Checking In

It’s been a while since I’ve written and I feel the need to check in as I am at another turning point. The first turning point being my deep dive into learning how to code and convincing someone to pay me to be a junior web developer.

The second turning point is now the transition from junior web developer to mid-level. I’ve worked as a web developer for 2 years now and still feel like a newbie. I still feel like I don’t know enough. How do you keep leveling up? How do you know what new technology you should learn?

I’ve been mainly doing web development and as a junior, I realized my main goal was to learn the fundaments. Learn the technologies people need right now. I learned how to use PHP. I learned how to use HTML, CSS, JavaScript and why you use them.

As a mid-level, I feel like the language shouldn’t matter. You should be able to use the fundamentals you’ve learned and apply them to any language. Languages and tools are there to make your life easier. To really appreciate and understand what problems these tools solve, you have to learn how things work.

I’ve realized I have no idea how the web works. How requests work. How the internet itself works. I also feel like I lack a lot of the Computer Science and theory knowledge to tackle complex coding challenges. So for the next stage in my journey, I will be learning about Networking, Servers, Databases, Search Algorithms, Sorting Algorithms, Big O Notation.

I’ve currently signed up and am almost finished with the first Unit of Stanford’s Networking course:

It’s a great intro to how data gets sent from one server to another. I’ve learned a lot from this course. It goes a bit fast and there’s a lot of terms I had to search on my own, but overall, a great experience so far. Beginner friendly.

This course is another one I will be starting after I finish the Networking one:

I’ve only watched the course lectures on YouTube but now I want to try and challenge myself to complete the course curriculum.

And of course I will continue to complete the coding challenges on Codewars. Just found some more practice sites (recommended by Facebook): Pramp and LeetCode