Tips to Jumpstart Your Dev Career

Sometimes I get cold applications from people who want to work for us.

These are usually the most eager ones.

One of them just came in:

Can you advise how much the role of an ROR developer is in demand in the market in our region? And how interested is your company in cooperating with novice developers? Perhaps not through full employment, but through outsourcing or as an internship. My plan was to:

Master the basics of the framework.
Write a couple of pet projects and participate in open source projects.
Find acquaintances who would find my web applications useful. Try myself in freelancing.
Find a company with which I could build cooperation, dealing with real business projects.
Become a full-time programmer, making it the main source of income.

This guy got one thing right:

If you want advice: ask for money.
If you want money, ask for advice. (The same works for jobs).

Let’s talk about demand

Ruby is used by approximately 5.9% (of which 5.3% is Rails). Ruby is mostly rails. That’s the way it is. So, if you learn Ruby, you cannot get around Rails.

Yes, if you need a job, fast, go for a mainstream framework.

Like Javascript. Powers 99% of the websites. Or more.

That’s why every other developer starts with Javascript these days. You can just type it into your browser.

PHP dominates with 76.2%

I started with PHP for the same reasons. It was accessible, and I could show my work to people easily.

At the same time, there are many courses, resources, YouTube videos, and influencers for Javascript. If you like the language, and you think you can learn it: go ahead with it. It’s probably a good idea.

If you start out, should you only focus on the demand?

Demand only doesn’t cut it.

You also need an undersupply of labor to land a steady job. Javascript has an abundance of developers. And becoming really good at it takes more than if you’d start with a more niche framework.

What should the applicant instead focus on?

Accessibility: Find cool meetups in your city and hang out with people.

Or get an internship, and see where you can get most help.

Friction: The argument above. Where can you learn fast without many obstacles.

Want to start with Rust? Good luck (I tried. It’s great, but it takes time to get right)

Once decided?

Ship side projects.

Why? Frameworks and languages can get exchanged over time. You can learn new things, and adapt principles from what you know already.

And then

Put 100h into something. Try it out. That’s 2 weeks of work.

In a quarter, you can try out 6 languages. That should do the trick.

Good luck. And don’t forget to watch full video on this topic for in-depth insight here.