A Fresh Vision and Direction: Back to Web Development

Refocusing on The Goal

I had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that sounded something like, "iOS development is too much of a risk, you should switch back to web development to land your first job by your goal (of January 2022)." I wanted to talk to somebody to see if that though had merit or was simply an overcautious evaluation. I was able to connect with someone from my church who had taught a handful of web development bootcamps and has been working in tech for around 10 years. This was my opportunity to flesh out my doubts--would iOS be too niche or hard to break into as my first tech job? "Would you recommend trying to get my first development job in iOS or in web development?" is the question I asked my new-found friend with the inside scoop. They encouraged me to go with front-end web development for my first tech job. Here's why...

Why The Switch Back to Web Development

I said so long to landing that first developer job as an iOS developer for these reasons that my experienced friend walked me through:

  1. There are more front-end web development jobs than iOS development jobs
  2. Web development teams tend to be larger than iOS teams, so a beginner developer will have more support from a larger team
  3. iOS development requires a higher level of programing skills when compared to web development
  4. I have already invested months in learning web development and staying with web development would make sure I could build on my existing skills

This encouraged me that the best path forward to land a job by my deadline was, actually, web development. I also have been recognizing how important it is for me to get my first job with a company that has a good sized team. That way I can learn from the team and grow as a developer because of having a lot of support.

The New Strategy

 I've heard this a couple of times, but this time I did it. Friends, YouTubers, and bloggers have all recommended this specific strategy. Look up job postings for the kind of job you want to get and then make a list of what requirements they all have in common. After you do that, figure out how to go from where you are now and then learn all the skills those job postings are asking for. Now that I've made a master list of the languages, frameworks, tools, etc., of job posting requirements and I have started making my own road map (or syllabus if you wanna feel like you're in college again). I've been finding resources to learn different skills and then working through them, one at a time, until I feel like I can move on to the next thing. It's all about balance now--making sure I understand concepts well, but not loosing too much time trying to perfect everything along the way. Now that I've established a new approach, the only thing left to do is to learn all the right skills, build up my portfolio, and then land a job as a front-end web developer. Piece of cake.

Tim David




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Confronting Busyness

 Accepting Busyness I've been able to up the hours I'm putting into coding. I've been surpassing 6 hours a week pretty consistently. I'm proud to nearly double what I was putting in before. However, my hope to code on the weekends continues to be unrealized. The realities of being a responsible adult keep catching up with me on the weekend and coding keeps getting dropped in the juggling act. And that's okay. My goal is ambitious, but my current job is flexible. If I need another month (or two) before I've got the skills needed to land a job I'm really wanting, they will work with me. I'm really glad to have that kind of buffer, especially now that learning everything come January looks less and less realistic every week that goes by. Streamlining Processes I'm getting better at recognizing when I've hit a wall and then changing my approach to break through that wall. I'm in the midst of building a to do list web app and there's a lot of
Read more

My Coding Journey: Part 2

 The Pivot Sometimes you have your head down for a long time and you really need to come up for air. That's what I realized in April. I was on this fairly straightforward path of becoming a web developer (see the previous post) but I had committed to this path before I understood programming enough to consider a variety of options. I decided to take a short break and come up for air, smell the roses, and talk to people. I started talking to friends and friends-of-friends who are currently working in tech. I asked them how they got into tech and if they had any advice for a self-taught programmer. This was very helpful at this stage since I had been programming for a few months now and could actually understand a lot of the jargon my friends ended up throwing around. And this gave me some perspective. The Perspective Being able to talk to friends in the tech industry was super helpful and I also returned to YouTube for a few hours (not all at once). I had come to this realization wh
Read more

My Coding Journey: Part 1

 The Decision Any good story has an interesting beginning, and I like to think my story does. I had just graduated from Colorado State University with my B.S. in Psychology. I applied for jobs left, right, and center (I'm looking at you Indeed). I ended up getting a few offers, but nothing I actually wanted to do--either the pay was to low or I could clean carpets, so no thanks. I decided I was done with school and I wanted to find something that would pay well and also be interesting to do. I ended up landing on learning to code as I considered my various options. I have been a little bit of a tech hobbyist--trying different Linux distros, following the latest devices in tech, that kind of thing. So I decided to give it a low-stakes investigation. After all, if I hated it, I could just dip and then figure something else out instead. The Path I ended up watching a lot of YouTube videos to figure out how the hecking hey to teach yourself how to tell dumb computers to do smart things
Read more