Everyone is a Jr. Developer at some point. It's unavoidable. Nobody shows up on day one with all the answers. At some point, we all have to begin at the beginning. At some point you will be the new kid.
Photo by Matt Long from Flickr
Being new is intimidating. It's hard to be in a new school, a new church or try to find a new new group of friends. Jr. Developers have the tough job of being new and not having nearly as much experience as everyone else. It's a lot for anyone to take on; and if that's you, take heart because we've all been there.
I sat down with Aimee Knight to talk about the essential things that Jr. Developers need to know. Aimee has spoken at conferences all over the world and has often shared her experience coming from a code bootcamp after making a career change later in life. I quite enjoyed this discussion, and I wish someone had shared these things with me when I was the new front-end developer on a highly skilled team of senior people. I had some rough days.
Check out this interview with Aimee. For more 5 Things videos, make sure you subscribe to Channel 9 on YouTube.
You can find Aimee on Twitter as @Aimee_Knight
Top comments (7)
I am new to this field but sometime I feel so angry because I have got no one to guide me but this article really helped me a lot. Thanks for sharing knowledge.Will be following for more updates.
Hi Sara! I'm glad this video helped you. Aimee is just delightful and the video was very helpful for me too. I remember being new to the industry and it was very difficult at times. But you're already reading and engaging which is way better than where I was when I first started.
Good luck with everything. There's never been a better time to be in tech!
God Bless You. Keep on shining mate
I also started now (6 months python and 2 weeks JavaScript) I miss a mentor to guide me too, for now, all companies are turning their backs on a beginner (here in Brazil) Good Luck
So I work with multiple bootcamp indirectly through my startup ExamPro as a value add to help provide support after graduation and I talk to lots of recent grads out of bootcamp which are suppose to be turned into "Full Stack Developers" after 3 months or a least enough to ensure they can get a job after graduation and the first thing I say to these grads...
Heroku is not enough
Learn to deploy an app on Linode, Digital Ocean or EC2, the reason why is that DevOps is often forgotten and if you get as such a Rails app running on one of the suggested hosting providers even if you are following a tutorial it shows you've gone off the beaten path. Lots of things can wrong when provisioning a server so it gives a better sense you can do work independently.
Learn the Linga franc of web-frameworks and cloud services
I strongly suggest learning Rails and AWS because they are both the linga-franca of their respected scope.
Most web frameworks pay homage to Rails and by learning Rails you're learning them all. Rails is a complete framework and while micro-frameworks like ExpressJS are light and easy to use its important to show you know all the ins-and-outs of a fully fledge web-framework.
AWS is something I strongly suggest to dip your toes into because Full Stack Developer was the hot ticket the last 10 years but now not so much. Cloud services are so important and Solution Architect (a person who knows how to string together multiple cloud services) is the new Full Stack Developer.
Be a Hybrid
Just as we see cosplay mashups keep the nerd fandom fresh and of a constant interest of comicon if you want employers to value you over the wave of other Full Stack Developers think of bolting on a unique skills. Cross domains are highly valuable and most emerging jobs are just that.
Business + Development = Product Developer
Design + QA = Interaction Designer
DevOps + BigData = Data Engineer
I always suggest grads to learn how to become a Solution Architect because that is a base class to many different specializations.
Aimee is so awesome!
Ben - look at me commenting on your comment (checks watch) 8 months later. We could say I'm an amateur commenter at best.
Aimee is truly on the of the nicest, smartest people I know. AND she's from Nashville; which everyone knows is the greatest city in the world according to an arbitrary statement that I just made.
❤️