What Lies ahead
I met with a local developer today to try and get a lot of questions answered, from what languages I should know to how to get a job. He was more than willing to help me out and give me his time, and I feel like I learned a lot about where I need to go from here. First, he told me that, if I were looking to go the full-stack developer route, Java and .Net are very popular in the Tampa/St. Petersburg area, and that NodeJS is rarely used. This is due to most of the jobs being in the financial sector. He had learned .Net at a bootcamp and was applying it at the bank he worked at with Vue on the front-end. I'm not sure I'm ready to jump into the world of .Net, yet, but that's definitely not something I've explored yet. He didn't know Java at all, but from what I've heard, Java has some similarities to Javascript, but is completely different. I still think that learning NodeJS on the backend is the general market trend, mainly because you can do everything in Javascript, from front to back. This just makes sense.
As far as finding a job, he had some really useful tips, not stuff that I didn't already know, but he definitely reinforced what I should be doing and what I shouldn't waste my time. He didn't think job sites like ZipRecruiter or Indeed were really worth the effort, but was really emphatic about using LinkedIn to its fullest extent. He really believes in the power of networking through Meetups, so I think this is where I need to start. I need to meet some people at the Meetups, then connect with them on LinkedIn and find who has jobs available and who can help me get in front of the right people. Sending emails out to hiring managers instead of going through job postings seems to be critical to getting noticed. I've heard this from several people. Instead of being 1 of 100 applicants, you may be the only person they've had any contact with for a certain job, or they may not even have listed a job. All of that being said, I need to find some applicable Meetups and get myself out of my comfort zone and in front of some people.
After messing around with trying to build my Marvel site last night, I realized that the API I had chosen may be way too advanced for my ability level. This specific API requested that you create a hash key and a timestamp, which I really have no idea about. I tried to figure it through Google, and actually think I figured out the hash key, but the timestamp baffled me to the point of giving up. I was actually able to create the scaffolding for the site pretty easily, and it definitely reinforced some design patterns in Vue that I needed to reinforce. Tonight, although I have limited time, I'm going to try a very similar API that's much easier to deal with. I think I can handle it, but we'll see.
Until tomorrow!
