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Coding Advice I Wish I'd Trusted Earlier

Sandra Spanik on April 22, 2021

I've recently celebrated my 1 year anniversary of picking up coding. A lot has changed in the past year, and I've been fortunate enough to recently...
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Ignacio Vargas

Great article!
One thing that I 100% agree with you is the LinkedIn profile. I just started to realize how powerful and risky it can be putting myself online!

I guess above creating a profile in any kind of employment social network, its really useful to have contacts along your professional path. Not only for chatting tech stuff but also for mentoring.

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Sandra Spanik

This! Having a mentor definitely helps loads. Learning to code via a non-Uni route can feel very isolating, so it's amazing to have a network of people to ask for help.

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jackritenour

Yes this is absolutely crucial -- the networking part. In fact, 50% of univ. is establishing contacts and the other 50% is actual univ. work. :-D

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warsariwar

Great article Sandra! Thanks for sharing. I'm currently employed full-time working in finance but decided to pick coding back up after probably 15 years! I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed about what should I focus on first. You do make some pretty valid points and will definitely take them into account for my journey :)

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Sandra Spanik

Awesome! Glad you're finding these tips useful.

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Michael

Great article! I am coming to terms with points 6 and 8 now. Well, trying a mindset shift for learning, and trying to rationalize a decision to quit a good-paying warehouse job to try and carve out more space for coding. But I had a question for you, as a beginner myself.

I'm a little overwhelmed re: my learning path. I originally tried following freeCodeCamp's Coronavirus Quarantine Developer Handbook
(freecodecamp.org/news/coronavirus-...)
but this lost my attention for one reason or another. I believe it's still a good resource and will refer to it once I am finished with my current course. But opportunities

I'm actually learning web dev through Colt Steele's WBC 2021 right now though. And trying to engage with communities/other resources to fill in the blanks.

Should I worry so much about what I'm learning? I guess every employer has a different stack, is another way to look at it, rather than feeling overwhelmed or that I'm not learning the right things for m 😅

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Sandra Spanik

I think you answered your own question spot on in the last paragraph. There are so many different stacks to learn, that you will end up feeling overwhelmed if you attempt too many at once. It's best to stick to one thing at a time.

And no, you shouldn't worry too much about exactly what it is you're learning. I believe that anyone who is, like us, from a non-coding background, will be surprised, even a bit taken aback at just how many jobs there are going in tech. There's new job listings every day, so you don't have to worry that the technology you're learning won't be marketable.

Having said that, some stacks are more "in vogue" than others atm. You can't go wrong with a MERN stack (MongoDB, Express, React, Node), for example. I'd recommend you learn:

  • backend: Express, Node (JS) or Flask (Python) and 1 database with ORM (Postgres or MongoDB)
  • frontend: React or Vue (but not before learning regular DOM manipulation and how to work with APIs)

That's more than enough to land you your first tech role. :)

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Sandra Spanik

Hey there,

  1. Unfortunately no, never used it at all.
  2. I've dabbled with Next but am by no means an expert.

Wish I could be of more help!

P.S. I know, that's the point :) I was trying to illustrate that no matter how senior you get, you still end up having to google stuff. This should leave beginners feelings comfortable that not knowing something off the top of their head is perfectly fine.

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Jezza445

Thanks Sandra for the brilliant article. I agree with the feelings surrounding a
LinkedIn account . I'm a newbie (16 months) and struggle with imposter syndrome quite a bit. I have always had a massive interest in tech especially Ai and machine learning, but posting things is hard when my knowledge of code is so low.

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Sandra Spanik

I understand. When sharing posts about coding, I often feel like I’m just regurgitating what someone else has taught me, in my own words. And that, somehow, feels wrong to me; unoriginal, boring, infringing on someone else’s intellectual property. The thing is - it’s not wrong! It’s useful. You learn in the process of writing, and as long as your post is factual, hopefully someone else will learn from it too. It’s okay to repeat topics that have already been written about.

I bet with 16 months of experience you have a lot more knowledge than you give yourself credit for :)

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Jezza445

Thanks again. your the first person to respond to my comments in the 16 month I have been doing this.

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zedvas

Sandra, this is invaluable advice.
Foraying into this brand new world is such a personal learning curve as well as technical and this sort of transparency is so key to optimising the learning process. After months of avoidance, I'm about to head off to find a Youtube tutorial to figure out how to upload to Github. Kudos for the inspiration!

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Sandra Spanik

Awesome! Hope gitting into git was enjoyable :)
I'm glad you found the article useful.

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Sandra Spanik

Hi :) I wanted to show that whether you are a novice or an experienced software engineer, you still have to resort to Googling things. So when you start to code you should feel confident that Googling answers and not knowing things off the top of your head is perfectly normal.

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by Ibrahim Ali • Edited

Absolutely incredible you amazing Human! I'm so glad amazing people like yourself are sharing very powerful wisdom. I cannot wait to break into the tech industry!!! Thank you Sandra and CONGRATULATIONS on your INCREDIBLE achievements 🎉🎉

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Erik

Great advice, thanks!

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Sandra Spanik

Thank you! I hope you find it useful 🤞🏻

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nshimiye_emmy

This is a super awesome advice thanks!

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Sandra Spanik

Thank you! I hope it’s useful.

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Thu Htet Tun

Nice Tips, Sandra.

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Sandra Spanik

Thank you, hope they’re useful to you 🤞🏻

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Richie Staniulis

Hey! I don't know about you guys, but for me it was such a pleasant read. A cup of coffee, early morning with a good weather outside and an article with a personal touch.

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Radhika Sharma

Great article!

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James Prince

This is a wonderful article. It's good to know that there's someone out there who shares some of my opinions and concerns.

Thanks for sharing.

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Sam

Thank you Sandra!

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WISDOMUDO

Thanks for sharing, I really learn from the piece.

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THIStm

good advice.

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Andrew Njoo

thanks for the advice Sandra!

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Fahim UL Haque

Advice about Linkedin hit so close to home. 😞

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Sandra Spanik

Yeah.. I initially had huge reservations. What helped me was seeing it as some sort of "scientific" experiment. I completed certain steps, no matter how unpalatable, and observed the results. Repeat. Do this enough, and you get used to marketing yourself. I did, anyways. :)

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Duarte Matos

Why you mentioned Cyberpunk ? 😂

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Sandra Spanik

Hahah, because it ranks highly in the category of “things that went catastrophically wrong in 2020”

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Unnati Kolhe

Awesome article Sandra! <3

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Sandra Spanik

Thanks, Unnati! :)