Hello. Please forgive me if this is in the wrong place.
I am what you would call an aspiring web developer. I have been self teaching for around six months and still have not found a solid path to follow. Six months sounds like a lot but realistically it has been a few solid weeks of learning since it is a side hobby that I hope will turn into my career.
My question is: How are web development jobs doing nowadays? For years I have heard how this technological boom will bring millions of jobs, but more recently I have noticed that they seem to be hard to come by for developers that I know and talk to. Did the boom bring too many developers? I live near a rather large city and I have heard that it’s hell to find a job doing something as a developer.
Is this crazy talk or should I just take up a damn trade? haha. I just graduated college last year doing computer sciences. I work in a grocery store. The job market around me is tough, but we are hoping to move very soon and possibly go back to college.
Is the Web Dev job market in a good enough state that I should risk more college(LOANS)?
Thanks for any advice…
ShowBox Mobdro
There isnt a shortage of jobs for developers, theres a shortage of qualified developers to do the work.
By that I mean, a lot of people look at this as a way to shift careers and get into what is a great paying job, without necessarily having to go bac to school. But…theres a misconception that its super easy… Some people think that web dev is just HTML, CSS some JavaScript and you’re ready for a job, but that is not so.
A lot of it is demographic I have to say…I just moved from one end of the country to the opposite, and what was popular there is not so much here. Where I came from, WordPress was huge, and there was a growing demand for Ruby on Rails devs…I also saw a lot of listings for people who are AWS certified. Where I am now, its all about Java, C#, and it seems React and Angular are also good. So, as far as how the jobs are nowadays, that really depends on where you live…research job listings in your area and you’ll see a pattern emerge in what people are looking for.
Beyond that, 6 months is not a super long amount of time…I studied on my own full time for about a year and a half then went to a coding bootcamp. So yeah, this isnt a get a job quick sort of thing…if you are going to compete against all the other people who are trying to get the same jobs…make sure you know your stuff.
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It is still very viable. But as of right now, there are so many bootcamp grads that the market is saturated with non-quality developers. It’s getting more and more competitive, but this was the case when I started earlier this year.
I don’t think you should give up, but it is something that requires a lot, a lot of devotion. You will have to treat your studying like its a job. If you have an associate degree in CS, then I think you should might as well finish bachelors. Software engineering goes way beyond just web development, so if you did decide to take up programming and software engineering, there are many options for you. I live in Los Angeles area, and there are opportunities everywhere. I recently started to get a lot of call backs and interviews, and recruiters are contacting me on Linkedin. Web dev is still very much a viable job option in 2018.