Thinking of Becoming a Web Developer? It’s not as Easy as it Looks
2024/04/30
One of my biggest gripes of being a web developer is that most people think it’s super easy to do. So easy in fact that after going through a “bootcamp” or feeling that you have taught yourself enough to become confident in web development. They’ll have a prosperous career. When that really isn’t the truth and while I’m not saying it isn’t doable. It’ll take more thank a few nights and weekends to get to a point where you’ll be confident enough to deliver a quality product in the end. So here are a few pointers to go by if you are thinking of becoming a web developer.
Frameworks are nice and all, but not a good starting point
Angular, Laravel, React. Yeah they’re all popular frameworks, but they all output these three things. HTML, CSS and javascript and while it’s easy to just skip over these three things. Don’t. HTML, CSS and javascript are pretty universal across the web when it comes to building things. With most popular frameworks outputting those three things. Now do you have spend a ton of time learning those three things. No, but it’s kinda like trying to bake a cake without knowing what all the ingredients do and knowing how they work will make you that much better of a developer in the end.
Every Project is controlled by Time or Money
When you’re going through a coding bootcamp or learning things here and there on your own. It’s super easy to think you’ll be able to do all the fancy and shiny things you want to do and have all the time to do so, but that’s not the case. Most every project I’ve been apart of has had either a money or time constraint. I.e. you’ll have to judicious in how much flare you can put into a project and some projects may end up being bland. And being aware of how money time and money you’ve spent on a project will allow you bring up the issue of when you’re beginning to run out of either or both with the appropriate people on your team.
Deliver things on time and as expected
A couple things I’ve found true time and time again is. If you’re looking to become, at least, a decent developer. Deliver things on time regardless of whether you told your client, project manager, whomever or you have a date to hit. And if you know you won’t be able to hit a target. Tell them with much advance as possible so things can be adjusted as needed. Another is deliver things as expected and to the design you are provided. It’s easy to “work quick and break things” and let others point things out to you that don’t match the design or tell yourself that you’ll come back to things later. Take time to finish things out and it’s much easier to finish things out as you go along vs having to come back to things. You either won’t have the time or you’ll forget how you did something and you’ll have to relearn how you did said thing.
In the End
If you’re looking to become a web developer. By all means. Please give it a try, but please don’t assume that because you’ve taken a bootcamp course or picked up a few things over time you’ll be ready to take on any project. It’ll take a while to find your first job and learn the other things that make web development work. And learning the other things takes time. I’ve been in web development for over 14 years now and I still don’t have everything figured out.