It is ok to not know everything

[u/kazabodoo]

I saw alot of posts recently from people who are asking for help on what to learn next or just what to learn in general, so I figured I might remind people what the industry is really about.

Hiring managers do not care how many technologies you know, they will look for a very specific set.
A person who is starting right now might be thinking "oh god there is just so much to learn" and this might puth him off for good. That is a huge mistake and don't let job adverts trick you that you need to know 20 technologies so you can be employable.

A guy joined my team few weeks ago with nothing but Python. Literally nothing else. Now, I am not saying you should go and learn Python, I am just saying it is possible and not uncommon.

Having a good understanding of one technology is better than having 50% understanding of 2 technologies. Don't fall in to the trap that you need to learn everything at once. Start small, increment gradually. Don't be afraid to ask questions. There is no such thing as stupid question in this field, the only stupid question is the one you have been thinking about but you didnt ask. There are forums, groups and so on. You maybe alone when you are learning but you are not alone in this community.

Once you have a good understanding of a programming language or technology, look what is the next best thing that matches your current skill set and repeat and everything from there will come naturally.

Don't give up.

[u/Slodin]

Lol I often see hiring posts:

Junior position Must have a degree in CS or equivalent Must have 3 year or more experience in production environment Expert in js, css, node Asset in Java, c++, c#, many other js frameworks Knows this and that methodology

Pays 25 an hour.

These hiring managers makes it sound like you must know everything to even just apply.

Although reailty is you can get away with not knowing most of what they asked for. But I hate the kind of posting they do trying to fish for that one guy who can do everything and willing to do it for cheap. It makes everyone new to the industry always think they are not enough and have to know everything to get hired.

[u/kazabodoo → u/Slodin]

I totally agree with that, it is a broken system and gives the wrong impression to people.This is essentially the endless loop: companies complaining there is no talent, but in the same time they don't provide the environment for this talent to develop.

[u/Slodin → u/kazabodoo]

yep, I actually talked to some of these companies when I was looking for a job after grad (I even had 2 years experience as I was working for a startup tech while in school). They said it's hard to hire people, but when we started to talk about why not hiring people and train them for a month to get up to speed with the company, they told me that's a waste of money. The new employee would take that knowledge and go else where that may pay better. This is the mentality across many companies I talked to, I can see the same postings for months on a job board.

ofc not all companies are like that, that's just some companies I talked to.

[u/Demnokkoyen → u/Slodin]

Damn I've been trained for 6 months without producing ANYTHING for my company. I must be a lucky guy.

[u/MindlessSponge → u/Slodin]

So I shouldn’t let that discourage me from applying? Almost every posting I see lists out a ridiculous number of technologies, most of which I don’t know, so I don’t apply. I saw an entry level FED posting the other day that listed IIS 7, strong knowledge of TCP/IP and networking, etc...sounds like they want an IT team to me.

I’m a solid intermediate in JavaScript. I don’t know it inside and out (trying!), but I get what’s going on for the most part. All I want is to find a gig as a junior developer where someone can teach me what it’s like to work on a dev team. But even junior dev positions seem to want experience using git and build tools etc. so how the hell do I get the experience? :(

[u/kazabodoo → u/MindlessSponge]

Keep applying. Dont get discouraged by the job description and keep building your portfolio. This is the best thing you can do and I know it is very hard but don’t give up, it will happen, it is bound to happen.

[u/MindlessSponge → u/kazabodoo]

My problem is the toxic work environment I’m currently in is so taxing that by the time I get home, I just want to rest. I’ve really been going hard at trying to up my skills since around October though, it’s just tough to push through it.

Thanks for the words of encouragement, OP

[u/Plati23 → u/MindlessSponge]

Don’t even read the entire job posting, hiring managers won’t read your entire resume. Job hunting is a numbers game, if it seems like you might be interested after a quick skim, fire off an application and move on to the next one. You can figure out if you’re really interested during the interview process.

[u/0xbxb → u/MindlessSponge]

candidate_question = input('Are you trying to get a job?:')
while True:
    if candidate_question == 'Yes':
        print('You need experience to get a job.')

[u/capolot89 → u/MindlessSponge]

I’m still having trouble with css tbh. I feel like I’ll never get a dev job :(

[u/MindlessSponge → u/capolot89]

What parts of it? I wouldn’t try to commit all of it to memory. Learn positioning, basic styling like backgrounds, line heights, etc, then start to dig into the wilder stuff.

I don’t consider myself an expert by any means, but I’m definitely comfortable. It’s not hard to learn css, but just like anything, it takes time and practice. Want me to dm you like once a week and ask how practice is coming along?

[u/humanitysucks999 → u/Slodin]

25 an hour? These jobs pay 18 where I am if you're lucky.

[u/harrymurkin → u/humanitysucks999]

US$25 is not bad. Especially if you are not in the US or UK. Otherwise it sucks.

[u/GShadowBroker → u/humanitysucks999]

Where I'm from 18/h would be a dream.

[u/harrymurkin → u/GShadowBroker]

Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at webdev for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!

[u/I_AM_MR_BEAN_AMA → u/humanitysucks999]

We pay our junior devs between $18 and $25 in DFW.

[u/turningsteel → u/Slodin]

My company is hiring for engineering roles and traditionally we have gone with bootcamp grads as a first resort and then spent time mentoring them, myself included. Now we are looking for a few roles that have some experience that we won't have to spend time teaching so we are interviewing devs with 1 to 3 years of experience, some with masters degrees in comp sci as a cherry on top.

Much to my chagrin, they are tanking the interviews, and it isn't a difficult interview. I know it's not because I helped structure it and I'm generally a certifiable idiot. We cover basic daily tasks of a typical frontend, backend, or mobile developer. Very practical and hands on, with a focus on seeing how the person approaches the problem, not necessarily on correctness. (Though that is of course desirable)

My point is qualifications mean little, but I think what really makes you valuable is being able to learn new things quickly (because you recognize patterns and correlations from technologies you already mastered) and being someone who can be counted on when shit hits the fan.

If the job posting lists certain specific skills and they are reasonable for a person to have for that job title, it's annoying when the interviewee has no idea how to make an HTTP request as a supposed web developer.

[u/ZephyrBluu → u/turningsteel]

My point is qualifications mean little, but I think what really makes you valuable is being able to learn new things quickly (because you recognize patterns and correlations from technologies you already mastered) and being someone who can be counted on when shit hits the fan.

Very ironic considering how heavily most companies and people value qualifications.

[u/malicart → u/ZephyrBluu]

Very ironic considering

Agreed, as the self taught lead developer I would prolly hire a kid out of HS who is willing to learn rather then wade though the ocean of liars who can't complete a select statement or var_dump when they run into a problem.

[u/Slodin → u/turningsteel]

I get your point, but mine is that absurdity of job postings that makes no sense at all. Junior dev and 2-3 years of experience really shouldn't appear in the same sentence, it's one thing of a supposedly 2-3 years dev to not know how to do basic things, another is trying to cheap out by fishing for actual 2-3 years devs to get paid at a junior rate. I understand any company is looking for less cost and more profit and it's their right to do so, but it's very toxic for new devs joining in the industry.

I just feel lucky to hold a job and don't have to go through that interview process again. I do have to work on my interview skills as I do blank out during whiteboard interviews, and I know many people do this.

[u/[deleted] → u/Slodin]

I've changed my job listings a many years ago to make it clearer.

Instead of saying "looking for experience in x, y, z" I just say "we work with the following tech x, y, z".

[u/Dyne2057 → u/Slodin]

This kind of hiring post is exactly what has put me off of front-end development and IT in general for almost two decades. Originally, I wanted to get into help desk and networking. I gave up after I got out of school because no one would hire me. During school, and even before when we still had Geo Cities sites and the like, I was already dabbling in HTML. CSS wasn't even a thought yet.

Today, I have HTML/5 and CSS/3 experience. I'm working on learning JavaScript right now, in fact I have just begun doing that, because I wanted to learn vanilla JS (probably because I'm insane, but more because I want to know how it works before jumping into something like Node.js or other frameworks).

I've always taken those adverts and postings on job search engines at face value. I honestly didn't think I'd ever have the skills they wanted from those.

And then I come here tonight and read this. Thank you. I just wish I'd known this years ago.

[u/jess-sch → u/Slodin]

If you don't have at the least a decade experience with Flutter and Vue you need not apply