I learned to code through a combination of FreeCodeCamp, various other free courses, and by joining an organization called Recurse Center that hosts programming retreats (also free). Did freelancing for a while. Pay was disappointing. Was having trouble getting a full time job so I made a thread on this forum: Critique my Resume and Portfolio
I followed the advice I received and redid my portfolio and resume (douglas-dev.com) so that they didn’t look like crap, and wrote better cover letters. A month or so later, I got an offer for a full time front-end developer position in NYC at a really nice start-up. I start in a week. Thanks to everyone that helped me and to FreeCodeCamp! If anyone has any questions about how I got the job, let me know.
Since you’re legitimately employed full-time now, you can do a write-up that focuses on how you were able to land your job and gives dos and dont-dos based on your job-hunting experience.
Personally, I don’t, but there are many users in this forum who appreciate a good ‘road map’ post that chronicles what the job-winner did along the way on their journey toward full-time employment.
Do you have a hunch about what it was in particular that landed you this job, or was it just a product of time, more effort and better framing of your skills?
It took me a couple of years, but I didn’t study very consistently until this year and often went months without making much progress, so I think the number of hours you put in is much more important the length of time. As for materials, I started with a book called “how to think like a computer scientist”, which taught basic python as well as basic CS concepts. Then I found FreeCodeCamp and went through most of the front end material as well as all of the JavaScript algorithms material. I also supplemented with a book called “Eloquent JavaScript” and some CSS courses on Udemy. And I also learned a lot by just reading documentation for whatever libraries or frameworks I was interested in learning. For example, docs for React, Vue, Phaser, Tone.js, Three.js, etc. are all very good. I think once you have a solid understanding of the basics, you will learn much more by just reading the docs for whatever it is you are learning, and then just going and building a project, rather than going through endless beginner courses.
Yes I don’t think it was any one thing. Just a combination of a solid portfolio and resume, and doing well on the technical test, which was just writing a basic React app, but I made sure that it was bug free and looked nice.