How to Become a Mobile Developer in 2021

when i first got into mobile development i wanted to create the next big app cliche right after realizing my to-do list apps weren't gonna make it big i decided to give up on my dreams and i told myself well i guess i can just make apps for other people so that's what i did five years later i've made mobile apps for many companies and i even did a silly thing i made a career out of it so yes today we're talking about how you can become a mobile developer in 2021 now there's going to be a lot of information in this video so if you're serious about becoming a mobile developer and landing your first mobile development job i suggest that you listen to the full video so this video is going to be split up into five categories native versus cross platform which one should you choose as a mobile developer android versus ios again which one should you choose where to start learning android and ios development how to land your first mobile job and finally timeline to landing your first mobile job now there are many ways to make mobile applications the first way is to do it natively in android or ios the second way is to use a cross-platform technology now there are many cross-platform technologies such as xamarin flutter cordova react native and the list kind of just goes on but as someone new to mobile development it is my opinion that you absolutely should not start with cross-platform technologies and that you should pursue learning the native route so like i mentioned there's many ways to write cross-platform applications in my opinion i think the only good option at the moment is react native but it is from my understanding that to write a good react native application you need a pretty strong understanding in native mobile development when i first got into mobile development i started with cross-platform technologies i initially used uh this technology called cordova in xamarin and basically because i had a lack of understanding with native development the apps i made were just kind of terrible so the moral of the story here is start with native development and eventually if you really want to get into cross-platform development you can pursue that route later on so now that we've got the native versus cross-platform discussion out of the way let's talk about ios versus android development which one should you choose at least here in the united states you can have a pretty successful career in either android or ios development primarily i do android although i am experienced in ios development in terms of career growth i don't think it matters which one you pick because again here in the united states you can have a pretty successful career in either but there are some important things to consider the biggest one is android's low cost of entry basically you just need a half decent pc and you can start making android apps ios development on the other hand requires you to do development work on a mac operating system so this means that you'll probably need a mac or some type of pc that runs the mac os now one thing i absolutely do not condone and something that i never did was download a hacked version of the mac os on a virtual machine again it's something i never did i don't think you should do that because it's illegal because i didn't do that i never learned that trying to write code on a virtual machine of a hacked version of ios is just insanely slow again i never learned that i don't condone you do that so after i didn't learn that you couldn't really write code on a virtual machine of the mac os i ended up buying a mac mini when i first got into ios development my first uh mac machine was a mac mini back in like 2016 it ran me around 500 i think they're a little more expensive nowadays but i'm pretty sure you can get a used one for around the same price so if you don't have a mac with decent hardware requirements it's going to cost you a bit to get started in ios development so that's something that's pretty important to think about additional things to think about is ios has a lower user base but those users are more willing to spend money on the app store so if your goal is to make money on the app store you might want to consider ios development on the flip side android has way more worldly users but those users are less likely to spend money on the google play store and one really notable thing that i think is important is uh android has just incredible documentation on android development this is a huge reason why i personally love android development i think it's far more superior than the ios documentation that's out there so in terms of your career it doesn't really matter which one you pick again you can have a very successful career in either android or ios development so where should you start learning android or ios development and this one is kind of a tough one because there's a million different ways to learn out there you could probably do a quick google search and quickly figure out where to go but i guess if i were to do it all over again this is how i would start so for android development i think the best way to start learning is right from the horse's mouth google aka the creators of the android os they have some free courses specifically designed to teach you the basics of kotlin and android development even if you're brand new to coding for ios development apple also offers some free courses i don't think they're as good as the android ones to be honest they're a little outdated but overall still a decent place to start dabbling in ios development for free i'll put a link for both of these resources in the description if you're interested in that so apple also offers some books around learning swift development which i also think would be a good resource to start learning if you're interested in that again i'll put the link in the description but in my 100 personal experience the resource that helped me learn ios development the most was my boy brian vong aka let's build that up brian has a ton of playlists on developing ios apps from start to finish he often clones popular apps such as youtube and instagram when i first got into ios development the youtube clone tutorial was one that i followed from start to finish and it helped me learn so much so tutorials books youtube channels aside the absolute best way to learn either android or ios development is to get your hands dirty and start developing your own ios or android apps so these apps don't even have to be unique you don't even have to publish them to the app store but it's so important that you work on your own apps because the thing is you're going to get stuck a lot you're going to get frustrated and you will have to figure out how to solve these problems on your own without any tutorials or books and these growing pains they're pretty crucial for you to become a deaf also to land your first job you'll probably need to build a portfolio with these projects so this kind of leads me into my next point so here's what i think you need to do to land your first mobile dev job i guess here's how i would go about it if i were trying to do it again so it's important that you learn the basics of git and you build a portfolio on github or you could even make a website showcasing the apps that you've built back when i got my first job as a programmer in 2016 to be honest i didn't have a developer portfolio but in 2021 i think it's pretty much a non-negotiable thing that you need on your resume if you want to land a dev job especially if you're self-taught after you land your first dev job to be honest i don't think a portfolio really even matters at that point i've made a handful of portfolios when applying for different jobs but because i already had that first job on my resume my portfolio was never really brought up in an interview it's one of those things that's pretty annoying to to do to build but it's something that you need to do to land that first job so the next thing and probably one of the most important things to landing a mobile developer job is learning best practices google has some specific documentation to follow best practices for android i'll put the link in the description below for mobile devs specifically the best practices i think you should become the most familiar with are architectural best practices and user interface aka ui best practices android again has incredible documentation on architectural best practices and also ui best practices which in android is known as material design again this is a reason why i love android development the documentation is so extensive and whenever you have a question or you need help learning how to use like a class or part of the android sdk you can reference the android documentation and you'll probably be all set so ios also has some best practices around the ui in ios this is known as the human interface guidelines again the link to all these will be in the description below so do some research on best practices and it's pretty crucial that you integrate these best practices in your personal projects this is going to make you stand out tremendously and make employers more keen to hiring you so the next and most obvious point to landing your first mobile dev job is you have to make a resume and your resume lists your portfolio projects all the skills that you've acquired along the way and learning mobile dev and put a link to your portfolio so once your resume and your portfolio is complete the next thing that you should do is literally apply for every single mobile job that you can find remote local entry level internship even jobs that you aren't interested in apply for every single job out there and that's for two reasons one it's a numbers game after applying for enough jobs you'll finally get that interview and number two when you're interviewing if you have uh multiple interviews happening at once employers pick up on this a question that i've gotten asked multiple times when i interview for places is how are your other interviews going or are you looking anywhere else you kind of want to be equipped to answer this question because not only does that show your value to potential employers it creates kind of a competition anxiety for other employers making them more likely to hire you all right so the last point that i want to hit on is timeline to landing your first mobile job so this one is a little more up to you this is what i would do if i was learning mobile dev again so i guess take my advice with a grain of salt but i would spend roughly one month learning the basics of either android or ios development after learning the basics i would spend the next four to five months building my own personal projects because like i said this is the way to learn android or ios development the fastest right you kind of just want to throw yourself in the deep end you want to struggle a little bit and ultimately this will make you grow the most as a dev so i would spend that time making my own personal projects building up my portfolio building up a solid resume and at around the six month mark i would start applying for jobs i would say if you spend about 10 hours a week you could probably land your first mobile dev job within six months give or take a few but like i said 100 my own opinion take that advice with a grain of salt because ultimately it's up to you to figure out how fast you can land your first development job alright so that was a pretty lengthy video i hope you took something away from it maybe you have another piece of advice that you want to give if you do put in the comments if you have any questions again put in the comments i'll try to get back to everybody anyways thank you so much for watching if you made it this far i would really appreciate it if you could like and subscribe and i'll see you in the next one peace

Channel: Kenny Gunderman

Views: 182,737

Rating: 4.9635806 out of 5

Keywords: mobile app development, mobile developer, mobile development, app development, app developer, iOS developer, Android developer, Software Engineer, how to code, how to become a mobile developer, become a developer in 2021, kenny gunderman, code bootcamp, self-taught programmer, react native

Id: WvwwL0TwH6U

Length: 11min 27sec (687 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 06 2020