vladimir.dev

Posted on Jun 3, 2019 • Updated on Aug 29, 2019

I just got a full-time position as a front-end webdev at the age of 35 in a broken corrupted banana country. Ask Me Anything :)

#ama #frontend

As some of you know, I've been working as a front-end webdev for several months. And because it's my first time doing that work, there was kind of a "trial" period to see if everything works out... I'm happy to say that it did and that I'm now officially a regular full-time front-end dev, so - Yay! 🤗 ⠀
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One of the (several) reasons why this is more of a big deal for me personally than it would be for, perhaps, some other people, is that I'm 35 years old. So, they are definitely right when they say that there's no such thing as a wrong time to do something!⠀

Another one is that, in my country (Serbia), having any kind of job is pretty hard, let alone a job you actually enjoy.
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Looking forward to hearing from you, have a great day! 👋 ⠀
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Top comments (24)

Tony Orozco • Jun 17 '19

You make me feel better, as I'm now 37 and trying to switch from my old boring work to a new one where i could make mo web stuff. So, where to go to start learning about new stuff? what did you did before? how much did it took you to get required knowledge?

vladimir.dev • Jun 19 '19 • Edited

There's so many resources for learning webdev. You can go with books, online courses, video tutorials, whatever works for you.
For example I recommend checking out this blog post: coder-coder.com/learn-web-developm... , lots of useful advice and some good resources for learning in the epilogue.

As for what I did before, I was kinda a musician for most of the time... I wrote more about that kind of stuff in my first (introductory) post.

As for how much time it takes, it's hard to say... It's individual, everyone learns at a different pace, different companies have different requirements for hiring...
Webdev was not the only thing I was learning, but if I was to condense it, I think I could've learned what I know in about 6 months - 1 year... For some people probably less...

Abdur Rehman Khalid • Jun 5 '19

It is nice to read that someone like you is getting into the industry of Web-Development. My best wishes for your Future.

I want to know that in which technologies you are working on currently and what would suggest to new ones?

vladimir.dev • Jun 7 '19 • Edited

Thank you very much!

Since the company works on e-commerce solutions that were set up a while ago, I still use things like Bootstrap & jQuery most of the time (and of course CSS).
They are built on ASP.NET and switching to a modern framework (like Angular) would be a huge undertaking and would probably require rebuilding everything from the ground up

Sameer Jadhav #JA4Me • Jun 5 '19

Congratulations! How did you manage your time out to pursue this passion? What resources would you recommend for beginners?

vladimir.dev • Jun 7 '19

Thank you!
I was unemployed most of the time so time wasn't really an issue.

As for resources, I use pretty much the same things others use - Jon Duckett books, online courses (like Practical JavaScript), tutorials & videos from people like Brad Traversy, Wes Bos, etc...

Sameer Jadhav #JA4Me • Jun 7 '19 • Edited

Thank you! I will look into the resources. :)

vladimir.dev • Jun 7 '19

Feel free to send me a message if you're looking for something more specific or if you have other questions as well

Juan F Gonzalez • Jun 5 '19

I want to ask what's Serbia like? I realize I have very few knowledge of Eastern European countries and feel like there's so much to know and discover.

vladimir.dev • Jun 5 '19

Idk if I'd call it "eastern" exactly... It's more like South / south-eastern...

I'd say it's okay to visit, but bad to live in. Nothing is working, the system is a joke, unemployment is high, the mentality is toxic...

But if you're coming as a tourist you can have some fun :)

Kristophe Sankar • Jun 6 '19

I feel the same way about the country I'm from as well.

Juan F Gonzalez • Jun 7 '19

Thanks for the reply, I feel like the same can be said about several countries in varying degrees of course hehe

Francisco Quintero 🇨🇴 • Jun 3 '19

What were you doing previously? Why the change? Why frontend instead of backend?

Besides, congratz on your career advancement :D

vladimir.dev • Jun 5 '19

Thank you very much!
I used to be a musician (or trying to) but that wasn't working out all that well.
I wrote more about that and the transition in my first post.

As for why front-end... I don't know, it seemed more fun and more suited for my personality...

And also there are tons of jobs available for it (most require experience but once in a while there's something for beginners)

Thanks for your question!

Kev • Jun 8 '19

Congrats!

I want to know how did you decided you were job ready? did you do several projects before you ventured into real work?

vladimir.dev • Jun 8 '19

I don't know, I wasn't as ready as some people I knew... But I focused on beginner jobs for people with no experience that have some kind of training... Those are more rare of course, but eventually I got one.

I did have some small projects, but I got the impression most of them didn't pay much attention to those.

I think they were mostly valuing the test and the personality (culture fit and all that)