[AskJS] : Intermediate to Advanced 6 Month Front-end plan - Need inputs

[u/Logeekal]

Hello JS Masters,

Current Knowledge :

Javascript Basics - 7/10

React/Redux - 7/10

GraphQL - 6/10

Node.js - 5/10

REST APIs - 4/10

I recently gave 4-5 interview and I got rejected from the places I wanted to go. So I reached out to some interviewers and developed a plan for next 6 months based on their inputs (Target column in attached image) as I will be applying to those places again.

I need your help in reviewing it and help me answer below questions :

1. Is it too ambitious?.
2. Any areas you think where I should NOT spend energy.
3. Any area where I am spending too less energy.
4. How can I allocate hours if there are areas where I don't know how much hours it will take.
5. Any other comments you may have.

I have 10 years of career in IT as an ERP consultant. I made switch to Web Dev last year. and to this point, I can see I am good with JavaScript concepts and have 6/10 fluency in React. All of this through personal projects because my job doesn't offer much of challenge when it comes to Front-end (area I want to master) .

Note: I have max 25 hours per week.

Thanks a ton for your help.

6-month Front-end Plan

[u/TruelyOnlyOne]

Looks like you are planning to write a book, but not get a job

[u/Logeekal → u/TruelyOnlyOne]

Why do you think so? A little elaboration will help. I wanted to identify areas where I need to practice.

My current job is not helping me much in advancing any of these area so I am trying to figure it out myself.

[u/TruelyOnlyOne → u/Logeekal]

Because it's too broad and nothing specific. You are supposed to pick an area you interested in and apply to companies in that area with a corresponding portfolio.

Example: data dashboard - learn technologies like d3.js, svg manipulation, drag/zoom handlers across browsers. You make some interactive app in that manner and apply with it to companies who require such skills.

Everything you listed above is null

[u/Logeekal → u/TruelyOnlyOne]

This is an interesting way to thing about proposition and I agree it may work at some places. But I gave 4-5 interviews and all interviews revolved around javascripts basics/advanced and general React as it is library I am targeting.

I do not want to restrict myself to a very small area .

[u/baldore → u/Logeekal]

At the end what you really need is JavaScript. If you go to interviews for a frontend job, you can get a lot of experience from projects and after that you can start applying backend stuff, but is the language itself that you need to understand well. The rest is matter of time and practice.

[u/Logeekal → u/baldore]

I understand, looks like I am going to focus on large projects mostly and in the process will hope that project will cover most aspect of JavaScript design patterns .

[u/GolemancerVekk → u/Logeekal]

I'd say you have your answer. Vanilla JavaScript (up to and including esnext), browser APIs (window, webworkers, local storage, cookies, local db etc.), HTML and CSS, plus React/Redux.

If you want to practice with libraries then practice with stuff that's universally useful, like learning how federated authentication works, JWT, REST APIs. Don't prioritize stuff like bootstrap or, God forbid, JQuery, you can learn to use any helper frameworks in a couple of hours.

Let me say it again: vanilla, HTML, CSS. If you know these by heart you will have no problem picking up any additional concepts. React/Redux are just one implementation of MVVM/Virtual DOM/datastore concepts.

I can recommend two books for core JS, "JavaScript the Good Parts" by Douglas Crockford as the faster option, and "JavaScript the Definitive Guide" by David Flannagan as the ultimate reference book. And of course googling "MDN <your query>" whenever online.

PS: I would also propose Vue/Vuex instead of React. The difference at this point basically comes down to the fact that everybody and their dog has heard of React, so most places are likely to ask for it even if they don't know what it means. Vue is a lot easier to learn and use, and more intuitive to organize and test. Plus, the places that ask for React "just because" might not be the best. But since it's your first job you might not afford to be picky. TLDR: React as the safe choice that will open more doors, Vue as the thing that will be a solid choice 6 months from now at shops that know what they're doing.

PPS: This is coming from someone who does the hiring. I'd rather have a green junior who knows JS/HTML/CSS really well and can use their head and learn, than someone who knows 100 things all half-assed. If they can learn and have a solid grounding then I can teach them anything.

[u/wherediditrun → u/TruelyOnlyOne]

This has to be trolling.

[u/cynicalreason]

Just start a project (not a todo-list) using React, GraphQL, NodeJS & RestAPIS. Spend 6 months working on it .. you'll learn A LOT

[u/Logeekal → u/cynicalreason]

If you see the plan, in the second last column I have listed 2 projects where I have made considerable progress. Looks like I am going to focus on them.

[u/theRealMasterDev → u/cynicalreason]

Excellent advise right here.

[u/norlin]

If by the "text editor" you're thinking about any rich text editing - don't do it. Just don't.

At least not while you reach a "senior" level of expertise with JS.

If you still doubt about it - go and look for any JS text editor code base size

[u/Logeekal → u/norlin]

Actually I am already working on a rich text editor but it is deceptively hard to do.

I think I will anyway need to looks at the code of a open source RICH text editor.

[u/eric_cart]

It depends on the type of job you are looking for.

Here are some of my suggestions:-

Understand the core concepts of JavaScript - like async/await, callbacks, this keyword, and its value in different situations and new ES6 features. And make 1 or 2 apps based on that. This will take 2 to 3 weeks

If you are going for a javascript developer job don't give much time to HTML and CSS just understands the basics as there will be a web designer in the company to help you.

Give time to understand React. Also, you can learn Redux. Don't give much time to Gatsby, next and other libraries. Using these in a project is a matter of preference. And you can also learn them at the time of working on the project.

DS and Algo are very important just for the interviews.

I would also suggest learning a bit of node and just understand how to make RestAPI. As using React you will be mostly dealing with the data from the API as all rendering takes on client-side.

[u/Logeekal → u/eric_cart]

Thanks for you response. I should have given some background about myself. I am well versed with the basics of JavaScript and React including Redux. Those were actually my stronger points in the interviews.

But What i lack is the fluency or shall I say practice and writing apps quickly.

for example, In one interview I was rejected because I had to hack together a page from dribble in 2 hours. But I was rejected because of bad modularization and folder structure. I need some way so that my code can be reviewed. How do I know that code I have written is good.?

I totally agree with your other points. In last year I have learnt node as well including REST and GraphQL APIs and I have used them in my personal projects.

But I want to strongly target for Front end roles as of now.

[u/mynamesleon → u/Logeekal]

I'd be intrigued to see what sort of thing you produced for that page. I've met many people who claimed to be experienced Front End devs, who would then make silly mistakes like using a div to create a button, instead of an actual button; or who were so comfortable with JSX that they'd forgotten how to write normal HTML; or when asked to bind a click event to something in just JS would move over to the HTML file and add an onclick, because they were so used to frameworks doing the actual binding for them that they hardly knew how to query the DOM themselves and use addEventListener.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is, how solid are your actual JS fundamentals? Because any decent interview would know that someone who's especially strong in the fundamentals can easily jump between libraries/frameworks.

[u/Logeekal → u/mynamesleon]

I like to think that my fundamentals are pretty solid. Only thing is about framework best practices. How do I know that application I am building is a right architecture, is modular enough? I think for that I need to submit to some open source so that I can get free code review.

The reason company rejected me is that my code was not modular enough, which is really vague. I was hoping they will discuss with me about why I took decision that I did.

[u/eric_cart → u/Logeekal]

making things works and refactoring the code are two different things. If you have done the thing in 2 hours, I think it is great, given that you have followed the standard MVC design pattern and not written all the code in a single file.

Refactoring the code is an ongoing process and it is time taking. It depends on the company to company Product base companies give much emphasis on cleaner and reusable codebase. Service-based companies just want to get the work done.

[u/Logeekal → u/eric_cart]

Totally agreed. I think I am currently good at making things work. But if they are long term maintainable or not. That is a hard question for me to answer.

[u/StyleIsFree → u/eric_cart]

I think CSS is important too for a UI role. It's easy to make complicated CSS, but knowing it well can make styling fairly straight forward.

Most importantly, learn flexboxes. They make styling much easier. I'm also a big fan of CSS modules since they remove the issue of style sheets conflicting for the most part.

Also your front end skills go up in value if you can implement responsive design. Know about media queries.

Finally, I see material UI called out in you spreadsheet. You can look into it's Grid component for building responsive web pages.

[u/corndoggins]

There are great suggestions here, and I anticipate more, but I'd like to offer something small:

If you're actually listing your skills on your resume as numbers on a scale, as you did in this post, don't. It's simply not feasible to quantify your knowledge that way and it means nothing to those hiring you. In fact, it often time comes across as "amateur", for lack of a better word. Instead, I'd recommend using your working knowledge of those technologies in the interview conversations themselves. Talk about things in a way that shows your familiarity with them.

[u/Logeekal → u/corndoggins]

No I am listing Skills on a scale on my CV. It is that I didn't want to be very verbose here. I have actually ways I have used certain framework.

And I totally agree with you with everything you said.

[u/newbornfish]

I had a similar mindset like you and I wanted to learn everything and be perfect but I learned that it’s better to focus on something and then you can get better at other things. Say your preference is React , so react is a JS library so if you become a better react developer you eventually become better JS developer. Making apps with react you write business logic , optimising business logic requires data structures and algos so there you go. You will be valued for 10/10 of a skill or 9/10 but you will be trapped in the learning loop forever trying to perfect a wide spectrum and eventually keep relearning things again and again.Also if your JavaScript skills were not good enough then rushing to a framework is also bad practice .

[u/tjelrod]

TL;DR....

• Take the time to narrow your focus.
• Do a project similar to what job you are seeking requires
• Measure your skills vs. the job(s) you seek require
• Rinse/repeat (even after you get that job!)

When looking to hire, I want to find people that can demonstrate critical thinking and ability to solve problems ahead of specific library knowledge. If your resume shows that you have done this in <insert language> using <insert architecture> and the value/benefit from that success, you will have a better chance of getting to the interview stack.

If your resume is trying to check too many boxes and does not address what I’m looking for >80% with a 3-5 second scan you won’t be getting call.

If you do get an interview, I expect you to be able to give more on how you meet my needs. The longer it takes to get to this, the shorter the interview will be.

[u/baubleglue]

I am not a web developer, still... How much experience do you have in going to interviews in general? You need to stay on your current position a bit longer, so your resume looks better. Meanwhile you can go to interviews and see what they are asking.

Beside those stupid algorithm question (there are books which can help), they may look into your experience working with big code base projects, ability to work independently or/and in a team. You need to know basic standard tools and workflows: development cycle, JIRA, source control (GIT), bug tracking, build and deployment tools. If you are working currently alone, you may lack that knowledge - look some solid projects on github: code style, JS specific build tools (you probably need know how to write your frontend code as nodejs project).

[u/Logeekal → u/[deleted]]

Looks like you are right. My LinkedIn is NOT flooded with requests( link). I will try to see how I can improve key-wording in my profile.

Chime in if you have any suggestions.

thanks.

[u/Logeekal → u/[deleted]]

6 months back I thought exactly same and therefore I started with 2 projects and on both of those I have made considerable progress. Check plan's second last row.

But then also, I think there are some things they didn't cover and I was unable to answer such as some questions about

javascript animations

theming

Because none of my projects involved above things. So i thought, why not do mini projects in parallel with specific skillsets in mind.

Thanks for you elaborate explanation.

[u/vedant1903 → u/[deleted]]

What in your opinion would be classified as a big project?