How To Choose Your “Specialist Tech Stack” (and What I Recommend)

Are you learning to code or ready to level up your career? Here’s how to choose your “specialist tech stack,” plus what I use myself.

How do you choose which tools to master as a frontend engineer? Here’s the deal. Photo: Irvan Smith, Unsplash

My #1 tip for landing a great software engineering job is that you need real-world experience with the tech stack you’ll be using in that job.

That means, the first step in learning how to code — or leveling up your career — is deciding on the tech stack that you want to specialize in.

Then, you learn it one piece at a time.

For “frontend” engineering, also called “UI/UX” or “web” development, I’m going to take you through my own tech stack, as listed on my resume.

But don’t worry if you’re more interested in “full-stack” engineering, “backend,” “data engineering,” or any other field — the wisdom I’ll share with you in this article will still apply.

Here’s what I’m going to tell you.

I will start by listing the major categories of skills and technologies, as you may find that’s an easy way to determine your “passions.”

That’s because these “areas of expertise” and “key skills” are things that might help a hiring manager skim your resume…