Many people think that programming is for everyone. They think it's easy because you can learn how to program a computer only by watching youtube tutorials or buying courses on Udemy. The reality is more than that, and I want to talk about it in this post.
Like every profession in this world, you need to inhale passion and exhale results. Fortunately, if you want to become a software developer, it's not a must to go to college. You can be self-taught and learn at your own pace using the internet. But before that, you need to follow some steps to achieve your dreams. I hope this can help you to start your journey.
1. Are you sure that you want to become a software developer or a software engineer?
Are you sure that you want to be a developer, but your first motivation is not the money? Do you know anything? You can earn much money as you want, but the reality is you need to enjoy your daily job routine, which includes meetings, accepting failures, learning new things every day, improving your soft skills, etc. Also, in your career, you are going to face the famous impostor syndrome. I've felt that I am not good enough or that other people have more knowledge than me. It usually happens
2. Study the options out there
It's a must to research the market and ask what are they looking for? What are the programming languages more demanded?. If you want to be a .NET developer, but in your area, there is no opportunity for that stack because the companies are looking for Node js developers instead, you need to consider what is the best option to choose. Fortunately, you can find remote opportunities in your country unless you want to work in the company place (not everyone wants to work from home, they have their reasons). On the other hand, it is possible to work with the less demanding technologies so you can earn a little bit more. The point here is to work on something that you like, and for that, you need to do the research. It's your choice.
3. Choose what kind of developer you want to be
We have millions of tech devices in this world; we have video games, cell phones, tablets, we use tv apps, desktop apps, web apps, we have created machine learning for AI, we have the internet of things, so, what do you like? What are your interests? And this does not finish here. If you want to work as a web developer, you should specialize in the Front end, Back end or become a Fullstack developer. You can choose a specific programming language for mobile or web apps as well. We have many options here: the important thing is to start learning something easy and then increase the difficulty by specializing in something.
4. Practice a lot
Start creating a portfolio where you show your programming skills or create a blog and share your journey in learning "x" things. But if you are a self-taught developer, I consider the first option the best. You know, interviewers want to know about your skills and how did you learn them. They want to know about your capabilities, and practicing and creating a portfolio is a great way to do it.
are you interested in web apps? So start creating websites (remember, starting with something easy: HTML, CSS, and Javascript). Then build clones of the "x" app, or invent your app. you can learn a lot in the process.
5. Apply to interviews
I'm not going to lie. Interviews are one of the hardest parts of the journey when you are a beginner. You should practice a lot to pass an interview, for this, you can practice in sites like Hackerrank. As I said before, you are more than a guy who codes; you are a personality as well. That's why it's necessary to master your soft skills; you need to improve the way you interact with others, the way you communicate your ideas, how do you make decisions, etc.
It's cool when you get your first job as a developer. You have started a new path, and like everything in life, you can change your opinion about your decision.
It's important to love your job. We are here to change this world with our knowledge and skills. It's gratifying to know that we can change the course of technology and we code the future.
What do you think?
Thanks for reading this post.