how long were you coding before getting a job?

[claire2013]

Hi everyone,

I’ve had pretty embarrassing jobs in the last 7 years. I have no college degree and no relevant work experience. I recently picked up front-end dev as a hobby and I would love to have a career doing this. I’m not too confident in my skills yet and find that I’m getting stuck learning on my own. I think having a job would help me lots in the learning game.

How long were you coding before getting your first job? I would really like to hear from people who had no coding experience whatsoever.

Also, what should be shown in my portfolio before presenting it to potential employers?

[shaneisme]

I was coding on the side for 8 years for fun making awful websites or modifying WordPress templates or so before I got a job and found out how little I knew.

This was after taking 2 years of a CS degree before having to drop out. Learning on the job is fantastic, but you’ve gotta find an entry level gig which is quite difficult without school – but they’re out there. Typically for entry level positions they ask for the degree OR relevant work experience.

Just keep at it, the resources that are available now are mind blowing. It’s way more complicated now, so it might be hard to find a place to start so try everything and see what sticks.

As for portfolio, I’m not sure… it depends on the job I suppose.

I did hire an entry level place at my last workplace and I just made sure they could read code and see what was wrong with a website if I told them what I wanted like a designer would. Maybe you’ll get lucky with that :)

[Anonymous]

I’ve been coding for almost 2 years and haven’t bothered getting a job yet because i knew i wasn’t ready. Now i feel ready and am actually building my own portfolio site so that i have something to show during an interview. Once you feel comfortable with HTML, CSS, and javascript or jQuery you should be ready to start. You dont have to know everything about the languages.

[claire2013]

Thanks everyone.

I was actually looking for coding schools, but I’m not sure how much that will help me and heard a lot of them were rip offs.

I still need time to work on my Javascript and Jquery before applying for a job. I’m getting there slowly but surely.

[nixnerd]

Once you feel comfortable with HTML, CSS, and javascript or jQuery you should be ready to start. You dont have to know everything about the languages.

This COULD NOT be more true. No one I know, knows it all. No one. Sure, you have a toolkit that you use every day to build things, but you’ll always come across something you don’t know. Good thing there’s awesome documentation out there for free! And, once you push through something really hard for you… you collect a new tool for your kit. After literally just a few months of DILIGENTLY coding every day… you can get REALLY good. After a few years… you’ll be amazing. Just don’t compromise with yourself. Make sure to touch code every day. Even on the weekends. Just build things, break things, play with things, hack things. You’ll get good fast.

[claire2013]

Thanks Joe! That makes a lot of sense and I feel way more confident in myself now. I def hit those marks where I’m not too sure of my skills and myself as a developer. This is something I’m going to accept and understand ;p

[Alan C]

I was coding for fun and very very little profit for about 9ish years before graduating college and landing a job as a developer with that same college.

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