What is the most straightforward way to get a web dev job?

Career Advice
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Hi everyone, new here. I reviewed the curriculum and began the introductory lessons. I know python and did a few unfinished projects with it before (really basic ones with pygame and even tried godot). I also completed the following khan academy studies; Unit: Intro to JS: Drawing & Animation, and most of Unit: Advanced JS: Games & Visualizations. I also begin studying basic java soon in my university yet my degree is not in CS.

I actually code for perhaps 4 years on and off, never have completed a useful project (my total experience is perhaps 3 months). The main reason is that I need to know that I’m working when coding to stay motivated and since it is so difficult to get a first job, I got in a loop of trying and quitting. This time however, I think that for me, getting a job first and seeing myself as a programmer professional is what will allow me to continue to progress in this technology path.

A friend web developer told me, that as far as general software development is concerned (this is what I’m interested in), web development is the easiest to get into and has the highest chance of getting a job. That’s what landed me here. My question in regards to web development is what is the most straightforward way to get a job? And should I complete the entire curriculum here or only parts of it?

Finally, I understand there is a good projected growth for web development in the next 10 years. Due to automation, do you think it will be valuable as the aforementioned statement says in the following 10 years?

Thanks.

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Hey @Borboro!

It almost seems like you hoping a job will fix your issues of not being to finish something and I don’t think that is going to be the case. I really think you should focus on finishing a project first.

Edit:Reading this part back it might have come across a little harsh which was not the intent. So I do apologize for that. This paragraph was instead to encourage you to create smaller goals along side your goals of becoming a professional developer. I am beginner and it is hard to finish a project and there have been plenty of times where I wanted to abandon it. But I know that the satisfaction of finally completing something will be worth it.

There will be times on this journey to get a job that you will lose motivation and be tempted to quit again. So, I would personally set a goal of completing a project on your own away from a class. It doesn’t have to be perfect or polished but deploy it for the world to see.

I can’t speak to how to get a job since I am pretty new to tech as well but I do think setting that goal of completing a couple of projects will help break this cycle of on again off again coding.

Hope that helps!

Good luck!

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  • Build a strong foundation in web development fundamentals, especially JavaScript
  • Pick a framework and learn it (React, Angular, or Vue).
  • Learn enough about other frameworks to get a gist of how they are different, but don’t worry about learning them.
  • Build cool projects that you spend a lot of time on and complete multiple iterations (or “drafts”) of.
  • If possible, contribute to an open source web project that you use (like freeCodeCamp) in a consistent and ongoing manner. (Just throwing up a PR every once in a while without really participating in the project is not very meaningful.)
  • Apply to jobs, learn from rejections and failed interviews.

Don’t worry about automation. It’s genuinely not relevant.

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Web development is a great career choice provided you’re an endless learner and a keen creator. That means understanding new frameworks, new methods of executing things, and what your peers are doing. As you advance as a web developer, your capacity to instantly and deeply understand new thoughts will grow exponentially.

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Thanks everyone for your answers. I see there are a lot of certifications on fcc and wanted to know, besides learning deeply html, css and js, and some library like react, is there something else that is important to learn which counts as a part of the most straightforward way to get a job?

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I think @ArielLeslie gave a great roadmap on how to get there. Once you get closer to applying for jobs you can start preparing for the actual interview process. You can start researching what kind of questions will be asked.

https://blog.codegiant.io/25-web-developer-interview-questions-and-answers-3030b21ae016

You can also look into Cracking the Coding Interview.

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As far as the courses on fcc are concerned, there is no need to go through all the certifications? I should focus on the first 3 certifications for my goal?

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The main reason is that I need to know that I’m working when coding to stay motivated and since it is so difficult to get a first job, I got in a loop of trying and quitting.

Forgive me, I don’t know your age or background, but being able to motivate yourself is core aspect of maturity, being able to delay gratification, realizing that the payoff may be a long way off, but you have to do the work to get there.

This time however, I think that for me, getting a job first and seeing myself as a programmer professional is what will allow me to continue to progress in this technology path.

So your approach is going to be to tell an employer, “OK, so, like, I don’t have any finished work, but if you hire me, I’m sure the title you give me will motivate me to responsibly finish work well and on time, to turn me into a motivated self-starter. Sure, you have a big stack of people with a lot of quality finished projects, but please pick me.” Really? Would you hire that person?

A friend web developer told me, that as far as general software development is concerned (this is what I’m interested in), web development is the easiest to get into and has the highest chance of getting a job.

Yes, there is some truth to that. Without a degree especially, it is the easiest path to a job. But “easiest” is not the same as “easy”. It is still very hard to get that first job.

And you shouldn’t pick programming because you want a quick and easy good job. This path is long and hard so you should do it because you enjoy it.

My question in regards to web development is what is the most straightforward way to get a job?

Learn a lot of things and build a lot of projects. Learn and build, and then learn and build some more. There are other things too, but that is the core of a successful path.

It is going to take some self-discipline to force yourself to invest the time in making these projects. You are going to have to build some things that seem “boring” to you, but that is true on the job as well. But you can try and pick some projects that overlap other interests.

Due to automation, do you think it will be valuable as the aforementioned statement says in the following 10 years?

I’ve been hearing things like this my whole life. People predicted the end of web development with the arrival of things like WordPress. But that has just taken the low-lying fruit of web pages that don’t require too much beyond basic functionality. But at the same time, the expectations for what a web page should be able to do have increased. I think it is going to be quite a while before human web dev becomes obsolete. Things may gradually change, but there will be humans in there for quite a while.

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I have no problem with hard work, it is just that previously I aimed at doing independent work (games) and now my aim is to first get a job, because it’s more practical. I guess I should have explained myself more clearly at the beginning. I enjoy programming. On another note, I wonder what kind of different functionality websites need, like small simulations or minigames… is there any resource that shows such websites for inspiration?
Thanks

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I guess I would ask if you’ve gone through the FCC program. You end up building some basic sites through that. Other than that, I would suggest googling “web developer portfolio project ideas”.

And if you finished one of your games, that should go in your portfolio - a lot of programming is just understanding the concepts - making some games will look good on the resume.

And don’t forget to start small. Sometimes people envision some grand project that is just beyond them and they get frustrated. If you’re learning to ski, you don’t start on the black diamond trails, you head to the bunny slopes. Hirers would rather see a few silly little apps that are well written than a massive project that doesn’t work and is a mess.

But if you haven’t done it, work through the FCC curriculum. Things should become more clear as you do that.

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That’s definitely not what I said.

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I personally think you should at least learn the MERN stack which is the first 6 certifications. Python seems cool to me so I am personally doing the whole curriculum but I think bare minimum needs to be the first 6.

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Hijacking his post to ask:

How does learning the core aspects of programming would help me getting a web dev job?

Would it help me a bit? Not at all? because i’m really really concerned about learning it first.

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Have you looked at the job listings for web development in your area? I took the time to make a spreadsheet with the requirements for all the front end engineering jobs in my area and tallied up the most common requested skills. I don’t have that in front of me, but I saw very few jobs where knowing basic programming (for example, javascript, how to do for loops, deal with objects) was not absolutely essential.

There are, on the other hand, some web dev jobs dealing with WordPress (and maybe some other content management systems), in which you might be able to get away with just knowing the CMS very well and some HTML/CSS. If you think this is your path, it might be a quicker road to just dive into those systems and getting really good at them.

It’s my understanding that you don’t need programming skills to freelance in some of the CMS’s.

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Well, web development is programming.

And it depends on what you mean by “core aspects”. Is it important for you to learn how a two’s complement binary number is stored? Probably not. Is it important to learn how to traverse a tree? Probably - I actually had to do that on the job once. Is it important to learn the low level aspects of networking and protocols? Probably, eventually. But even if you found a niche job where you didn’t need broad knowledge, all of these things would make you a better developer.

because i’m really really concerned about learning it first.

OK, usually people are going the opposite direction, trying to find an excuse not to study CS subjects. I wouldn’t worry about it. I always recommend just following a good web dev curriculum (like the one on FCC) and you will gradually get exposed to these subjects as you go. And if you have a natural curiosity then you will seek out information when you come across something you don’t know.

But “really really concerned about learning it first” worries me. Sometimes people get paralyzed with a fear that they haven’t learned something well enough to move on. No, keep moving forward. You will never know everything completely.

My advice is always, start at the first challenge on FCC and just keep moving forward. The program starts out with the assumption that you know nothing about programming. If there is something that you would like to know better, then write it down on a notepad and you can spend a couple hours on in on some lazy Sunday. But keep moving forward. Don’t worry about “perfect”, settle for “good enough”. There will be things that don’t quite sink in - that’s normal. If you get stuck, google things, look at a few youtube videos, check the forum, etc. But your goal is to keep looking forward.

Some of the more advanced topics and more theoretical things, don’t worry about them too much - they will come up when they come up. There are also little courses here and there on the basics of CS and books too. I like to check them out from time to time. But as a web developer, the most valuable thing I did was just to get through that program - I had a bird’s eye view of everything and was able to ask much better questions after that.

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I guess it depends on what you mean when you say “the core aspects of programming”.
Web development is programming, so yes, it’s absolutely necessary.
Unless you mean something like how compilers work or chip memory or whatever.

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Yes i’m really sorry , by core, i mean to have a deep knowledge about data structures, algorithms and how to implement them without any difficulty!

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Yup. Keep hammering away at those. It’s not about specific algorithms or structures, it’s about being able to build solutions and the classic problems are good exercises for building those muscles.

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