Web Developer needed...for interviewing

43 years here, currently in the middle of a huge career change…enrolled in a 6 months online FullStack Web Development bootcamp…and of course, integrating with the wonderful FCC. At the moment, I have just finished FrontEnd side, and I am about to start with the Backend part.
Being in the middle of my journey (although the learning journey will never end)…I would like to ask some questions to a current Web Developer, just to ask some advice, guidance, and to understand where I am sitting and where should I go.

I can realize that many campers are in my same situation, and the advice from a real Developer would be useful to all of them as well.

… in case there is some availability, I would start with my questions…
Thanks and Happy Code!

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Not dismissing your request to interview a developer, there are many Q&A sessions on YouTube that may be of interest. Just search for “web developer interview” or the like.
This guy did FCC
With FCC Founder Quincy Larson

If you are interested in a newer dev I’d be happy to answer what I could.

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@CarlJKashnier appreciated your help, and I am sure I (we) could just benefit from your experiences. Basically, (if I would be sitting in front of a cup of coffee), I would ask you the below questions:

1- at which kind of projects are you working on now?
2- What resources do you use to keep up with new web technologies and trends?
3- Are there any meetups or users groups I should get involved with?
4- What do companies like yours typically look for in new hires?
5- What is one technical thing I should be sure to learn during my program?
6- What to focus (learning trends to follow) after a good base in FullStack(HTML/CSS, JSS, Node, React)…Ruby? PHP? or just go Mobile with increase requested Swift? What about going into VR or Data Analysis?
7- How should I continue from here?

Thanks in advance, any help is appreciated.

Hey. I’m not really a “web developer” and I have a traditional degree instead of a bootcamp, but I’ll give some of my perspective anyway.

1- I am working on the browser-based GUI component of management software for new hardware.
2- I keep up with new technology the same way I keep up with the news: curate article aggregation feeds and talk to people who are intelligent and well-informed.
3- Spending time around other developers is incredibly beneficial. This has been a common theme in the success stories I’ve heard from developers who are self-taught.
4- I’ll ignore the technical, but a solid and well-rounded background should show your ability to work and learn independently: a general “technical intelligence”, if that makes sense. We work together in a close team, so how well someone would “fit” is very important. There isn’t really a close mentoring or hand-holding phase, so you’ll be given work to do and you need to be able to ask for the help you need.
5- Learn about efficiency. You should be able to identify problems in provided algorithms as well as write clean, efficient solutions yourself.
6- Wherever your interests lie. This will make you pursue the subject more deeply and make it a bit easier to see independent projects through.
7- Make stuff. Make lots of stuff. Make good stuff. Be able to talk about projects you’ve done on you own and what you learned from them and why you enjoyed them. Have stuff to show off.

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Thanks so much… amazing content, and many confirmations!

If I may spare my opinions:

1- at which kind of projects are you working on now?

Currently I’m doing the whole web presence (4 wepages) of a big real estate agency.
This involves 4 web pages, their internal mailer, the server and SEO.
Plus some JS data visualization for a private admin page of a web app.
Just finished the last week a pure front-end tablet app for a specific fitness equipment machine.

2- What resources do you use to keep up with new web technologies and trends?

Books, video courses but mostly official documentation.
I got “schooled” yesterday by my senior for not using JQuery doc (because…it’s JQuery right? Everyone knows it :stuck_out_tongue: ) and messing a part of function! :wink:

3- Are there any meetups or users groups I should get involved with?

Unfortunately where I live there’s no real groups or meet ups, but if you have some in your area definitely go for it! You can start by joining a FCC group and see how it goes.

Definitely focus on the social aspect of coding since nowadays developing is no more a one-man job: learn teamworks :slight_smile:

4- What do companies like yours typically look for in new hires?

They don’t ask you to know everything, but at least the basics of good developing practice.
Git, version control, some knowledge of algorithm and big O notation for example.
Nothing deep, but at least knowing why bubble sort is what it is.

Plus showing that you actually like doing what you do: during my interview they were happy to see that I developed a bot for Discord (really a crappy one to be honest), but they were pleased in seeing that I code also for fun, and not only to show off some skills.

5- What is one technical thing I should be sure to learn during my program?

Commenting your code, keep it clean, readable and easy to maintain.
They confessed after my trial ended that I was hired also thanks to the way I commented my code and how easily they developed from it.

no one expect you to be the next coding wizard, that’s what seniors are for: be humble but be precise :slight_smile:

6- What to focus (learning trends to follow) after a good base in FullStack(HTML/CSS, JSS, Node, React)…Ruby? PHP? or just go Mobile with increase requested Swift? What about going into VR or Data Analysis?

As said before go for what YOU like to do; not the market wants you to do.
If you actually focus in doing what you like, not only you’ll enjoy more the journey, but you’ll produce a better result.

Plus passion is what people is usually attracted of.

7- How should I continue from here?

Ask yourself what do you like to code for?
Why are you studying web dev (or whatever you’re studying at the moment)?

Once you’ll find that answer you’ll know what to do…
and if you find it please let me know the answer since I’m looking for it myself too! :smiley:
Jokes aside, it’s all in the passion of what you’re currently doing.
If you’re here just for the mere work opportunity, I’m sorry but you’re “nothing” but an empty shell. Do something you love.

For example in my free time after work I went home and coded a pure CSS animated Christmas card, that then I presented to my senior… we ended up using it in the official greeting email for our clients.

That was an outcome I didn’t care about: I did it because I felt like it. I had fun doing it.

People like this kind of attitude which is more (or as) valuable as pure technical skill.


thanks for this questions, I had fun in replying to this.
:blush:

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@Marmiz
I need to thank you! Great help, I am glad to be part of such community.

Hi @Marmiz, I’m curious about the real estate project you are working on. Is it something you can share here?

I’m asking because I’ve open sourced the code I use for creating real estate websites as a github repository called PropertyWebBuilder. Perhaps it will be interesting for you :wink:

Hy there @propertywebbuilder , thanks for your reply but unfortunately by the time you reply we already finished this project.

It was a plain good 'ol static website, so we took a chance of using static site generators like metalsmith or jekyllll; but ended up typing the most by hand since SEO was the highest priority on the project :slight_smile:

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