Front end developer specialising in JavaScript and React. Experienced in all aspects of modern front end development. Passionate about making accessible, secure and performant software.
I don't have personal experience with bootcamps, but from what I hear they're great for getting a job quickly. They seem to have high success rates for getting a job after completion. It may be worth it if you have the money and want to go that route.
On the other hand, I started my career with self-learning and so did a close friend of mine. He recently got his first job after self-learning for about 1 year. In my opinion, he was good enough to get a first job 6 months in. However, he held off until he got to a point where he was comfortable. He's also crushing it at work and has already gotten promotions and higher responsibility.
But, he works and studies hard. His route and my recommendation were to:
Learn the basics of HTML and CSS from a course of your choice. He used Scrimba and did some courses from there.
For JavaScript, he learned the basics from Andrew Mead's course on Udemy on JavaScript. A similar course by someone else would work fine too.
I also recommended going through MDN. When I was learning, I was going through the relevant MDN section after the relevant part of a video course (so I was doing a video course and MDN in parallel), Instead, he went through MDN after fully finishing the previous courses, which seemed to work fine for him.
In the meantime, he also did FreeCodeCamp for practice. This was in parallel to the courses he was doing. They have exercises so you can practice. They also have projects that you can do.
After the courses and plenty of FreeCodeCamp he built a small portfolio of projects. He built a fairly good looking website with some cool parallax effects to showcase his HTML, CSS and BEM skills. He also built a simple JavaScript project showcasing his JavaScript skills. (FreeCodeCamp has similar projects.)
Then, he started applying for jobs and got one. The portfolio helped a lot. In fact, I'm pretty sure my portfolio is what landed me my first job too.
After, he continued learning topics like:
git
webpack
accessibility
testing
React (he only started learning this after his job, because his job didn't use React. However, it might be worth to learn the basics of this before if you want a job that uses React)
and of course much more of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.
Anyway, as with any field, it takes at least a few years to get good, so you'll have to keep learning for a while. Well, technically you could stop learning after your first job, you'll just progress slower.
It was a lot of work, but it worked out for him and me.
When I became a web developer, I went a similar route. The difference was that I did a lot of bad courses which I helped him avoid, and I learned a lot of stuff that I realised later I didn't need, at least not for a long time.
He's a front end developer. I started as a front end developer but now also work as a full-stack developer.
Hi Spyros! Sorry for the late response-I've been meaning to reply to this days ago! Thank you SO much for all of this advice. For now I am looking into beginner courses and just doing a lot of researching, but this gives me a framework of how to begin. I would like to do as many free certification courses as possible and then see if a bootcamp is right for me in a few months. Would you recommend starting on the front end side of things? (again I'm very new so sorry if my wording is confusing or incorrect)
Front end developer specialising in JavaScript and React. Experienced in all aspects of modern front end development. Passionate about making accessible, secure and performant software.
Hi Natasha. No worries, your wording is fine. Sorry another essay coming up.
I think starting with learning front end is a good choice. I'm sure that many bootcamps start on front end and move on to back end for the second half of the course (or maybe do 1/3 front end, then 1/3 back end, then 1/3 building projects with both of them or something).
However, if you're going for full-stack, one thing you may want to do is do less learning on the front end than I suggested and start back end earlier. My previous post was basically how to learn front end and get a job at it. It might not be the most optimal if you want a job at full stack in a similar timeframe. Unfortunately, I wouldn't feel as comfortable providing recommendations for learning full stack as a beginner.
Here's some more advice, if you're interested.
I also recommend doing a quick job search now. See what jobs and technologies are popular in your area or your target area. (Just search on a job website.) I recommend trying a few searches for "front end", "back end", "full stack". Maybe add a level in there such as "junior" or "mid". Perhaps also try a few popular languages and frameworks such as "Angular", "React", "Node", Ruby on rails", "Python django", "C# .NET", "Java Spring".
Some job descriptions are written by people who don't know what they're writing that will expect you to have 93 years of experience for a junior job. But, most of them will be good and will give you an understanding of what some good options are for you to learn. They'll list things like they expect you to know X and Y. You'll see what are good choices for things like frameworks (e.g. React or Angular) and back end languages (e.g. Node, Ruby, Python, etc.).
Realistically, you'll only learn one back end language and framework to start with (such as Node with Express or Ruby with Rails). So this will show you your possible options that are popular for jobs. Then, you can also consider things like how beginner friendly those languages / frameworks are, your personal preferences and maybe even what bootcamps in your area teach (so you don't have to start over with a new language in the bootcamp).
Also, I recommend ignoring any "new and exotic" stuff that doesn't have a lot of jobs. E.g. ignore things like solid.js or fastify.js or nest.js. Instead, go for what will get you hired and what has a lot of learning resources. Leave the exotic stuff for after you're hired. They're 90% the same as everything else anyway so you'll learn them in no time. In the meantime, being able to tell employers you know Express (or an equivalent) will be more favourable than saying you know an exotic technology that they don't use.
One last thing, many jobs will list things that they only need you to know the absolute basics about, but they won't mention that. E.g. security, accessibility, git. In my personal experience, unless you go for a senior position, they only need you to know very little of those. Really. Keep that in mind and don't feel overwhelmed. I don't think you need to specifically learn them. The other courses you do, e.g. on JavaScript and HTML should cover the basics of them anyway. In the worst case, you can do a very basic course on them. For example, for accessibility, I recommend the course frontendmasters.com/courses/access....
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I don't have personal experience with bootcamps, but from what I hear they're great for getting a job quickly. They seem to have high success rates for getting a job after completion. It may be worth it if you have the money and want to go that route.
On the other hand, I started my career with self-learning and so did a close friend of mine. He recently got his first job after self-learning for about 1 year. In my opinion, he was good enough to get a first job 6 months in. However, he held off until he got to a point where he was comfortable. He's also crushing it at work and has already gotten promotions and higher responsibility.
But, he works and studies hard. His route and my recommendation were to:
In the meantime, he also did FreeCodeCamp for practice. This was in parallel to the courses he was doing. They have exercises so you can practice. They also have projects that you can do.
After the courses and plenty of FreeCodeCamp he built a small portfolio of projects. He built a fairly good looking website with some cool parallax effects to showcase his HTML, CSS and BEM skills. He also built a simple JavaScript project showcasing his JavaScript skills. (FreeCodeCamp has similar projects.)
Then, he started applying for jobs and got one. The portfolio helped a lot. In fact, I'm pretty sure my portfolio is what landed me my first job too.
After, he continued learning topics like:
Anyway, as with any field, it takes at least a few years to get good, so you'll have to keep learning for a while. Well, technically you could stop learning after your first job, you'll just progress slower.
It was a lot of work, but it worked out for him and me.
When I became a web developer, I went a similar route. The difference was that I did a lot of bad courses which I helped him avoid, and I learned a lot of stuff that I realised later I didn't need, at least not for a long time.
He's a front end developer. I started as a front end developer but now also work as a full-stack developer.
Hope that helps. Good luck!
Hi Spyros! Sorry for the late response-I've been meaning to reply to this days ago! Thank you SO much for all of this advice. For now I am looking into beginner courses and just doing a lot of researching, but this gives me a framework of how to begin. I would like to do as many free certification courses as possible and then see if a bootcamp is right for me in a few months. Would you recommend starting on the front end side of things? (again I'm very new so sorry if my wording is confusing or incorrect)
Hi Natasha. No worries, your wording is fine. Sorry another essay coming up.
I think starting with learning front end is a good choice. I'm sure that many bootcamps start on front end and move on to back end for the second half of the course (or maybe do 1/3 front end, then 1/3 back end, then 1/3 building projects with both of them or something).
However, if you're going for full-stack, one thing you may want to do is do less learning on the front end than I suggested and start back end earlier. My previous post was basically how to learn front end and get a job at it. It might not be the most optimal if you want a job at full stack in a similar timeframe. Unfortunately, I wouldn't feel as comfortable providing recommendations for learning full stack as a beginner.
Here's some more advice, if you're interested.
I also recommend doing a quick job search now. See what jobs and technologies are popular in your area or your target area. (Just search on a job website.) I recommend trying a few searches for "front end", "back end", "full stack". Maybe add a level in there such as "junior" or "mid". Perhaps also try a few popular languages and frameworks such as "Angular", "React", "Node", Ruby on rails", "Python django", "C# .NET", "Java Spring".
Some job descriptions are written by people who don't know what they're writing that will expect you to have 93 years of experience for a junior job. But, most of them will be good and will give you an understanding of what some good options are for you to learn. They'll list things like they expect you to know X and Y. You'll see what are good choices for things like frameworks (e.g. React or Angular) and back end languages (e.g. Node, Ruby, Python, etc.).
Realistically, you'll only learn one back end language and framework to start with (such as Node with Express or Ruby with Rails). So this will show you your possible options that are popular for jobs. Then, you can also consider things like how beginner friendly those languages / frameworks are, your personal preferences and maybe even what bootcamps in your area teach (so you don't have to start over with a new language in the bootcamp).
Also, I recommend ignoring any "new and exotic" stuff that doesn't have a lot of jobs. E.g. ignore things like solid.js or fastify.js or nest.js. Instead, go for what will get you hired and what has a lot of learning resources. Leave the exotic stuff for after you're hired. They're 90% the same as everything else anyway so you'll learn them in no time. In the meantime, being able to tell employers you know Express (or an equivalent) will be more favourable than saying you know an exotic technology that they don't use.
One last thing, many jobs will list things that they only need you to know the absolute basics about, but they won't mention that. E.g. security, accessibility, git. In my personal experience, unless you go for a senior position, they only need you to know very little of those. Really. Keep that in mind and don't feel overwhelmed. I don't think you need to specifically learn them. The other courses you do, e.g. on JavaScript and HTML should cover the basics of them anyway. In the worst case, you can do a very basic course on them. For example, for accessibility, I recommend the course frontendmasters.com/courses/access....