These courses will help you land your first job for less than $100
Published: 2023-03-01 14:31:05

_Disclaimer: I am not earning any commissions from promoting the links in this article_

My tech career started a bit in reversed order, I landed my first junior position as a self-taught developer. Then went to study Computer Science at university while being a part-time contractor and eventually managed to work full-time during the last year of school as COVID-19 allowed me to pretty much study online.

Having a degree still has some value and if you are able to get it cheap or for free (my case), go for it. If you are in a position where 3-4 years of attending classes is not an option, I hope the following list of courses might help you to land your first job in tech.

Just a little note, the curriculum I chose focuses on Frontend / Full Stack development in JavaScript as that is in my opinion the best route to land a job in the tech space for the following reasons.

- Frontend is constantly evolving, so there is a lot of opportunity to catch the field.
- There are plenty of high-quality resources and great instructors sharing their knowledge.
- The field is not heavy in mathematics and you don’t have to understand all the low-level bits of computing
- It’s rewarding as you see what you are building and even non-technical people can interact with your apps - which can help you with recruiters
- There are roles where knowing some JavaScript, CSS, and HTML is a big advantage, so you can kickstart your career as a tester or work in technical support and grow from there.

### Computer Science Basics

Even though you want to be a front-end engineer, it makes sense to start with the basics of Computer Science, the best course out there is definitely CS50 by Harvard. It’s a **free** course available on YouTube and it introduces you to plenty of cool technologies. Unlike many 101 university courses, it does not focus on one language. It takes a more holistic approach and the instructor David Malan is just a superstar.

[CS50 by Harvard Website](https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2023/weeks/0/)

### Your First Web Development Course

To kickstart the learning of web technologies, there are in my opinion just two options. Either **The Web Developer Bootcamp** 2023 by Colt Steele or **The Complete 2023 Web Development Bootcamp** by Angela Yu. These courses are available on the Udemy platform and you can get them for around $15 dollars when on sale (pretty often, or search for coupons). Both of the courses focus on full-stack development and offer dozens of hours of great video content and coding challenges. The advantage of Angela’s course is that it also covers React. Yet, either of them is a great choice. Pick one and finish it.

[The Web Developer Bootcamp 2023 by Colt Steele](https://www.udemy.com/course/the-web-developer-bootcamp/)
[The Complete 2023 Web Development Bootcamp by Angela Yu](https://www.udemy.com/course/the-complete-web-development-bootcamp/)

### React and friends

After you finish one of the previous courses, you will have enough general knowledge to pick your framework of choice. React is the pragmatic choice as it’s super popular, other popular frameworks like Next.js, Gatsby, or Remix are built on top of it and you can even develop Shopify apps or Hydrogen themes using it. Potentially, you can go with Vue.js or Angular, but my recommendation is React.

Here, we have three great options. Colt’s course again or courses by another duo of talented instructors - Stephen Grider and Maximilian Schwarzmüller. The latter courses also teach you about the state management library Redux. I have personal experience with all three of them and for the 15 bucks, you won’t find anything better.

[The Modern React Bootcamp by Colt Steele](https://www.udemy.com/course/modern-react-bootcamp/)
[React - The Complete Guide by Maximilian Schwarzmüller](https://www.udemy.com/course/react-the-complete-guide-incl-redux/)
[Modern React with Redux by Stephen Grider](https://www.udemy.com/course/react-redux/)

If you want to keep focusing on full-stack and you are tired of videos, this [free online course](https://fullstackopen.com/en/) by the University of Helsinki is a no brainer.

### One step further

At this point, you should have a good grasp of how web applications work and have solid foundations in the React framework. Now, it’s time to boost your resume with buzzwords.

Most companies use TypeScript, which is a language developed by Microsoft that makes JavaScript a strongly typed language. Eventually, it gets compiled back to JavaScript, yet it makes development smoother as you get better hints from your IDE and it helps you avoid silly mistakes.

[Mastering TypeScript by Colt Steele](https://www.udemy.com/course/learn-typescript/)

React itself is cool, yet you need routing, server-side rendering, etc… You can set it up yourself, or you can take advantage of Next.js, a full-stack React base framework. If you wanna build a serious application for your portfolio, Next should be your go-to.

[Complete Next.js Developer by ZTM](https://www.udemy.com/course/complete-nextjs-developer-zero-to-mastery/)

GraphQL is another tool, that is gaining lots of popularity and replacing the standard REST API architecture. Knowing the basics of it will definitely gonna shine on your resume.

[GraphQL with React by Stephen Grider](https://www.udemy.com/course/graphql-with-react-course/)

Lastly, each aspiring developer should be comfortable with the versioning system Git. It’s the industry standard and you will definitely use it in your first work.

[The Git & Github Bootcamp by Colt Steele](https://www.udemy.com/course/git-and-github-bootcamp/)

### Coding Interview

Some companies like to interview candidates using questions about essential data structures and algorithms. It’s a bit different from day-to-day development and even seasoned developers have to sit down and review these topics. So, if you are applying for a job, make sure you spend some time studying common data structures and algorithms.

First, look at one of the following courses, they both follow the “standard” college-level Algorithms & Data Structure module, yet they are way more fun. I promise they are actually fun in comparison to my sixty-year-old college professor who obviously forced us to use the C programming language.

[Master the Coding Interview by ZTM](https://www.udemy.com/course/master-the-coding-interview-data-structures-algorithms/)
[JS Algorithms and Data Structures Masterclass by Colt Steele](https://www.udemy.com/course/js-algorithms-and-data-structures-masterclass/)

When you are comfortable with the basics of DS&A, focus on solving problems using that knowledge. [Leetcode](https://leetcode.com/) is your best friend, and if you struggle, the last course I am gonna mention goes over the classical Leetcode problems in depth.

[Master the Coding Interview: Big Tech (FAANG) Interviews by ZTM](https://www.udemy.com/course/master-the-coding-interview-big-tech-faang-interviews/)

### Honorable Mention

I wanted to keep the resources as affordable as possible. The mentioned courses offer an incredible amount of value for 10-15 dollars each. Yet, if you wanna invest a bit more, definitely check [Frontend Masters](https://frontendmasters.com/). Again, I gain no money from promoting this subscription service, yet I have been using it for the past two years, and if you wanna level up from junior to senior, that's the place to go. The pricing is around $50 a month and if you are a college student, you can get 6 months for free due to the [GitHub Student Developer Pack](https://education.github.com/pack).