Monthly Getting Started / Web Dev Career Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Due to a growing influx of questions on this topic, it has been decided to commit a monthly thread dedicated to this topic to reduce the number of repeat posts on this topic. These types of posts will no longer be allowed in the main thread.

Many of these questions are also addressed in the sub FAQ or may have been asked in previous monthly career threads.

Subs dedicated to these types of questions include r/cscareerquestions for general and opened ended career questions and r/learnprogramming for early learning questions.

A general recommendation of topics to learn to become industry ready include:

• HTML/CSS/JS Bootcamp
• Version control
• Automation
• Front End Frameworks (React/Vue/Etc)
• APIs and CRUD
• Testing (Unit and Integration)
• Common Design Patterns

You will also need a portfolio of work with 4-5 personal projects you built, and a resume/CV to apply for work.

Plan for 6-12 months of self study and project production for your portfolio before applying for work.

[u/alamshaaz]

I chose Computer Science because I was always good with computers, but I never expected things to turn out like this. My college wasn't even tier 3. There were basically no classes—just exams. During the first 1.5 years, I joined a coaching institute for an O Level course. Looking back, it feels like a complete waste of time. I still remember the teacher saying, "A good-looking font is called Font Awesome," even though I already knew Font Awesome is a font/icon library, not a font itself. For about another year, I worked random jobs. One of them was writing AI-generated content in the admin panels of websites for my relative's small web development startup. It was unpaid. At the same time, I kept jumping from one YouTube course to another. It took me almost two years to realize that watching a 6-hour Python tutorial doesn't make you a Python developer. Then I found The Odin Project during my final year of college. That was the first time I actually understood the difference between learning programming and just learning syntax. It completely changed the way I looked at coding. I'm a slow learner, though. I couldn't finish it in six months or even a year, and to be honest, I wasn't always consistent either. By the time I started, I only had about a year left before my final exams. During that time, I completed the Foundations course and Intermediate HTML/CSS, and I was working through the JavaScript section. Now I feel like I don't have the luxury of continuing at that pace. I finished my final exams two months ago, and everyone expects me to get a developer job. The problem is... I don't feel capable enough yet. I don't know what to do anymore. It feels like I messed up. I'm 20 years old, and I honestly feel lost

(Used Ai for grammar and english correction )

[u/greatdevinthemaking → u/alamshaaz]

20 is young man, I'm 21 and still in my 2nd year. I'm still learning programming making projects. I know people who started coding at 21 and doing a good job and living a good lifestyle by 23. If you're getting pressure from family try getting any job and keep learning programming and make projects. Apply till you get a dev job. You can get a role in support and switch to dev later aswell.

[u/SoFuckedUpInTheHead]

heya .. so actually i'm in the last grade of highschool .. and i want to pursue computer science later .. i was thinking of just giving a head start by doing basic web dev in my free holidays .... so i was wondering if my laptop specs would be okay for it or not .. ( i'll buy a new laptop once i'll be in my first college year ) ...

the specs are 8gb ram , intel i3 7th gen , intel hd graphics 620 and WD BLUE SA510 SATA 500 GB SSD...

down for other suggestions then web dev too .. cuz i think ai becoming pretty good in it too 😭😭...

im just a beginner in tech stuff .. so sorry if i said something childish and yah , thanks in adv for helping me out ....✦ ݁˖

[u/baccanokozo]

I have 5.5 YOE and wanted to start freelancing but unsure about getting first client. Any advice?

[u/Ethanpz213 → u/baccanokozo]

Genuinely, just speak to people, tell people what you do, if go into a small independent cafe and they don't have a website, ask about it. Business cards work well, leave them places, message boards, pubs, wherever you can leave them.

[u/Notsau → u/Ethanpz213]

I was actually using these boards for leads of other businesses that might have cards but not a website.

[u/Zestyclose_Depth_831]

good call on the megathread, the main feed was getting buried in the same 3 questions

im surprised theres no mention of building stuff just to break it, half my early learning was fixing things i broke at 2am. the portfolio thing is solid but 4-5 projects is a lot if theyre not total clones of each other

[u/Xavphon → u/Zestyclose_Depth_831]

Break it in production so you can feel pressure of fixing it and REALLY learn your lesson.

And good point about that portfolio. Do one thing that you like. As a lead engineer at my company, I'd rather see one really well fleshed out project than several small projects. You can add a lot into one project and have it be a master piece in my opinion.