Career switch: Webdev. A log of my experience. Part 1
Tags: bootcamp, career, webdev, firstyearincode
Published: 2019-11-24 23:12:36

Thinking of switching careers and becoming a web developer? Well, so was I! 
I am currently in the transformation phase and decided to write down my experiences so that other people who may be in a similar position can read what I am/have been going through. Maybe you'll feel reinforced in your own decision, maybe read this post and feel that it's not for you after all. Or maybe you're just curious to see what happens when someone flips his desk and decides to leave it all behind for something new. Well, let's get into it!

"I need to do something else." 

This is a thought that had constantly been popping up after the first year of my old job. For the past 10 years, I have been working in the Customer Success Management department of a Fortune 500 company in different positions. The pay was good, benefits were great, my team and my managers were fantastic... so, why exactly would I NOT want to stay there?
Well, my heart was never in it. The job never felt right for me, and I ended up staying mostly to provide for my family and because I enjoyed the company of my colleagues. And at least once every year, this thought would haunt me:

"I need to do something else." 

This year, I decided to turn this thought into a reality. The situation at my job had quickly gone from great to dreadful, due to a lot of internal changes and key people leaving the company and one thing became crystal clear:

The time for change had come. 

I started soul searching for what it was that I truly enjoyed doing, but at the same time would also be a realistic option. There was no point for me in chasing a fantasy dream job that would fulfill me spiritually, but would not ensure that my kids had enough to eat. 
It took me weeks, months even. But when my search inevitably lead me to "Web Development", it was suddenly an easy decision to make. This sounded absolutely like the correct choice.

But hold on. Let's not rush into things on a feeling, right? I needed to be clear that this was REALLY something I wanted to do. How could I be certain? Well, here is what I did:

1. Research the job
While this might be painfully obvious, but the first thing to do if you think about becoming a Web Developer is to check what it actually means to be one. I almost considered not including this point in this list, but I'll loop back to the reason why I included it further down in my post. 
Just google the job: "what does a web developer do?". Check for people talking about it on youtube. There is enough information about it on the web that this should certainly be the first thing to do. One of the coolest thing I found was someone that live-streamed her work on an open source project on Twitch.tv! You can find herhere: https://www.twitch.tv/noopkat. You couldn't ask for a better, instant insight.  

2. Talk to people
The next thing I did was to ask my friends and family if they could see me as a Web Developer and already the feedback was a resounding "yes" and that it was "so me". But sure, it's one thing to hear that from people who are not even working in the field. 
So checked my social circle: which friends of mine worked as developers? Friends of my friends? Neighbours? Aquaintances? You get the idea. 
I figured I'd talk to as many people I could find about their experiences in this job, what they did and didn't enjoy and how I would feel about it. And yep, it still felt right. 

3. Try it
There are a lot of online learning platforms out there which offer courses, both paid and free, which introduce you into the basics (and beyond) of web development. There are self-paced training sites like freecodecamp and codecademy, or you can have a look around on Udemy or Pluralsight for courses. As far as I am aware the quality of these courses can vary wildly, so definitely take your time to closely investigate them. 
Since I had already left my job at this point, I spend all of my free time digging into these courses. Personally, I chose for codecademy.com and followed their courses on Javascript and later Web Development to see if I truly did enjoy not only learning about coding but also putting it into practice. I kept at it for over a month and, yes, I still truly enjoyed it. In fact, I could not get enough of it!

4. Now what?
In my research about switching careers to become a web developer, something popped up regularly: bootcamps. I had no idea these things existed, but then again, I never looked for these until now. 
I tried to read as much as I could about these programs, scoured reviews, watched Youtube videos of other people's experiences, the apps they build as their final projects and the things they learned. Above all, I needed to know one thing: is a bootcamp worth it? They are generally very costly, and I had just left my job and quickly needed to be able to as quickly as possible find a new job as web developer. While I read that a few people said it was indeed possible to learn the necessary skills, languages and frameworks yourself, a bootcamp simply gives you a much more structured approach, an actual person tutoring you and other students that you can collaborate with. On top of that, and depending on which organization you choose, they may also actively help you land a new position. Considering that I needed to move quickly, I signed up for a bootcamp. 

5. Which bootcamp
Ah yes, right. Before signing up for a bootcamp, you guessed it: more research!
Again, this depends on where you live, but in my case, there were many different providers in my city and all of them had almost exclusively positive reviews online. That did not make the choice any easier, so the next step was to look at what each of them had to offer. Every bootcamp will have a different curriculum. The importance to me was that they taught modern and relevant frameworks and that they would also actively assist in landing a job. 
The one that matched my requirements was Ironhack. They cover React, which is a very popular Javascript library at the moment (a fact that is also reflected when checking current vacancies for Web Developer positions). I signed up, had to pass a small technical interview to prove that I grasped the basic concepts of Javascript and within a week, I had to complete a couple of entry assignments before finally beginning the course itself. 

6. Before joining a bootcamp: prepare!
This is the last tip I will share today. Don't walk in blindly into a bootcamp. Every bootcamp will make it clear from the start that they will be tough. In a matter of about 9 weeks, they will throw a lot of information your way and expect you to pick up relatively complex concepts one minute and have you put them into practice the next.
Every bootcamp will share their curriculum with you beforehand. You can either find them directly on their website or request them via e-mail. But learn as much as you can on your own before joining a bootcamp, and you will have a much easier time. 

I have just now finished my first week of bootcamp. Here is the reason why I included the first point up there in this article: At the end of this week, one person already quit the camp, saying "how can you do this kind of job and NOT kill yourself?". And that just made me wonder: what did they expect when they joined this course? Did they not know what web development was about? The amount of programming involved? What an average day would look like? 
Don't be this person. If you want to learn web development, use the web and learn about web development first. 

I have to say that so far I am satisfied with my decision to join a bootcamp. Even though I had already spent some time with learning Javascript, working with CSS and having already dipped my toes into React a little, I still learned a lot of new things in this first week. I am also becoming more confident in coding simply because I do exercises and assignments every day and often at night (even in my dreams!). But I am glad that I have prepared before joining the bootcamp, as it definitely helps keeping up with the pace!

In this first week, we went from Javascript fundamentals and HTML basics to making responsive websites in CSS, creating the logic for a minigame in JS and writing our first scripts for DOM manipulation, essentially creating a faux webshop interface.  

I will keep up this series and over the next weeks, I will cover the bootcamp experience in a little more detail. If you have any questions about anything I wrote so far, or if you've been in a similar position and have any advice to share, I'd gladly hear it!