Learn Web Development and Actually Get a Job!

how is it possible for an average  construction worker to learn to code to  get that super hard first web development job and then get hired by a large tech  company making hundreds of thousands of  dollars in total compensation each year  nine years ago i was totally that  construction worker because i couldn’t  get another job with my near worthless  history degree so i ended up freezing my  butt off in the cold each winter doing  physical labor for mediocre pay.

and no  benefits i’m now a full-time senior  front-end software engineer at adobe and  i’m self-taught working in a nice cozy  office so let’s talk about why most  self-taught devs fail why you should  choose to become a front-end developer  instead of learning java php python or  some other back-end focused programming  language the technologies you should  learn the right way to learn to code and.

how to get your first job as a  programmer what’s a matter with your  mind and your side and uh but first  what’s your background story i would  totally dig it if you’d let me know in  the comments this bump alright there are  four main reasons most people fail when  they want to become a self-taught  programmer.

first they underestimate how  hard it’s going to be there are plenty  of videos out there about people who are  learning to code in three months six  months and in my case it took around  nine months though three to six months  is probably not very common unless you  end up in a full-time boot camp that can  really help you stay focused i did it in  nine months in the evenings with the  support and patience of my wife and kids  because i end up having to sacrifice  pretty much every evening during that  time and that’s not going to be  something that’s going to be doable for  a lot of people it took a ton of.

self-discipline on my part especially on  the days where i just wanted to give up  because there will be those days you  also have to be realistic about your  ability to learn quickly some people  learn incredibly fast and things just  stick others need more time to process  it if you compare your progress to a  fast learner you’re gonna get  discouraged and may quit even if you’re  actually learning code at a normal pace  second for most people getting your  first programming job is going to suck  i’ll share some good strategies to.

overcome this in a minute but a lot of  people wash out before getting that  first job third some people’s brains  just aren’t wired for this kind of work  i know plenty of people who are amazing  working with their hands and that’s  totally fine there’s nothing wrong with  that if you think that you before you  give up i encourage you to question  yourself is it really because you don’t  have the brain for it or is it just.

because it’s hard and you lack grit  fourth a lot of people make poor  decisions when it comes to picking a  programming language or area of software  development so let’s talk about why i  chose to become a front-end web  developer and in simple terms front-end  web development is just the visual part  of a web page or application that you  interact with there are a couple of  really important reasons why i chose  this first i have nothing against  back-end development it’s super  important.

this is where the magic  happens for storing and retrieving data  but let’s face it back-end code is  visually boring and this means when you  go into interview the only thing they  have to test you on are code problems  and your ability to communicate what you  know verbally you’re new so you might  understand what you’re doing but it’s  super easy to get stuck trying to  explain things and just not using the.

right words to describe it and to get  hung up at least that’s how it was for  me when i first started perhaps that’s  hard for you too right now this puts us  at a disadvantage when competing against  fresh computer science grads i mean we  could even code better than them but  they can out talk us and they have some  paper to back them up but the cool thing  about front end development is that you.

can show the finished project even if  you stumble on describing some of the  things they can see what you have done  if you have other valuable skills like  an eye for aesthetics or good user  experience intuition it will show  through in your work second the front  end includes everything from software  engineering skills to design skills and  so it tends to be more open to  self-taught developers as a community.

it’s a pretty big mix of different  backgrounds whereas with back-end  development you can tend to have a  higher concentration of computer science  grads now it’s still going to take a lot  of hard work but it’s going to be easier  to stand out and out skill other  self-taught front-end web developers who  maybe just don’t have the same level of  ambition as you do third on the front  end there are plenty of tools to make it  super easy to set up.

boilerplate code  needed for an application and that lets  you quickly jump into developing  everyday code skills without getting  lost doing all the complex configuration  stuff you can learn all of that later  for a lot of people being able to see  visual changes happening on the page can  be super exciting it’s awesome to get  fast feedback on the progress you’re  making and this really helped me stay.

motivated with back end there are also  tools to set things up but the basic  stuff can be pretty boring and it’s just  so much harder to impress people with  what you have done it’s like walking in  the shadows of your girlfriend’s real  boyfriend this is really important when  talking to non-technical hiring managers  or recruiters because even these people  can appreciate a website or an app that  looks nice even if they don’t know.

what’s going on underneath the hood  especially websites where you can hit  that like button i would totally  appreciate that so oops but you are  going to end up having to learn three  things html css and javascript html is  kind of like code legos that gives your  app structure the css or cascading style  sheets lets you define the size the  shape color the animations for each of  those legos at javascript is how we give.

 it instructions if someone clicks on a  button what should happen maybe it loads  some data onto the page if you hear  someone say vanilla javascript they’re  talking about writing code with plain  javascript without using any third-party  libraries or frameworks and the software  engineers we do a lot of repetitive  stuff and instead.

of writing everything  from scratch ourselves smart devs will  usually use libraries of heavily tested  code  written by other people you should  probably ignore anyone who says you  should only use vanilla javascript or  else you’ll end up basically building  your own crappy library that nobody else  knows how to use and if you care about.

actually getting a job most companies  will want you to have experience working  with one of the major javascript  frameworks like react or you could learn  angular if you want to become a boomer  living in your mother-in-law’s basement  for a concise breakdown of several  popular front-end frameworks you should  check out this video up here by fireship  where he basically builds out like 10  different versions of the same simple  application.

 to compare them it’s really  cool either way the right way to learn  to code is not reading a book cover to  cover it’s not trying to understand  everything there’s just way too much  stuff in html css and javascript that  you just won’t use it’s far better to  master the core concepts and to learn  all that other stuff as you need it at  some other time instead of just becoming  mediocre in everything the best way to  figure this out is to just step away  from following tutorials as soon as  you’re comfortable.

with the basics and  just start building things that solve  problems that you are already interested  in as you write code you’ll start to  identify things that you just keep doing  over and over again and you should focus  on learning how to do those things  really well how can you make that code  chunk smaller more reusable maybe more  efficient and easier to read  that kind of stuff and then you should  be able to explain why you chose to do  it the way you did in your interview  you’ll probably get asked questions that.

stump you or that are just hard to  remember the exact answer if you  understand generally what’s going on  it’s going to be super easy for you to  say  i don’t remember that one thing and then  just start to explain everything else  and that’s probably one of the best tips  for dealing with your first interview in  fact that is exactly what happened  during the interview that led to my  first job offer being able to.

talk about  a lot of core concepts could really make  up for messing up on some random  technical question and trust me  i messed up on a few questions and here  are some more tips for how to get your  first job as a programmer first most  people who are fast at getting their  first dev job either know someone at the  company or they have someone mentoring  them who can vouch for them and their  skills or else they just got lucky and.

if you want to be that person try to  build solid relationships with people in  the industry as soon as possible  second if you’ve made it this far i  assume you are liking this video so  consider subscribing i have a ton of  other videos to help you become a  programmer okay for reals second you are  at a distinct disadvantage when compared  to computer science grads they have a  paper that vouches.

for their educational  experience and that is something you  don’t and most certificates from doing  courses online are going to be worthless  so don’t count on those you have to get  practical experience any way possible  and that means build your own projects  work for free if you have to but you  have to find creative ways to get your  own experience in my case i built  personal projects in the evening and  then in my downtime.

at work i started  building things and doing things for my  employer that could provide them value  and build some skills stuff that they  didn’t even ask for and this means i had  to be proactive and come up with ideas  on my own i created my own opportunities  to get experience and you’re gonna have  to do similar things too third you want  to have a portfolio that can sell your  potential and instead of focusing all of.

your attention on a single large project  i would shoot for a handful of smaller  projects first and then do one that is  more of a complex project the people  interviewing you are probably only going  to give it a quick glance so seeing lots  of projects is going to have a bigger  visual impact initially and by starting  with building the smaller ones you’re  going to get some quick wins that are  going to help you stay.

motivated and  then dive into that larger one if you  start with a really complex app there’s  just a good chance that you are going to  get lost and that you might give up for  these projects you need to do stuff that  interests you rather than just copying  existing projects or tutorials simple  and unique applications are going to be  way better than a complex tutorial clone  but a unique complex project will really  stand out and don’t get me.

wrong i mean  following tutorials can really help you  develop your skills but just don’t  consider them to be good portfolio  pieces when you get to an interview  there’s a good chance that they haven’t  even clicked the link to see your  portfolio so bring an ipad or laptop and  be prepared to show them what you built  and explain the technologies you use and  why you did what you did if you used  multiple.

frameworks tell them what you  liked about each one and what you didn’t  like that will go a long ways fourth and  one of my personal favorites is don’t  just sit there hoping they’ll ask you  the right questions it’s like politics  instead of waiting timidly just answer  their question as best you can and then  try to steer the conversation to related  topics you are prepared to discuss with  confidence fifth the spray and pray  approach to sending.

out resumes just  doesn’t work well if that’s what you’re  doing don’t complain about why you’re  not getting interviews you need to do  whatever you can to get in contact with  the hiring manager directly instead of  going through hr and the online  application process you don’t want to be  a no name in a database the goal is to  have the company want you before you  ever fill out an application is this  going to be easy.

no it’s not but all it  takes is getting your foot in the door  one time and so be willing to fight for  that because no one owes you anything  and no one is going to care about your  career as much as you do even if that  first job offer doesn’t pay very well  you should really consider taking it so  you can start getting some real world  experience as soon as possible because  getting that first dev job is going to.

be the hardest and you can always bounce  a year later if you need to but if you  really want to know why some front-end  software engineers make a ton more money  than others you should watch this video  up here and i’ll even share how much  money i made at each of my jobs as a  self-taught developer latest.

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