I needed a place to commiserate, so here I am. I guess I keep wondering if others are going through what I'm going through at the moment. I could really use an understanding community right now. I've been a front-end dev for the past 16 years, half of that time I was at a company by myself, no other devs, no senior dev to look up to. Long story short, while I was in that role, everything about the web got bigger and more complex. I was a specialist at my role, but I wasn't on the same train as newer developers. Now, I'm looking for a new job and I feel like an old used-up bag that's been crumpled up and tossed to the side while all the newer, more powerful bags are getting jobs. I got some React.js certificates, but they seem pretty useless. Can I still do this? Is my 16 years of experience worth anything? How are we doing out there devs? Are we keeping up with the times, the latest frameworks and paradigms? Are there any jobs available for someone who mostly knows Javascript, CSS and HTML?
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Top comments (6)
Hi Taylor!
No, you are not toast!! >:V You are an exquisite croissant.
Sixteen years of experience being pretty much a lone wolf is not something small, it's amazing! You had to figure everything out by yourself, hold yourself accountable since everything: responsibilities, feature development, stakeholders management, handling office politics, requirement gathering, etc. fell on your back!! That. Is. Huge! There's a lot of software developers out there that wouldn't do that even if paid 10 times their salary. You are super responsible!! So, I want you think about everything you had to do, all your responsibilities, actions, etc and put a name to it!
So what if you don't have the "tech" skills? you have a lot more soft skills than your average 10 year old dev (me), not only that, if you handled Vanilla JS you can pretty much do any React stuff, since it's just a bunch of marketing mumbo jumbo, in the end, said by themselves, it's just JS.
Focus on making a portfolio website of projects, highlight your favorite work done in your previous job, what you learned, etc. if you want make them all in react or vue or angular. You currently have the opportunity of deciding your new future work! And remember, interviews are always a win-win for you: you either get the job, have life redirect you and/or learn your gaps to improve yourself.
(I know that getting money is important so you might feel it's a lose situation to not get a job but, honestly, having a more positive mindset will make you take the blows a bit better ;-;)Remember how I told you to put a name to all your soft skills? You put that in your LinkedIn and resume! >:V Also add how amazingly good you are at creating value through your amazing HTML, CSS and JS skills, the foundation of the current front end internet development ecosystem. Add a link to your portfolio site!
Now, go to that roadmap site (just search for it on google), select a roadmap and check what you know. Make an excel, copy all that into it and put what you super know, what you've heard about but haven't played with and the I HAVE NO IDEA. Select out of the list the most important things to know, filter out what you super know and decide how to get some experience on the rest. Put whatever project you decide to do in your portfolio website. Highlight the techs used, make a small blog post about it, the idea is to prove to yourself you're cool beans and you were able to do this and since you're writing about it, it'll stick and help you out in tech/code interviews.
Always prepare yourself for interviews (I've made this mistake twice, it kills me everytime I take a shower and remember these events), try to find the questions used, some people put them around on glassdoor. Don't fret if you don't have 100% of the listed requirements, you YOLO apply. When they ask you were you see yourself in 5 years, make sure to answer that you're being awesome at their company (don't say it directly but make sure that's the message hahaha), you need to be your best cheerleader.
Having said all of this, I know the job market right now is HORRIBLE, so if you really need bread on the table, you'll need to be flexible. There are some jobs out there that are not FE specific but do dwell on those technologies c: one of my mentees got a job that way and she is doing great!
I hope my little tips help you out, and while I may have been a bit forceful in letting you know what to do and how awesome you are, I do this for your own good. Remember:
YOU. ARE. INCREDIBLE.
Hope you have a great day and I'm always here to be your cheerleader!!
Thank you so much, this is the kind of encouragement I need. It's so hard to be on your own in this industry, it's definitely time for me to interact with the community. And I do know Javascript well and have done some good React projects for my portfolio, I just don't have the years of React experience it seems everyone is looking for right now. I'd love to get on a team to grow that skill, but then I wonder... "What is going to be the next new shiny thing I'll have to learn to stay in this game?"
Thanks again.
Yes, you can. I don't even have half your experience and every day I realize some in-depth knowledge about HTML, CSS, and Javascript that I wish I had known before.
I think your case is a bit of updating with technologies + knowing how to sell yourself to the market. Pay attention to promoting yourself, because a good base of HTML, CSS, and JS always pays for itself
And talking about certificates, I don't pay much attention to them. I prefer people who speak with confidence (and truth in their words) about what they know and who can truly show it. Honestly, talking about certificates, I think anyone can obtain and post them on their LinkedIn
Yea, I know the certs aren't worth much. I just needed some way to show people that I'm familiar with the framework :) This worries me, I don't have years of React experience and it seems that React is what everyone is hiring for.
Thank you for your thoughts :)