Yes I think I should do that. Maybe after I have brushed up my portfolio a bit. I have their phone number, and also know where the office is, I could go there in person I guess.
Mm, not really. I'm in the epicentre of that world and the contract market is flooded with utterly mediocre people working for £300-450 a day to write bog standard web-stack stuff. Heck, I know of "QA Engineers" Spoiler just click around websites all day and find broken functionality - only qualifications required are being able to use a mouse and keyboard and create bug reports on £250 a day. Objc/java/c#/c++ stuff attracts more £, but it's harder to be mediocre (and survive) in that world May have seemed like a nice thing to point out but it'll rarely be taken in a nice way Phone is fine, but don't turn up in person unannounced, that's seriously unlikely to go well!
Freelancer here without the hailed CS degree. Earn about the same as an employed design/dev would do, lot's more work though. Managing client relations, meetings handling every aspect of the project etc. I work with a Canadian studio as a designer/dev, and also 4 or 5 specific clients in the UK. Took 2 years of hard work to get where I am now. Love working for myself and working from home. How to get noticed? Design and develop small tools and then shout about them like mad to the main twitter gods of the web dev world. A portfolio full of designs and projects from your imagination would impress me more than 3 or 4 sites for small clients. In terms of what you need to know, everything from markup, CSS2.1+, javascript, php, mysql, mobile and responsive dev. Knowledge of browser quirks back to IE7 (as you will still land projects that require this supported ergh) Buy books and read them. I would recommend all of the Smashing Magazine Books and the A List Apart series.
The tutorials from Nettus & Webtuts etc are really good. Haven't tried their premium subscription though.
The single most successful person of my class of whenever 2000s didn't even finish his GCSEs if you just use money as a indicator. I'd do a degree because you want to learn rather than any other reason.
My advice: Learn python. Everything else should be fairly straightforward afterward It is good to focus on front end, or back end development if you don't know either, but if you know a bit of both already, try to develop your skills in both, my boss tells me that finding a full stack developer is a rare thing Another thing to keep in mind - make sure you know how to use version control and that you understand project management, even the entry level jobs in London startups are likely to ask you whether you use kanban walls, what do you know about tests, agile and all the stuff like that. Odds are you won't ever need to use it on the job (especially in smaller teams), but it is a big sell when it comes to an interview. From what I have seen, the most employable kind of entry level dev is someone who is comfortable with working in reasonably short sprints (build a feature in a couple of days at most), knows at least some front end framework - bootstrap/foundation come to mind as no brainers if you need to learn one; and is able to do a bit of devops - it's all nice that you can write whatever you are asked to do, but it is even better if you are able to deploy it to the live site. Continuous integration is a big thing these days. If you can add postgres/some NoSQL data store and a back end language (java/python/ruby) you shouldn't have a problem finding a job For the record, you can learn all of the above in 6 months, I am still at uni, doing a non CS degree and the only 'experience' I've had when applying for the jobs was a couple of successful entries in university level hackathons Oh, and the entire degree shenanigans - it's an investment really, it's only worth as much as you learn from it. I have interviewed people who did 3 years of CS degrees and I wouldn't let them touch a line of code, because well... They didn't seem to have learned anything from it.
In terms of my current skillset I can work with (but not really code from scatch) HTML/CSS, PHP, Javascript, C, mySQL. Also familiar with website nameservers/hosting/ftp and all the small admin issues to get a website "live". I Run a small website where I restore classic car engine parts, the website has full credit card functionality but needs updating as the CMS is no longer regularly maintained (zen-cart Im looking at you!) Current plan is to learn about the new HTML5 and CSS3, and pick a language (probably javascript) and aim to become particularly knowledgeable in that language over time (long term plan). Short term plan, look over my previous freelance projects and update them a bit, so I have a portfolio of work to show and hopefully apply for a permanent position while doing a few freelance jobs in the meantime. I know the money is better doing freelance in the end, but earning a steady salary so I can move out of my parents place is issue number 1 right now (I am mid twenties now so its about time!) Thanks for advice re: Nettus & Webtuts, will look over them this weekend.
Had you lived a bit closer, you would have fit in at our place fairly well! Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
If there is a permanent position I am all for jumping ship and moving a little further south! It looks like the economy has not hit as hard in london, I will probably end up working in London and giving away most of my wages in rent...
