Hello people, I have built a few websites as one offs for friends and family, which has gradually moved to a few freelance paying jobs. I am considering working towards getting a full time job as a front end web developer. Anyone who is in this kind of role what is your job like? Are there any courses or certificates you think I should work towards? I have a basic knowledge of javascript, php, html, css and C, and I am reading about the new css3 and html5 standards. Any advice gladly received!
I don't know about the anglo-american system tbh, but usually it helps to have a degree in graphics-design when looking for a job in an office/agency where I come from. A portfolio of jobs you've done so far only get's you this far. I've studied three years graphics-design before I got hired by an advertising-agency and it was afterwards that I started to work as a freelancer and became self-employed, but with my degree and now rather big portfolio I can allways go back to apply for a good paid job in an office/agency. I've never met anyone who got hired without a degree tho.
Well I am based in the UK, and although a degree is seen as a plus, it is not mandatory for many of the job postings I have seen. I am worried that working purely freelance will give me an income that is not reliable enough to commit to paying rent etc on a monthly basis, even if the pay might be a bit better sometimes.
That is a valid concern. I would do it as something on the side from a normal job until you know you can sustain yourself. There are many, many people doing what you do, so with the greatest respect, you'll need to be rather good to get anywhere.
I am currently re-working myself back to be a freelancer. Work outside of your normal job until you can easily sustain yourself over a 12 month period. Remember, some months people just dont want a website ( im looking at you late December and August ) due to holiday periods. Also remember, you don't get paid if you don't work and get the money in. So any time off would have to be budgeted for too.
Thanks for the replies, all very useful, I shall continue to try and expand my freelance portfolio until I feel I have a solid amount of work to show to a potential employer. If I end up making enough money as a freelancer then great I guess. WarrenJ what makes you want to move back to freelancing?
If you're really keen on making a career out of it, you might be better served studying for some kind of computer programming degree. If you already have a talent for the design aspect of it, there might not be much left to learn - at least, not much worth spending the money for a graphic design degree. On the other hand, while design trends come and go (and often repeat themselves), computer and web technologies are always advancing. It's one thing to mock up a really nice web page in Photoshop. It's another thing entirely to make the page work. Even with the minimal amount of web page design responsibilities I have, I wish I had more programming experience. As it is, I find myself having to scour the internet for tutorials, then attempt to interpret the code to figure out how to make it do the specific thing I want it to do.
I have more of enthusiasm to programming than to design, and looking back on some of my earlier projects the graphics have a distinctive "homemade" feel to them! I will look at studying computer science, I did study a different subject at uni but pulled out as I got got quite lost and depressed at uni, for whatever reason it was not a good experience for me. I might look at doing a distance learning course instead, as long as it is seen as reputable.
meh. As someone who employs a lot of freelancers - degrees really do not bother me, I've seen some very, very highly qualified people turn out absolute rubbish. I'd just immerse myself in the current trends and build a load of example sites that really challenge you. As I've said to a few people on here, if you get good enough, I'll give you some work. PM me and keep me informed of your progress.
People seem to be very polarized when talking about degrees, its either crucial to your success or completely unnecessary. Thanks for the input julianmartin, I shall send you some examples of my work in the near future.
No matter what else you do, you need to do two things: 1. Be confident you can do everything when it comes to web development. Javascript, HTML and CSS are of course essential, but I'd also is a full understanding of dynamic development to allow you to build websites using off the shelf, in house or bespoke content management systems. 2. Specialise. You'll find it very hard getting a job if you know 'a bit of HTML' and 'a bit of CSS' and 'a bit of C# .NET'. If you want to work on funky front end stuff then become a guru using javaScript, HTML 5 etc. If you want to develop web based software or get into the more funky cutting edge stuff then pick a language / platform / toolkit / CMS and focus more on that than others (or pick and handful) 98% of web developers can knock together a bit of HTML and CSS to make a functional website. There's more to building the type of websites that companies want to pay for than HTML & CSS though. Think of modern web development as building web based applications and work from there. This doesn't mean you have to be 100% a coder (Though it is a valid approach). It is fine to focus on a particular platform or CMS that requires you to 'know about coding' without being a from noon till dusk coder... as long as you understand that the coders will be earning more than you. The risks of pure specialisation is you won't be able to throw yourself at other jobs. That's where point 1 comes in - be confident you can do it all. Third point (Yeah I know I said there was only two). 3. Be able to demonstrate you know your stuff. Don't show prospective clients / employers four near identical sites. Show them a variety with different techniques and backends. Include with each details on why they were built the way they were etc. Show them you know your stuff. BTW, this comes from my previous life of being on the board (Technical Director & Technical Architect) of a web agency the best part of a decade. I've interviewed MANY prospective web developers over the years, and employed a few dozen of them. Made a few good finds in my time, and a few bad recruitment choices too. It's real easy to spot the great ones as they know their stuff and can talk about it in context. It's also real easy to spot the 'meh - they'd probably be okay' ones as they've heard of lots of different things but don't seem to really know LOTS about anything and can't talk about any project they've worked on with confidence. You can guess which of these two categories is larger! Make sure you're in the first category.
Outstanding advice from Guinevere as usual - I couldn't be more serious when I say she really knows her stuff when it comes to web technology.
Simple and honest answer. I want to spend more than I earn. It is also a good way to be challenged to create different and creative websites.
Get seriously good at one area in particular and farm yourself out to clients in London for £300-600 a day depending on what you're into
Thanks for all the advice, really useful stuff to spur me on and start doing a few projects using different techniques just for the experience.
It's a good plan, but you need a serious niche for that and be right at the top - ASP, Ruby+Rails or really, really **** hot PHP. Java too perhaps but we are digressing there. And experience. Lots of experience. Study of some methodologies are a good thing too - I'd go Scrum or Agile, personally.
Yes, sure a degree is revised as a big plus. But, this is not the only thing you should do. First of all, you should be self-confident and even if you lack some knowledge you should be sure you will be able to perform any job. Secondly, practice. You should not only study the job, but have some practice. That will help much mastering the profession.
On the point of degrees. I think that a degree demonstrates you have enough interest and ability to complete something relevant in a certain field. Thats about it though. Its gets you into a position where you can get a job and begin to actually learn about your field. A qualification generally does not mean experience or knowledge, its just allows an entry point to gain both. Which is why I generally dislike degree snobbery. In my opinion someones professional accomplishments are far more relevant than what they did for a few years whilst they were still figuring out how to be an adult. My background is engineering not web design. I don't hire people.
More useful stuff thanks. I have found a course in HTML5 and CSS3 that runs for two days, I plan to go to that at least, as I am less familiar with the latest standards. Quite alot of short refresher courses available. One developer job that I enquired about, I mentioned I could see an error in their website code. They corrected the error and did not get back to me :-(
One piece of advice, I am not sure if you have, but ALWAYS follow up your initial contact, preferably by phone. The amount of times I have heard about people getting a job which they wouldn't have, had they not followed up after first contact...my my...such an easy mistake.
