Dear senior front-end developers,
You've been in the industry for a while, and you've gained a lot of experience and knowledge along the way. What advice would you give to junior developers who are just starting out? How can they improve their skills and become better developers? What are some common mistakes you see junior developers make, and how can they avoid them?
Share your thoughts and insights to help the next generation of front-end developers succeed.
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Oldest comments (44)
Development is ultimately about people, the ones maintaining your code with you, the ones testing and the ones using it. Be mindful of them.
Unless you are working alone, make good use of your team and let the team make good use of you.
1) Consult MDN before Google and StackOverflow. It is the authoritative source of information on web technologies.
2) Find and follow authorities in the domain such as:
3) Start home projects and investigations - keep learning.
I'd add some people to that list:
They have either awesome blogs or videos that you can learn a lot from!
I'd also recommend to follow and learn from Kelsey Hightower, for example this video. It's not particular about front end, but you can learn many valuable lessons from him :)
Not that people shouldn’t use AI, but it’s going to get even harder to get some devs to consult the sources of wisdom and knowledge over time.
If you are going to include React evangelists (not that I disagree) we need to be even handed.
You might also want to check out Traversy Media and Scrimba.
Thanks! I add to that list : Todd Motto
Try to find a balance between trying hard to solve the problems by yourself and asking for help right away.
You'll learn much faster if you report your findings to your seniors and receive feedbacks about them.
I’m not senior, I’m mid level but my biggest advice would be to learn at your own pace in your own time and don’t be discouraged by how long it can take to learn.
I fell into the trap as a junior of working on a team of more experienced developers than I, who knew more than me and I wanted to be as good as them and learn multiple languages and frameworks and I eventually burnt myself out as I took on too much at once.
Find the one thing you love and want to learn first and really focus on being your best in that, once you have a good understanding and you’re ready to learn another language then move onto that. I always have a list of things I want to learn and it’s all very exciting to start with but giving your focus to learning one language/framework at a time gives you the ability to really be the best you can be on that one thing. Quality over quantity.
I also learnt in Vue.js before I learnt real vanilla JavaScript so in my spare time I do vanilla html, css and JavaScript courses for fun mostly, even though I go over things I already know, you’ll be surprised how much you forget or new things you’ll pick up.
W3Schools, FreeCodeCamp and Wes Bos does some great courses.
Don’t be afraid to google things or ask for help when you need. As we’ve all started from the beginning.
Lastly If you can, find yourself a mentor. Mine is my current Team Lead and the support I’ve received has only given me the confidence and helped me grow to where I am now.
Learning to code is hard work but it’s also exciting and fun. Finding your passion and pride in your work is the best feeling and it makes all the hard times worth it.
I'm work through the free code camp resources now after just completing a bootcamp it's nice to be able to revisit these things in more detail - no pressure just enjoying the coding experience. Thanks for the advice : )
As a new coder I would also say that code pen is a great playground for front end and working out smaller projects/elements.
That’s amazing Sally 😄 I found that after doing an intensive course too, it was really nice to do a FreeCodeCamp course just at my own pace.
You’re right! I forgot about that 😅
Good luck with your coding journey, keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll get there in no time!
Don't listen to too much advise and never follow it blindly. Be your own authority.
I would say to stay curious.
Don't listen (too much) advices from senior devs, just practice, practice and practice, you'll find your own way !
Don't rush. This isn't an sprint but a marathon.
We all have been in the "counting-each-month-of-experience-so-I-can-be-tagged-as-senior-as-soon-as-possible" but that isn't as important as enjoying the journey.
I concur with a few other commentors... Don't listen too much to advice. People are always biased even when giving advice. If you have questions, ask them, but take the answers with a grain of salt. The answer to everything in software development is: it depends.