The Developers Journey - the First 3 Years

hey guys in this video we're gonna talk about the first three years as a professional developer kind of a developer's journey within the first three years so I'm gonna go over the big bullet points first and then I'll double back and jump into the details all right gear one what's called the learning curve sale point number one feeling of overwhelmed very common when you're learning something new especially something complex like coding and web development it's pretty overwhelming there's many choices out there many things to consider very common so if you're just jumping into it you're starting to look at it you should expect at point feelings of being overwhelmed but don't worry because as you progress things are gonna get easier and easier and easier don't worry about that number two tutorial itís one of the things I see so often is that noobs people were just jumping into the game they're continuously looking for more and more tutorials more and more tutorials and the reason in doing this number one is because they're insecure about getting into of the real world of coding this you should not do you should do your foundations one or two tutorials and then get out there and start building real projects for real clients because one of the realities of being a new coder especially in the first two three years is that you're constantly learning that's why in my method of teaching I say learn the fundamentals well really well one or two tutorials and then jump into the thick of building real-world apps for people you start with simple ones and you progress from there even later on in your career even with three four or five years experience there will be moments where you're gonna have to learn something new in my own career as a freelancer I'd walk into a project sit down look at the specification and then I would choose a technology stack appropriate for that particular job and sometimes I would have to learn a brand new tech to do it it's par for the course not something you should be concerned about especially if you're well trained in your the mentors because learning new technologies new languages new stats etc it's not that difficult once you have that background that base in place so if there are major bullet point is analysis paralysis decisions decisions as I wrote what do I mean by that the web development world the development world in general is vast there's guts you have so many options you have so many options so many technologies do you learn JavaScript and no do you learn Python Django do you not learn PHP and Rails PHP rails Ruby and rails do you not learn Ruby and rails that's a joke do you learn Ruby and rails do you learn PHP laravel do you learn Java and spring do you learn C sharp and dotnet so many choices so many choices again so what happens it's kind of related to tutorial itis where you start just doing tutorials tutorials to towards tutorials this is a question of you looking trying to decide which direction to go down in terms of what path which technology path which the language path to its use the Python path to iTunes the JavaScript path the way to choose the Java path this is a an illusion to think that you're gonna choose the wrong path and the main reason is because the fundamentals of JavaScript Python PHP c-sharp Ruby swift they're all pretty much the same what that means is that let's say you decide to concentrate on nodejs and JavaScript for you to jump into Python Django or PHP laravel or c-sharp net etc it's not that difficult in fact you could jump from one to the other if you're properly trained within a couple days if not sooner so don't worry about choosing the right stacked in the first year you cannot choose the wrong stack simply because they're all related and you can just shift in ratón role as experience developers do alright let's jump to year number two where you've done your foundations you've done your fundamental you're starting to build things your you've got a job you're in there as a junior developer maybe advanced junior beginner-intermediate and you're getting paid you're doing work oh by the way in year one within 45 days you can start getting work as a junior junior many way that's another story so you're - you're in there you're actually writing code you're building apps you've done a few things you're you confident as a coder you're not ready to take on a whole project as the lead yet especially a project where you may have other developers on the job but you're definitely somebody who has a pretty good idea what they're doing well here is well we just read my paragraph here and I'll jump into it so you're two new tech addiction a young nerdlings trapped into believing that some new tech will give them the big advantage in the market this is very very rare once in a while a game change of tech does emerge but this is rare and is becoming more rare since software development has become very mature I can identify year two coders or people who are at that just intermediate beginning intermediate level coder I can spot them when they start saying things like Python is the best language and everything else it's okay but Python is your best choice or Java is your best choice or C sharp is your best choice your choice of programming language in choice of Stax is really circumstantial depends on the type of work what you're doing the available jobs out there and the type of work that you want to do if you want to do mobile development for iOS chances are you're gonna go to Swift right you're not gonna be doing that in Python if you want to go AI programming these days you probably want to get into Python just because there's opportunity there if you're gonna do freelance development for small business your best choice is going to be PHP and server-side programming in that regard it sets your etc so you notice what I'm talking about these different technologies I'm not saying that Swift is the best overall or PHP is the best overall Java is the best overall I am saying that it depends on the type of work that you're doing who your client is etc etc etc young nerdlings in year two tend to really concentrate on minutiae but they're concerned about within a particular technology stack so they may like node better than other back-end frameworks or back-end engines because node is really good at a synchronous delivery of data very good at very few apps need that right and so when you look at a technology you have to look at not just what the that particular app needs because depending on the type of app your writing needs you may need different capabilities but you also have to look at the business environment around it right so if you have a business I've talked about this before who's heavily invested in dotnet c-sharp it's not likely they're gonna want to jump into Python Django or or nodejs with JavaScript they may do it but very unlikely because if you think about if you're a business owner do you want to be invested in all kinds of different technologies we're gonna have to get all kinds of different developers to maintain it or you want it or are you going to what to stick with one particular technology stack where you just need one flavor developer so let's say you're in the C sharp dotnet stack that's your app is built out of that because you're leveraging Microsoft technologies you're gonna want to stick to that because then you just need to hire C sharp net guys or girls on the other hand imagine if you had an app but part of it was written in c-sharp Garnett part of it was Python part of it was I don't know whatever Ruby on Rails now that you won't do that but you know just joking what Ruby guys by the way you don't want to be all over the place it's too expensive so I think you're too nerdlings they get in this idea but they've got to find some SuperDuper tech but it's gonna get a huge advantage it happens once in a while once in a while but it's very rare and it's becoming more and more rare because the technology that's out there the stacks that are out there or I'll pretty mature they're all pretty mature so they're all pretty capable year number three this is when you reach what I call the professional Plateau let me just read my paragraphs and I'll get into it like most skills in life but a third-year you will enter a comfortable phase of your development career and you'll feel confident that you could lead projects and perhaps even lead less experienced developers a good thing though is if you follow the path that I lay out in my courses on this YouTube channel you can't start earning money within the first 45 days 30 to 45 days as a junior coder as a freelancer etc if you like a summary the quotes under some of the videos you see that several people have done it that you know there's lots of people have done it they haven't written quotes publicly yes so that by that third year you've reached that plateau that level of skill were you're confident you've built enough things for the last couple years you've learned to tact it built enough things you dealt with you've taken projects from A to Z which is very important I talk about that in other videos it's very important with your finish projects you've gotten out a tutorial tutorial the tutorial trap where you're continuously doing tutorials yeah one okay one of the misconceptions about tutorials is that they somehow represent the way you have to do things tutorials are just showing you a way of implementing things you could implement a shopping cart based system 20 different ways many different languages even within the context of a particular language or say you decide to do with c-sharp net or Python Django there's many ways you can implement a shopping cart system so any particular tutorial to find that teaches you for example a shopping cart system it's just showing you a waiver it can't be done depends on the circumstances of the cart you may have to you may depending on your clients needs let's say they're dealing with physical products that you're gonna have to implement your cart shopping cart system your commerce system in a different way if you're doing digital products you may have to implement it in a different way if they need a couponing based system you may have to do in a different way I've implemented cart systems ecommerce shops several times not just for myself but for clients as well in the past and I've done it each time and a totally different way depending on the need so one of the misconceptions of the year to nerdlings is that while year one nerdlings is that there is these tutorials represent a V way of doing things they are not they're just examples of how you might implement things that's why when I teach my tutorials are a small part of by training because once you do my fundamentals and you can use any tutorial on the web and away you go Bob's your uncle right so it's not a big deal so yeah by year three you're in a situation where you don't feel a need for tutorials you may refer to a tutorial just in case I need to learn how to setup no very quickly and to do a chat thing so you go in there boom you do a quick tutorial on YouTube you've plenty out there boom boom and you'll be able to run even through the worst tutorials because you're experienced in the fundamentals you understand what you're doing you'll be able to use any tutorial you won't even have to go to videos to tour you could just go to the node site and check out node and they'll have little quick tutorials on how to set it up how to get it going and your classic projects and away you go no big deal so by year 3 you're in this professional plateau where you are pretty competent I wouldn't say you're an uber expert but you're competent and you could tackle projects with confidence and get things done after that then it's a slow incremental process of getting better and better year 5 year 10 year 20 etc and you become more mature but it's I think the three-year mark is when I have seen not just with programming development but with martial arts with playing drums with business in a third year as a year when you kind of reach a level of competency if you will professional competency all right to recap rate quickly the first three years of the web developer year one I call it the learning curve the main message here is don't don't worry about it this is actually the toughest year this is the year where you're gonna face the mental and psychological hurdles because it seems overwhelming you stick to the fundamentals and you do your fundamental training and then you get in there and you do a couple of freebie projects wherever you use a site like up work or you'll see local business you do one or two little freebies consider those your stashes and then you'll be ready to go and in fact you know you could get past this first year if you if you skip the pit the pit trap the pitfalls the pitfalls but a lot of developers get into you don't let yourself get overwhelmed with you know all the choices out there because it's an illusion as I said once you learn the fundamentals of programming with JavaScript you know the fundamentals of programming so many of the languages so don't feel overwhelmed all these frameworks with Python and Django peach pea larvae Ruby rails etc etc they're all based on very similar principles yes they're different but they're in many ways with their MVC base they all have arms etc etc all the authentication layers etc so once you learn one framework like rails or like Python Django or like peach bee larvae or baqia cakephp or symphony or whatever once you learned one for you to jump into another framework even in another language there's no big deal so don't feel overwhelmed don't get caught up in tutorial itis don't just keep trying to hold off from from actually getting out there and doing real work by trying to do more and more and more and more and more tutorials you do your foundations you do one or two quick tutorials and then you jump into the real game and then you learn more stuff as you need to learn based on the needs of a project so as I say you learn on a need-to-know basis you don't it's an illusion but you're gonna come into the game knowing everything you're just gonna go now that I've done this all before that will come eventually but that takes years so yeah don't get caught up in tutorial ideas and finally don't get caught up with analysis paralysis don't worry about no am I gonna learn the wrong language all no that's impossible you learn any language any programming languages that you want and you can't lose you can't lose because a hundred percent what you learn in Swift will be fantastic and usable in doing JavaScript or fantastic and usable doing PHP and fantastic and usable and not doing Ruby so yeah number two year two that's when you're you're writing code you're getting paid you're you're pretty confident what you're doing you're still learning but you're confident and this the big trap by finding is people are getting married to a tech they think that there's some game-changing tech - janko's that's it man that's all you're gonna write your code in it's Python that's it or no no no you got to do everything and PHP laravel otherwise you're a loser that again is a year - new bling junior coder but professional but junior don't get caught up in that when you get to year three you hit that professional Plateau man you've really hit a good level it's kind of like when you hit a black belt I guess in jujitsu you may not be the best fighter out there but you're competent you know what you're doing you've been it you've done enough sparring you know you know what you got to do when you get in there and that's where you want to be as a coder that year 3u jiu-jitsu I don't know how long it takes to get a black belt some three years of many long years long or depending we're businesses - interestingly enough most businesses reach a level of which we call the establishment they establish themselves mobile businesses in three to four years so you know again you know year 1 2 & 3 as I'm listening out here these are ballparks it may take you a year and a half to get through that the that that the learning curve stage if you will it might take you you know a few months if you follow my stuff shameless plug then a year - it could be you know could be year and a half it give me two and a half years you know depending you don't want to get caught up in this whole idea when technology is ultimately better than another it's all circumstantial number three when you hit the professional plateau well you know what you're doing and you start thinking and more advanced ways for example one one sign of professional developers that they don't necessarily they don't think that any language is really better than all languages they realized everything circumstantial professional plateau coders are comfortable going to projects comfortable learning new tech depending on the needs of a particular project so there you go that from my experience going back to the 90s is it ballpark the succession from year one two and three in terms of becoming a professional web developer so I hope you found this useful I hope you take so many early lessons to heart and let me leave you with this again because I feel probably a lot of beginners are watching this the first year in terms of the psychological barriers the fears that doubts the insecurities in terms of the technological barriers where you may not understand that why are we doing objects what's the whole point of an object or I don't understand recursion why are we using gosh these are coder things these are programmatic issues these doubts and these things that are unclear in the first year for six months depending it will go away and once you get past that hurdle once you get past that barrier to entry it's smooth sailing so just remind yourself the first several months is the hardest period and it just gets easier and easier and easier and easier by the time you know your you know by the time you're in a third year you're like the master of your domain you feel pretty good about yourself as a developer miss assuming that you actually write a new cold working real projects working with real clients not just doing tutorials let me emphasize that you don't want to get caught up in tutorial hell and some of the best tutorial makers out there like Brad traversée traverse media he does some of the best out there even he'll tell you about you don't want to get caught up in doing too many tutorials anyway there you go hope that's useful it's a child [Music]

Channel: Stefan Mischook

Views: 53,841

Rating: 4.9699249 out of 5

Keywords: programmercareer, developercareer

Id: fKNsJRh08Ms

Length: 20min 10sec (1210 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 31 2019