Looking for Career Advice…

[kentvandelay]

Sorry this got quite long but I would appreciate any opinions on my situation as it’s getting me frustrated about my career path.

I’ve been in the web industry for about 11 years. I feel like I’ve just become a jack of all trades, apparently that’s bad these days.

Here is a summary of my past roles…

Web Developer Intern
Editing customer site content, eventually design thru html, then integration with ancient CMS systems
(Photoshop, html/css, some js, some asp, some php, some mysql)

Web Developer
Hired on full time from the above. Designing and basic coding of client sites.
(Photoshop, html/css, js, asp, php, mysql)

Web Developer / Designer
Essentially the old “in house webmaster” role. Everything from design to launch of internal and external sites for a single organization.
(Photoshop, html/css, js, asp, php, mysql, sql, sharepoint, asp.net/C#)

Freelance
One person freelance shop creating client sites in php or WordPress.
(Photoshop, Illustrator, html/css, js, asp, php, mysql, WordPress)

The pattern I’m in is, learn the language/tool as you go, enough to get the job done, then move along to the next.

I don’t have a background in computer science, just a 4 year degree in design with a “web emphasis”. Essentially, that meant about 4 classes on php/html, css, layout…

Looking at job postings, it feels like the past 11 years of my career has been for nothing and I’m feeling vastly under-qualified since I didn’t focus early on.

I try and make myself at least aware of all languages, frameworks, tools and such but learning them all seems like it would be impossible. (Yet required on many job postings…)

Is anyone looking to hire someone like me? I guess the term would be semi-full-stack developer? :)

[__]

I feel like I’ve just become a jack of all trades, apparently that’s bad these days.

Well, it’s not that “doing it all” is bad in and of itself. Many times, the problem is that you may have been “doing it all” to the point where you have a wide range of skills, but not enough in-depth knowledge in any particular area to seriously impress people.

I try and make myself at least aware of all languages, frameworks, tools and such but learning them all seems like it would be impossible. (Yet required on many job postings…)

Being aware of as much as possible is a good thing, but, again, you need to have more than “working knowledge” in at least one area. Another thing you’ll notice is that, after “specializing” in two or three areas, is that everything else will become easier to learn as well.

For example, there may be a dozen programming languages that people want you to know, and when you can only copy+paste they all seem hopelessly disparate. Once you become fairly competent and experienced with one or two, however, you’ll start to see that they’re all more alike than different.

The pattern I’m in is, learn the language/tool as you go, enough to get the job done, then move along to the next.

That sounds like the problem, to me. I couldn’t know, of course, without knowing your work, but the way you’ve described it sounds like you’re more of a “production mode” person than a “developer” or “programmer.” And no, if you’re in “production mode” all the time, then you won’t have a chance to spend time really learning anything else.

[kentvandelay]

Thank you for the reply traq, I really appreciate it

[TheDoc]

I’d start by picking a really fundamental side of the coin: do you want to be a front-end developer or a back-end developer? While both sides share some common skills, they are at the heart of themselves different. I, for example, am a front-end developer. My skills focus primarily on HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It is my job to master those three technologies. I’m also comfortable with PHP (one of those ‘both sides’ technologies) and have dabbled with SQL and Ruby.

Looking at job postings, it feels like the past 11 years of my career has been for nothing and I’m feeling vastly under-qualified since I didn’t focus early on.

If you’re looking at job postings that require a degree then the company doesn’t know any better. The majority of employees at my office do not have a related degree.

I try and make myself at least aware of all languages, frameworks, tools and such but learning them all seems like it would be impossible. (Yet required on many job postings…)

Like @traq said, being aware is good but trying to master them all is futile. Pick the tools that surround the job you want to have. Master* those.

*Mastery of a language really isn’t actually attainable. Languages evolve, new technology is released. You can never be “done” learning a language. That’s what I love about our industry.

[Author]

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