Career Advice From A Second Year Dev
Hey,
I'm a React Dev working for a large corporation (S&P 500), and I figure I'd offer some advice for those looking to get into the industry.
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Just a little bit about myself here, as some advice may or may not depend on my background.
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\* I've treated web development as a hobby since 2005 (not on my resume)
\* Graduated from a standard 4-year university (Business degree in MIS)
\* Took up online education for coding (Team Treehouse Front-end Techdegree)
\* My first professional web-dev project was for a company I worked for as a call center representative
\*I usually code for no less than 2 hours a day, professionally or not
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**Is Web Development For Me?**
Problem-solving is the first and probably most important trait of any software developer. I've always enjoyed word problems in math. It challenged my ability to sift out meaningless information from what I need to work with to provide an answer.
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My time as a call-center rep probably honed my problem-solving abilities further. So many times, customers will call in wanting to do x, but tell me a, b, c, d, and so on. I'll need to probe the customer to get x out of them. Sometimes I'll identify trends throughout the day to solve a customer's problem before they've realized they had one.
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Software development isn't any different. Key stakeholders, project managers, your team members, will provide you with input on a myriad of things. Or you may be debugging, or refactoring some code. The same practices are here. Do I have enough information? If not, probe further.
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Are there trends throughout the codebase, or can writing a few lines of code higher up in the application prevent me from writing hundreds of lines of code elsewhere?
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**Ok, I'm A Decent Problem Solver. What Next?**
Before I joined TeamTreehouse to learn code, I knew I wanted to build an app for a hobby of mine. I initially created the app with Microsoft Excel but telling folks to go to my site to download an Excel file didn't work out all too well. Most didn't own Excel at all, and if they did, it was too complicated to set-up.
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So, I had to ask myself what I could use to build an app that everyone can use with no barriers of any kind? Java? C++? Swift? Decent options, but users will still need to download the app. So I decided to go deep with JavaScript and bring my HTML and CSS skills up-to-speed.
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**Professional Career**
I put together a decent portfolio site. Along with a recommendation from my boss for the web work, I knew I was ready for the job market.
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It took me ten months to land my first web dev job. It took a few months to put together a resume that says, 'hey I have practical experience,' instead of dumping a list of technologies and random projects.
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My first job involved building and maintaining content management systems (WordPress, Craft, etc.) for various clients. The tech stack there was PHP, HTML, Sass, and JS/jQuery. I was able to build an internal dashboard using React, and it became the segway into my current job.
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My first job was roughly 50% planning, meetings, and about 50% code. It was a great experience because I learned the importance of providing accurate time estimates while gaining practical experience with the system development lifecycle.
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I'm a few weeks into my second job as a member of a significantly more substantial team of developers. I interact with a handful of them on a day-to-day, but the team is enormous.
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**Some Traps To Avoid (Opinion)**
\* Sharpen your skills with the basics before working with libraries/frameworks
\* Or not, I've worked with a dev who can run but not walk.
\* Never say 'I know.' Always hear them out.
\* Plan your career path before starting the journey. The reward is the journey, not the destination. You'll avoid taking up jobs that won't advance your growth and the likelihood of burning out. Check-in on it and keep it updated. Who knows, your journey may take you outside of software development.
\* Specialize in something. I'm capable of PHP and Python and plan to take up a third server-side language next year, but I am a JavaScript developer through and through. That won't change.
\*Job titles are just that, 'job titles'. You'll work with senior level guys who have the skills of junior devs. Don't get distracted by this stuff. Focus on your career path and nothing more.
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**TLDR;**
\* Two years, two jobs. Now at a big company
\* College degree may or may not have helped all too much
\* Problem-solving ability might be the biggest tell for how good of a developer you'll be
\* Getting one professional project along with a decent portfolio is good enough to start job hunting
\* Coding boot camps / online courses are WORTH the money