Need advice on career path and progress

Career Advice
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Hey gang,

I have a burning question in my mind and I feel that this is the best community to ask, so here goes -

A little about me, I have a Masters degree in Computer Science. I used to have a full-time job as a software developer and then I switched career paths to try a non-programmer role. I realized last year that it wasn’t working out so I switched back to being a developer and I’m now working as a full-stack Angular/.Net developer.

Ever since, I started liking Typescript and Javascript and have been doing tutorials on freeCodeCamp. I am actively looking for new jobs because my current job is kind of a dead end. I’ve been practicing a little less than a year learning Javascript, HTML, CSS, made a pet project in Angular and then gravitated to NodeJS, React for a little bit and I’m now thinking of checking out Flutter/Dart. It’s really cool to see so many technologies and I want to learn a lot of them. I actively use the Developer Roadmap 2019 - https://github.com/kamranahmedse/developer-roadmap

The problem is, as you can see, I’m trying to do too many things at once and end up doing nothing. I want to create a decent set of projects for my portfolio (I only have one right now and it only does one thing - https://prashanthashok.github.io/parknews/). I want to improve on this but then I immediately don’t want to work on it because there’s probably better apps out there. So why spend time… I really have been feeling depressed at times but have been able to cope up thanks to my lovely wife :slight_smile:

I want to be a web-developer, but I also want to do mobile development. There are a lot of jobs in React but I find it a bit weird to do React especially coming from Angular. I alternate between completely giving up and being all motivated the next day. It’s really frustrating and I can’t decide on a set of technology that is “cool” (even though I know I shouldn’t be going after the cool tech and should focus on aspects of programming like OOPS, Clean Code, etc.).

With a full-time job, it’s already difficult to apply to new jobs, let alone practice algorithms and data structures.

Do you have any advice on what set of technology I should pick up and make side projects on? Is it okay to make the same app that everyone else has made - weather app, todo list, news app, etc.?

I know it’s a really long read but I appreciate any feedback and thank you so much for letting me vent!

Best,
Prashanth

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well, i am new to the space, so take this with a grain of salt.

but coming from experience elsewhere, mainly entrepreneurship. what you’re dealing with is most commonly known as “shiny object syndrome”. meaning, there’s just so much opportunity at your finger tips, you want to seize them all!

ex. at first, i wanted to learn mobile development, sales/marketing, ecommerce, wholesale real estate, and learn how to trade crypto… all at the same time. since then ive learned that it is best to focus on one thing, get good at it, then learn other things, otherwise you’ll never get good at anything. hope you can find this advice applicable to your own life. cheers :slight_smile:

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try writing down every single technology you even slightly want to learn. then, highlight just the ones you are genuinely excited about. this may help you find focus.

it’s okay to build whatever app you want, no matter how simple or complex it may be. your education is YOURS only. there’s no right or wrong way to do it.

what excites you? do that. react-native allows you to develop for mobile, btw. that could cover both of those interests for you. at the end of the day, you already know web development with angular. it’s not going to be difficult to pick up other frameworks once you land on the thing you are most interested in. good luck!

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Very good advice. I think I’ll try that.

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Thank you for the awesome replies @ywvlfy @jamesroyston03 ! I’ll try a combo of the approaches and see where I am in a month from now :slight_smile:

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