Front End Web Development

cartman1990

Hi there,

The last few month I have been doing a Udemy course in web development and was hoping to get a position in a junior role. I should be finished the course in the next day or two. I had started building a portfolio while doing the course but I have covered so many things that I don't know how much I need to know to apply for a job. I covered a whole bunch of things including HTML, CSS, Javascript, JQuery, SQL, NoSQL, NodeJS, React etc.

What kind of projects do employers like to see in a portfolio? I know the most common ones are to-do-lists and calculators etc but I'm not sure how complex I should make them. I got suggestions online but some of them seem quite difficult and I don't know how long it would take me to do them.

I have been out of work since November, I applied for 1 job since and got my application rejected. I'm worried the long gap in my CV will stop me getting a job. I guess I'm sort of to blame for the gap because there was some procrastinating over the last few months. Sometimes I would find some parts of the course difficult and found it hard to motivate myself to get back to it but I put that down to impostor syndrome lol.

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated

ARGINITE

cartman1990 wrote: »

What kind of projects do employers like to see in a portfolio?

What previous experience development do you have?

Sticking a nice UI on a REST API is always a good start here is a good source of data sets/REST APIs: https://data.gov.ie/dataset?api=true

cartman1990

ARGINITE wrote: »

What previous experience development do you have?

Sticking a nice UI on a REST API is always a good start here is a good source of data sets/REST APIs:

Ok cool, I covered REST APIs in my course so will give that a go

I don't have any really. Had done a java module in college and some web design modules but no work experience under my belt. I am coming from a tech support role.

OMM 0000

I run a software company which does a lot of stuff. The frontend tech is Vue + a few libraries, and the backend tech is Node + Express + MySQL and lots of Python machine learning stuff.

To hire a junior like you (no experience) I would need to see a few things:

1. Good attitude and willing to work hard.

2. Honesty about your strengths and weaknesses.

3. As you've no computer science background, I'd need to see a portfolio. If it consisted of todo type websites, I'd assume you hate programming and you're bad at it. You need to build something real. For example, React frontend, Node backend, MySQL or PostgreSQL database. Build a nice UI which does something and interacts with the backend. Something like a website where you can order coffee and get it delivered. I need to see you're able to build something and had the motivation to do it. You should strive to write code which follows best practices.

At your level you know almost nothing, and you'll be more expensive than an experienced Russian, so you need to sell yourself to me.

cartman1990

OMM 0000 wrote: »

I run a software company which does a lot of stuff. The frontend tech is Vue + a few libraries, and the backend tech is Node + Express + MySQL and lots of Python machine learning stuff.

To hire a junior like you (no experience) I would need to see a few things:

1. Good attitude and willing to work hard.

2. Honesty about your strengths and weaknesses.

3. As you've no computer science background, I'd need to see a portfolio. If it consisted of todo type websites, I'd assume you hate programming and you're bad at it. You need to build something real. For example, React frontend, Node backend, MySQL or PostgreSQL database. Build a nice UI which does something and interacts with the backend. Something like a website where you can order coffee and get it delivered. I need to see you're able to build something and had the motivation to do it. You should strive to write code which follows best practices.

At your level you know almost nothing, and you'll be more expensive than an experienced Russian, so you need to sell yourself to me.

Thanks for the advice!

Yeah I honestly find the whole todo type website boring when you consider what you can do with coding. I'd love to create something more meaningful like a social media site or an online store

OMM 0000

cartman1990 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice!

Yeah I honestly find the whole todo type website boring when you consider what you can do with coding. I'd love to create something more meaningful like a social media site or an online store

Then do it.

Your code doesn't need to be perfect, but if you can explain to me what you were striving for (e.g. SOLID) and you failed here and here because of whatever, that would impress me.

Seeing you are trying to improve and striving for excellence is great.

You should be open to careers like QA and automation.