Getting Your First Job As a Web Developer
You’ve done it! You’ve learned to code Javascript! Through a BootCamp, a University Course, an online Website, or even Osmosis! Superb job by the way!
Now, to land the first job. Do you run straight to Google/Facebook/Microsoft and try to have them employ your talents? If not, who should you be looking at to hire you? Who would let you into an interview to begin with? Who would trust you, a budding Developer, with their project?
Question 1: Who?
Anyone who will have you.
You can’t afford to be picky at your first Development gig. Apply to as many Junior level jobs as you can of course, but be aware that it’s often easier to get into a Company’s door if you have a few actual, honest-to-god, working websites under your belt. For this purpose asking your friends and family if they have anything you can build for them, even if it’s pro bono, is sometimes the best option at this stage.
Sure, you don’t have to start off coding up a Website for your Husband’s 90 year old Grandmother’s pipe-dream flower business, but to be honest if you did, it’s a start, right? The trick is that no matter how arbitrary you think the work is, it’s important to showcase your skills. Be bold in the design phase. Try new things that you’ve never done before. If it doesn’t work for the site, you could always scrap it, but it’s beneficial because you’ll learn from it.
Think of yourself as a Band. Let’s call your band Crazy Wolf Pelt. Crazy Wolf Pelt just started out on the scene. Your band is pretty good, so you run up to the best damn venue in town, aptly titled, The Club, and announce that you would like to perform there. After a sick audition(man, can you shred!) you find out that they require at least 3 references so that they can judge you outside of the one performance. Turns out there’s more to being a headliner than just making good music, you have to be respectful to the staff, the venue itself, and the fans.
This is the same way that Employers from a larger Tech company will look at you. So churn out some Projects! Build that Portfolio! Get a gig!
Question 2: When?
Now. Right now.
You don’t need to be a prolific master of HTML, JavaScript,and CSS to create web pages, so quit acting like you don’t know what you’re doing. Anything you have questions on you will be able to Google.
Before your first job/job interview I would suggest that you brush up on the basics if you’re rusty. This includes the general layout tags of a web page and simple CSS. You should understand:
CSS:
- CSS Animation
- Bootstrap/Foundation
- Gridding out your page into columns and rows(manually)
- “::after and ::before” Pseudoelements.
Front-End JavaScript:
- The DOM
- Libraries(JQuery, Vue, React, Angular)
- AJAX/Promises
- OOP Prototypical Inheritance
Back-End JavaScript:
- The MEAN Stack
- How to create a Rest API
- How to use NPM
PHP/MySQL:
- Simple form submission
- SQL management
The above can be taken with a caveat. If you’re starting out as a Front-End Developer and not a Back-End or Full Stack Developer, you can ignore the last two lists, but in that case you may want to be sure that your CSS and Mark-Up skills are rather strong.
I currently work with a Developer who started out his Web Development career utilizing a CMS(Content Management System) platform, and as far as I can gather he used very little CSS at that time. Granted, this individual is incredibly gifted and intelligent, but it does prove that you don’t need to delve into anything more than the basics to begin, as long as you have something supplementing your work and are willing to learn(and learn quickly!) on the job.
Question 3: How?
Improve performance in your current Business, or reach out to those looking for assistance.
I mention above how my co-worker, a Degree holding Mechanical/Electrical engineer got started in Web Development.
How I started out was vastly different, and in a way it took a lot longer for people to take me seriously.
I’ve been involved with programming one way or another my entire life(since I was 11, and I’m 27 now). However, a year after graduating High School I attempted to go to College for Computer Science, but I literally wasn’t allowed to get any loans because(and this is entirely true) my parents made too much money. Funny. They were actually broke because the bulk of their money was tied up in their debt. Ironically, they assumed that I should be able to afford school on my own with Financial Loans from the Government. See the paradox there? In this way I had no College fund to fall back on and no way to get assistance, so I wasn’t able to go.
For the next 5 years I took whatever jobs I could find(ranging from Gas Station Attendant to Call Center Employee), and here’s the point, you might be wondering how someone like me who was denied a formal education actually managed to become a Professional Web Developer. The answer is simple: I solved problems with code. At every Company I ever worked at, I would look at what they had for systems, and I would look for ways to streamline the process.
Everyone is lazy. I’ll repeat that for those in the back. Everyone. Is. Lazy. What do I mean by that? Do I mean that everyone works 9–5 and doesn’t go to the gym afterward? No, I mean that if something has to be done, people would prefer to do it using the simplest and most efficient method possible. This is especially true with Businesses because it saves them money.
How easy is it to locate something you can improve? Well, Businesses always have out-of-date software in at least one section of their Company, but typically it’s a rampant problem. I’ve done things with IBM Databases, GUI Macros, Batch Installations, Desktop Applications, Data Stores, etc. There shouldn’t be any problem finding something to improve. There’s a whole world out there with IT Departments that are behind in their work. If you need to, ask somebody if they’ve had any technical problems, and create a fix yourself.
Basically if at any point you can convince your Boss that you have a way that will cutback on time spent doing anything, you will immediately garner interest and attention.
That is how I found my Clients, and I would suggest doing the same if you have the opportunity. It has landed me many things. My own Department, a team of Developers, Recognition, and of course, most important to some of you, an increase in compensation.
Be active in your pursuit of your dream even if it feels more comfortable to be complacent.
Even if the list above doesn’t particularly benefit you, there are a billion resources out there in helping you to get started.
Happy coding!
