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Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

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Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#131
post #127
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about "web developer who thinks heavy client-side frameworks are a bad idea"?

If your projects are simple enough that using a framework is a bad idea it's a waste of money to hire the #1 types.

It's this binary distinction I'm objecting to. Is the choice really "Wordpress" or "React"? There's a huge number of projects that don't fit either of these templates very well. I'd still argue that people building web "sites" (which can still be way beyond the complexity sweet spot for Wordpress) rather than web "apps" should not be building SPAs.

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#132
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about "web developer who thinks heavy client-side frameworks are a bad idea"?

You can think however you wish - and I agree with you - but if you want to be competitive in the modern job market as a web developer, you have to be fluent in client side frameworks.

I agree that having that tool in your toolbelt is important - it's not want the parent post was saying. He was arguing that you're either a Wordpress "not really programmer" or you're a front-end "big-framework-first" developer.

As someone who's neither I rather disagree.

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#133
There's pretty decent demand right now in some areas, but it depends on where you're located. Here in the bay area, there's good demand in SF and palo alto, but very few jobs in the east bay and lots of talent. But, it's all relative. You should compare it to your options available. In the mean time keep learning and developing your skills, read as much you possibly can about web development and learn the latest skills as well the backbone of all web development: HTML, CSS, AJAX, javascript and jQuery. Dont forget jQuery. Not many jobs may ask for it, but it's used everywhere and you will need to know something about it. If you like, go ahead and check out my site I'm developing for aspiring web developers such as yourself: It's filled to the brim with examples to learn from (you can play with the code without any setup), taking you step by step so you don't get lost: https://codeorc.com

The advantage of learning some of the newer technologies like Vue and React are that they haven't been around for too long. So, if you get 3 years of experience with that, you can be considered relatively senior. Just something to think about if you're totally new.

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#134

Yes. I am the co-founder of Lambda School - (YC S17 - a CS education where the school doesn’t get paid unless you get a good job). Right now we see about 3 students/day get hired. You’ll likely hear a lot of people talking about how the market for juniors is flooded. That is partially true, but it’s flooded with people who cannot code . If you can actually be a productive employee I literally know 100 companies that…

Notice you guys are in the UK! I'm a self taught engineer (more back end focused though) and I'm trying to help my younger brother enter the industry. Is there a minimum earning threshold for the 10% salary deduction for UK courses? I think something like this would do him the world of good, especially looking at your curriculum, but don't want to saddle him with debt if it doesn't work out.

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#135

Yes. I am the co-founder of Lambda School - (YC S17 - a CS education where the school doesn’t get paid unless you get a good job). Right now we see about 3 students/day get hired. You’ll likely hear a lot of people talking about how the market for juniors is flooded. That is partially true, but it’s flooded with people who cannot code . If you can actually be a productive employee I literally know 100 companies that…

If you were getting started today, would you choose the data science or web dev track if you were looking for most long-term career stability?

I would say it depends on whether you enjoy the data engineering part of data science. E.g. writing SQL queries, writing scripts to scrape data from APIs, tracking down edge cases and verifying correctness, designing clean and scalable pipelines, writing scripts to make messy data cleaner, automating report generation, data warehousing. This is very detail-oriented work and requires a certain kind of personality to excel at (imo). But if you build this skill set there is extreme demand for you that will be timeless. This is also the foundation for all data science.

If what you have in mind is feeding data into TensorFlow or PyTorch, and tuning parameters to get some magic out the other end, I don't think there's as much of a market (there are many juniors looking for work from bootcamp programs), and you risk yet another "AI Winter" backlash making companies go sour on these sorts of approaches.

I think you could also easily getting a job as a master of a particular analytics tool, like MixPanel or Google Analytics. But I'm not sure how timeless this will be: in my experience sooner rather than later you'll want deeper and more customized tools and run into the limitations of simple event-based analytics services.

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#136

Yes. I am the co-founder of Lambda School - (YC S17 - a CS education where the school doesn’t get paid unless you get a good job). Right now we see about 3 students/day get hired. You’ll likely hear a lot of people talking about how the market for juniors is flooded. That is partially true, but it’s flooded with people who cannot code . If you can actually be a productive employee I literally know 100 companies that…

Is there anything similar to Lambda School in Spanish? Looking for a family member who would be a great dev, but her English isn't quiet strong enough to join Lambda School.

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#137
If demand for your skills outweighs the availability of them in the skills market, then you'll make an excellent living. So your skills need to be in high demand. Compared to the competition, either be perceived as "better" (write books, give talks) or "more specialized" and you should be able to find a market segment that demands your skills and will pay for them.

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#138

The thing about web development is that the definition of "web developer" can vary wildly. Web development is a big field and can include a wide range of skills. Making a static html info page is web development. Building a SPA with a database and auth and user uploads and deploying it on aws/azure and scaling for a million users, also web development. If you are thinking along the lines of the first example, eg. the…

Right, web apps aren't websites. The distinction is pretty sharp when you move from a simple static old fashioned display to Amazon tier complexity where money is being transacted, log in information stored, orders updated, and a million more things besides.

The big question is if the internet and its primary portals, the desktop browser and the smartphone, will reach the end of their tether. The only thing I could see replacing it is neurotechnology of some sort, and that seems so far off and so difficult to commercialize that it's not something web developers need to worry about any time soon. Or perhaps quantum computing becomes commercially viable and simply shoves digital computing aside, negating the need for those skills completely.

Another alternative is that the web radically changes unforeseeably and new practices instantly antiquate everything people are learning now, which is a more frustrating and realistic possibility and also something that is bound to happen. Given how difficult it can be for many people to learn these skills, and given how much knowledge one must integrate to be a productive developer, this is an upsetting potentiality and one that is bound to happen eventually.

Not every field carries these risks. Law practice isn't going to change fundamentally in the coming decades. And some aspects of coding can be exhausting and demoralizing to learn. Past generations of coders have had their skill sets rendered null and void and it will probably happen again at some point to this generation.

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#139

Yes. I am the co-founder of Lambda School - (YC S17 - a CS education where the school doesn’t get paid unless you get a good job). Right now we see about 3 students/day get hired. You’ll likely hear a lot of people talking about how the market for juniors is flooded. That is partially true, but it’s flooded with people who cannot code . If you can actually be a productive employee I literally know 100 companies that…

Is there anything similar to Lambda School in Spanish? Looking for a family member who would be a great dev, but her English isn't quiet strong enough to join Lambda School.

Start there, learn English. I know so many potentially good devs that cannot be hired at good paying companies because of lack of English skills. (Speaking of Mexico, btw.)

Re: Ask HN: Is web development still a viable career choice?

#140
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> there is insane demand I am seeing it as well. And am recommending Lambda School to just about everyone who asks ;) The main problem I see is the steep learning curve. The intro lessons are facile enough. Anyone can setup VS Code, and install an App Engine SDK. But by the time they get to modules 3-4 ("designing the data schema"). They are ready to throw in the towel. At some point, a student requires one-to-one…

> At some point, a student requires one-to-one mentoring and repeatable reinforcement. Like learning a second language or playing the piano. It’s entirely possible to be a self-taught pianist. It’s also entirely possible to learn a second language without ever speaking to someone else in that language. What you can’t realistically do is become conversational , because you cannot practice that skill in isolation. Simi…

Case in point: I'm self taught and have a junior manager job in software engineering. I had a lot of good resources and got some guidance, but I never went to a boot camp or had a dedicated mentor. It was just a lot of "learn something, apply it as much as I can to the job I have, keep learning, keep trying to understand the big picture." Eventually I developed enough knowledge to get hired as a programmer and moved up from there.
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