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Jeril Bills
Jeril Bills

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Advice for an Aspiring Web Developer New to Coding?

For the past five years I've been working jobs I could easily get, which have all been in call centers, and I've mostly hated it. After quitting my most recent job, I was talking to my parents and they offered to help me out while I worked to move into a career I'd actually enjoy. So I've been learning web development on my own, and I'm really enjoying it so far.

But my parents can't afford to support me forever, so I'm trying to find the most direct route to a job that I can while continuing to learn on my own (I don't feel ready to commit to a bootcamp or CS degree right now. I do have a college degree, but in History).

I assume I can clear the minimum bar for front-end more quickly than back-end, so my plan is to focus on front-end right now and learn back-end stuff once I already have a job. But I'm not sure if that is a correct assumption or a good plan. If I were less concerned about time, I would learn the basics of both front-end and back-end now and pick whichever I enjoy more.

Whether I go for front-end, back-end, or full-stack, I'm pretty sure I don't have the minimum skill set necessary to realistically find a job right now, so I'd like to know what actual web developers think are the minimum qualifications I would need before a job search would even be worth my time.

So, I would be super grateful if anyone could give me their opinions on the following questions:

  1. Is my assumption correct that I can (probably) get into front-end more quickly than back-end, and if so, is it a good plan to focus first on learning the minimum necessary requirements to land a front-end job? If not, what advice do you have for choosing a specialty?
  2. What are the minimum hard skills I need to have and how proficient do I need to be in each of them?
  3. What (if any) soft-skills do you consider must-haves for entry-level developers?

Even if you don't answer all of those questions (or even any of them), any feedback, solicited or not, would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Top comments (21)

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artoodeeto profile image
aRtoo • Edited

cool dude. welcome welcome. my advice is to learn javascript, vanilla javascript first. learn it by heart. fundamentals bro. then if you're comfortable with it, learn a framework, could be react, angular2, vue, and the new one svlete? but just focus on one and be good at it, if your first company uses different framework its all good you'll easily learn it because those frameworks is all about components its a matter of how to use the APIs, after that learn data structure and algorithms give time on this one. If you want I could gift you a course on udemy just let me know. Also last but not the least hang tight bro it's not going to be easy, sacrifices are needed. aight bless you my guy. this answer number 2 question I guess. lols. for number 1 it depends on your city really. in California backend and frontend has a lot of opportunities but competition is high.

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jerilbills profile image
Jeril Bills

Thank you so much for taking the time to provide such a thorough and thoughtful answer. I'll definitely follow your advice, and I really appreciate the udemy course offer. When I get to data structure and algorithms, I'll let you know.

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fahtherbear profile image
Cody G

Solid advice that I’ll be taking! Thank you bro.

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glsolaria profile image
G.L Solaria

I can't really help with the front-end web tech because it is not my area of expertise. I have, however, been reviewing a fair number of back-end software dev resumes recently. For me, I love it when someone has a GitHub repo that showcases their work. Document what you are learning on Dev.to and tidy up any play code and commit it to GitHub. Keep your repos well organised and well documented. Please comment your code and have a running version of your code hosted in the cloud. Also try to find a local community group and volunteer to create/maintain a website for them. Wishing you all the best.

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jerilbills profile image
Jeril Bills

Thank you so much for taking the time to offer this feedback. It's especially helpful coming from someone who reviews resumes. I'll definitely take your advice.

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franksierra profile image
Frank Sierra • Edited

I will tell you something, handle it with care 😅. Just don't listen to people telling you learn this instead of that because language X is better than Y.
You have some places where to choose from. Ruby, Python, PHP, JavaScript, Java, .Net, C#, etc.
Some are more popular others not so much.
But in the end, you may be able to accomplish the same with any of them.

Check them out, see which one you like more and practice a lot, A LOT.

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jerilbills profile image
Jeril Bills

Thank you. I definitely appreciate the advice to try different languages out and see which one I like best instead of just listening to what other people say is best. It's especially good to know I can possibly do the same thing regardless of which one I go with. And I appreciate the advice to practice. I'll make sure to build more of that into my plan.

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realbwoi profile image
Orlando Larks • Edited

Everyone has given excellent advice already so I'll keep mine simple.

My two cents: projects, projects, projects. I learned a lot of topics, theories, rules, and best practices but none of that meant anything until I tried to make something. I was forced to learn things if I wanted to implement them. Rules I learned started making more sense. I attempted best practices in my code. I got a chance to really understand things and that's when I noticed a lot of progress.

Hope that helps and thanks for the question!

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jerilbills profile image
Jeril Bills

That definitely helps! I'll invest those two cents. Thanks for taking the time to respond!

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cguttweb profile image
Chloe

I've been in a similar position after graduating from uni with a degree in Archaeology and History I got a job in retail to pay the bills I kind of fell back into coding as a hobby. I landed an entry level job at a marketing company although a lot of I do involves around emails I'm currently learning Vue and relearning bits of JavaScript I've forgotten. I'm trying to document it as I go both physically on paper and on my blog/here and it's definitely helping.

Start with the basics of HTML/CSS/JavaScript I knew very little JS when I started my current role but looking back I definitely should have started learning it sooner as it has exploded in the past few years. In terms of frameworks it's up to you whatever you like I chose Vue as my company uses it and the learning curve isn't as steep as some of the others out there.

As others have said practice, practice, practice.

The best/worst thing about this industry there is always more to learn find something you like and stick to it. I'm admittedly quite very bad at this but I'm trying to get better.

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jerilbills profile image
Jeril Bills

Thank you so much for your reply. I especially appreciate that you come from a kind of similar background and you're doing what I'm trying to do. I like the idea of documenting what I learn as I go. Someone else here suggested that, but knowing that you're actually doing that is encouraging, because I wasn't sure how exactly to do that, but now I have a role model. So thank you!

Your other advice reinforced my own thinking after all the advice I've read and gotten since I posted this, which is good, because it makes me feel like I'm on the right track.

I do feel pretty overwhelmed with all there is to learn in this field, so I appreciate the advice to stick to something and kind of focus on that. I'm a very indecisive person, so I think keeping that advice in mind will help me avoid getting too distracted by all the things I could learn, thereby helping me actually specialize in something. It's also comforting to know I'm not the only one who struggles with that, lol.

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cbuteau profile image
cbuteau

Hello

My advice to you.
Write a little code every day.

Any task that is code worthy write some code to do it.

The more you write code and debug it the better you will be at creating code and fixing it.

The biggest soft skill is communication and listening.

Find a mentor at your early jobs.

Good luck.

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jerilbills profile image
Jeril Bills

Thank you so much. That sounds like great advice, I'll definitely do that. I especially like the idea of coding any task that is code worthy. That's a cool concept. And thanks for the input on the soft skills, too!

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icedeskim profile image
Kim P

So grateful you posted this question. The schools and bootcamps available do not work with my family obligations. Udemy has a lot of great courses and even a few that can build a portfolio. The courses are reasonably priced. Getting experience is where I'm trying to focus as I want to do freelance. Best of luck to you.

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jerilbills profile image
Jeril Bills • Edited

Thank you. I'm really glad other people found my question helpful! And thanks for the info about Udemy. I'll definitely look into it. And best of luck to you, too!

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woddell profile image
Chris Weir

Good luck on whatever route you plan to go. Feel free to give me a message if you need help.

  1. If you've got frontend experience already then you'll get more experience. However, have you looked at backend? I've working professionally for 2 years primarily as a backend developer. It's just how my brain works. I can figure out API designs and problem solve a lot better than I can structure a webpage.

  2. Try and learn concepts more than actual languages. If you master the concepts picking up a new language can be quite easy. I've had to jump from a few languages and having a good understanding on the underlying concepts (OOP, Design Patterns, Loops, Conditions, etc made the switch a lot easier.

  3. Be willing to learn, kind of a 'no-brainer'. But you always need to be progressing. Make sure you enjoy it to. No point trying to learn something you're not interested in, it just makes things difficult. And also, if you land a junior role it's ok to ask for help.

Good luck!

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jerilbills profile image
Jeril Bills

Thank you so much for the feedback! I'll look into backend, for sure. I really like the advice to focus on concepts instead of languages. I will definitely keep that in mind as I'm learning. And I felt a huge relief reading your answer to #3, because I feel like I already have those, so thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions.

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dudelybhai profile image
Mohammed Safi • Edited

Hi Jeril Bills,

Front-end is super easy if you are really good at designing as a beginner we should always start learning as frontend topics should cover HTML5 semantics, CSS cheatsheets check Mozilla developers doc learn flex, grid layouts then interactions JavaScript data structures, syntax, DOM check freecodecamp curriculum work on front-end challenges learn to edit HTML CSS js templates use GitHub live your portfolio in GitHub pages learn the basic command line then installing NodeJS NPM SASS. Full Stack MERN CRUD search on GitHub read blogs on medium regarding what you are learning search for crud gist boilerplates google it Stackoverflow gitter.im for help alligator.io read and understand go through all the resources then u will have the confidence to choose your path

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jerilbills profile image
Jeril Bills

Thanks! I appreciate you giving such a thorough, detailed answer. I'll definitely do that.

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