DEV Community

Cover image for What it takes to become a Web Developer
JavierCunat
JavierCunat

Posted on

What it takes to become a Web Developer

Hello fellow enthusiasts of Computer Science!

What is a Web Developer, how do I start?

The internet has grown exponentially since the beginnings of the 20th century, due to this substantial increase everyone uses the internet, naturally this creates a huge amount of Web Developing jobs. Nowadays, web development has become one of the most attractive best-paid career choices in the modern world. What these people do is write lines of complicated code using a variety of languages, its a quite difficult job because you have to know understand a language such as English and translate it into a language that a computer understands. These workers take a lot of time and effort and requires an intricate understanding of a variety of different programming languages and how they are used. Furthermore different types of developers specialize in different areas which we will talk to a further extent later on. The possibly best way to start in this new world would be obviously a professional career in college, however thanks to internet and many new platforms developed you can learn most aspects in online courses. You would like to familiarize yourself with the fundamentals of everything, this seems overwhelming but not to worry many things tie together. In essence I want to promote the idea that if committed any one of you can earn a three digit figure income with hard work and dedication, and although it sounds like a cliche trust me and the process it works.

The Start

Lets commence your journey! Now comes that part about hard work, don't worry most subjects wont bore you, if you like this type of stuff these sections should fly by. I have provided you guys with charts, do research on these topics for not to long to start thinking like a Developer and their Basic Fundamentals.

Branch Child Elements Examples (Most popular)
Basics Editors/IDE Vs Code
Basics Git and Github Get Familiar
Basics Terminal Commands Git Bash/Terminal
Basics Internet How Websites work
Basics HTTP/HTTPS Get Familiar
Basics Domain Name Servers GoDaddy.com

Once becoming familiar on all these basic fundamentals you would like to move on to the Front End,because all that wont get you a job yet :(, however it is good to have this foundation. Front end is the path i recommend if you want to want to become a Web Developer whether or not if you are interested in Front End or not understanding is critical. A front end developer are the once that say what should i display in the website? This is where things get intresting and areas were you can get a job! Lets get to it!

Branch Child Elements Examples (Most popular)
Front End HTML5 File that Displays Text Learn
Front End CSS3 Styles the Displayed Learn
CSS3 CSS Layout FlexBox/CSS Grid/Bootstrap
CSS3 Preprocessors Saas
CSS3 Organizing CSS Atomic CSS
Front End JavaScript Fundamentals Learn
JavaScript Frameworks/Libraries React
JavaScript Frameworks/Libraries State management (Redux, Apollo)
Front End JavaScript Component Libraries
Front End JavaScript SSR
JavaScript Helpers Babel, ESlint, Prettler
Front End Reponsive/Mobile First Design Learn
Front End Package Management NPM Reistry
Front End JAMStack Static Sites

If you have learned about all these and know how to use them and build projects with groups that you should have learned along the way you have done it! Now this is a vast amount of knowledge many people quit so dont be one of them and make it through once you do you can earn yourself a job position. Lets talk more about what to do once you have the knowledge and practice down.

Process of getting a Job and Types of Jobs

Getting the Interview

What if you don’t have enough experience? Most people don’t love resumes, however without a resume you cant get an interview. And in order to create a good resume you need to put something on it to show you have great experience. I understand that though you may not have any experience since your just getting started but I have a solution, right now it seems like you may have no hope since your just a beginner without work experience. Experience doesn’t come just from working at a company, there are many ways that your can demonstrate experience without a past job. Here are the things I suggest you do to get that interview.

Getting the interview requirements What about them
GitHub Good Profile with almost daily use
Website Simple Website putting important information about yourself
1-2 Big Projects Shows Complex understanding important to make stand out
Blog Good to show you are in contact frequently with computer science world/problems

A good tip is that you don’t want to go into that job that you know everything about already, you do not want to do things which you already mastered. What you should try to do is get a job where you know the area but not perfectly to then perfect it and move on to a higher position, like this continuously.

Finally here are a few different Job titles in the Web industry which meet interest you in taking a look at.

Job Titles Information Salary
Web Designer Deciding and implementing how websites look and work Average Salary:$40-70k
Front End Designer Focused on HTML,CSS,JavaScript deep skill on core technologies Average Salary:$62-82k
Web Developer Focused on back-end work, languages like PHP, ASP, Ruby, Python etc, medium skill in database/server work Average Salary:$42-91k
Full Stack Developer Combination of front and back end work, high-end job Average Salary:$80-110k
UI Designer Really good at design-tools-of-choice with light HTML and CSS Skill Average Salary:$48-90k

Top comments (0)