I've recently celebrated my 1 year anniversary of picking up coding. A lot has changed in the past year, and I've been fortunate enough to recently...
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Great article!
One thing that I 100% agree with you is the LinkedIn profile. I just started to realize how powerful and risky it can be putting myself online!
I guess above creating a profile in any kind of employment social network, its really useful to have contacts along your professional path. Not only for chatting tech stuff but also for mentoring.
This! Having a mentor definitely helps loads. Learning to code via a non-Uni route can feel very isolating, so it's amazing to have a network of people to ask for help.
Yes this is absolutely crucial -- the networking part. In fact, 50% of univ. is establishing contacts and the other 50% is actual univ. work. :-D
Great article Sandra! Thanks for sharing. I'm currently employed full-time working in finance but decided to pick coding back up after probably 15 years! I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed about what should I focus on first. You do make some pretty valid points and will definitely take them into account for my journey :)
Awesome! Glad you're finding these tips useful.
Thanks Sandra for the brilliant article. I agree with the feelings surrounding a
LinkedIn account . I'm a newbie (16 months) and struggle with imposter syndrome quite a bit. I have always had a massive interest in tech especially Ai and machine learning, but posting things is hard when my knowledge of code is so low.
I understand. When sharing posts about coding, I often feel like I’m just regurgitating what someone else has taught me, in my own words. And that, somehow, feels wrong to me; unoriginal, boring, infringing on someone else’s intellectual property. The thing is - it’s not wrong! It’s useful. You learn in the process of writing, and as long as your post is factual, hopefully someone else will learn from it too. It’s okay to repeat topics that have already been written about.
I bet with 16 months of experience you have a lot more knowledge than you give yourself credit for :)
Thanks again. your the first person to respond to my comments in the 16 month I have been doing this.
Great article! I am coming to terms with points 6 and 8 now. Well, trying a mindset shift for learning, and trying to rationalize a decision to quit a good-paying warehouse job to try and carve out more space for coding. But I had a question for you, as a beginner myself.
I'm a little overwhelmed re: my learning path. I originally tried following freeCodeCamp's Coronavirus Quarantine Developer Handbook
(freecodecamp.org/news/coronavirus-...)
but this lost my attention for one reason or another. I believe it's still a good resource and will refer to it once I am finished with my current course. But opportunities
I'm actually learning web dev through Colt Steele's WBC 2021 right now though. And trying to engage with communities/other resources to fill in the blanks.
Should I worry so much about what I'm learning? I guess every employer has a different stack, is another way to look at it, rather than feeling overwhelmed or that I'm not learning the right things for m 😅
I think you answered your own question spot on in the last paragraph. There are so many different stacks to learn, that you will end up feeling overwhelmed if you attempt too many at once. It's best to stick to one thing at a time.
And no, you shouldn't worry too much about exactly what it is you're learning. I believe that anyone who is, like us, from a non-coding background, will be surprised, even a bit taken aback at just how many jobs there are going in tech. There's new job listings every day, so you don't have to worry that the technology you're learning won't be marketable.
Having said that, some stacks are more "in vogue" than others atm. You can't go wrong with a MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React, Node), for example. I'd recommend you learn:
That's more than enough to land you your first tech role. :)
Hey there,
Wish I could be of more help!
P.S. I know, that's the point :) I was trying to illustrate that no matter how senior you get, you still end up having to google stuff. This should leave beginners feelings comfortable that not knowing something off the top of their head is perfectly fine.
Sandra, this is invaluable advice.
Foraying into this brand new world is such a personal learning curve as well as technical and this sort of transparency is so key to optimising the learning process. After months of avoidance, I'm about to head off to find a Youtube tutorial to figure out how to upload to Github. Kudos for the inspiration!
Awesome! Hope gitting into git was enjoyable :)
I'm glad you found the article useful.
Great advice, thanks!
Thank you! I hope you find it useful 🤞🏻
Hi :) I wanted to show that whether you are a novice or an experienced software engineer, you still have to resort to Googling things. So when you start to code you should feel confident that Googling answers and not knowing things off the top of your head is perfectly normal.
Absolutely incredible you amazing Human! I'm so glad amazing people like yourself are sharing very powerful wisdom. I cannot wait to break into the tech industry!!! Thank you Sandra and CONGRATULATIONS on your INCREDIBLE achievements 🎉🎉
This is a super awesome advice thanks!
Thank you! I hope it’s useful.
Hey! I don't know about you guys, but for me it was such a pleasant read. A cup of coffee, early morning with a good weather outside and an article with a personal touch.
Great article!
This is a wonderful article. It's good to know that there's someone out there who shares some of my opinions and concerns.
Thanks for sharing.
Thank you Sandra!
Thanks for sharing, I really learn from the piece.
good advice.
thanks for the advice Sandra!
Advice about Linkedin hit so close to home. 😞
Yeah.. I initially had huge reservations. What helped me was seeing it as some sort of "scientific" experiment. I completed certain steps, no matter how unpalatable, and observed the results. Repeat. Do this enough, and you get used to marketing yourself. I did, anyways. :)
Why you mentioned Cyberpunk ? 😂
Hahah, because it ranks highly in the category of “things that went catastrophically wrong in 2020”
Nice Tips, Sandra.
Thank you, hope they’re useful to you 🤞🏻
Awesome article Sandra! <3
Thanks, Unnati! :)