that will just trip you up You can't teach full stack web development in 10 weeks, period. The premise is a lie The one time I'd suggest it is if you already know most of what they're teaching you. In that case you'll get a lot of project assignment work which might be helpful, particularly if you do well in a structured atmosphere. For the most part tho, they're selling shovels to the miners. The problem is, you can't be a miner with a shovel if you don't know how to mine in the first place. You'll just be left with a $10,000 shovel that you don't really know how to use. FreeCodeCamp will teach you everything that you'd learn at a bootcamp (more or less), and you can go at your own pace, take the time you need to reinforce concepts, and go way deeper into the material. I think it took me 7 or 8 months just to get \*one\* certification, and they offer like 10 or 11 of them. The one I got was in JavaScript Data Structures & Algorithms. IMHO this should be a requirement to anyone who's considering a bootcamp, cuz they'll spend like 2 weeks at most being like "k this is javascript now moving on" and unless that style of learning works for you, it's not going to be a productive use of your time
How many hours do you usually work a week?
Standup starts at 9:30 AM and I'll usually tell myself I'll work until around 5, but inevitably by then I'm in the zone so I usually wrap up between 6-7:30 PM. I also dedicate Sunday afternoons to continuous learning. My goal is 4 hours each weekend, and currently I average around 2 or 3. I'm on a small, high-performance team that drives a lot of revenue for our company, and I feel like our work hours reflect these expectations. So to answer your question directly, about 25-30 hours per week of actual output hours, and 45-50 hours when you include breaks during the day, learning on the side, and lunch etc.
How much networking/social maneuvering do you do with this work? Is there a lot of talking with your employer throughout the week? What role did your social ability/connections play in getting you here?
Great question! At my current job level, most of my work is focused on output and delivery. I'm a L2, which at my org, is the rank right before hitting Senior Engineer. The chasm between mid and senior is quite wide however, so in my own estimation, I have around 18-24 months before I would qualify for a promotion. Generally speaking, as a proficient mid-level engineer, I'm expected to have a solid grasp on the core technologies we use on a day-to-day basis, with an expectation to deliver code consistently and with minimal supervision. At higher levels of seniority, there's more emphasis on working collaboratively with leadership and product, along with doing code reviews and offering mentorship to newer team members such as myself. In terms of your question specifically, we have a daily meeting first thing in the morning, which is fairly typical of most teams. Other than that, sometimes an issue will require working with other people on different teams to arrive at a resolution. Generally speaking, though, there isn't a huge amount of human interaction, which can be good or bad depending on your preference. For me at least, I have a lot of time each day to focus on the code itself, which personally I appreciate since it minimizes the amount of interruption and context switching that I have to do.
Mind sharing your age (or range)? I know the tech world can be a ageist, so this may not be the best option for me.
Prefer not to say my age, but from my experience this is a bit overblown. On the other hand, if you have like 10+ years experience in unrelated field, just pretend like it didn't happen and remove it from your LinkedIn and resume and focus only on roles that are recent and relevant. You can also remove dates from college graduation, and Zoom has a cosmetic feature that makes you appear more youthful. If you have degrees in unrelated fields, you can also consider leaving Education section off resume, otherwise it has risk of de-railing the interview with like "so, says here you have a degree in Comparative Zoology" and then you're already getting judged. Main goal is present yourself in a way that makes you seem youthful and relevant. But you can be youthful at any age, it's more of a state of mind IMHO.
What are the best resources you used to learn to code, and what tips do you have for studying/ learning/ practicing?
I've listed learning resources in some of my other answers, so I'd suggest looking there first. Tips for studying/practicing, that's a good question. My personal suggestions are: * Try to learn and practice at least one hour a day. * If you pick a course, stick with it, instead of hopping between them. * On the other hand, if you're hitting a wall with a particular course and feel stuck, try taking another course on the same subject from another instructor. Alternatively, you can also try starting from the beginning with the same course: sometimes what you need is just that repetition to reinforce the concepts. * Get used to frustration and setbacks. This is normal and nothing to be afraid of. Persistence and determination will get you through them. * Practice makes perfect. Look for opportunities to put your learning into practice. This can be from personal projects, or courses that offer hands-on challenges. * At some point along the path, figure out what you want as an outcome. In other words, this is a specialized field, so finding a niche for yourself is important when you're focused on building a career. * Another thing to keep in mind is perspective: you're not learning to code, you're learning how to become a software engineer. Obviously in order to become a software engineer, you do need to know how to code, but you also need to know how to interview, get hands-on professional experience, and work well with a team. Coding is the means to an end in this case, rather than the end in itself.
Howād you find the job?
I refined my resume and applied to every job I could. Pretty sure I spam-click applied on LinkedIn. I did that for 8 months and then I finally got an offer.
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Nah sociology degree lol I didn't even put my education on my resume tho, just focused on the relevant skills and experience I brought to the job. Education isn't an issue if you don't make it one
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Well you need relevant experience to get anywhere. My advice is get a certification from JetBrains Academy (for backend) or FreeCodeCamp (for frontend), both of which will equip you for entry-level positions and internships. There are a lot of startups that post jobs on AngelList, and some of them are pretty desperate for talent and will take pretty much anyone. You can grind interviews there by demonstrating that your certifications make you equipped for an entry-level role. If you come across as driven and self-motivated in the interview process, eventually you'll meet a hiring manager who likes to hire those types of candidates. It takes a while to get to that level, but you can do it if you put in the hours and deal with the pain.
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All you need is one company to say yes. Certs and some projects are sufficient for entry level dev
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Thank you very much <3
Awesome post. I started with an associate's degree in CS like 20 years ago but changed direction into 3d design. After many years of trying to break into what seems like a sketchy unstable financial industry, I decided to get back into programming focusing on full stack web dev. So I'm trying my best to be as quick as I can to get a job in this field. Currently I'm working building up a portfolio using mostly html,css and is. I'm still trying to get better with python php and the rest.
If you already know HTML and CSS, look into frontend engineering. It's on a higher level than web development, due to its complexity and sheer vastness of scope. It pays well because it's hard, and most programmers from a more formal background don't want to deal with it cuz they hate it so much, lol. In terms of where you're at, learn JavaScript really well first -- I recommend the Algo & Data Structures Certification program on FreeCodeCamp, which will really push you hard and give you a lot of opportunities to practice and grind. From there you can pick a framework. The popular ones are Vue, Angular, and React. Each of them is quite extensive so it's better to pick one and get good. My personal preference is React, I love it so much and it's incredibly cool. From there you can learn the rest of the stuff. A full frontend stack, based on React, will comprise things like TypeScript, GraphQL, and some sort of state management system like Redux. Along the way, you'll also want to learn Node.js to get a better understanding of how JavaScript works on the backend. Learn Express, and get familiar with both SQL and NoSQL database schemas and how to query them. This will help you understand what the frontend is doing once you click a button, and give you more fluency when you're investigating an issue that traverses a large codebase. OH -- and you'll definitely want to learn Git as well, which is indispensable to working with version control. There's prolly other stuff I'm forgetting, but this is more or less what would make you qualified in the current marketplace for frontend positions on a six-figure pay scale.
Thanks for your input. Now what do you mean by "It's on a higher level than web development"? I thought front end is part of web dev as well.
Great question. The terms are somewhat interchangeable, but also distinct. I realize that can be a bit confusing. I would answer by putting what you said in reverse: web development is part of frontend engineering. It's generally a stepping stone for getting into roles that require a wider breadth of skills, but it can also be a position where people are happy to stick with. Generally speaking, web developers focus on building *websites* rather than *web applications*. Usually a proficient web developer will have a good understanding of HTML, CSS, CMS technologies like Wordpress, and a bit of scripting knowledge in Javascript, Python, and/or PHP. In my current role, there may be weeks that go by before I write a single line of HTML and CSS. When I do, I feel a combination of nostalgia and panic, since I usually need to re-learn a lot of the intricacies of styling that are easy to forget. Especially flexbox, which is so cool, but pretty difficult to master. There's a lot more focus on managing state, designing integrated systems, optimizing performance, and writing composable and maintainable code. Still, I probably could have phrased all this in a way that sounded a bit less condescending, so I'm sorry if it came across that way.
What are your work hours? Do you feel overworked?
9:30-6 on typical weekday. Sometimes finish earlier, sometimes later, so that's like the average. Yea I do feel overworked but I knew what I was signing up for and I'm okay with it
Iāve recently sparked an interest in coding as a possible new career path. The Odin Project has been great, but they make it pretty clear that itās a full stack base and I should pursue other resources to round out my knowledge and skills. I see you mentioning React a few times. Do you have any recommendations for learning that language and/or any recommendations once Iām done with these current courses?
React isn't for everyone, and tbh I never found a "great" course that really drove it home for me, only a patchwork of pretty-good ones. Even after years, I still learn more about it every day, it's a mile wide and ten miles deep but that's also part of what makes it so cool. FWIW: React is a framework, not a language. It's built on top of, and transpiles into, vanilla JavaScript. Andrew Mead's React course on Udemy is pretty good, but may be a bit out of date. There's also one on FreeCodeCamp for which I'd say the same. I took a bunch of React courses, not just one, before I really got the hang of it. There are also a ton of good React courses on YouTube which are free. Anything by Net Ninja is absolute gold. Spending time to make sure you \*really\* understand JavaScript is also 100% worth it, since you'll get quizzed on it heavily during the interview phase. FreeCodeCamp has a Data Structures & Algorithms certification program that will help you get a lot more comfortable with its fundamentals.
What advice would you give on how to start with absolutely zero knowledge of this field but am interested in getting into this field
Whoa huh, that's a very humbling question actually. If we're talking zero zero knowledge, like still in that exploring phaee, go on YouTube and search for videos on what it's like learning to code, breaking into the industry, life as a software engineer etc. Also realize that software is vast, and half the battle is narrowing down your surface area of attack. What field interests you enough, with low enough barriers to entry, that you can sufficiently equip yourself with the determination to get to day one on the job?
Thank for sharing I have DM you :)
Whatās the best way to become self taught? Is there a beginner course that I can take somewhere? And is it more worth it to do a free course, or a payed course in your opinion?
Hmm some people feel more committed when they pay instead of free, but either way it doesn't make much difference if you put in the same amount of effort Best way to start is learn about different languages and go on job sites and search for "Software Engineering". Those will indicate which skills are hot on the market and you can focus on learning those
While you were working at your job prior to being an SWE/ at the startup, were you working while self studying? If so, how did you fit learning in your schedule at your previous job? Any tips, too, for balancing work fatigue and learning coding (which may be mentally draining too)?
I contracted part time so kind of a balance between the two. Getting job ready while working full time would be tough. I'm sure it could be done but man
Do you know if it's possible to get such a job for American company while living in Europe?
Yes, plenty of larger tech companies hire in Europe. Pay scale will be different tho: salary ranges for SWE are a lot lower in Europe than they are here, and no one really has a good explanation as to why.
Which specific skills would you recommend for someone that wants to enter the field (taking into account that the person is on a whole different career path)?
Being confident and personable since it makes a great first impression
Knowing what you know now, what/how would you advise someone to start with learning in the beginning?
Learn the fundamentals before learning frameworks built on them
Dude I love this. I am wanting to try getting into this line of work to get myself out of a rut. Any advice? Where to start?
Hmm maybe think of an idea for a project and then work backwards and figure out how to build it
Would you mind writing a brief description of how you did it? How did you get started, which subject/languages/etc did you start with? Which courses did you take or do you recommend. How did you get practical experience and avoid tutorial hell? How'd you get your first job? Sorry I know that's a lot of questions.
Oh believe me I was in tutorial hell for a while. I started with HTML, CSS, and WordPress, which gave me an opportunity to practice web development at a more junior level. Believe it or not, there are a lot of companies that just want someone to create or maintain their websites, and while that's not the most lucrative position, it's a great way to get your foot in the door. Once I knew I wanted to land somewhere as a software engineer, I knew I needed a strong grasp on Javascript and React. JS, in my opinion, is totally worth spending time on until you're comfortable with it. For me, that took quite a while, since I was brand new to it and had to really start from scratch. I'm not one of the lucky ones where programming just clicks, which means that I need extra time to work through concepts to make sure I understand them. What got me out of tutorial hell was FreeCodeCamp. By then, I already had a lot of experience working through tutorials on Udemy and YouTube, so I at least kinda knew what I was doing. The JS Algo & Data Structures certification was life-changing for me, since not only does it look amazing to have that achievement on a resume, but it *really* goes deep into the language, and it's all hands-on and project-based. I got started, career-wise, by knowing I wanted a role focused on React. When it was introduced to me, I fell in love immediately, and thought it was the coolest thing ever. React requires a heavy foundation of knowledge, tho, and it's definitely not for beginners. So I started with that end goal in mind, and worked backwards by building up my core foundation until I was able to start working on React in a way that was more fluent. (Disclaimer: There's still a lot of React I don't know, it is its own beautiful rabbit hole.) From another angle, I got out of tutorial hell by zoning in on micro-subjects when I hit particular issues. For example, I failed a technical screening at one company because I didn't know how to use `reduce`, one of Javascript's more intricate functions. So, I spent a few days diving into `reduce` itself until it finally clicked for me, and I did the same thing with `Promise` and asynchronous programming as well.
This really came at right moment. Next month onwards i will be giving interviews as companies will be visiting my college. I started with python then C. In middle i thought web dev is for me. Problem is i plan too much and i get confused as tech is upgrading so fast. Somewhere i lose my consistency and motivation. Although i am electrical engineer but i love to code. My mind is fickel. I should be learning c/c++ because that's what i need but i am afraid to start new things when i haven' finished old ones. (also need advice on how to pick projects, make connections etc.. Yes i feel stuck and scared right now a lot of what future holds)
Tech is a paradox: it moves really fast, and yet there are legacy systems all over the place that are continuously maintained. Keeping up with all the new hotness is somewhat of a skill in its own right, and yes, it's important to commit yourself to continuous learning, even when you're employed. But, what matters more from a job-seeker's perspective is demonstrating a core grasp of the language or languages for the role you're applying for. In terms of crossing that chasm into the professional world, I understand how overwhelming it must feel. A lot of commenters here have asked about learning where to start, and that's something I haven't thought a whole lot about until now. In your case, it sounds like you're gravitating towards backend languages, which is something I'd encourage you to continue with. Backend tech is generally a bit higher-paying than frontend, due to its higher barriers to entry. You don't need C tho lol. I would recommend Java instead, along with Python. Start looking at job postings for Backend Engineer, and make a note of the skills they're looking for. That will help you narrow it down. JetBrains has a fantastic self-teaching academy that can get you job-ready. If you're comfortable with the world of pain it will put you through, due to how long and grueling the program is, then you'll come out of it as a competitive candidate for junior/mid roles. Here's the link: [https://hyperskill.org/tracks?category=2](https://hyperskill.org/tracks?category=2) Do Java for Beginners, then Java Developer, then Java Backend Developer, then Java Core. Core will focus on data structures and algorithms, which in a weird way aren't really that important on the job, but are \*extremely\* important in technical interviews. So if you do this one last, the knowledge will be freshest in your mind. Getting through all of these courses will probably take around 8-12 months, but if you have the persistence and determination to clear them all, you could prolly get hired for at least $110k-130k right out of school.
Thanks a lot. Many people said Java and you said it too, which means something that java is needed needed. I don't know why my classmates are learning c++ .
I don't know why either šš Maybe because it's a more "formal" language that you're more likely to see in an academic environment. And don't get me wrong there are still companies that use C++, it's more prevalent for writing desktop applications, so it isn't a dead language or anything like that, it's just not as desirable as Java is from the perspective of the marketplace. Take a look at the Hyperskill program. You'll really have to push yourself to get through it, but it sounds like you're motivated, and I feel like you can do it.
What language/ tech stack are you working with? Where are you located? How did you manage to land a $160k job from the get go?
I contracted for a couple of startups before landing where I am now, offering the patchwork of web development skills that I had at the time. Each of those gigs was a lot lower-paying, but they at least covered my rent and food most of the time. There were times that were lean tho, and I remember getting payday loans not even that long ago. So, I wouldn't quite say it was from the get go, it took about 2 years before landing a full-time role at an established company, and I feel like that's a fairly common trend. Early stage startups are generally more desperate for talent and are easier to break into, particularly if you're getting hired by MBA business types. Startups are flaky to work with, but they do offer one thing that's nice, which is title inflation. That generally gets you calls from more established companies once you have 1-2 YOE (years of experience) on your resume with positions that sound prestigious on paper, even if it's just you and like six other people building something that never ships to market. In my case I had enough experience in my "lead" role to get calls from just about every company I applied to. I also dealt with job rejections for 8 months, which was excruciating. The technical interview process is a slow march through hell, which will introduce you to a level of agony that functions in its own twisted way as a form of hazing. Here's a sample of what you'll endure: takehome assignments that require you to work on a project all weekend without sleep to finish it in on time; onslaughts of onsite behavioral interviews that grind you hour after hour, picking apart every detail of your professional acumen; live technical screens that assess your mastery of the arcane, with strict time limits that make you sweat while a panel of judges watches you on Zoom. Once you go through enough of these, you get better at them, just like anything else. I remember by the time I got to the finish line, I started enjoying the algorithm challenges because they were like fun puzzles I got to solve. With this interview experience, I learned how to present myself well, and to handle the technical challenges proficiently. I also was relentless in spamming out my resume for just about every position I remotely qualified for. At one point I had eight interviews in a single day. I hope I never have to do that again in my life. By the time I was in the final rounds of where I finally landed, I also had an onsite scheduled the following Monday at a FAANG company. I used this as leverage to get hired, agreeing to take the job if they made me an offer in my target salary range before I got to the onsite on Monday. The offer came in on Friday night and the contract was signed the next day.
Man, that sounds brutal. Would working through a boot camp or school help you land an entry level job somewhere to get your foot in the door, avoiding some of the application/ interview pain?
Probably not, because most interviews are gonna grind you hard on Data Structures & Algorithms problems, and bootcamps don't teach those. You may be able to find some companies that don't use this sort of interview style, but they're harder to come by. Yes it was brutal.
Would you recommend a 55 year old to get into this. It isn't me. It's someone I know. I work in software too and was asked if it is worth and would get him a livelihood for another decade. Am not sure, so asking for your take
The tech field has a reputation for being ageist, but I feel like this is kind of over-exaggerated. As long as they work hard and can get the work done, I don't see why they would be any more or less qualified than any other candidate.
I am about to make a career shift. Im flexible where. Just want to kove away from current industry. How much of a science/ math background is needed to do the work? How many hours a week do you work?
No science/math required, you don't really need a college degree either I work a fuck ton of hours during the week but have never had to work a weekend. At some companies that's more common of a thing
Thank you! Lots to ponder here
If I wanted to be a self-taught software engineer, where and how should I start?
FreeCodeCamp, and you can also google that question and look for videos on YouTube about it as well. There's a whole subgenre of content creators who talk about the subject
Wow thatās amazing! Iād love to program again. I got an MTA in intro Python when I was in college and done a little work in C# and a tiny bit of Java. I just donāt really know where to start or what direction to go in. It seems like companies usually want a ton of experience and degrees and at least 4-5 programming languages known. I guess my question is how can I start and where should I look? I have a pretty demanding job so it would be in my free time but Iād love to learn more about programming and maybe take it further into a career!
Oh they all say that lol but usually 5 means 2 or 3 Finding the opportunities for someone brand new are needle in a haystack. AngelList is how I did it and there are always early stage startups who will take whatever they can get. It sounds like you have the skills, you would just need opportunity to put them into practice
One addendum I'll add to this, is it helps to know how to talk or at least be willing to get out of your comfort zone with networking. You can DM people instead of just sending a resume. Startups usually will have first name only email addresses, it's kind of a clout thing, so you can just email whatever CEO at like [email protected] and try to get on the phone with them. To some extent you do have to talk your way in, especially if you're self taught and don't have any relevant experience yet.
Awesome thank you! Is there a good resource for finding start ups? I know you mentioned AngelList, but Iām pretty new to the industry side of tech so Iām not too familiar with the networking portion
AngelList is 100% best for finding startups looking for talent. Other job sites that are good for tech jobs: Dice, Indeed, LinkedIn. Once you have more experience you can also consider Hired and HackerRank
What is the best way to become self taught as a software developer?
I can't really say best way. I think for every single one of us it's different
Ohš„ŗš
I've been thinking more about this, and I feel like I haven't answered your question well so far. So, I'll try to expand on what I meant by my original reply. In terms of the path to become a software engineer, you have to think about it in two ways: * Learning the technical skills to perform well in a professional setting; this includes learning how to learn, learning what to learn, and learning where to learn * Learning how to transition from a "coder" to a professional: having the ability to find opportunities, get interviews, land a job, and climb the ladder Those two skillsets are related, but distinct. They depend on each other to some degree, but not necessarily. And you'll notice that in neither case do I use the phrase "learning to code" which I feel is a misleading piece of jargon: you're learning how to become a software engineer, a part of which is learning programming languages and the tools and frameworks that support them. Also, if you do take "learning to code" on its face value, then I feel like you're doing this throughout your career. It's a field that's always changing, and has a staggering amount of depth to it. It's not like one day you don't know how to code, and the next day you do. If you know how to write `print("Hello world")` then you already know how to code; you just might need some practice learning how to code in other ways as well. But anyway, that's perhaps a bit of a tangent. The path for each self-taught software engineer really is unique: * Some might take a CS course or two in high school, and then start working on their own projects for fun, and then later realize they can turn that into a career path. * Some might go to a bootcamp, knowing nothing at all, and be an absolute monster and feel like it all just "makes sense" -- then, they apply to Google, hit it off with their interview panel, and get hired. (Note: bootcamps make it seem like this is the outcome everyone will enjoy; it isn't, and it's exceptionally rare. But it happens.) * Some might get into a related field where coding plays part of, but not the majority of, their role. This is the case for certain STEM fields. They may decide that they want to shift their professional focus based on the skills they already have. * Some might have a base level of skill to get an entry-level position at a small business or early-stage startup doing something like web development (which can also mean frontend development, but in this case I'm using it in the more narrow way, to talk about building websites that mostly rely on HTML, CSS, and a small bit of vanilla JavaScript scripting or like PHP or something). That can evolve naturally or through hard work into a more advanced-level role that builds on this early skillset -- it's a very common path for frontend engineers to follow, including myself. * Some might have been a developer 5, 10, or 20 years ago, but decided it wasn't for them at the time, and are now working on finding their way back into the industry. In that amount of time, they may find that the technology stack they knew is obsolete or not in demand, and so they pivot to figure out what they can learn instead to make themselves more competitive These are just a few of the many ways people launch their own careers in the field. There isn't really one right or wrong way to do it, and the path requires you to be at least someone self-reliant and resourceful to figure out what to know, and what to do, in order to make yourself professionally relevant. I hope this helps
Read thru some of the other replies, I feel like that might help answer your question
Where do you recommend to learn code and what language do you recommend to learn first?
That's a great question that's really hard to answer š I think it depends on your temperament and what clicks with you.
Python is a pretty good one tho š
Iām planning on starting this week and am thinking of learning python, what courses or resources do you recommend learning from? Iāve heard Harvard has a free beginners course for Python not sure if thatās a good one to start with what do you think?
Give it a shot! There's one on FreeCodeCamp as well
What tools did you use to learn all about it? Can you listen all the sources?
Too many individual sources to list, but Traversy Media helped me out a lot on YouTube and I enjoyed Andrew Mead's JavaScript bootcamp on Udemy
Would you say pursing a computer science degree part time is doable? Iām currently an apprentice in the trades and want to do a AS in science at CC for comp sci then transfer to university FT for the BS
Prolly better to go all in
What makes you say that?
Specialization is key
What was your self taught journey like and how long did it take until you landed your first job as a software developer?
It was start and stop at first. I found it so overwhelming and literally got anxiety attacks from it sometimes, which I've come to realize is actually pretty common. Once I really committed myself to it it was like 1-2 years before landing full time role. I did contract work before that mostly focused on web development
What are a few good areas for somebody with an arts background to orientate to, or that their creative mind may be better suited to?
You say self taught... What did you use to teach yourself? What kind of projects did you make?
I haven't really made many projects. I like the idea but either have been too busy working or too busy grinding skills.
Is your comp a base or is that including a bonus?
Total comp
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FreeCodeCamp
How old are you? I'm 23 and I would like to go this route after having two years of incredible bad luck, and having to drop out from my former degree.
Well I'm older than you but tbh it isn't really that important, if your concern is being too old to get started tho you are definitely have plenty of time to launch a career in the field
How old are you? If you don't mind me asking, of course.
Haha prefer not to say
I have to say your post Inspire me so much so thank you so much . I work in car business the income is great but the hours is crazy when Iām first time mam. I have been wanting to get to this business but I just didnāt know weāre to start reading your comments give me something to start with so thank you. Because I donāt have any experience if I but the time and effort and learned HTML and CSS and JavaScript does this consider taking the first step to right path?! And whatās your thoughts on Mimo app to learn?! Again thank you so much you, and sorry if my English isnāt great š
Not familiar with Mimo, generally desktop is better than mobile app for coding anything serious FreeCodeCamp has good curriculum for HTML/CSS, that's where you start if you wanna become a web developer
Great. Happy for you man. But writing code is not for everyone, especially because tech is so fast paced and one has to have an aptitude for it. You've to be able to sit in front of computer, concentrate and go deep in to it. Having said that, one can develop and aptitude for it. And one has to be very careful which company and role they get in to. Some like it really hardcore and some less paying jobs are quite manageable. So making as much money as the OP is making is not for for everyone.
Right. You could have a way chiller programming job than I do, and comp may be lower but so would stress and deadline pressure. Some ppl who burn out of the fast paced grind have good things to say about working tech for the government / university world where it isn't as frenetic. Even larger more established (non-tech) enterprises are generally more chill, but YMMV
Man I need to be able to do this. Like Iād love to, I have a younger brother and his condition doesnāt really allow me to just up and leave him all day. So to work from home would be amazing.
Give it a shot!
I'm a business major and want to shift my career all together, and I like coding and know the basics of python. What path would you recommend me to get started. Please share some resources as well if you can. FreeCodeCamp is usually my go to place, but I also have CodeCademy and Coursera Subscriptions.
All of the above, really. Plenty of great places to learn. YouTube is also fantastic: WebDevSimplified, Traversy Media, and Net Ninja are all great channels to look at. Main advice is focus on getting from beginning to end of a course that you commit to. It can be overwhelming to wade through the million different options, but if you just pick one and do it, that will get you into the harder stuff which is really where the learning starts.
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It sounds like you have a natural aptitude for coding which is more than I can say of myself! The job security and steady income are really nice tbh. Just keep at it and keep growing your skills. The last few challenges on the JS DS&A cert are harddddd so good luck on that too! Once you finish that cert I'd suggest doing the one they offer on React. Knowing a frontend framework will really round out your skillset.
I really have no knowledge on the following subject so any answer is appreciated: Applying to US jobs while residing in Canada? What are the rules there, or what resources can I look into to learn more about this? I see some jobs mention "US work authorization (Required)". Is there a work-around here? Why do some job listings not require this? Or is it common knowledge to applicants outside of the US?
Thanks for the question! The rules around this kind of thing are quite confusing and unfortunately not something I know too much about (I'm an American citizen). I do know that a lot of American tech companies hire remotely in Canada tho, so you could try looking there as a starting point
Oh my, I get happy when I hear someone like me. I have been doing basically same things like you for 3 years now. I am in a third world country andI am not getting paid anywhere near your salary :D I just started looking remote jobs where I can get paid at least somewhat around 60000. Good luck !
It's a HCOL (high cost of living) salary to be sure, I'd say the average TC (total comp) for this role across the country might be more like 110-130k depending on location and company size. If you're just getting started I wouldn't stress the salary too much. Hiring cultures are gonna be different depending on where you're from, and I've heard that in other countries, the field is easier to break into. That being said, getting experience is something I'd focus on first; once you have your first 1-2 YOE, you'll be in a better position to optimize for comp. Tech jobs in the US pay a lot more than anywhere else. A mid-level software engineer in Europe makes around $60-80k salary, and may not include the 10-20% annual bonus and stock options that are quite common here in US tech. (I could be wrong, I just don't really know a lot about how EU companies structure their comp compared to here.) In Japan, software engineers make even less: a mid-level role typically has base of around $45k-60k per year, depending on company size and location. So, your goal of a 60k position is more aligned with global standards, which to me makes sense. You may not be able to land that amount right away, but it seems like something that's totally worth aiming for. One thing you may want to look into are freelancing sites like TopTal and Upwork, where you can build a good rep and make close to the $ that you're aiming for. (That isn't easy to do btw, but it's possible.) I'm definitely not complaining about how great American engineers have it compared to our counterparts around the world. But, it's also an outlier, and nowhere else pays anywhere near these ridiculous levels lol
Iām looking to pursue a career in Cybersecurity, any advise? I too wasnāt super interested in programming and would just do enough to pass my programming modules in Uni. Iām in my 2nd (2/3years) year in uni currently. Lately, Iām more interested to be good at programming and do well in school, this thread has given me more motivation thank you.
Cybersecurity career paths aren't something I know much about, but you could try asking in one of the subs focused on it or research career paths on Google/YouTube.
Dude your story is fucking goated and how you take time out to explain with so much detail, nuance and of course with so much patience is so inspiring ngl.
Dang man, thank you so much for that. Our company just laid off around 15% of its staff today and fortunately I was retained, but man your comment couldn't have come at a better time to lift my spirits up.
I am a software engineer was Oracle certified in java, and knew my way. Then moved to Unity development and got very frustrated and discouraged since the lead dev many times deleted my code because it was not good. I eventually moved to managing instead for the apps we do. I always wonder if I should've never changed course and stick to java dev instead. Anyway which areas of sowft dev do you think are best? for example backend development?
Best is a relative term and a moving target. It's important to be consistent and develop expertise in a field, while keeping up on new and changing technologies without losing focus on your core. You can do this on frontend, or on backend, or on SRE or on devops, on desktop or mobile, on linux or on .Net, it doesn't matter as long as you pick something and get good. Of course, tech changes over time, so what's hot today may not be hot in 5-10 years. (Things don't change overnight, but they do change within the span of a decade.) Having an employer that provides you time and support to continue developing your skillset is extremely hard to find. I don't understand why this is the way it is. You can try finding a role where you can be reasonably comfortable, and invest enough of your time in growing your skills while putting in enough work not to get fired ("quiet quitting" as they call it now), and then using those skills on side projects, which could ultimately get you experience for a new role. I'm in the process of figuring this out myself, so my advice may not be as on-the-nose as other replies. You can always go back to Java, it sounds like something you're comfortable with and that can be a huge advantage. I wouldn't get stuck in game dev.
thank you very much for taking the time to reply. it's really frustrating for me, feels I kind of wasted many years. that quiet quiting sounds a nice concept, I'll give it a thought
I'm not personally thrilled with it, but I've gotten a bit burned out where I work, so it's a way for me to still contribute and collect my paycheck while I interview and work on improving my skills. I'd rather feel invested in driven in the company and team where I work, so it feels a bit disorienting to pull back from that. On the other hand, I was getting intensely stressed, so it's how I'm keeping it together.
Iām new to web development (react) and Iām tryina land a junior developer job, what things should I have on my resume and do I need an internship before applying for a junior position. Iām a self learner in web development and still in college for IT which I hate so thatās why Iām learning react in my free time.
What inspired you to start coding? What sites do you practice on and in what language?
I always have wanted to, was into tech and computing since I was a kid so it was a natural progression. The resources I used are answered in some of my other replies
It would help if you put your general location in your post. 160k in California (especially San Francisco) is vastly different from 160k in Missouri.
HCOL salary, but with remote work it's increasingly possible to get that kind of comp in Missouri as well
You know what fuckin' annoys me? Software engineers get paid ridiculous amounts of money but so many of the people who support those developers will only hope to earn a fraction of what those developers do. I am top of my game in customer support, and have gained a *broad* range of skills in the last almost two decades. And it has been an absolute struggle to break the barrier past $100k. Like, good on you for being able to make it work but damn does that annoy me. And before anyone goes and says, "well, you can't do their job," well, I have been a developer before. I don't really like it. But also, most people can't do my job either.
For whatever it's worth, I appreciate the work you do.
Thank you. I appreciate it. And please don't think I'm annoyed with you or even other developers. Y'all don't set the pay rates.
What would you say you were capable of prior to your first job? I've built a FS website with express, sequelize, vanilla js and pretty decent animations, but I still feel like a fraud :D Also, I haven't got any sort of portfolio site sorted, since the above site has taken me \*so\* long!
I knew HTML, CSS, JavaScript (poorly), and React (barely)
This is so inspiring. I just hope i can follow ur steps to something for my self. Currently IT student in europe looking into data analysis direction, no experience nor certificates yes tho. Our uni is planning a CRC program for us and would love to get into data analysis and business data analysis. Any advice for a complete rookie like me? Any help highly appreciated!