Stand out as a junior web developer [HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React]

Key Takeaways

Well, hey. We really are here today. Uh Darren doesn't know this, I don't think, but yesterday um I'd scheduled this live stream by accident to be yesterday. And then suddenly people were talking to me on Discord saying, "Why isn't it starting?" And I was like, "Oh, no. Wrong day." But this is the real day. And as you can see, um delighted to be joined by Darren Doria. And we're going to talk all about how to stand out as a junior developer when you're looking for a role. And Darren is a senior software engineer with almost a decade of experience in the tech industry. And alongside his day job of writing code, he's passionate about getting other people into tech via his blog, which I'll show you now. There it is. Beautiful. And YouTube channel, and appearing on Twitter Spaces, including with Scrimba. And today he's going to share everything he knows about how to stand out in tech. We're going to be talking CV optimization, the tech you need to know, red flags that you should avoid giving off, and all sorts of wonderful things. And we do these sessions live because we want to answer the questions that you're interested in knowing about. So if you have a question on this topic or anything vaguely related, then drop it in the chat. And we'll do our best to answer as many as possible. But first, a huge thank you, Darren, for joining us. Excited to have you in here. Yeah, thank you for having me. That's uh quite the introduction. Thank you. Yeah, well deserved. Um super cool that you're here. We've spoken before on a a Twitter Space, as I said. Do you want to kick off by telling us a bit about your background and what your own journey into tech looked like? Yeah, so um I started uh coding like at the end of high school. That was like back in 2011. Um I really wanted to get into uh I got into development mainly to make iPhone apps at the time. And so I went to school for computer science cuz that's what they told me I needed to do like to sort of break into the field. Um and then while I was in school, I ended up getting an internship uh doing iOS development. And then from there, that kind of is what kicked off my career in um software development. There I I was exposed to a lot of um like early business uh problems being in a startup. Um I worked in Node.js doing some back-end work. And then that's eventually what led me into web development at the same place. So after I graduated from um university, I ended up working at the same place. Uh they brought me on full-time. And I spent about 5 years in total, 5 and 1/2 years total working there um after leaving to work at at a bigger company. So ever since then, it's just been probably around like 7 years of web development ever since. Yeah. And if I'm not mistaken, you've been on the hiring side as well. Is that right? Yeah, so I I did um at that first startup that I worked at, since I went through that internship path, um after I got hired on, I did help bring um interns on o- over into the company. So I was sort of like leading that effort. Um that was something I was really passionate about. And then at my current role now, we actually finished up some hiring for some uh junior roles as well. And so ever since then, I haven't worked as much with internships, but I have sort of shifted to helping and onboarding those junior developer roles. Super cool. That is exactly what we're interested in learning about today. So let's start by talking a bit about the tech side. I know there's more to getting hired than just that, but are there some core skills that everyone needs to know? Yeah, if if we're talking about um web development or uh software development on the front end specifically, um you'll see a lot of candidates come in with the basics like HTML, CSS, uh JavaScript. Those are mainly like the core uh technical skills that you need uh to get that first uh job in in front end. I think to really stand out though, you have to Again, this isn't a requirement. This is if you do want to stand out as a candidate, is to really take one of those and uh like dive deeper into um into building something with those that really demonstrate your understanding of that tech, right? So at the junior level, we're not expecting candidates to come in and have like this deep understanding of the whole tech stack, right? Cuz a lot of that is learned on the job. But for example, if you're coming in with um if you want to dive in deeper into HTML, you can uh take a look at like some of the accessibility things that you would use on the HTML side adding like um role and aria attributes, and like understanding those, that could be a path you take. Um with CSS, you can take a regular button that you would normally style and give it some some more interactivity on like hover and focus, maybe keyboard bindings. Um and then with JavaScript, that's like such a big um surface area, you can really pick anything in JavaScript and and dive deep into it with like promises, callbacks, like how does the this in JavaScript work? Things like that really um demonstrate that you've gone past the like a tutorial or a boot camp, and you're really trying to dive deeper into one of these. Yeah. That makes total sense. It's Tech Smex has a question about the metaverse. What are your thoughts about the growing interest in the metaverse, and where do front-end devs fit in? Wow. Uh that's a good question. Right now, I think it's it's too early to tell really. I think if you were trying to land a job um in that space today, most of the people that are hiring are likely looking for people who have uh the basic like front-end skills that may apply to metaverse. So I think in uh there's like certain ways you can um build like VR websites that I've seen. Um I haven't seen too many job postings, to be honest, on in that space. It'll probably be more of a like specialized role. So I'd say if you're looking if you're interested in front end, um getting a job in like a standard front-end stack would probably be the best approach to getting your foot in the door. And then sort of uh looking for what companies are looking for in that domain. Mm. So it's sort of like everything really. If you know the basics, that can only help. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Very interesting question, Tech Smex. You mentioned just now, Darren, about um yeah, going the extra mile, I would say, with your HTML, your CSS, and so on. A man is wanting to know what kind of projects specifically um they should build to get that first job. You're saying like if that's a kind of question you can ask in an interview? I think they want to know if they're going to build a project, yeah, what is it they should what kind of specific project should they build to get that job? Yeah. Um yeah, that's um there really is no like one kind of project that you should build. I'd say um probably the easiest way that I've or like things that I've witnessed that get people's foot in the door is working on something that uh maybe solves a problem that they're currently having, right? Like let's say um you want to build uh something simple, like a little tool, maybe like a script on your computer that you run that gets you um like certain events on your calendar. I don't know, like simple things like that you can start to build to to showcase like your interest and maybe like your problem-solving skills. That they don't always have to be full-fledged like web apps, right? You can start out with things like Chrome extensions. You can start out with like building a web scraper and building your own API to access like data that you may want to find on the web. Um Recently, I built a a Raycast extension, like a like a spotlight tool that you can use like integrate maybe like to speed up your productivity. So those kind of things like I think the reason I like them is because it's something that you're building for yourself, and you're going to find it useful. And so at the end of the day, that kind of drives you to finish it and come to completion. And it helps you just talk about it a little bit more. Like when someone asks like, "Oh, can you tell me why you built this?" Like you can tell people get excited about it. Well, like this is something that I was struggling with, and I wanted to see if I can find a solution for myself. So I went out and built it. Yeah. And if you're struggling with a problem, then probably someone else out there is as well. And you never know. Right. Might make millions from it. Well, you know, the person who made Wordle, that was just a present for I think their partner. Just saying. Yeah, you never know where that's going to take you. No, you don't. Flash Learning has asked a question which I planned to ask anyway, which is do you think I need to learn a JS framework to stand out? Yeah, that's a good question. Um I would say the short answer is no, you don't need to learn a JS framework. Um it definitely helps though. I think uh at this point, candidates um that are looking for those entry-level jobs, they've probably taken a React course, a Vue course, something like along those lines. And so, these days like seeing it on your resume isn't necessarily going to make you stand out because a lot of people do have that entry-level experience on their resume. So, I'd say it definitely helps, but at the same time I've seen people build really amazing projects with just the basics, right? HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. And I will say if you build an app like when someone sees your something that you've built, right? The first question isn't necessarily what did you use to build this, right? They want to see like does it function well? Is it buggy? Are the interactions nice, right? You're not necessarily like always diving straight into the back end. And I've been surprised in the past seeing projects that I'm like, "Wow, this is really thought out, it's built really well, it looks nice." And then the person that built it, they just used JavaScript, right? And I think if you find a project like that, that could even be more impressive because it shows that you have a solid understanding of the fundamentals. And getting you on to something like React at that point will probably be really easy and it wouldn't be a concern for me as someone hiring. Yeah, that does make sense. And if you happen to learn a different framework to the one that they're using, you're going to need to switch over anyway. So, yeah. Yeah, and a lot of the times like if you jump straight into a framework without having that JavaScript understanding, not saying that it's not possible for you to do it. There's several people who who just jump ahead, but you miss out on a lot of the JavaScript fundamentals that might come back to bite you later on when you're like working on the job. When I first did my intro into web development, at the time I was working on with Ember.js framework, and I had no understanding of web development. All I had was Node.js experience, so just regular JavaScript experience in the back end. And I moved on to web development and I was doing a bunch of stuff in Ember and like building like cool stuff for for the company, but at the end there was one day that it hit me. I was like, "If I were to build like if I were to start a new website today, I actually didn't know like the basics on how to start a website." And so, a lot of that core understanding um I think it is crucial when you're starting out. Yeah. And it just makes things so much easier later on in life. So, get those basics down, definitely. Slim Bloodworth has a very interesting idea um regarding what type of projects you could build. Going back to our question earlier, build a clone of their landing play page, but add your little touches that you think would improve something about it and put that project in your resume for the company. What do you think of that, Darren? Yeah, I think that that would definitely stand out in a in a job search for sure. I think I see a lot of people build clones like on on like Twitter and like YouTube and stuff. They build clones of like Netflix or like Instagram and that's like a really good way to start out building your your UI skills. You know, you're typically not building all of their like back end stuff, too. But I think that would definitely get you noticed when you're when you're on the hunt. Yeah, they sound pretty cool. That is a question I had on my mind actually from Code Thin. Is showing Bootstrap on your skills more impressive or a hindrance? So, two ways of looking at using Bootstrap. Um what's your take on this, Darren? Um when I think I wouldn't see it as a hindrance at this point. Um I think it kind of goes back to what I mentioned with like jumping ahead to a framework. If you have a good understanding of CSS, then of course it's it's not a hindrance at all, right? Like that's just showing that you've you've uh worked with CSS and you have um experience with a CSS framework on top of that. But I've seen I have seen people fall into that pitfall of starting out a project and skipping straight to Bootstrap. And they'll build their app out or they'll build their website out with Bootstrap and it looks you know, it looks nice, but when it comes to the understanding of why their HTML was structured a certain way or why certain things are limited the way they are, they're not able to go in and modify those things. So, most of the time when you do work with Bootstrap, um it gives you a lot of things out of the box, right? And you could move along very quickly. One of the things that happens is you hit a point where if you have if you're working with a design team, they're going to want to customize that, right? They're going to want something that doesn't look like the out of the box experience. They want to look different from other Bootstrap sites. So, they're going to ask devs to go in and modify things, right? Oh, we want this to look have more spacing here or we actually don't want this to happen when you click, we want it to open on this side. And so, at that point if you don't have a solid understanding of CSS and the HTML that you wrote, um then you're going to you're kind of painted yourself into a corner, right? Like well, like now I either have to rebuild this from scratch and or have to go deep into understanding how Bootstrap works to really customize this. Yeah, totally. I can imagine how yeah, Bootstrap is handy, but you don't want to become too reliant on it, basically. Yeah. Yeah, so I'd say if you put on your resume, just be prepared to speak to your abilities on CSS and like in what capacity you did use Bootstrap in the past. Yep, lovely. Mr. Doubleday is asking any ideas on Web3. Uh what skills should we learn to stand out if we want to work in that field? Yeah, that's a good question. I've I've been seeing a lot of Web3 stuff online these days. Um I'd say it's for me it's a little too early to tell. I haven't jumped into that space uh specifically, but what I can say is from candidates that I've seen moving into that space or people who excuse me, who have already built out projects for Web3, a lot of the foundational skills are actually still front end skills. So, if you're building out a Web3 website, you're still going to need to know how to use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to build those those user interfaces. You're still going to need to have some understanding of working with APIs, right? So, even if you're not working with um a Web3 library or fully into that space, if you have some experience working with um with back end APIs and managing your data, I say those skills will transfer over. Um in terms of additional skills to learn on top of that, um I'm not really in the Web3 space, so I don't know if I'm like the best person to answer those questions, but I know that you will need those foundational skills anyway. So, if you don't know those, that's always a good place to start. Perfect, thank you. And thank you everyone who's sending in these excellent questions. Keep them coming. We'll answer as many as we can. Flash Learning is asking about algorithms. Um how many do I need to learn if indeed any? Uh I've heard big companies do interviews with algorithms. Yeah, that's um that's a big thing when you're starting out is learning algorithms. Um they're not going They always help, I say. Like when you're starting out, you're not going to um you're going to need them for interviews at certain places. That's for sure. When for example like at Wistia, we don't um we don't ask like algorithm-based questions or whiteboarding interviewing. And I have seen more companies in the industry moving away from those types of questions for interviews. Um if you go through a traditional like computer science program at a university, that's going to be a lot of the things that you do learn. So, that makes sense why they would ask those questions starting out at bigger companies. Um I don't think you need them to get the job. That's like kind of the the bare-bones answer, but I do encourage people to read up and learn those if they haven't done that before. Because when you're starting out, you're not necessarily going to need those um algorithms your first couple months on the job, but they always end up coming up later on. They're going to be like a good way to solve problems later on. And once you have exposure to those algorithms, you start seeing different patterns and ways to solve those problems that when you're on the job, it comes in really, really handy. I'm glad you said that actually cuz my next question was going to be would it help you when you're actually working on the job? And it sounds like it might well do. So, yeah. Yeah, one of the one of the examples that I had when I when I first started out, I did my my four-year degree and when I was first starting out, I didn't use any of those, right? So, I was like, "Man, I learned all this stuff and I'm not even using it." I was pretty upset about that. And then like a year so into the job, we're working with with a mapping API and we had to draw a bunch of stuff overlaid on top of the map and it was this really deep nested structure. And on the job, we're like, "Well, if we we can use some some sort of like tree type data structure to map this out." And if you have that background with algorithms, you would know like what's the quickest way to traverse this type of tree, especially like if we're looking for something that's really deep in the tree, or if we're just looking for something at a high level, right? So, those algorithms do end up coming in handy, and having to learn them on the job at that point would just kind of like slow you down, right? So, I I always encourage people to spend some time at least reading at a high level what these algorithms are. Lovely. Thank you. Couple of people, first of all, 01 and App Arabic are asking questions around They know the basics, HTML, CSS, and a framework. Is that enough to start the job hunt? Yeah, I would say so. I would I would always encourage people, once you have an understanding of the basics, to go out and start applying for those junior roles. Um there's people One of the misconceptions is that you always You're never going to feel like you know enough just to start out, right? You're always going to feel like, "Oh, if I only learn this other thing, then I can apply." Um but, once you have a good understanding of the basics, if you can go in and and build something, um get through one of these projects on your own that you're building for yourself, I'd say you're you're qualified to start applying, right? And through the application process, you're going to notice what the gaps are in your knowledge, and you can start to fill those, right? So, it almost accelerates that process a little bit more for you. Perfect. Yeah. Plenty of other questions coming. I can barely keep up. Um but, that's great. And Hal is asking, "How important is it for hiring managers when candidates don't last years in companies, once you do get your foot in the door?" So, basically, is it looked down upon or possibly seen as a red flag if people are job hopping? I think when you're When you're starting out, it has become more common, I think. So, what I've seen is people will get a job, and then they'll start out maybe for a year, year and a half at their first position, and then they're ready to move on to another another place. Now, if you have a long history of job hopping, then that will be uh a red flag to to recruiters or hiring managers when they're screening, right? If you have someone who has like 10 years experience, and they've done like 12 jobs in those 10 years, like consistently, like a year or less at each position, that's going to be a red flag. But, when you're starting out, most candidates don't know yet what they're what they're fully interested in, right? Like, you're it's just your your first time being exposed. So, I'd say it's not a red flag when you're starting out. Um part of the process is figuring out if that's the right company for you. Maybe after a year on the job, you notice you don't want to do front end, you might want to move into a back end role. So, as long as you're not like job hopping a lot, then it's it's really not a big deal. Yeah. Good to know. Fresh learning has a question around the difference between a junior developer and a senior developer. And I think we should also mention the difference between an intern and a junior. So, can you tell us a bit about that? Yeah, I'd say um between Well, usually with with an intern, I I think people see these differently. So, it almost depends on the company you're applying for and how they define it. It's one of those things, but I think in my mind, when you're looking for an intern, you're looking for someone who may be part-time, who doesn't have a full um understanding. Maybe they just know how to code, and they don't really know um frameworks too in-depth. They don't really know um JavaScript maybe too in-depth. They've probably only done HTML, CSS. I think there's like this It's implied that there's a lot more learning on the job. It's kind of like the way I see it. This is more of a learning experience for them, whereas a junior role, you're expecting them to come in and be able to contribute at some level. They're probably going to start out um you know, start with a slow ramp, but within a few, like 3 to 6 months, they're probably going to be contributing on a small scale of projects. I think between a junior and a senior developer, that becomes more about how um self-sufficient you are. I think Is that the right word? Where you you're able to take a project and you're able to scope it out and break it up into smaller chunks. You're able to estimate how long that work's going to take. You already have the experience to know, "I've seen this type of feature before, and so I already know how I'm going to build it and how I'm going to split up that work. And there's less of you um sort of like waiting around for or not waiting around, but less of you relying on someone else to come in and guide you through that process, and they're going to just like dive right into the project and start building that out. Perfect. On the topic of well, junior developers, as the whole stream really, but specifically, um what junior developers do. Evil bonobo is asking, "What are the daily tasks a junior developer will have to do?" So, can you give us some examples of what might be given to a junior? Yeah, on a junior dev, when they're starting out, if it's their first job, a lot of it is going to be There's going to be a lot of learning involved. It's going to be a lot of pair programming, most likely. You're going to learn the the processes around the company that you're at and how they build software, and that comes down to um getting work uh handed off from design and product, breaking that up into smaller chunks with your team, um estimating that work, and then um like identifying things that that might be like at risk or might not ship in time. And you're going to be learning a lot of how that process works. That's like a big one, because that's the kind of things that you're not going to really learn beforehand. So, it's expected that those things are learned on the job. And then, when it comes to the work you're starting out on, they're going to be smaller um tickets is what we call them, right? Like, units of work. So, you might there might be like a built-up backlog of really simple bugs that are perfect for juniors to come in and get themselves familiar with the code base. You typically, they're like um a couple line fixes, where they can go in and identify the issue and maybe um you know, you're you're passing an incorrect parameter to an API you're using, or you're not correctly handling an error that's coming back. Um and it's sort of like this like snowball of of learning, right? You start out with these smaller pieces, and then you start um start slowly getting larger and larger tasks, and seeing how well you can handle those larger tasks before needing outside help. But, for that those first like 6 months, you can expect to work really closely with another engineer to sort of help you help unblock you each step of the way. Perfect. And uh Fun Divisionary is asking, um "What happens to juniors after being hired? They want to know, how do you stand out amongst the other juniors, and how can you climb the ladder and lose that junior in your job title?" Um I think it's a matter of asking questions, really, and trying to stretch your your yourself when it comes to that learning process. And you No one is going to know more than you like how well you're you're keeping up or like consuming all of this information coming in, right? So, what really helps accelerate that is asking more questions. So, a lot of times like when you're starting out, you might be a little bit shy to be the one person that's asking all the new questions, but as a junior, that's sort of what's expected, right? We're expecting these people to come in and learn a lot on the job. And so, if you're coming in and in meetings, you're asking questions about the product, and you're asking questions about like, "Oh, how are we going to build this?" If you're like getting into um like those finer details, that's really going to help you um I guess pull you along um in that initial learning journey. And then, um I think that's like the really the biggest differentiator is just getting in and and asking those questions. And then eventually, you're going to have the that work to take on on your own. And um yeah, I I think that's that's really the the biggest thing. Is it possible, on the other hand, to ask too many questions, or not really, just go for it? Um I don't think so. I think it depending on Like, if you're asking questions and you're struggling with something, let's say like you're working on a project, you're like, "Man, I I really don't I'm kind of stuck." If you're asking questions and they're they're things that like you haven't figured Like, you haven't tried to tackle on your own yet, that might set you back, right? Because one of the things that happens is you're struggling on a piece of code, and you reach out to engineer you're working with, like, "Hey, I'm struggling with this." One of the first questions they're going to ask you, most likely, is, "Well, what have you tried yet?" Right? They're trying to catch up to like where your thought process is at. And so, if you're getting stuck and you're you haven't tried anything yet, you haven't tried to debug on your own, um that might be that might set them back, like, "Oh, well, if you haven't tried yet, then I don't really know how to help you." But, if you're if you're asking questions and you're saying like, "Hey, I'm struggling with this. Here's what I've tried and this is why it didn't work and now I don't know like where to look to next. That's a different conversation at that point and you're like okay, they've already gone down this path and now like the only options left are to do XYZ. Mhm. It's a bit like on Stack Overflow. Yeah, there's a certain etiquette to asking questions and if you ask one that doesn't quite live up to that, boy do you know about it. So, just imagine you're asking on Stack Overflow and maybe even ask on Stack Overflow first, who knows? Yeah. Cait then wants to know about um the type of environment that's good for a junior. Wondering whether joining a small startup as a junior can stunt your growth because of lack of proper mentorship. But on the other hand, could it be overwhelming if you're in a big company? That's that's actually really really good question. Um so, I may be a little bit biased here because when I started out, I started out at a startup and not um a giant company. And so, I will say if it depends on how you like to learn and like what sort of environment um promotes that that learning for you and really like is best for you. So, at a startup what you're going to get, depending how early the startup is, like let's say 10 to 15 people, likely that startup is going um each of those people are is going to have a lot um wear a lot of different hats and they're not just going to focus primarily on one role. They're probably going to be doing a little bit of everything. And so, if that's something that you like, then a startup will be great for you. Right? So, when I started out, like I said, I did iOS development, back end development and web development all like in the same internship. Um when and that was just a matter of need. That wasn't really that wasn't a common track that they put people on. It was just a matter of well, we have we have iOS development done, we need back end. I did the back end and then after that they're like well, now we need um help on this sort of project. And so, at the time I also got to influence things on design, product, if that's something that you like to do. But there's a way less structure to your learning. Right? There isn't always going to be a road map of oh, at 3 months you'll be learning this, at 6 months you'll be learning this. You're going to be pulled in directions based on the needs of of the company. So, if that's something that you like, it's especially good for people who have that like entrepreneurial ambition and they they're they want to be exposed more to how these early companies are running, then I'd say it's it's a really good spot to to go in and learn. I would ask the startup what um what kind of process they have in place sort of to to help you starting out, if you're going to have close relationship with someone on the team, um another engineer to help you out. If they have those resources available, then it's a good option um for you. Yeah. So, it all boils down to how you learn best. But thank you for the wonderful question, Cait. Yeah. Incognito's in- incognito is slow. That's the one. Um what would be three questions you would ask on an interview regarding JavaScript? Oh, interesting question. Um would I ask as an interviewer regarding JavaScript? Yeah, I think so. And I'm not sure if they mean specific JavaScript questions about the syntax or how you would approach finding out how much the candidate actually knows. But maybe you could give us an idea in either case. Yeah, so typically I'm I'm not a fan of asking um JavaScript like or like coding like um questions like in the abstract. I think the reason being um it's you don't know like how like JavaScript has such a wide surface area. You don't really know what kind of like how far deep into the rabbit hole they've gone on JavaScript. And so, asking some of these questions sometimes ends up being um sort of like intimidating for candidates starting out and like at the junior level it's like I'm not going to be asking them like how do you promises work or um I don't know, like questions about like callbacks, like things like that. What I do like to do is I'll take a project that they've either have worked on or um maybe if it's um like say like a take home coding assignment, I'll take code that I know they've written before and ask them to expand on that. Right? So, at that point I think that's fair game, right? If you wrote something and there's something that you've already worked with, then it's like okay, I'm going to go ahead and ask you why you used um this promise here versus like this other API, right? And I think that's a better conversation than um sort of asking directly sort of these like trivia type questions about the language because most of the time off the top people aren't going to know those anyway, even if you're a more experienced developer. If it's not an API that you work with daily, then most of the time people are just going to Google it and be like oh yeah, that's how that works, I forgot and then move on, right? So, I like to ask candidates questions about things that they've worked on recently. Yeah. Sounds like a much better approach to me. Um Rajesh is asking, is graduation mandatory in getting a developer job? From a university, I don't think so. I there's been plenty of candidates that we've hired that um don't have a university degree or that I've seen like in the field before get. It's not really a hindrance by any mean. Even when you do have one, it's like okay, cool, we know that you have some of that background with like computer theory, but then at the end of the day you're going to be asked and interviewed the same way that a candidate that that didn't have it and it's about demonstrating those core skills. Mhm. Yeah. So, it's not just like if you have it, then that's you through the door. You're still going to need to basically demonstrate the same skills as everyone else. So. Yeah, I think if you if you yeah, if you have it and you have it like on your LinkedIn and your resume, it's probably going to get picked up by like certain keywords in like by recruiters and things like that. So, that's like something to know, but uh by no means is it mandatory to get a job. Good to know. Sadaf is wondering how about age. Um what would you think of a 30-plus junior dev coming from a totally different background? Uh age doesn't play a process in or doesn't like play a role in in hiring. We've hired again, this is this goes back to like the age and the the computer um degree doesn't really play into the process. I think when you have people that are switching uh careers at that point uh later in life, if they've already had a career in something else, sometimes that demonstrates their ability to like collaborate and like other skills that they may have that aren't like super technical to the role that could benefit them. And so, if anything that might even help you out when you're when you're switching roles and trying to break in. Perfect. Yeah. I think people often think that you have to start from complete zero, but actually anything you've done before can still be very useful. And look out for roles in that field. If you've been a doctor or a teacher, go and look at med tech or ed tech and see how you can use it. Yeah. Yeah, and I always tell people that too, like use your use the experience that you do have in another field to try to get your foot in the door maybe at a company that's in that same space. Yeah, totally. Thank you for the question, Sadaf. Um this question caught my eye. I need it asks, what would you advise a junior developer who knows the code but isn't strong in the theory aspect? I'm not totally sure, but I think what the question means is you're okay on the syntax front, but have trouble applying it. So, the problem-solving kind of aspect is what you struggle with. How can you improve that? This yeah, that this is just a matter of uh like putting the the reps in, as they say. It's it's one of those things where really what's going to separate you like what's what separates like a junior dev and a senior dev is like you've seen those patterns before and you're able to identify them when you see them later on and you know how to solve that. So, you know like when you're starting out, you're going to be like okay, this sort of makes sense, but I don't completely understand this. It's just a matter of building those sort of projects over and over. Not the same project, obviously, but like just going through and every time you do it, it's it's going to get a little bit easier. Even though you may still feel like you're struggling, you're probably going to be struggling with something um that you haven't yet covered. It's not going to be struggling on the same um pieces over and over again. So, if you're struggling with stuff specific to web development, then it's a matter of building more web projects, right? If you're If you're struggling on core um programming and like JavaScript type like computer theory questions, um you can kind of go into more of those like computer science type questions. So, I know GitHub there's several uh repositories that are like um computer science algorithms in JavaScript, for example, or like they have them in several different languages. And so, you can go and work on simple questions like that that may strengthen your understanding of like for loops and then like while loops and those sort of things to help you build up that understanding. Mm, excellent tip. We have mentioned that algorithms might help, but they're not essential. Tigran is wondering, if you don't get asked about algorithms, what are some of the common questions? Yeah, if you're not getting asked about algorithms, then you're most likely doing some sort of take-home project or a live I've seen other companies do like live projects. So, on one hand, the live project it won't really be like a full project. It'll be they have um some web app with like some scaffolding done. So, it might have like the first initial steps built out, and then they're going to say, "We have this app. This is how it works. Um we want to add a button over here that does X thing, right?" And then in that 1 hour you're going to go in and or however long the interview is, you're going to go in and um through some like shared um IDE environment, you go in and build that stuff that feature out. And typically that's a good point of collaboration and asking questions, and they're trying to see like how that problem-solving um how you work with problem-solving versus the take-home project, um you get a certain amount of time to complete a project, you know, at your own pace, on your own time. And then you come back, and at that point they you submit the project, and it gets reviewed, and at that point there's a follow-up uh interview where you go in and you talk about the project. And at that point, the interviewer is going to ask you questions about the like why you did things a certain way, um what did you struggle with, um if you had more time, like what would you add or fix or develop like continue to develop. Um those kinds of questions. So, again, the the end goal is the same is trying to get a deeper understanding of your problem-solving abilities and your your ability to communicate like your thought process throughout that. Yeah. On the topic of communication, I wanted to ask you actually, how can you demonstrate that you have good communication skills? That's Yeah, that's a good question. I think most of the time that comes down in the interview. If you're trying to if you're trying to showcase that beforehand, it is a little tough where you mean you can you can try to do it like via like YouTube videos. Those tend to take a lot of time um for people to work on, so I don't always recommend you sink a bunch of time into making videos when you're starting out, unless you're passionate about making videos, then then go for it. I don't like want to make it seem like that's a requirement. Um but most of the time it is going to be at when you come to that point in the interview and um you're talking about your ability to problem-solve or how you were thinking through your questions or how you were thinking through your code, I'm sorry. And um yeah, I think that's the biggest time in that interview process that you get um insight into those communication skills. Yeah, lovely. Slim Blurbworth is asking uh some entry-level job entry-level job postings have requirements of 5 plus years of experience to apply. If we think we meet roughly 80% of the skills and requirements, should we apply anyway? Or even less than 80% maybe? Yeah, I think most of the time these job postings are automated and a lot of the It's typically not the person doing the interviewing that's always writing the job posting, if that makes sense. Depending on how the how the company's structured, they might have a separate team that's in charge of like recruiting that they'll put together these postings. So, they might not always know like what to put on there. Um same thing goes for like if they're putting certain skills, sometimes they'll they'll put like you need JavaScript, React, and Vue or something. And then you might be looking like, "Was it React or Vue or like am I actually doing both?" Um I think if it's an If it says entry-level job, then I I would discount those 5 plus years of experience, because at that point you're it's not entry-level anymore. So, like one of those two has to give. If the rest of the job posting makes it sound like they're they are in fact looking for a lot of experience and it doesn't sound like entry-level position, then maybe it's not really um entry-level posting. That's more of an issue like with I think like certain companies in the industry sort of not having good uh postings available. But for the most part, that 80% threshold is like a good way to look at it where you might think to yourself, "If I meet most of these, I can go ahead and apply anyway because really there's no downside in applying." And I would tell people that if you're not apply, go ahead and apply like put it forth the best application you can, and you know, if you get turned down, then you get turned down, but you can always move on to you know, another application. Absolutely. And you're going to find out what you're missing and what it is you need to progress to a successful one. So, yeah, no harm done. Um Tigran, interesting question. There's a small chance of me going to a different country for university at the end of 2022. Should I place that in my CV education section or just omit it? I'm not sure why they would omit it because as far as I'm concerned, studying abroad can only be a good thing. I wonder if they mean um they're applying now, but they might basically be leaving later on. Um yeah, should they mention that, do you think? Yeah, I I think if if you have the university experience already, I would put that on on the resume and apply. Um but I would say if you if you haven't if you haven't started yet, I wouldn't put it on there. So, if Yeah. Typically, if you're in progress at university, I would list it and then put your start date and then like say that's like still in progress, like I'm still going through this. Um but if you haven't started yet, then I would usually just leave it out. I think Like I said, it's usually not a requirement to to um to getting the job. I think even Google for a while now, um they put that they don't require computer science degrees anymore. Interesting. I think I'm maybe maybe it'd be another company, but it was like this big tech company that they were not requiring that anymore. Yeah, good to know. Thank you for the question, Tigran. Flash learning, should I consider freelancing before applying in companies? Freelancing is definitely a way where you can start to make some income before um before landing that full-time job. So, I I think I haven't done freelancing myself, so it I can't like speak to how much work it's going to be. I have heard from some people that it can take up a significant amount of work. Um if that's what you're trying to pursue, but I think if if you have the option to, right? And if somebody you find somebody who's willing to pay you to to do a website for them, then I would I would go for it. If you feel confident that you can deliver um like with the skills you have, then there's no reason not to, and that's even more way to showcase your work before getting that full-time job. Perfect. Um we're so many questions coming in. I don't think there's ever been this many questions different. Yes. Oh, what about this one? Do self-taught developers need to show something extra? And if so, what would you like to see? I think if you're com- if you're completely self-taught and you haven't done um something like a boot camp that shows like what your curriculum has been and you've just been doing full self-learning, um I think it's a little harder at that point to stand out. But like if you do have those projects that you can show that you've worked on, then there's no denying your skill set, right? So, I think at that point, I would want to see quality over quantity. I think when you're starting out, you there's a point where you do um you do try to try to try to work on a lot projects just to like sharpen up your skills. But at one point when you're trying to apply, you want to see a project that goes beyond that like um surface-level understanding of your skill set and dives a little bit deeper. Especially if you're self-taught, you want to really showcase like, "Hey, I know what I'm doing. This is what I built and look how great it works. Look how um you know, it's it's more complex than your standard um like to-do list app, right? It just goes like a little bit extra. And so at that point, even if you're self-taught or like graduate or whatever, like showing that you have that work um is you know, no one can deny that at that point. Mhm. Totally. Alexandria is wondering, "How can I understand if my level of JS is good enough for a junior developer role?" This is a question we get quite a lot on Scrimba. How do you know when you're ready? Yeah, that's um yeah, that's a tough question to answer because there's no like magic point of understanding that you reach that is is to say like, "Hey, you've done it. Now you can go ahead and start applying." Um I think with starting out, you're going to need at the very at the very least, you should be able to like a scan through uh a file of JS code and understand what's happening, right? At a at a high level. If you can look at some code online in the open source world and you can look through and be like, "Okay, like I can understand this. Like maybe if it comes like writing it back from scratch, I might not completely, but I know exactly what's happening here." I'd say that you're already at a at a really good spot if you can if you know the basics of interacting with web APIs, like finding elements on the page, um maybe like hiding and showing them, um what else? Like doing some basic data fetching like um and and retrieving data from an API, then at that point, you're you're probably in a good spot to apply for a junior role. Yeah. And as we said for the previous question, give it a go and the worst that will happen is you might get said no to, but that will give you an idea of what you need to learn. So, And not And not all jobs will require that deep JS understandings, depending on what role you're working on. So, in the front-end space, you have those front-end web apps that are the very like data-intensive applications. They're working with like APIs. They're they're more of like these long-lived like experiences where somebody like logs in and they're like messing around and like it's very interactive. And then you have sites that um you would call like marketing sites where you just go to a companypage.com and it's like showcasing stuff about the website. If you can if you're applying for a role that's working on that team, typically the requirements for JS won't be as intensive, right? So, there's a little bit of more reliance on your HTML and CSS skills than on your JavaScript abilities. Now, that's not going to be the same for every um again, for every company, depending on how they di- divide up that work. But um that is a way, you know, that's another way of saying that like not all that experience for junior devs is is exactly equal, depending on what role you're applying to. Yeah, that is a very good point. RedOneAF asks, "Do you think I could be hired even after 2 years without work because recruiters require experience. I don't know if they're going to tolerate my wasted 2 years." So, I don't know what RedOne's been up to for 2 years, but they consider it a waste. Really, it's a question around a CV gap, it sounds like. Yeah, I I wouldn't say like you wouldn't be hired. I think the questions always come up in that screening process. Recruiters will probably ask about that experience. They'll be like, "Hey, what happened to these 2 years?" Especially if you were like in the workforce already. And they'll be like, "Hey, what happened within these 2 years?" And you know, if you have you know, depending on how you answer that, people might say, "Oh, I took time off for like personal matter or I took time off um you know, I'm sure there's like something important that was going on or oh, I took that time off and I wanted to focus on this transition into tech." You know, those are all like valid reasons. I don't think it would disqualify you at all from from landing a job. Yeah, absolutely. As long as you can say something along those lines of the examples that Darren just gave. Yeah, don't definitely don't say that you wasted 2 years. Yes, that's what I was getting at. Even if you think it, you don't have to tell them that. Brilliant. Um oh cracky, it's uh yeah, I hope we're 56 minutes in. Um let's finish off with a question from Blue Force Ninja {triple exclamation mark}. Um I'm a 40-year-old who's completed a full-stack traineeship and um I've had some interviews, but they always tell me that I don't have enough experience. What can I do about that? Yeah, my my first question would be, what what work have you showcased after the the full-stack like traineeship that you did that shows like you've continued to develop those skills? Cuz one of the things that can like put people in a tough spot is they take this like 6-week, 8-week course or boot camp and then as soon as it's done, um they sort of just drop off and haven't continued to work on those skills, right? And especially if you're transitioning into the industry, if you don't keep working on those skills, then you really start to lose them like quite fast, I'd say, right? It's like one of those things where like you just learn something and if you don't put it into practice, then when it comes time to use those skills, you kind of have to like backtrack a little bit and start that learning process again before you can put them into practice. So, you want to be at a point where you've had enough experience practicing those skills um and like putting them into uh into use so that you can showcase like, "Hey, like not only did I learn this thing, I mean, I have proof that I learned it by like here's like my certificate or whatever that I completed this course, but here's like things that I've produced afterwards that showcase me putting those skills into use, right? So, again, like depending on what role you're applying, they might have different thresholds for what is enough experience. So, if you're applying for like a true junior developer role, they're going to have some expectations that you're going to be learning on the job. So, as long as you can showcase that I have these skills and here's me putting them into practice, then um you should have that uh experience. But I would say like as you continue to apply, keep working on those skills so they don't fall off, right? And at that point like the longer the job pros- hunting process takes, the the more you can keep working on those skills, so you're just like getting better over time. Mhm. Yeah, brilliant. Going back to our um question about how to demonstrate your communication skills, Michael Limbers made a good point. That is often the purpose of the fluff questions like, "What interests you?" and "Tell me about yourself" type of thing. So, yeah, good tip. Have some answers ready for that and hopefully that will help you as well. Um Debjit has kindly reminded me about our weekly tradition, which is if Oh, I did have a card for it, but I seem to have deleted it. What it is is if you're new here, put a tiger into the chat. No, no, no, that's wrong. If you've been before, put a tiger. If you're new, put a bunny rabbit. And then we're not doing anything with this information, it's purely for fun. But thank you for the reminder, Debjit. Um yes, we're up to an hour already. Um but I just want to show you Darren's um YouTube channel once more and Darren's blog {slash} website. Uh yes, go and check it out. The links are in the description. Um very nice tips on there that I'm sure you will all enjoy. And in case you haven't heard, it is a challenge week over on Scrimba. Yeah. Um code to win. Um we are releasing a brand new challenge every single day. We've had these three so far this week. And also selecting solutions of the day. And you can win prizes, free subscription, cash, a job ready review to optimize your CV, all sorts. Um but come along and give it a go. People are having lots of fun, I've heard. So, that's brilliant. Wow, um we are already up to an hour, as I said, which is amazing. Um welcome to bunny rabbits and welcome back to the tigers. Oh, there's a camel. Thank you all for coming along. If you enjoyed this, uh give me the thumbs up so I know to do this kind of stuff in the future. And uh go and give Darren a follow on Twitter. Link also in the description box. And thank you very much for coming, Darren. Lots of fantastic advice, as usual. Uh really appreciate you sharing all your brilliant tips there. Yeah, thank you for having me. This hour went by super fast. Thanks for all the questions, too. Yeah, absolutely amazing amount of questions. I'm going to look at the stats after this and see if it's the most ever. I think it might be. Yeah. Brilliant. Well, tune in um on Friday. We'll be back actually uh for a fun code along live stream. Yes. Uh we're going to be solving some of the Valentine's JavaScript challenges. So, that'll be nice. Come along to that. And um in the meantime, keep coding, of course. And I will see you on Friday. Brilliant. Bye, everyone. Bye.