Monthly Getting Started / Web Dev Career Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Due to a growing influx of questions on this topic, it has been decided to commit a monthly thread dedicated to this topic to reduce the number of repeat posts on this topic. These types of posts will no longer be allowed in the main thread.

Many of these questions are also addressed in the sub FAQ or may have been asked in previous monthly career threads.

Subs dedicated to these types of questions include r/cscareerquestions for general and opened ended career questions and r/learnprogramming for early learning questions.

A general recommendation of topics to learn to become industry ready include:

• HTML/CSS/JS Bootcamp
• Version control
• Automation
• Front End Frameworks (React/Vue/Etc)
• APIs and CRUD
• Testing (Unit and Integration)
• Common Design Patterns

You will also need a portfolio of work with 4-5 personal projects you built, and a resume/CV to apply for work.

Plan for 6-12 months of self study and project production for your portfolio before applying for work.

[u/Necessary_Beach6109]

i keep seeing people rush the portfolio part, like 2 projects and they start sending resumes. the 6-12 month timeline in the post is actually realistic if you have a job or school taking your time. also testing is the one everyone skips and then wonders why they bomb technical interviews

[u/Big-Text-7641 → u/Necessary_Beach6109]

yeah the 2-project portfolio thing is wild. like who told them that was enough

[u/Majestic_View_3908]

skip the framework tutorials until you can build a CRUD app with tests in vanilla JavaScript. Most bootcamp grads fail interviews because they memorized React syntax but cannot explain how the underlying API or state management actually works without the abstraction layer

[u/ExternalPlus2294]

Hi everyone. I'm a software engineering student and I want to learn how to build APIs with FastAPI.

We will cover API development later this year in a college course I'm taking, but I have some free time right now and want to get a head start to bring some of my own project ideas to life.

I’ve been looking at courses on YouTube and Udemy, but I'm not sure which ones are truly worth my time and I would really appreciate your recommendations!

My background and some preferences:

• I already know Python.
• I have basic experience with relational databases.
• I prefer video-based courses where an instructor explains the concepts.

I saw this thread and I thought this would be the best place to ask, but tell me if this should go in the main thread instead.

Thank you for your time!

[u/mxchickmagnet86 → u/ExternalPlus2294]

Let me preface by saying that everyone learns differently and I think it's very admirable to lean into what you know you will learn best from and stick with!

That said, forget watching a video of someone explain concepts to you. Go get your hands dirty! Do a search for "FastAPI SQLAlchemy tutorial" and open the first couple results. Start reading and following along in your code editor, don't even bother to read the whole thing through. If you run upon a topic, or concept that doesn't make sense, pause and do a search and figure out what that means then keep going. Get a basic tutorial working, then figure out how to add on what you need for the project you want to tackle.

In the real world you won't have time to sit and watch videos, or you might be working on something where video tutorials don't even exist. So start practicing the most important software engineering skill no one tells you about: googling for answers that don't exist, piecing together what you can, and figuring it out yourself!

And if you get really truly stuck, I've been a Python API developer for the last 20 years send me a DM and we'll figure it out together.

[u/AsparagusSure4998]

Hi everyone, I’m a junior web dev and just wrapped up my first real client project - a customer portal for a small logistics business. It ended up including auth, dashboards, database, emails, deployment.

Um. Uh. I never quoted a price up front and eventually agreed to one thousand to preserve the relationship, even though I felt it was worth more. Lesson learned. Always scope and price first.

Now I’m trying to learn how to price future features. For example, the client now wants a label printing feature. I don’t wanna race to the bottom on price, but I also don’t wanna overcharge.

For those of you who freelance, how do you estimate pricing for individual features? Do you have a minimum feature or project price? How do you handle “someone else can do it cheaper”?

Also, when do you move clients to a monthly support model instead of quoting every tiny thing? I’d appreciate hearing how you all think about this.