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Ask HN: How to become a software engineer as a self-taught front end developer?

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Re: Ask HN: How to become a software engineer as a self-taught front end developer?

#11
I always distinguish engineer vs developer in front end dev by asking if you understand how the frontend works (dom, js, css, etc) vs being able to build frontends using an existing framework.

For example, I once interviewed a FE person with 8 years of exp and he was convinced that only react vdom allows to update partial trees and that previously you had to rebuild and rerender the whole dom. He obviously did not understand how things work correctly.

Re: Ask HN: How to become a software engineer as a self-taught front end developer?

#13
post #3

The "engineer" part usually starts a discussion because in some countries it's a protected term so software engineers can't call themselves that. Or some people think that because the word engineer is in the title, people with the title should be held to some higher standard or somehow regulated - this isn't a thing anywhere for software engineers as far as I know. > Is being a software engineer a state of mind or an…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to become a software engineer as a self-taught front end developer?

#14
As a self taught front end developer in the US there are only two metrics that matters in software: employability and compensation. That means the ability to attain employment and make more money. That’s unfortunate because it does not directly speak to competence or problem solving potential. It’s also why many senior developers will intentionally shift away from trendy bullshit for less money.

As a self taught front end developer finding employment can be challenging. There appears to be a great divide in this line of work between candidate desirability and candidate competence. For example experience with a set of tools is more desirable than the ability to troubleshoot a problem and evaluation of either is highly biased.

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