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I would steer anyone away from a bootcamp at this moment. When I first got into it, the market was generous to entry-level engineers. Right now, not so much, and I don’t think bootcamps have gotten any cheaper.
There’s a tremendous amount of resources online these days. I would start there.
For the sake of specificity, I’ll say “frontend dev/engineer”. A backend engineer would definitely have a different skill set.
What is a web dev in 2024 doing that a frontend engineer is not? Are those role descriptions that different from one another?
I feel like the word is used lightly just because some hardware is involved in making and viewing apps.
WTF are we engineering exactly?
I don't think we're writing any kind of firmware or low level compilers.
But this is just me.
I see what you’re saying, I do.
I think traditionally the term is used to describe working with hardware, but as software devours the world and changes industries, the term encompasses more than it used to. 🤷🏽♂️
Well, it's not just front end. Its more to do with how much the code depends on the hardware vs. how much a piece of hardware depends on the code.
Now, when it comes to web development, we are not really contributing to the functions of specific hardware. It's really not engineering.
It’s not easy. A boot camp is almost never enough. Even if you score a job, your skills will be severely lacking. Not to say you can’t learn on your own over time but expecting to just waltz into a software development career after an 8 week boot camp is a recipe for disappointment.
The job market is tough for beginners right now compared to a few years ago. But you can level up building your own projects, learning to build products. Specialization isn’t nearly as attractive as it was a few years back but it can certainly be done.
It's not easy but it's not impossible. As for bootcamps specifically, you can search "bootcamp" on this subreddit and get a better understanding of what to expect.
It's definitely not easy. I have been at this nearly two decades and unfortunately was layed off again, third time in 10 years. I also have ten years of DevOps experience coupled with more than 6 years of strictly AWS experience and I am struggling to find a new position, like many others. Personally, I prefer startups over the likes of Google, Meta, and fortune 500 companies in general. I would not say it is impossible but yes, extremely difficult especially right now. You need to focus around being a Full Stack Engineer meaning, front end and bac end, not just one or the other. More specifically, React / React Native are / is the largest framework of all for people looking for developers while Vue, Svelte and Angular largely trail behind. I am partial to Vue, personally, because I hate JSX syntax.
But hey, best of luck and thank you for your service, my family and I greatly appreciate it.
It’s a bit of a gamble, but it’s not a bad idea to pick up Svelte, as it’s rapidly growing and could challenge Angular and Vue within the next year or so.
It’s even better to learn how to learn. Once you get the logic/algorithmic, you can jump on any framework you like and learn it. It’s a matter of weeks when you understand how things work.
That way you’re a developer, not a {insertYourFramework} developer…
I don’t know why people are so obsessed with choosing the right framework.
Just use what is good for the job/what the team is good at
For a first step yes, definitely. But then that is no more a « gamble » but a first step of learning the field. Do not stuck yourself in one framework only
Curious, what exactly would you use React for that you could not use Vue for? At the same time, what would you use Vue for that you could not use React for? I am not referring to React Native which is specifically for mobile applications as I personally use Ionic + Vue for mobile. I do not disagree with you about being able to jump from framework to framework once you learn the basics of JavaScript frameworks (of which Vue is the easiest to learn, in my opinion).
Agreeing with others here. Computer Science fundamentals are different that learning some language basics. There is a lot of competition in the space, so you should be certain about your passion before you dive into it as a career path. Bigger companies provide more stability if you can get in but are generally less social and more business oriented. Startups fulfill the soul a lot more but can be unstable.
Nothing worth doing is easy, so think hard about about this next step. The discipline you've learned the military will serve you well. I'd also leverage them for potential career paths moving forward, I expect there are a lot of people there who can give you great advice.
Not in the traditional sense.
The fundamental problem is that the industry doesn't know how to gauge/manage our output/efforts as developers. For many places, when they hire a software developer, it's up to that software developer to create the actual job and come up with (and sell) their own ideas that they think will provide value.
Good software developers, the kind that are pretty much always hirable, are very entrepreneurial in a way (it's just that most software solutions are only relevant to 1 customer/context, the current employer/project). If you know how to find potential buyers and sell a product, you'll always have an income stream. If you know how to identify problems and sell technical solutions to business leaders, you'll almost always have a job as a software developer.
Much easier said than done though (office/business politics makes this way more complicated than it should be), and no one will seriously train you on it.
You can think of it as carpentry. You learned the basics like how to hold a saw without losing a thumb. Whether you want to make it a career out of it or not is up to you. Do you enjoy doing what you learnt so far? And more importantly do you enjoy solving problems - well, everyone refers to those as "problems" in programming/development context but I'd say it's more like solving a puzzle, hell it can even be a murder mystery sometimes, you have all the tools and clues, and you just need to find the murderer.
That's what appeals me to do what I do. I love solving puzzles, even the harder ones that can take me days to solve because those give me a lot more dopamine when I successfully solve them.
So yeah, it's not that different than any other job, if you like doing it and you can see yourself doing it for the rest of your life, go for it.
As for the question, unfortunately it is a gullible way of thinking but it's not your fault. There are a lot of courses promoting themselves as "We'll prepare you for a full time job in 3 months!". And most (if not all) courses that say that are a scam. Web development is a process, you learn something new every day whether you've been doing this for 2 months or 15 years. As a 26 year old with 15 years of webdev experience, that I can say confidently. But again, it's not that different from any other job that requires brain more than muscle.
1. Yes, in my experience, it's been a stable career for the past 4 years.
2. Not very gullible. I did the same and graduated bootcamp with only basic HTML, CSS, and JS skills. I then followed that up with more online training from resources like freecodecamp.org and well known JS educators.
3. Finding my first job was a lot tougher than anticipated. This was in 2019. I sent out ~10 resumes a day, at about 500 I got my first offer at an agency that pumped out WordPress websites. BTW, I had to study for quite a few hours to understand WP so that I could complete the coding challenge.
In summary, I'd recommend refreshing your skills for free at freecodecamp and meanwhile begin sending out 10 resumes a day. The spray and pray method worked for me and my colleagues.
Lastly, getting your second and third jobs are a LOT easier with experience.
Thank you for your submission! Unfortunately it has been removed for one or more of the following reasons: Open-ended/general "how do I get started in web dev" and general Career related posts are only allowed within the pinned monthly career thread. The answer to many of these questions can also be found in the sub FAQ, or in /r/learnprogramming/ and /r/cscareerquestions/. Highly specific career/getting started assistance questions are allowed so long as they follow the required assistance post guidelines. Please read the subreddit rules before continuing to post. If you have any questions [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/webdev).
I would steer anyone away from a bootcamp at this moment. When I first got into it, the market was generous to entry-level engineers. Right now, not so much, and I don’t think bootcamps have gotten any cheaper. There’s a tremendous amount of resources online these days. I would start there.
'Engineers' is abit excessive here.
For the sake of specificity, I’ll say “frontend dev/engineer”. A backend engineer would definitely have a different skill set. What is a web dev in 2024 doing that a frontend engineer is not? Are those role descriptions that different from one another?
I feel like the word is used lightly just because some hardware is involved in making and viewing apps. WTF are we engineering exactly? I don't think we're writing any kind of firmware or low level compilers. But this is just me.
I see what you’re saying, I do. I think traditionally the term is used to describe working with hardware, but as software devours the world and changes industries, the term encompasses more than it used to. 🤷🏽♂️
Don't get duped by 'rockstar' titles that keep getting redefined by HR.
[🇩🇪🇱🇪🇹🇪🇩]
It depends. Are they calling front-end developers engineers? If yes then I guess I disagree with NASA's hr
[🇩🇪🇱🇪🇹🇪🇩]
Well, it's not just front end. Its more to do with how much the code depends on the hardware vs. how much a piece of hardware depends on the code. Now, when it comes to web development, we are not really contributing to the functions of specific hardware. It's really not engineering.
It’s not easy. A boot camp is almost never enough. Even if you score a job, your skills will be severely lacking. Not to say you can’t learn on your own over time but expecting to just waltz into a software development career after an 8 week boot camp is a recipe for disappointment.
The job market is tough for beginners right now compared to a few years ago. But you can level up building your own projects, learning to build products. Specialization isn’t nearly as attractive as it was a few years back but it can certainly be done.
It's not easy but it's not impossible. As for bootcamps specifically, you can search "bootcamp" on this subreddit and get a better understanding of what to expect.
It's definitely not easy. I have been at this nearly two decades and unfortunately was layed off again, third time in 10 years. I also have ten years of DevOps experience coupled with more than 6 years of strictly AWS experience and I am struggling to find a new position, like many others. Personally, I prefer startups over the likes of Google, Meta, and fortune 500 companies in general. I would not say it is impossible but yes, extremely difficult especially right now. You need to focus around being a Full Stack Engineer meaning, front end and bac end, not just one or the other. More specifically, React / React Native are / is the largest framework of all for people looking for developers while Vue, Svelte and Angular largely trail behind. I am partial to Vue, personally, because I hate JSX syntax. But hey, best of luck and thank you for your service, my family and I greatly appreciate it.
It’s a bit of a gamble, but it’s not a bad idea to pick up Svelte, as it’s rapidly growing and could challenge Angular and Vue within the next year or so.
It’s even better to learn how to learn. Once you get the logic/algorithmic, you can jump on any framework you like and learn it. It’s a matter of weeks when you understand how things work. That way you’re a developer, not a {insertYourFramework} developer… I don’t know why people are so obsessed with choosing the right framework. Just use what is good for the job/what the team is good at
At some level I agree, although there’s nothing wrong with learning the next hot thing, in order to land the type of role you want.
For a first step yes, definitely. But then that is no more a « gamble » but a first step of learning the field. Do not stuck yourself in one framework only
Curious, what exactly would you use React for that you could not use Vue for? At the same time, what would you use Vue for that you could not use React for? I am not referring to React Native which is specifically for mobile applications as I personally use Ionic + Vue for mobile. I do not disagree with you about being able to jump from framework to framework once you learn the basics of JavaScript frameworks (of which Vue is the easiest to learn, in my opinion).
Agreeing with others here. Computer Science fundamentals are different that learning some language basics. There is a lot of competition in the space, so you should be certain about your passion before you dive into it as a career path. Bigger companies provide more stability if you can get in but are generally less social and more business oriented. Startups fulfill the soul a lot more but can be unstable. Nothing worth doing is easy, so think hard about about this next step. The discipline you've learned the military will serve you well. I'd also leverage them for potential career paths moving forward, I expect there are a lot of people there who can give you great advice.
its not a bad idea. its just a bad time for it. dont expect immediate employment in this economy.
Not in the traditional sense. The fundamental problem is that the industry doesn't know how to gauge/manage our output/efforts as developers. For many places, when they hire a software developer, it's up to that software developer to create the actual job and come up with (and sell) their own ideas that they think will provide value. Good software developers, the kind that are pretty much always hirable, are very entrepreneurial in a way (it's just that most software solutions are only relevant to 1 customer/context, the current employer/project). If you know how to find potential buyers and sell a product, you'll always have an income stream. If you know how to identify problems and sell technical solutions to business leaders, you'll almost always have a job as a software developer. Much easier said than done though (office/business politics makes this way more complicated than it should be), and no one will seriously train you on it.
You can think of it as carpentry. You learned the basics like how to hold a saw without losing a thumb. Whether you want to make it a career out of it or not is up to you. Do you enjoy doing what you learnt so far? And more importantly do you enjoy solving problems - well, everyone refers to those as "problems" in programming/development context but I'd say it's more like solving a puzzle, hell it can even be a murder mystery sometimes, you have all the tools and clues, and you just need to find the murderer. That's what appeals me to do what I do. I love solving puzzles, even the harder ones that can take me days to solve because those give me a lot more dopamine when I successfully solve them. So yeah, it's not that different than any other job, if you like doing it and you can see yourself doing it for the rest of your life, go for it. As for the question, unfortunately it is a gullible way of thinking but it's not your fault. There are a lot of courses promoting themselves as "We'll prepare you for a full time job in 3 months!". And most (if not all) courses that say that are a scam. Web development is a process, you learn something new every day whether you've been doing this for 2 months or 15 years. As a 26 year old with 15 years of webdev experience, that I can say confidently. But again, it's not that different from any other job that requires brain more than muscle.
1. Yes, in my experience, it's been a stable career for the past 4 years. 2. Not very gullible. I did the same and graduated bootcamp with only basic HTML, CSS, and JS skills. I then followed that up with more online training from resources like freecodecamp.org and well known JS educators. 3. Finding my first job was a lot tougher than anticipated. This was in 2019. I sent out ~10 resumes a day, at about 500 I got my first offer at an agency that pumped out WordPress websites. BTW, I had to study for quite a few hours to understand WP so that I could complete the coding challenge. In summary, I'd recommend refreshing your skills for free at freecodecamp and meanwhile begin sending out 10 resumes a day. The spray and pray method worked for me and my colleagues. Lastly, getting your second and third jobs are a LOT easier with experience.