18 months into my development as a front end developer

I think you are better off spending your time on projects if you are very serious about wanting a job in it if you're own job goes.

Doing courses is fine and great for understanding concepts but if you're looking for any job people will want to see some code and the kind of things you've worked on. It will be complimented by what you've learned from the courses. Also, if you're into coding it will be more enjoyable than books or courses.

A React course is a great start but I think your next step should be to try build a project with that knowledge, and then another one and another one, even better and bigger and more complex. I would also stick to React (unless you cant stand it).

You could keep working on it and position yourself for an entry level job at some stage.

I think the fact that you like your job probably isnt helping (as strange as that sounds). Unless you are naturally really enjoying coding I am not sure how you'll be motivated to get really into it to a point that it makes you employable. Doing your own projects will give you that answer I feel.

Best of luck!

I would say you would always need CSS/SCSS, I mean specifically if you're talking about front end dev. However to be honest I wouldnt go learning that just for the sake of it.

The classic simple project to start with is a To Do list, maybe after that you could build a little management system for your household (just a random idea as you mentioned having 2 kids). I would definitely try do stuff you might be interested in (those ideas might be miles off).

Overall, I wouldnt worry too much about what you should and shouldnt be proficient at at this stage, its more important that you're coding and enjoying it (courses wont give you a good indicator of that if my experience is anything to go by). A good sign will be that you are stuck on problems and getting deeply lost in trying to solve them , either by referring to docs or just seeing how others solved it on Stackoverflow etc, you will naturally want to finish the projects, or at least solve the problems that are coming up in them.

But also you might find you're more into one thing than another e.g. if you find yourself lost in services or applications like Firebase but not quite loving the code maybe its not a software dev role that might suit, but dev ops or something else. Or perhaps you'll love all the visual side, html/css/js/animations and even find yourself leaning closer to a web developer or even design or UX role. I know its vague advice to say you have to enjoy it, but you really do if you want to become good enough to be able to be a serious consideration for a job, its the only way you'll be able to stay motivated to learn.

I'm working with flutter on my current project. Mobile and web. It's revolutionary but you don't get that revolution for free. There are definite trade-offs, especially on Flutter web. Don't think of it as a website, rather an app displayed in a browser. Displaying html and javascript is overly complicated. There's no proper webview package on web. On mobile it's actually easier to display web content than on flutter web since ios and Android have their own webview implementation embedded in the OS.

Tbh its not something I'd ever consider as a natural next step for a front-end developer. I'd recommend react native before flutter, despite flutter being my preferred of those two.

OP, why are you not considering sticking with typescript? I thought that was popular these days. You can make full stack apps with express.js, which is valuable. Not sure about Limerick but here in Dublin I've seen jobs for it.

Although if you're looking for your first job, I'd also consider learning whatever you see the most jobs for. No point spending time learning something that there's no jobs for, just coz you like it better.

Although here's a good one: https://www.irishjobs.ie/job/software-developer/cregg-group-job104420198

Re: the portfolio, replace the lorem ipsum and make sure all links work on the site (eg About Page). Otherwise, good start!

We hired a mobile dev last week from Pakistan. We gave him a tech test. Very basic. It was all done with AI. Against my recommendation, they hired him coz he was so cheap. I gave him a task similar to the interview test and he asked to be moved to another task coz he couldn't do it. I'm guessing the AI didn't understand our code well enough, and he didn't understand it enough, either, to prompt the AI properly.

So i gave him another task. Simple enough and he struggled a bit. Told him an easier way to do it and he completed the task. I could tell the code was AI generated. Anyway, i rejected his pull request after testing his changes. Not only was it buggy, but it broke something else that was working before.

AI is a threat in the hands of good devs. You should be more worried about being replaced by cheap labour tbh. Either way, both will result in buggy code!

No the code was too clean.

Flutter changed certain things in recent versions. AI was trained on the old way of doing things. For example, a default constructor passing a key is the new way. AI does it without the constructor, which gives an IDE warning. Same for not using "const" before widgets that won't change. Then you have the comments, which are perfect formal English, along with other comment suggestions like "//You can also throw an Exception here".

Hand written code is usually messier, especially for certain skill levels, as well. When you see the code and talk to them, then it's usually obvious. But the comments are a dead giveaway.

I've never had to do a tech test like that. Apparently the big tech companies ask that sort of crap. Most normal companies will ask you to make a small project. Like for a web developer, they might ask you to implement a blog with admin and user roles, and allow comments on blog posts. This is just to see how you structure your code, like what architecture you use and is it testable. But if you're applying for a role in some online shop for example, they might ask you to make a small shop and implement stripe payments or PayPal or something.

On the mobile side, it could be something like making a sample app that uses some open API, like TMDB (like IMDB) and display it nicely on a UI. I've done one before where they gave me a test API key and asked me to use one of their own APIs and display data.

They seem to he more practical here. In saying that, I hate them and i personally know people who flat out refused to do one.

Each company is different but for cases where there's a tech test, you'll typically have an initial screening call. This can be with a tech person to make sure you're suitable for the role. Or at least talk like someone who is. If you pass that then they'll ask for the tech test. You'll have a week to do that and the most important thing is to read the instructions. It's not necessarily a requirement to complete it because they'll be looking at how you structure your code. After submission, different companies do different things. Some just reject or progress you to a final round (more tech people and/or HR screen, although HR can be step 1 in some cases), other companies will want to discuss your code and pick your brain about it before progressing you. This is just to make sure you wrote it yourself and understand it because its what you're being judged on really.

Since covid, most interviews are video calls. But that's my experience, not a rule or guarantee.

For a more junior role, you might be asked the difference between the double and triple equals. If the interviewer is trying to catch u out, then they're gobshites so the questions should be straight forward. They should just ask what libraries/components you used, how long you used them for etc. The interview should just be to make sure you have the minimum required knowledge for the role. A junior can be caught out easily by a senior but I'd only expect one of those tricky questions if you're doing exceptionally well and they want to push to see your ceiling. Another thing i remember doing as a junior was logic tests. For example they'll give you a picture of an odd shaped cake and ask you how you'd ensure its cut exactly in half. The answer being that you cut horizontally. Then there's the famous Microsoft one about dropping a watermelon from a skyscraper, which is a thinly veiled sorting algorithm.

But ultimately they just want to see if you can do the job or, more specifically, you can do it better than the other interviewees! You can google specific interview questions. There's loads of websites that give sample questions and answers that you can study beforehand but really i just ask how long you've been doing something and see if you can talk about it confidently. If you miss a lot of stuff and don't know why you did things the way you did, then that would be a red flag, unless its a junior role. Like if you know your stuff, you'll be able to talk about it, and you get to know your stuff by just putting in the time. There's no real shortcuts.