My story: how to be a web developer within two years
It is a tough journey of changing job field to a unknown, non-related one, especially in my homeland: Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is a land which emphasis on your degree a lot, most of the job ads require the candidate must have Computer Science or related degree. My major is TV broadcasting (but I am not a good writer and don’t want to work 24/7, so I never want to become a journalist or work in TV stations)
Nevertheless, I chose to become a front-end web developer in the beginning of 2017.
Hint: This article is long. View the last part for my tips and comments of how to become a web developer! :)
Why front-end web developer?
I first learnt the idea of web development when I was in primary school, as I was young, my only impression of web development is just using Dreamweaver or FrontPage (Oh, antique stuff!).
However, I forgot that until 2017.
After I graduate from university, holding a BA degree, I can only do clerk or officer or salesperson job in Hong Kong. The salary is low. At that time, I thought, “well, that’s fine, I don’t want to buy any stuff that need huge money”.
Finally, I felt tired of being officer and salesperson. At that time, I heard from friends that, even you suck at math, you can do IT jobs!
After discover, I learnt that IT field is large, there are networking, web development, IT salesperson, AI, machine learning… etc.
I decided to give it a try. I love to learn and why not? If I failed to get a new job, I can still proud of my learnt skills.
I tried web development, both front-end and back-end, because I finally remember that I have created websites when I was a child.
I learnt from everywhere, Codecademy, FreeCodeCamp, Udemy, Udacity, Coursera, eDX, Chingu (I learnt a lot from Chingu)… Finally, I followed the path of FreeCodeCamp.
After learning the basics in Codecademy, I feel that FreeCodeCamp’s structure is the most suitable one. It has projects for me to follow and the community is nice to newbies.
Finally, I chose to work with front end, as I love that I can view my results immediately and back end is too logical to me.
Joining the War (Job interviews!)
After 6 months, I created my first portfolio website which contains most of the work of my front-end works. Then, I tried to apply for any job ads that I feel I am qualified.


I feel nervous, as my math and algorithm are not good.
During interviews, I saw lots of written tests, quizzes or even whiteboard test. Most of the people were curious and asked why I want to be a front-end web developer (as tech jobs’ reputation is not good in HK).
Eventually, I got an offer in a start-up in Hong Kong, with base salary which is higher than my current job: salesperson at that time.
However, the result is not so good. I quit that job after two months, that was Aug 2017.
At rock bottom
Suddenly, I was unemployed. However, I don’t want to become salesperson again. I decided to brush up my skills and create different projects.
I used my whole day to do projects or Code War challenges (though still bad at algorithm). I got better at CSS and I felt that might be my best path.
Since I am not good at algorithm, I suddenly think that, if I master or have intermediate level of CSS, I should have higher chance of getting a job.
After few months, I got an offer from recruiting agency, which is a short-term contract that working for famous bank and help them to update their websites. The title is just “Officer”.
Learning, learning, learning
At the bank, they were using content management system (of course), so my only work is to create lots of tables, eDMs, and use some simple JavaScripts (actually is jQuery).
I felt this job hasn’t utilize my learnt skills, but during that time, I tried to improve my CSS skills again and learnt a lot from my colleagues, not just the tech skills, but also the mindset of doing things.
At the end of contract, I rushed and try to apply for a new job. I created my second version of portfolio, also my second version of weather app using React. (My first version of weather app is in codepen)


I found that it is impressive to use mock-up images in portfolio. For my website, I used smartmockup to generate mock-up images.
After applied for five jobs, I got interviews and had three interviews in one day! I got an offer of “Front-end web developer” from a small company!
… Do you think my story ends here? Not yet!
A Series of Surprises
I got an offer, that’s great. Suddenly, after that day, my manager in the bank called me and said they can extend my contract in a higher salary!
I haven’t inform my manager that I already had another offer, I said “okay, please inform me when you got the contract”.
But in my mind, it was a chaos, a war between angel and evil started. What!? Better salary than my Front-end web developer offer?!
Ultimately, I succumbed to the bank offer. The salary is extremely attractive to me. And I think, “Umm.. A year of experience in bank is not bad, right?”
After I chose to extend the contract, I got an email, which is the fourth interviews after three weeks. I thought,
“Maybe just another super-difficult written test, but why not?”
That is a well-known company worldwide, and my interviewed position is Front-end Web Developer in marketing team.
No tests, just simple interviews with easy questions, like “Why would you want to be developer?”, “Do you know React?”, “How did you do this project? (Show me my codepen project in their laptop)” blah blah blah.
At the end of interview, the manager told me that, they want to hire me, and provided a salary which is even higher than my extended contract (and even higher than my expected salary in CV).
I replied I need to consider.
Got it, finally
It is a well-known company like my current bank, the title is front-end developer, the tech stacks are what I learnt and is a perm position.
But at the same time, the colleagues in bank are extremely good and nice, I learnt a lot from them.
Here comes the war of angels and evils again.
After 2–3 days, I decided to quit my job in bank and go to the new company. As I just extended my contract for one month, my teammates was full of sorrow and this is a painful decision.
Finally, I come to the new company as a front-end web developer!
Final words and tips
Now I worked in this company for two months already, I improved my CSS skills more and more. Web developer is a tough job (especially when you need to handle IE11), but it is not impossible.
SWOT Analysis is not just for marketing, but also good for finding jobs, find out your Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats!
The most important thing is to find out your strength. When people asked, how you can defeat those CS graduates every year, you must find out your strength and answer it.
In my scenario, the answer is “I have various side projects and I did that after working in 9–6 job. I love to learn and I am a disciplined person which fits in this position”.
When your tech skills are not as good as CS graduates, your passion and the look of your portfolio are important.
Is that clean and informative? Is it responsive, looks good in both desktop and mobile? Is the colour looks good (Tips: blue is the safest one)? Is the user experience good (Don’t need to have super UX, but it is bad to have confusing menus or contents)? How about the accessibility (bonus point)?
Hint: for colours, you can use material colour or palette selector.
Most of the CS graduates are not willing to do coding for a whole day, they don’t have practical skills of creating a website and they mostly don’t have portfolios.
When you know more about yourself and the other competitors (CS graduates), you have a higher chance of success!
Hope you enjoyed my path of being a web developer! Welcome to leave your comments! :)
