Today’s web software landscape is dominated by companies building primarily from open-source and/or existing infrastructure. As a web developer in 2023 you generally won't be solving algorithm problems as some interviews will lead you to believe. Your focus should primarily be on code quality, iteration speed, collaboration, and most of all the actual product you’re building.
Yes, it’s still important to have a solid understanding of your toolbox, but tools such as the React library are generally considered reliable and have become fairly straight forward to use. Since 99% of the time you are working with pre-built, pre-optimized code and open-source libraries, most bugs I’ve encountered were caused by either the misuse of the underlying framework or poor architecture. In light of this, I have come to value the following skills over any other.
These are the 3 skills I believe every developer should possess
Research (Googling things)
The key here is - you must speak the language to ask the right questions - if you are not familiar with the subject matter I recommend getting the lay of the land via a “doc dive” or watching some YouTube videos. Once you’ve acquainted yourself with the jargon, you’re ready to ask the right questions.
Understanding the requirements
From my experience, one the most challenging aspects of modern web development is understanding the use case, context and requirements. You don’t want to be going in blind. For example, I have worked on financial, carbon accounting and large scale media distribution systems. I’m not an expert on any of those things, but I was able to built software for them nonetheless. Each time I get a new task I ask my self this question, “Why does this code exist?” You must know how to ask these kind of philosophical questions of your product manager or whomever the requirement is coming from. This also helps you understand the consequences of a mistake within your code.
Asking for help
I spent not one, not two, but close to three years as a developer before I really felt comfortable asking for help. For some, this day never comes. This is often a work culture problem, although sometimes it’s just your ego getting in the way. You may spend hours spinning your wheels while a simple solution is just a Slack message away. Yes, perseverance is admirable, and I still quite enjoy researching and getting to the bottom of a problem myself. But I’ve learned over the years that at the end of the day stakeholders want to see results, they don’t care how you got to the solution. It’s often best to put your ego aside and reach out to someone who might have an answer; be it a colleague or Stack Overflow.
In summary, yes, there is a small mountain to climb (JavaScript, HTML, CSS, React, etc.) before you can become a proficient web developer. My advice is, don't get bogged down my the breadth of information out there, focus on what's in front of you and keep developing the skills I mentioned above. Learn your tools as you work on different projects and before you know it you'll grow into a 10x gigachad coding machine. I guarantee it.
Photo by Jason Schuller on Unsplash
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