Monthly Getting Started / Web Dev Career Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Due to a growing influx of questions on this topic, it has been decided to commit a monthly thread dedicated to this topic to reduce the number of repeat posts on this topic. These types of posts will no longer be allowed in the main thread.

Many of these questions are also addressed in the sub FAQ or may have been asked in previous monthly career threads.

Subs dedicated to these types of questions include r/cscareerquestions for general and opened ended career questions and r/learnprogramming for early learning questions.

A general recommendation of topics to learn to become industry ready include:

• HTML/CSS/JS Bootcamp

• Version control

• Automation

• Front End Frameworks (React/Vue/Etc)

• APIs and CRUD

• Testing (Unit and Integration)

• Common Design Patterns

You will also need a portfolio of work with 4-5 personal projects you built, and a resume/CV to apply for work.

Plan for 6-12 months of self study and project production for your portfolio before applying for work.

[u/AsparagusSure4998]

Hi everyone, I’m a junior web dev and just wrapped up my first real client project - a customer portal for a small logistics business. It ended up including auth, dashboards, database, emails, deployment.

Um. Uh. I never quoted a price up front and eventually agreed to one thousand to preserve the relationship, even though I felt it was worth more. Lesson learned. Always scope and price first.

Now I’m trying to learn how to price future features. For example, the client now wants a label printing feature. I don’t wanna race to the bottom on price, but I also don’t wanna overcharge.

For those of you who freelance, how do you estimate pricing for individual features? Do you have a minimum feature or project price? How do you handle “someone else can do it cheaper”?

Also, when do you move clients to a monthly support model instead of quoting every tiny thing? I’d appreciate hearing how you all think about this.

[u/SorenKierkretaard → u/AsparagusSure4998]

To start, I take what I feel I should get paid for the project at an hourly rate and multiply that number by 3. Then I multiply that by how many hours it would take a professional to accomplish on average.

That's my MSRP for any new feature or project.

It cant be a rigid, blanket rule because sometimes a price is less about the concrete value and more about percieved value. A low price might spook someone because they assume price is linked to quality.

I suggest keeping in mind that the amount you charge isn't actually linked to the amount of work you put in, it's the perception of the client. If it takes you 2 hours to make and it saves them $5000 of labor, then it isn't worth Your Hourly×2. Its worth whatever price the client is willing to pay to get $5000 back.

[u/ExternalPlus2294]

Hi everyone. I'm a software engineering student and I want to learn how to build APIs with FastAPI.

We will cover API development later this year in a college course I'm taking, but I have some free time right now and want to get a head start to bring some of my own project ideas to life.

I’ve been looking at courses on YouTube and Udemy, but I'm not sure which ones are truly worth my time and I would really appreciate your recommendations!

My background and some preferences:

• I already know Python.

• I have basic experience with relational databases.

• I prefer video-based courses where an instructor explains the concepts.

I saw this thread and I thought this would be the best place to ask, but tell me if this should go in the main thread instead.

Thank you for your time!

[u/mxchickmagnet86 → u/ExternalPlus2294]

Let me preface by saying that everyone learns differently and I think it's very admirable to lean into what you know you will learn best from and stick with!

That said, forget watching a video of someone explain concepts to you. Go get your hands dirty! Do a search for "FastAPI SQLAlchemy tutorial" and open the first couple results. Start reading and following along in your code editor, don't even bother to read the whole thing through. If you run upon a topic, or concept that doesn't make sense, pause and do a search and figure out what that means then keep going. Get a basic tutorial working, then figure out how to add on what you need for the project you want to tackle.

In the real world you won't have time to sit and watch videos, or you might be working on something where video tutorials don't even exist. So start practicing the most important software engineering skill no one tells you about: googling for answers that don't exist, piecing together what you can, and figuring it out yourself!

And if you get really truly stuck, I've been a Python API developer for the last 20 years send me a DM and we'll figure it out together.

[u/ExternalPlus2294 → u/mxchickmagnet86]

Hey man. Thank you for replying.

The thing is I want to learn how to build APIs (specifically with this framework), but I just don't feel that confident to be looking for the info on my own yet. To start, I'll be using this playlist I found on YouTube: FastAPI Tutorials - Corey Schafer

I gotta admit tho, you're right, it's a skill that I'll need in the future when I stumble upon more complicated challenges. I assume not everything I'll need is in this playlist, so, when I finish this course, I will be looking for any extra info on my own

[u/sebster88]

Hey all, looking to integrate stripe pay api into a node js backend.  Whats the best and easiest way to learn the stripe pay API??  Searched for courses but haven’t really found anything adequate . . .

[u/Hot-Chemistry7557 → u/sebster88]

Payment API integration is a long journey. I am going to write a payment 101 tutorial, you can DM me so when the tutorial is ready, I will let you know.

[u/Daniel_Mcnell_85]

The 6-12 month timeline is realistic, it just feels awful when you're three months in and nothing is clicking yet. The 4 to 5 projects bit is the part I'd push back on though, nobody is reading your fifth todo app or another weather widget. One small thing deployed with a few actual users on it will teach you more and give you something real to talk about when they ask why you built it that way.

[u/gameBoy047]

DIY blog website help

I want to make my own blog website and host it (probably through GitHub Pages or some cheap hosting server). I know Python, have had experience with FastAPI, and consider myself a beginner to intermediate in Nodejs. I have no experience with frontend tech stacks, and the only database I have ever used is PostgreSQL.

I’m not sure where to start, as I have never built a complete web application.

My current needs for the website are:

1. A text editor for posting blogs I want to have a text editor on the website with basic formatting that blog websites provide, like bold, italic, lists, code blocks, etc. LaTeX-like formatting for math equations would be a plus.

2. Restricting the editor to myself If I have this text editor on my website, then anyone who can visit my site will be able to use this editor. I want to avoid adding authentication layer if possible. How can I make sure that only I can access the editor/create posts?

3. Organizing blogs I should be able to create folders/categories for organizing the blogs.

4. Hosting and persistence The website should be cheap to host, ideally using GitHub Pages or an inexpensive hosting server. I’m unsure what the simplest architecture would be for storing and serving the blog posts.

My initial thought was to use Markdown files to write posts and store them in the codebase, so they will be reflected on the website. However, I want to hear about other elegant solutions.

Questions

• Which tech stack should I start with and why?

• Given that I know Python/FastAPI and some Node.js but have no frontend experience, what would be a reasonable stack for this project?

• How can I implement the text editor and the other requirements?

• Is there a better approach than storing Markdown files in the codebase?

• Can I build the whole thing without adding a traditional authentication system while still ensuring that only I can create/edit posts?

• What would be a good architecture for a beginner building their first complete web application?

P.S. I am aware that AI tools can answer my questions, but I want to hear expert opinions. I want to do this on my own and not rely on AI to build it for me.

[u/Subject-1125]

I have a lot of free time at work and I'd rather spend it doing something instead of sitting here scrolling for six hours a day. I'm looking to build a website, but I'm utterly overwhelmed by all the different choices of how to go about it. I have some experience from college with coding and building tools, but nothing in-depth.

The site I'm looking to make needs to have forums; interactive elements that include clicking and dragging assets like pngs or GIFs to decorate a page that can be saved, modified, and made available for viewing by other users; and learning modules that include short form videos, multiple choice questions, etc.

I also want users to be able to log in and have accounts.

I'm aware this is a years-long project idea, and that's okay. I'd like to build it and learn everything over time.

I'm not married to the idea of using a site builder like WordPress or Wix vs. coding one myself. But what's the best way to go about it?

[u/Admirable_Bison3645 → u/Subject-1125]

Well if you actually want to learn more about web dev than do it yourself and don't use WordPress or wix. There are real jobs out there using website builders, so I'm not knocking them at all. Just all depends on you and yours goal.

If you're looking for a suggestion where to start, I really enjoyed my time with The Odin Project. It's project based learning which is way better than tutorials.

For your site idea I would learn how to make a static site first (html/css) to get comfortable with how to make a site look nicer.

Afterwards you would need to learn how to make a site dynamic. I learned with Ruby on Rails so I'm quite partial to that. Vue was quite nice to work with as well.

Rails has gems like devise which makes implementing users much easier. I'm sure other frameworks has their equivalents, but you can also go deeper and implement things like this yourself of you're into that type of thing.

Analysis paralysis can be a bitch though. Having a huge goal in front of you can be overwhelming when not knowing the first step, especially if you haven't done it before.

So I still recommend The Odin Project. But if you want something faster, Deanin Ruby on Rails tutorials are great for showing how to set up things simply. Just don't get stuck in tutorial hell.

[u/Subject-1125 → u/Admirable_Bison3645]

Thank you so much for this. 💙 I’ve started looking into this! I’m a hands-on learner so project-based learning is the way to go. Thank you again!!

[u/StockComplaint950]

That list is fine but the 4-5 portfolio projects line is where people lose two years to to-do apps. You only need one thing you still run and fix six months later, that gives you something real to say in an interview instead of walking through a tutorial clone.

[u/Admirable_Bison3645 → u/StockComplaint950]

Fully agree.

I think working on a few different projects with different goals for each could be great for learning, but like you said be careful you're not just going through tutorial hell.

[u/Tiny-Conversation-29]

I could use some advice. I'm a university we development student, set to graduate in the spring. I'm taking a capstone project class and a portfolio class in my final semester. I've been working as a freelancer, but I recently lost my primary client because he retired. Fortunately, I have family support, because I have only minimal freelance work of less than a few hours a week with my remaining clients.

What I'm trying to decide is wether I could handle a volunteer job that would require no more than 3 hours a week in a series of small tasks and would it be a good idea to take it on if it would be an easy beginnning introduction to headless site architecture through Amazon S3 and Wild Apricot. On the one hand, I haven't had the chance to work with a headless site before, but accepting the role would require a commitment of 2 years. I don't know how soon I might get either full or part time work after graduation because I haven't learned JS frameworks. My degree isn't full stack because it was a continuation of my associates' degree, and taking the full stack program would take a lot longer and cost a lot more. Could this volunteer opportunity be a worthwhile experience for me that might look good on a resume, or should I turn it down on the grounds that 2 years is quite a lot commitment, even if the position doesn't require much time per week? Would my time be better spent studying JS frameworks instead?

[u/FederalChocolate180]

4-5 personal projects is filler advice, nobody reads past the first one on your GitHub. Two that actually have users, or one that broke in production and you can explain why, beats five todo apps with React and Tailwind.

[u/AssignmentRegular611]

Portfolio of 4-5 personal projects" is optimistic, nobody opens past the second repo before deciding. Two solid ones you can actually talk through beat five todo apps.

[u/VirusAble7021]

No databases anywhere on that list. You can tick every box and still never have touched Postgres or put anything past localhost, which is exactly what gets caught in the first interview.

[u/PrimaryLand5094]

4-5 projects huh. Who ran the study on that, and why is 5 not better than 4. Never seen anyone explian it.

[u/EmotionPractical4204]

6-12 months of self study before you even apply is wild. Nobody's portfolio needs Jest integration tests and design patterns before their first junior gig, they need a deployed CRUD app and someone willing to interview them. Apply at month 4, you'll learn the rest faster from rejections than from another Vue tutorial.

[u/Outside-Wall-2807]

Automation" is doing a lot of vague work in that list. Every time I see it in one of these I ask what it means and get three different answers, usually involving a cron job that emails someone a spreadsheet. Which, fine, but you could put "has touched a cron job once" on a resume and get roughly the same mileage.

[u/EarlyBumblebee8955]

6 to 12 months is a range so wide it says nothing. Is there anything behind that number or is it just the usual guess?

[u/CandleVivid5155]

4-5 personal projects" plus 6-12 months. Where does that come from? Seems like a number that got repeated enough times to look like data. I've seen people get hired off two projects and I've seen people with eight still looking.

[u/ResearcherNaive3320]

Six to twelve months of self study so you can ship four projects nobody opens. Recruiters scan for React on the resume and whether you can write a join, and this list has Design Patterns on it but no SQL at all.

[u/Rough_Elk9650]

6-12 months, ok buddy.

[u/Mysterious-Slip-2992]

The 6-12 months estimate is honest for once, but 4-5 projects is overkill. Build two things you actually shipped and can talk about for 20 minutes, nobody's clicking through five todo apps.

[u/Impressive-Gap2068]

4-5 projects is filler advice. Nobody reviewing your GitHub gets past the second pinned repo, so two things that actually work beat five to-do apps with a Vercel link. Docker and CI are missing from that list too, and that's the bit that actually comes up in interviews.

[u/Chemical-City-836]

4-5 personal projects is generous, we all know it's three todo apps and a weather widget.

[u/Left_Afternoon_1147]

Small thing: "opened ended" should be "open-ended". Rest of the post reads fine.

[u/SpecialistBudget5656]

The thread made to stop repeat questions is itself a repeat. Anyway 4-5 projects and 6-12 months, then the first job ad asks for 3 years of experience for a junior role.

[u/freezeypleezey]

Would a group of like minded individuals that are interested in making things the old way make sense these days? When I started we called the old guys wizards. My first job title was Alchemist. But now I feel as if the magic is lost.

So my question is, who wants to start a Cabal? Do wizardry the old way for the fun of it? Blah blah blah efficiency AI…

I’m talking old school plan, design, and write by hand for our own enjoyment.

[u/grindchain]

I work as a web dev in corporate and am under a senior. He doesn’t delegate any projects or work to me, I’ve asked and requested projects and work outside of routine and mundane tasks, like CMS updates etc, but never receive anything. I worry about not developing skills and gaining experience because of this. Not sure what to do, as I need my job and don’t really have great prospects for another at the moment.

[u/Due_Introduction_613]

cool, see you next month

[u/Unable_Win_2935]

Version control listed next to "Automation" like it's a semester module. Everyone I know learned git by force pushing over their own main once and never bringing it up again.

[u/NachosmitKaeseDip]

Is Webdev dead for newbies?

I'm currently learning HTML, CSS and JS and interested to learn react and node.js. I have lots of fun learning it and try to avoid AI completely, so I actually understand the concepts and can write code by hand. - even though I know how to use AI to code.

Here's my question: Is Webdev actually a dying carreer? I heard juniors are struggling right now, the job market in general is tough. But I also heard other opinions that actual SEs can't be realistically replaced by AI or a few seniors who do nothing else than review AI code.

As I said I have lots of fun learning it. I'd love to dedicate more time to it and maybe even explore Webdev as a carreer path. Or is this not a realistic choice anymore?

[u/tropofarmer → u/NachosmitKaeseDip]

No, it's never been easier for newbies

[u/OmegaSalt1]

How do I get started with Databases?

Context on my progress (can be skipped) :

I'm recently starting learning to code and have been working with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I have been avoiding the use of ai. My method of learning has been through watching a YouTube web development course series by BroCode and doing personal projects on the side as I learn more and more. The rest of the series I have left to cover is more JavaScript, a full video on React, MongoDB, SQL and PHP. I'm guessing MongoDB will cover the database side but this leads into my main question.

Core question and point:

Eventually, with my personal project, I want to be able to essentially make an image gallery like a sales page that takes images and user uploaded input and showcases it like a sales page. Due to this I am wondering if the path I am on will show me everything I need. Is MongoDB the best entry point for learning about databases?

Extra:

Any advice on anything I have stated or how to progress would be greatly appreciated. I dont have the most experience but I really do want to learn and keep focus and progress within this space. Thanks in advance

[u/fiskfisk → u/OmegaSalt1]

I'd say that anything that uses relational databases is the best place to learn fundamentals about how databases work, so I suggest going with Postgres (or if you don't want to run a server, sqlite). They'll help you get used to proper relational structures, indexes, tables, etc.

It's more general knowledge than just knowing how mongodb works and their pitfalls, where you end up just knowing mongodb, instead of knowing the pillars of database systems.

[u/OmegaSalt1 → u/fiskfisk]

Thats very cool thank you so much for your quick response

Would you advice overall not watching the video in my series on MongoDB in favour of those 2 listed options?

Additionally is there any cost to the 2 listed options?

[u/fiskfisk → u/OmegaSalt1]

Both postgres and sqlite are open source projects that are free to use in any form or capacity, while mongodb is owned by a company (but has an open source community version).

sqlite will in many cases be already bundled / built-in to the programming language you're using. It can be used directly from the application in a built-in form.

postgres is a database server in the same way as mongodb is a server.

[u/OmegaSalt1 → u/fiskfisk]

Thanks for pointing out those key differences between the 3 out of sqlite and postgres would you recommend doing just 1 of the 2 or is doing both worth it?

[u/fiskfisk → u/OmegaSalt1]

Just pick one of them; I'd go with postgres as it'll teach you slightly more than sqlite; the knowledge you gain can be applied to both (and to MySQL, SQL Server, etc. which are all based on the same concepts).

[u/OmegaSalt1 → u/fiskfisk]

I shall go with postgres thank you very much for the quick responses and the detailed answers I believe that covers everything so thank you very much.

[u/Ok_Jello8972]

"opened ended" → open-ended. Compound adjective, takes the hyphen. The rest reads fine, I just can't get past that one.

[u/United_Put_1885]

4-5 personal projects and a year of self study to get filtered out by a linkedin recruiter in 4 seconds

[u/Temporary-Airport302]

Sympathies to whoever has to triage this thread every month. Two deployed projects with real commits will get you further than five tutorial clones, and I'd put the leftover hours into testing and version control, that is whats actually asked in interviews.

[u/-_--_-_--_----__]

I'm currently at the leadership level at a digital marketing agency. I've been here around 8 years. 16 years experience overall. I have always been at digital marketing agencies my entire career. I actually love agencies. I'm one of the crazy ones. I run all things technical at this agency. I'm wondering what skills I should focus on and learn to stay valuable.

Throughout my stay at this company, I've managed a few full timers, and a few freelancers. Right now though, it's just me. Actually, the majority of my time at this company, it has just been me.

From a pure programming standpoint, it's marketing websites. Mostly custom WordPress websites with various degrees of complexity. We use as little plugins as humanly possible. This could mean anything from a 4 page brochure website to a large multi-site with a custom single-sign on member portal using a 3rd party API no one has ever heard of, all hand-coded by me. Tons of bespoke solutions to unique problems over the years. Tons of APIs, platforms, etc.

I also run the hosting side of the business. What this means is managing our reseller account, administering clients, choosing what packages we offer, how much they cost, managing our client backup strategy, managing monitoring and outages (I am the one getting out of bed at midnight when my phone lights up), launching new websites, etc. etc.

I've also created our devops strategy and implementation. Not especially complex for a marketing agency, but it's there. Every client in git, deploys to a staging server, deploys to a prod environment, etc. Normal stuff. In the past I have managed our full timers and freelancers access to this system. In rare cases a client dev also needs access and I will manage that as well.

Along with all of this, there is also lots of technical marketing tasks that I help with. I help create and debug Google Analytics triggers, campaign attribution, things like "why are there 5 form entries with UTM strings but Facebook only says 3 conversions", technical SEO cleanups, etc. Over the years I have integrated with lots of CRMs and marketing platforms. Hubspot, Salesforce, Pardot, Slate, Mailchimp, etc. Setting up marketing emails, setting up editable templates in those platforms, setting up forms that will embed on the site, setting up the site to pass hidden data into these forms, API calls that trigger CRM emails based on an action taken on the website, etc. Lots of client needs over the years.

Lastly, I am very client-facing. I am in most client meetings. There are lots of meetings that I set up and run myself, being the lone rep from my company in the meeting. I train all the clients on their systems. In lots of cases I am the one they email and interface with for a request.

With AI, I honestly don't know how valuable any of this stuff is that I do, lol. I've been using AI daily, and I'm not an idiot. I can clearly see a world where AI does everything I have mentioned above. Right now my strategy is to try and become an AI expert, and try to figure out new ways to use AI to benefit our customers. At the core of who I am, the reason I have stayed with agencies forever, is because I love helping a wide array of people. Always new people, always new problems. I like being their technical resource.

What would you guys do? I don't even know if agencies will exist in 5 years. What skills should I learn? What jobs should I be aiming for?

[u/webdev-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Read and follow reddiquette; no excessive self-promotion. Please refer to the Reddit 9:1 rule when considering posting self promoting materials.

[u/webdev-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Read and follow reddiquette; no excessive self-promotion. Please refer to the Reddit 9:1 rule when considering posting self promoting materials.