[US] [Chicago] Two months into my first web dev job -- thanks FCC!

I got my first professional front end web developer job two months ago, and I owe a lot of that to freeCodeCamp. My job initially started as a part-time temporary position, but I was just told that my company wants to bring me on board for a full-time salary position starting next month! I’m still kind of in shock that this is all happening but also very excited.

I’ve always found these types of posts to be inspirational on my journey, so I wanted to share some advice on what worked for me.

First, some background. I started freeCodeCamp a little over two years ago, and I finished my front end certificate last May. It was a real struggle at first, but I stuck with it and really cracked down on my learning last year. Here are some things that helped me the most along the way:

  1. Code every single day. Joining the #100DaysOfCode movement gave me a huge boost since it forced me to sit down and do at least one hour of meaningful code per day. This helped get me into a routine, and it started to feel natural. Seriously – this might be the most important thing on this list.

  2. Join the Chingu Cohorts and build a team project. I did two of the cohorts over the summer, and I used both of my completed projects as major talking points in interviews and other discussions. These also set me up nicely for my current job, as they put an emphasis on GitHub and team collaboration. That brings me to my next point:

  3. Stay active on GitHub and build a portfolio site. Employers need to be able to see your projects and your code. You will need to know how to use Git and GitHub at some point, so it’s best to get familiar with them early.

  4. Use Colt Steele’s Web Developer Bootcamp course on Udemy as a supplement. freeCodeCamp is an excellent starting point and guide through the front end world, but it wasn’t until I started this course that I really began to understand the full picture on how the front and back end tie together. After doing this course, I felt ready to tackle FCC’s back end projects.

  5. Start learning a framework. Obviously learn the JavaScript fundamentals first – FCC is top notch for this – but the future of front end development is in frameworks like React, Angular and Vue. My current job is almost exclusively using React and its ecosystem, and I didn’t start learning that until shortly after getting my front end certificate. The demand is massive for these right now.

  6. Don’t bother with recruiters. I found them to be a huge waste of time, at least for junior/entry level positions. I had many, many Skype chats, phone calls and meetings with recruiters who promised me many things. Not a single one of them delivered.

  7. Go to meetups and other dev-related events in your area. Even if the subject matter is over your head, they are still a good way to meet people and build confidence in being able to discuss anything web dev related.

That’s all I can think of for now. If anyone has any questions, I am happy to answer them. Good luck on your coding journey!

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Congratulations @wildlifehexagon!!! Super happy to hear the news!

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Huge “seconded” for Colt Steele’s Web Developer Bootcamp. I’m working through it now, concurrently with FCC. It’s really helped me fill in some knowledge gaps left by FCC.

Congrats btw!

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This is awesome man!! Congrats! :smiley:

Yep, Colt’s course is great for learning it fresh, filling in self-learning gaps, or brushing up on rusty areas! :white_check_mark::100:

Hi wildlifehexagon, where did you applied for jobs then if you skipped all recruiters ? Please let us know
Thanks
Dan

Hi Dan, I didn’t skip all recruiters. I ended up meeting with at least a dozen of them, but none of them panned out. It was kind of a waste of time, honestly, since it just felt like I was being given nothing but empty promises from each one.

I found my current job through ZipRecruiter. Their job posting wasn’t that appealing – it was part-time temp work with a low hourly wage listed – but I thought it was worth a shot since it was a great company, and at the very least maybe I would get some interview and/or professional experience. It ended up working out tremendously for me. I was hired at a higher rate than was listed. I started by doing 24 hours per week, then quickly got bumped up to 35, and then finally 40 before being told they wanted to bring me on board with a salary position. It definitely helps to keep an open mind in the job search and apply to part-time and/or temp positions if you can because you never know where they might take you. It’s all about getting your foot through that first door.

I also scored some interviews through AngelList. That site is hit or miss though since it’s startup-oriented and many can’t afford to pay much out of the gate. LinkedIn, Indeed, Dice, Glassdoor, Craigslist and Hired are all worth searching as well. Good luck on your search!

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Would you be referring to the The Advanced Web Developer Bootcamp or The Web Developer Bootcamp.

Would you be referring to the The Advanced Web Developer Bootcamp or The Web Developer Bootcamp. You mention React, but I only see that in The Web Advanced Web Developer Bootcamp. Both are on sale, but not for long, and might be off sale by the time I get an answer, but I figured it’s worth a shot.

Obviously I can’t speak for the person you were quoting, but both of Colt Steele’s courses are worth buying. I did his first one and am currently doing his Advanced course—the Advanced course simply picks up where the first one left off.

And depending on what else you want to learn, there are a couple of other Udemy courses worth buying as well, like Brad Schiff’s Git a Web Developer Job and Mosh Hamedani’s Complete Angular course for Angular, or Andrew Mead’s course for React.

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Some people complained that in the Advanced Web Developer Bootcamp other instructors’ teaching quality is not on a par with Colt’s. Are you planning to write a review once you finish the course? I’d be happy to read it.

I’m referring to The Web Developer Bootcamp. That course is worth it for the YelpCamp project alone. It doesn’t get into React or any modern frameworks, but it’s excellent at showing you how a full stack application works.

I’ve went through some of the React stuff in The Advanced Web Developer Bootcamp, and that was a huge disappointment. That particular course is scattershot in its approach since it uses multiple instructors. Colt, who is by far my favorite instructor, doesn’t do the React sections. There is some other intriguing content in the course – specifically CSS animations and D3 – but I would not buy that for the React lessons.

If you’re interested in learning React, check out the courses from Andrew Mead and Stephen Grider. Both are worth going through since Mead explains how to build an app from scratch using Webpack, whereas Grider has you get started immediately with create-react-app. Both approaches are worth knowing.

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I haven’t gotten very far into the course yet and am still on Colt’s sections. Hopefully the other instructors aren’t too bad. Sure I can write a review when I’m done with the course, but I don’t know when that will be—the first course took me quite a while at about 3 months or so.

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Congratulations wildlifehexagon!!!
Thanks a lot for sharing these very valuable points with us! :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:
Really appreciate it.

P.S - Just now I enrolled for the Colt Steele’s Web Developer Bootcamp course. :sunglasses:

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This is great! Congrats!

I’m referring to “The Web Developer Bootcamp.” I don’t know much about the other one.

You won’t be disappointed.

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Thanks much for the advice (Especially Frameworks, cohorts, and 100days)

Sadly, for #7, there’s no active meetups/events in my area.

The FCC Facebook groups are effectively dead. Most of the most recent posts are from a year or two ago.

Congrats and thanks for the advice!

Just to provide an update after my previous post, I’m a bit further along in the course now and have passed Colt’s initial sections (since he might well show up again at a later point in the course), which are 1 through 4. And wow, the quality of the course dropped like a rock on section 5 when a different instructor, Matt, came in. It was unbelievably bad—Matt was literally just repeating out loud every line of code he was typing and explained absolutely nothing at all about why he was doing what he was doing. Colt said in the course intro that these are guys that teach bootcamps with him but I have a hard time believing that Matt could possibly be a good coding teacher based on section 5. Then the other new guy who started off section 6, Tim, is certainly better but not by enough and assumes a bit too much knowledge on the part of the audience—at least, assuming that the average user is one that only took Colt’s previous course and nothing else.

It’s clear that neither of these two guys have taught a video-based MOOC before, or if they have, it doesn’t show because they’re frankly terrible at it. Colt seems to be the only person so far who understands how to approach the material for this format. The other two clearly don’t, and they also clearly didn’t review Colt’s original course either because they do NOT pick up where Colt left off in the previous course. You’d think Colt would want this course to be a natural progression and continuation from the first, but it’s really not and feels like a course that starts a couple levels higher.

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