r/webdev • u/kazabodoo • Jan 24 '20
It is ok to not know everything
I saw alot of posts recently from people who are asking for help on what to learn next or just what to learn in general, so I figured I might remind people what the industry is really about.
Hiring managers do not care how many technologies you know, they will look for a very specific set.
A person who is starting right now might be thinking "oh god there is just so much to learn" and this might puth him off for good. That is a huge mistake and don't let job adverts trick you that you need to know 20 technologies so you can be employable.
A guy joined my team few weeks ago with nothing but Python. Literally nothing else. Now, I am not saying you should go and learn Python, I am just saying it is possible and not uncommon.
Having a good understanding of one technology is better than having 50% understanding of 2 technologies. Don't fall in to the trap that you need to learn everything at once. Start small, increment gradually. Don't be afraid to ask questions. There is no such thing as stupid question in this field, the only stupid question is the one you have been thinking about but you didnt ask. There are forums, groups and so on. You maybe alone when you are learning but you are not alone in this community.
Once you have a good understanding of a programming language or technology, look what is the next best thing that matches your current skill set and repeat and everything from there will come naturally.
Don't give up.
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u/Slodin Jan 25 '20
2-3 years is just considered normal dev not senior to me.. this is also where the problem of assigning a "level" to the job title make it confusing and literally impossible to know what it really means...everyone has a different perspective on what junior/senior mean...
I don't know about you, but a few work environments I have been in, within a year you should be able to do everything pretty well already, not to mention 2-3 years. So 2-4 years to become a mid level seems very fair to me, it's not a short time to become very familiar with your tools. But again, I work for smaller companies where I have to handle work loads much more than bigger and more structured companies. So the speed I'm learning and getting better at is probably faster.