I got a Web Developer job 1 month after finishing Free Code Camp

I am a 21 year old in the United States with no degree. A year and a half ago I wrote this article “How I Wasted 2 Years of My Life Trying to Learn Web Development Before Free Code Camp”. Now a year and a half later I have reached my goals of building all the Free Code Camp projects and on top of that landing a Front-End Web Developer Job. It took me exactly 37 days after finishing the last project (Pinterest Clone App) before getting hired.

I just want to give some words of motivation to those who strive to land a web developer job being self-taught.
If you work hard enough, stay consistent, and willing to make sacrifices in your life to achieve your dreams. You will eventually make it happen.

Failure is part of the process. I applied to more than 100 jobs and only got responses from about 5% of jobs postings and only two interview offers.

It doesn’t matter your education background, your upbringing, or your failures. If you remain consistent and never give into the stress, frustrations, and challenges you face, you will become a developer.

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Congratulation and good luck! @sok213. Good to hear and inspire me.
:thumbsup:

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Congratulations @sok213! Have you finished all certificates in FCC? Have you made any non profit projects? So you spent 1,5 year working on FCC, how much time did you spend daily?

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I finished the Front-end, Data Visualization, and Back-end certificates but not the non-profits since there is a waiting list due to the rapid growth of Free Code Camp. I spent about 2 years on FCC, I wrote the article 1.5 years ago. For the majority of the time I spent roughly 10 hours a day studying, but there were some times where I took time off or procrastinated.

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I’m currently loosing my job and so far I was not able to find any other job. I’m Front End Developer, self taught but I lack JS skills (in my previous job we only focused on HTML and CSS). I’m thinking about taking a break soon to study with FCC but if it took you 2 years to finish I’m afraid I won’t be able to get as far as you.

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Honestly, sometimes you just never know what the job is gonna demand from a technical point of view. For example, I spent the last 2 years specializing in building JavaScript applications. I consider myself to be proficient in JavaScript and yet the job that hired me requires almost no JavaScript and more of HTML/CSS and PHP. But yes, you should probably learn some JavaScript and maybe pick up the most popular back-end language in your location’s job market.

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My situation is opposite to yours. I am not proficient in JavaScript because my work never required it. It’s hard to learn JavaScript when you can’t use it on daily basis because everything had to be done fast. So I relied on jQuery in most cases. Now most of jobs require very good JS knowledge and React or Angular.

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Congratulations! Your words are inspiring. It sounds like you’ve spent years learning to code, and now it’s all paying off, thanks to your persistence!

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Awesome, well done! Yeah Free Code Camp has been the number one reason why I got my first web developer job, and I wasn’t even through the full front end dev course. The thing that truly got me a foot in the door, and the subsequent job was the portfolio. Without building things, without learning by doing, and without putting in the effort to build a portfolio website and make a nice resume, I wouldn’t of had a chance.

Still to this day, I don’t feel like an experienced developer, but I learn so much each and every day. Being honest with your abilities is something I like to do, but then having courage to take on challenging tasks and figure things out as you go is probably the biggest thing to learn on the job.

Thank you FCC - I’ve literally changed my entire career, and my life – I’m now travelling the world and working as a freelancer!!

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Jack write your full story as a main post the way OP did - then perhaps link it here in the comments.

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Congrats @sok213! Hoping to be in your shoes when I complete all FreeCodeCamp projects.

Best of luck!

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How inspiring! I am a 50 year old high school math teacher and am dreaming of working with code every day! I started coding on Codecademy (Ruby, HTML, Ruby on Rails) and then took some classes at my local technical college last year. I aced Python and fell in love with coding and have been looking for the best online platform to learn from. I was so impressed with Free Code Camp and am so excited to be working through the program. It is very linear and project oriented which makes so much sense to me. I hope I can add these certifications to my mathematics degree and then find something satisfying to do with the rest of my career. Congratulations to you on your success! :fireworks:

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I just want to get this straight. It took you a year and a half, while coding at least 10 hours a day, to finish FCC?

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@Zubru22 If you wanna really learn how to write JS. Try https://watchandcode.com/. There is a free course to get you started.

Trust me, I did it all…FCC, Udacity, Udemy, Code[fill in the blank]. Watch and code and Gordon’s teaching style will help any new coder trying to learn JS.

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Yes it did. I did take my sweet time on every project and made sure It was polished to the best of my abilities. However, it is worth mentioning that I did work on many side projects outside of FCC including some freelance work. I guess I should say It was FCC + side projects + freelance projects for 2 years.

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So were you asked any special questions in the interview? I’ve heard(read) that interviews tend to include questions that require some deep understanding of programming languages…

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Very inspiring. Did you have your own website portfolio when hired?

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yes, you can view it here - sok213.github.io

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Grats man! It’s really inspirational to hear a success story like this!

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So very true. I began my journey over 20 years ago. Looking at webpage sources and going by trial and error. While failure is part of the process it is good to have supportive friends and family. FCC is a great place to make some of those friends because being human we start to doubt ourselves when being overlooked or declined or the dreaded showing up for an interview and the recruiter was not through and you are at a disadvantage. I have had a number of those interviews when I have explained that I am not a Node.js expert and I fit most of the seekers skills but the most important skill Node.js was the deal breaker and I have always been very clear. If I do not list a skill do not send me to an interview for that position. I had this happen several times and most of that recently. I leaned on my support group and decided to join FreeCodeCamp and expand my skills set and brush up on my existing skills. Do Not Give Up, Failure is part of the process.

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