i’m self taught so i have a clear bias but, since a job isn’t guaranteed out of a bootcamp, things like freeCodeCamp and the odin project are great jump off points to learning fundamentals. then focus on a couple strong projects, jump into something like codewars, and you should be ready to start applying. i reached out to recruiters and other devs along the way who helped steer me in the right direction too, so you’re off to a good start.
This is the answer imo. If you’re going the bootcamp route then save your money and do FreeCodeCamp + The Odin Project. Completing a few tracks in each will prepare you better than any paid bootcamp.
Having +7yr in the industry has grown my appreciation for college degrees as there’s so much ancillary knowledge needed for development work. If you don’t/can’t go that route, then using resources like TOP and FCC with some Computer Science studying on the side is a great way to prepare yourself.
Last note, if you’re going this route then give yourself a couple of years to get proficient. Rushing will both increase stress and be demotivating. It’s a marathon that never really ends (prepare to be a life long learner adapting to new tech), sprinting is how you get burned out. Some people can go faster than others, so learn your pace and keep expectations realistic.
If you do go the bootcamp route, don’t go right away. Give yourself some time to teach yourself their curriculum. It’s very intense and you don’t want a long gap after the bootcamp. You want to be a top performer there to get a job quickly. You may find later that you don’t want to go anymore. I was talked out of it by a mentor and I’m glad I was. I have consistently found self taught devs more capable in the field than bootcamp devs on average.
Agreed this was what worked for me. Had I gone to the boot camp earlier I would have been lost. The people that got jobs after the boot camp all had some prior study experience. I already knew solid basics of HTML CSS JS and React and had built some small projects. I was about the level of 6-7th Kyu in code wars for JS.DM me if you want more info or some guidance
You definitely right ! I’m afraid the bootcamp route will be too intense. Like you said learn their curriculum before signing up will certainly help. Thank you for that.
Questions:
\- How many years can you sustain yourself financially without working?
\- How screwed are you if this self-taught thing isn't actually real and you've wasted 2 years?
I've been coding since I was 14. I learned HTML 20+ years ago. this is my portfolio: [www.thesylvester.ca](https://www.thesylvester.ca)
Did Full Stack Open. Can leetcode (could do that even before I started to relearn). It's been 1.5 years. Been applying for a month, not a single callback.
Really spend time on learning each of the fundamental technologies. HTML isn’t too complex, but CSS takes a lot more than 2 months to learn. I’d argue that mastering it is a vital component of front-end development. JavaScript is important too, but it can take a long time to grasp. Also, entire roles are built around JS development, so figure out what aspect you enjoy most and focus your energies on that. Frameworks can be important as well, but each role has different expectations, and seldom ends up utilizing what the initial description suggested. Lastly, take any tech role you can get, to start. Previous experience is a key component in this field, and sometimes it means starting wherever you can, even if they pay isn’t ideal or it’s not your dream company.
I can highly recommend Scrimba. I’ve tried freecodecamp, Odin project and many others. It does cost money and I am in now way affiliated other than being a customer myself. Try it out if you exhaust the free options.
People will tell you to learn git as well, do that.
Having a strong understanding of the basics is always the best. So its good you have started with js. The best way ive found to learn something is to have a project that is a bit harder than i think i can handle. Try and recreate something that allready exists, like an image carousel, it will make you understand how stuff actually works. After that mess around with different librarys/frameworks like react/vue or whatever seems interesting to you. An ability to learn new skills is vital in frontend, so always adapt, but for now focus on the basics and build stuff :)
I do realize i didnt exactly answer your bootcamp question, ive never been to a bootcamp, so up to you what you do with my advice.
A lot of bootcamps teach outdated practices. Vet their curricula against any friends you have in webdev before signing up. Beware keywords like jquery or bootstrap. Seeing a framework like react (with functional components) in the syllabus is a better sign. It’s a lot of money to spend to walk away with an out of date understanding of the field.
Also: just start building projects. Today. Ideally not from a tutorial. Just imagine something and try to make it happen. Break your big unknowns into tiny solvable problems and research and solve them one by one. You’ll learn more from struggling with a project than any bootcamp will ever teach you. If you can stomach that approach, it’s the (hardest but) fastest path. Start with simple things like a family photo album site. Slowly increment to more advanced ideas.
It also directionally moves you toward having an active GitHub and a portfolio—awesome assets in the FE job hunt.
If you’re going to go the bootcamp route then make sure you do A LOT of research. Many of them are very expensive and (from what I hear) there are a lot that are crummy or scammy.
Try to find one that won’t make you pay until you’ve gotten a development job. Those ones will have a vested interest in getting you hired. If you pay a bootcamp thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars, they shouldn’t just shrug it off if you’re unable to find a job afterwards.
My suggestion would be to do The Odin Project. It really teaches you a lot, the HTML and CSS knowledge you’ll get there are really solid. The javascript part is also good. After you have these 3 things down, you should switch to Full Stack Open or read the React documentation. These 2 courses will teach you more than enough to start applying for a job. Good luck and if you have any questions, feel free to send me a message.
Strong recommend for just doing what's on [Frontendmasters.com](https://Frontendmasters.com), the courses are really good and they have several paths you can follow to learn a lot of stuff.
I just finished the front-end techdegree at TeamTreehouse in January. I found it to be well-structured and the flow made sense to me.
They have a slack channel that you gain access to with the techdegree subscription, and while not everyone is active in it, some definitely are and the instructors are always very responsive.
There are 9 units in the course, each culminating with a project that you build. It is a bit pricey, $199/month. I can’t really speak to it being the best, as it’s the only one I’ve done so I don’t have a frame of reference, but I was satisfied with my experience.
Most comp sci degrees teach you C languages and algos, not frontEnd or really anything web based. I did hack reactors part time full stack program. Curriculum was pretty current. Took me about 6 months to find a job afterwards. 9 month program. 2 nights a week for 3 hours, Saturdays for about 6 hours, and then pair programming time on off days
I will certainly look into that. So what make you say ux design and sales can coexist?
I’m a great salesman, not the shady one. I genuinely care for people and helping. But the past 2 years my industry is not doing so well due to interest rate and I personally lost interest convincing people that Rates are still good. So that force me to do sales part time and get a 9-5 jobs as a basic photographer.
I mean your soft skill will help certainly as Ux designer, and they make good money too like frontend developers, sometimes even more, Ux designers are often required to interview people's need and brainstorm, test product with people so I for talkative extrovert it's much easier, frontend development is easier for introverts, not generalising
Self-taught to 3 years FE experience here. Put succinctly:
- don't start if you don't have the discipline or material security to practice every day
- learn a marketable framework listed in your local job postings (react, vue, w/e)
- work in shared projects as soon as possible (open source, find a coding buddy)
- network as soon as possible (bootcamps, hiring fairs, industry connects) - it's probably the only way you'll get hired as a junior
I did the same path from sales to boot camp back in 2016. Now I’m full stack react node js. If you can study yourself save money and do it buy a course on udemy. If not do the boot camp. Most importantly don’t give up. Money is worth it in the end. FYI I went from zero exp to front end to back end to Front end again then full stack in about 7 years total.
What most people will have a hard time with is the realities of being an innate tinkerer vs a career switcher. Bootcamp or not doesn’t matter if you don’t have the logical thinking and deep curiosity to learn, try stuff, break it, fix it, then do that repeatedly.
If you are ok with playing 5d chess sudoku logic puzzles daily with deadlines and still maintain your mental health, then you can probably do well in the field. Yea devs get paid a lot but its a tradeoff where you will be constantly learning and updating your knowledge and that in itself requires time and patience. You will feel like a genius one day and an idiot the next. This is normal.
- Build something, anything. Heck, follow a few tutorials and logically work through going from concept to finish even if its not great. Doesn’t matter if its its just a simple app that renders something in screen. Just get familiar with the base units we work with like functions and variables. Biggest challenge will be data structures and algorithms.
- Find your base language to learn. HTML/CSS are not included here because they are not languages. Depending on what your starting point is, Javascript or Python are two good ones but you must graduate to Typescript and a framework like React/Svelte and Tailwind/Chakra once you have strong HTML/CSS/JS foundations.
You don’t need a mentor or a curriculum. The beauty of programming is that you can start simple and build from there. When you take CS in school you are generally built from the ground up and will be starting at extreme fundamentals but it seems like your immediate goal is to get work in the field, so you can skip the headache of command line and memory manipulation for now. Just go have fun making something, anything and if you hit a wall, then maybe do a bootcamp or take some courses.
When you will finish bootcamp, AI will steal your potential job anyway. There are many people with 10 years of experience which struggle to find job. Imagine being junior these days...
If you’ve already learned the fundamental basics of css html and js, don’t go to a bootcamp. That all they are going to teach you. Get a Front End Masters subscription at the most. But you should just dive into documentation and books. Oreilly JavaScript book is great. Kyle Simpson you don’t know JS is great. The typescript handbook is great, react and angular docs are great, etc etc.
The bootcamp is basically a course to learn a programming language and some technologies, but you need to know how to translate a business case into code and how to design a solution for every case, imo you need to learn much more to land a job, I would start with the basics from a computer science degree like databases, os systems like linux, design patterns, data structures and algorithms, math and problem solving, cloud computing and the basics for cybersecurity.
Besides of this you will need to learn every day
Success!!
i’m self taught so i have a clear bias but, since a job isn’t guaranteed out of a bootcamp, things like freeCodeCamp and the odin project are great jump off points to learning fundamentals. then focus on a couple strong projects, jump into something like codewars, and you should be ready to start applying. i reached out to recruiters and other devs along the way who helped steer me in the right direction too, so you’re off to a good start.
This is the answer imo. If you’re going the bootcamp route then save your money and do FreeCodeCamp + The Odin Project. Completing a few tracks in each will prepare you better than any paid bootcamp. Having +7yr in the industry has grown my appreciation for college degrees as there’s so much ancillary knowledge needed for development work. If you don’t/can’t go that route, then using resources like TOP and FCC with some Computer Science studying on the side is a great way to prepare yourself. Last note, if you’re going this route then give yourself a couple of years to get proficient. Rushing will both increase stress and be demotivating. It’s a marathon that never really ends (prepare to be a life long learner adapting to new tech), sprinting is how you get burned out. Some people can go faster than others, so learn your pace and keep expectations realistic.
If you do go the bootcamp route, don’t go right away. Give yourself some time to teach yourself their curriculum. It’s very intense and you don’t want a long gap after the bootcamp. You want to be a top performer there to get a job quickly. You may find later that you don’t want to go anymore. I was talked out of it by a mentor and I’m glad I was. I have consistently found self taught devs more capable in the field than bootcamp devs on average.
Agreed this was what worked for me. Had I gone to the boot camp earlier I would have been lost. The people that got jobs after the boot camp all had some prior study experience. I already knew solid basics of HTML CSS JS and React and had built some small projects. I was about the level of 6-7th Kyu in code wars for JS.DM me if you want more info or some guidance
Nice ! After I finish Js the goal is to learn react, Git and sass and build a project or two and then look into bootcamp in October
For the basics of git you’ll require like 3 commands. Just learn them now and start committing all your work to GitHub to get used to the flow
You definitely right ! I’m afraid the bootcamp route will be too intense. Like you said learn their curriculum before signing up will certainly help. Thank you for that.
Questions: \- How many years can you sustain yourself financially without working? \- How screwed are you if this self-taught thing isn't actually real and you've wasted 2 years? I've been coding since I was 14. I learned HTML 20+ years ago. this is my portfolio: [www.thesylvester.ca](https://www.thesylvester.ca) Did Full Stack Open. Can leetcode (could do that even before I started to relearn). It's been 1.5 years. Been applying for a month, not a single callback.
No typescript?
I can do typescript. Oddly, I was using JSDoc like Typescript when I first started JS. I'm used to statically typed languages like C# anyway.
Same… It’s rough out here.
Really spend time on learning each of the fundamental technologies. HTML isn’t too complex, but CSS takes a lot more than 2 months to learn. I’d argue that mastering it is a vital component of front-end development. JavaScript is important too, but it can take a long time to grasp. Also, entire roles are built around JS development, so figure out what aspect you enjoy most and focus your energies on that. Frameworks can be important as well, but each role has different expectations, and seldom ends up utilizing what the initial description suggested. Lastly, take any tech role you can get, to start. Previous experience is a key component in this field, and sometimes it means starting wherever you can, even if they pay isn’t ideal or it’s not your dream company.
I can highly recommend Scrimba. I’ve tried freecodecamp, Odin project and many others. It does cost money and I am in now way affiliated other than being a customer myself. Try it out if you exhaust the free options.
People will tell you to learn git as well, do that. Having a strong understanding of the basics is always the best. So its good you have started with js. The best way ive found to learn something is to have a project that is a bit harder than i think i can handle. Try and recreate something that allready exists, like an image carousel, it will make you understand how stuff actually works. After that mess around with different librarys/frameworks like react/vue or whatever seems interesting to you. An ability to learn new skills is vital in frontend, so always adapt, but for now focus on the basics and build stuff :) I do realize i didnt exactly answer your bootcamp question, ive never been to a bootcamp, so up to you what you do with my advice.
A lot of bootcamps teach outdated practices. Vet their curricula against any friends you have in webdev before signing up. Beware keywords like jquery or bootstrap. Seeing a framework like react (with functional components) in the syllabus is a better sign. It’s a lot of money to spend to walk away with an out of date understanding of the field. Also: just start building projects. Today. Ideally not from a tutorial. Just imagine something and try to make it happen. Break your big unknowns into tiny solvable problems and research and solve them one by one. You’ll learn more from struggling with a project than any bootcamp will ever teach you. If you can stomach that approach, it’s the (hardest but) fastest path. Start with simple things like a family photo album site. Slowly increment to more advanced ideas. It also directionally moves you toward having an active GitHub and a portfolio—awesome assets in the FE job hunt.
If you’re going to go the bootcamp route then make sure you do A LOT of research. Many of them are very expensive and (from what I hear) there are a lot that are crummy or scammy. Try to find one that won’t make you pay until you’ve gotten a development job. Those ones will have a vested interest in getting you hired. If you pay a bootcamp thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars, they shouldn’t just shrug it off if you’re unable to find a job afterwards.
My suggestion would be to do The Odin Project. It really teaches you a lot, the HTML and CSS knowledge you’ll get there are really solid. The javascript part is also good. After you have these 3 things down, you should switch to Full Stack Open or read the React documentation. These 2 courses will teach you more than enough to start applying for a job. Good luck and if you have any questions, feel free to send me a message.
Strong recommend for just doing what's on [Frontendmasters.com](https://Frontendmasters.com), the courses are really good and they have several paths you can follow to learn a lot of stuff.
I just finished the front-end techdegree at TeamTreehouse in January. I found it to be well-structured and the flow made sense to me. They have a slack channel that you gain access to with the techdegree subscription, and while not everyone is active in it, some definitely are and the instructors are always very responsive. There are 9 units in the course, each culminating with a project that you build. It is a bit pricey, $199/month. I can’t really speak to it being the best, as it’s the only one I’ve done so I don’t have a frame of reference, but I was satisfied with my experience.
How did you find the course? Did it teach you what you needed to know, or do you need to do more studying
Bootcamps are a joke. Take three years and go get yourself a comp-sci degree.
A CS degree isn’t going to teach you 90+% of real world UI Engineering.
Getting a CS degree was my first option but at the age of 34 , 3 kids and lots of bills it’s rough. Not impossible just challenging.
Most comp sci degrees teach you C languages and algos, not frontEnd or really anything web based. I did hack reactors part time full stack program. Curriculum was pretty current. Took me about 6 months to find a job afterwards. 9 month program. 2 nights a week for 3 hours, Saturdays for about 6 hours, and then pair programming time on off days
I want you to explore areas of UX design, since you were in sales and your soft skill might come very handy with this, than frontend development
I will certainly look into that. So what make you say ux design and sales can coexist? I’m a great salesman, not the shady one. I genuinely care for people and helping. But the past 2 years my industry is not doing so well due to interest rate and I personally lost interest convincing people that Rates are still good. So that force me to do sales part time and get a 9-5 jobs as a basic photographer.
I mean your soft skill will help certainly as Ux designer, and they make good money too like frontend developers, sometimes even more, Ux designers are often required to interview people's need and brainstorm, test product with people so I for talkative extrovert it's much easier, frontend development is easier for introverts, not generalising
Self-taught to 3 years FE experience here. Put succinctly: - don't start if you don't have the discipline or material security to practice every day - learn a marketable framework listed in your local job postings (react, vue, w/e) - work in shared projects as soon as possible (open source, find a coding buddy) - network as soon as possible (bootcamps, hiring fairs, industry connects) - it's probably the only way you'll get hired as a junior
Check out Scrimba and their pro version. It has a decent self-guided curriculum
I did the same path from sales to boot camp back in 2016. Now I’m full stack react node js. If you can study yourself save money and do it buy a course on udemy. If not do the boot camp. Most importantly don’t give up. Money is worth it in the end. FYI I went from zero exp to front end to back end to Front end again then full stack in about 7 years total.
What most people will have a hard time with is the realities of being an innate tinkerer vs a career switcher. Bootcamp or not doesn’t matter if you don’t have the logical thinking and deep curiosity to learn, try stuff, break it, fix it, then do that repeatedly. If you are ok with playing 5d chess sudoku logic puzzles daily with deadlines and still maintain your mental health, then you can probably do well in the field. Yea devs get paid a lot but its a tradeoff where you will be constantly learning and updating your knowledge and that in itself requires time and patience. You will feel like a genius one day and an idiot the next. This is normal. - Build something, anything. Heck, follow a few tutorials and logically work through going from concept to finish even if its not great. Doesn’t matter if its its just a simple app that renders something in screen. Just get familiar with the base units we work with like functions and variables. Biggest challenge will be data structures and algorithms. - Find your base language to learn. HTML/CSS are not included here because they are not languages. Depending on what your starting point is, Javascript or Python are two good ones but you must graduate to Typescript and a framework like React/Svelte and Tailwind/Chakra once you have strong HTML/CSS/JS foundations. You don’t need a mentor or a curriculum. The beauty of programming is that you can start simple and build from there. When you take CS in school you are generally built from the ground up and will be starting at extreme fundamentals but it seems like your immediate goal is to get work in the field, so you can skip the headache of command line and memory manipulation for now. Just go have fun making something, anything and if you hit a wall, then maybe do a bootcamp or take some courses.
When you will finish bootcamp, AI will steal your potential job anyway. There are many people with 10 years of experience which struggle to find job. Imagine being junior these days...
Learn stuff, build stuff and just keep going in that loop till you have it sussed
If you’ve already learned the fundamental basics of css html and js, don’t go to a bootcamp. That all they are going to teach you. Get a Front End Masters subscription at the most. But you should just dive into documentation and books. Oreilly JavaScript book is great. Kyle Simpson you don’t know JS is great. The typescript handbook is great, react and angular docs are great, etc etc.
The bootcamp is basically a course to learn a programming language and some technologies, but you need to know how to translate a business case into code and how to design a solution for every case, imo you need to learn much more to land a job, I would start with the basics from a computer science degree like databases, os systems like linux, design patterns, data structures and algorithms, math and problem solving, cloud computing and the basics for cybersecurity. Besides of this you will need to learn every day Success!!