5 Quick Tips On Becoming A Self-Taught Developer
These tips are the best advice I would have given myself when I started my journey as a developer.
One of the most frequent questions that I get asked is, can you become a developer without getting a degree? Well, the short answer is yes. Of course, it’s entirely possible to become a self-taught developer. Many people cannot afford universities or simply decide on a career change later on in life.
If this is the route you have taken as I did myself, then we will look at the best advice I can offer for reaching your goal as a self-taught developer.
Have A Clear Learning Roadmap
Studying to become a developer is not a quick process, it is very time-consuming, particularly in some fields that contain more topics to learn. The last thing you want is to realise after a few months that some of what you have learnt is not relevant to the field you wish to work in, or that it has been deprecated and there are better ways that employers would expect you to use instead.
This is where having a clear roadmap for your learning is greatly beneficial. Before engaging with any educational content for your field, research what you need to know, the key components and plan out what order all the topics need to be completed.
Start with a simple online search of a roadmap for the software development field you aspire to learn. Next note down the topics and order they recommend, making sure the information is up to date first.
Once you have a good plan in place for your studying, search for job positions in that field. You want to look at the main areas that employers are hiring for, what they expect you to know and what extra areas they would like you to know. This allows you to put a greater emphasis on these areas as you get to them and ensure you have a good understanding of them.
Finally, research the best design patterns and architecture that is most commonly used in your desired field. These can be added towards the end of your roadmap once you have a solid understanding of the fundamentals.
Code Daily
It is not enough to simply sink a few hours a week into coding and your studying. You will likely struggle to retain a lot of the information from the previous week or that you do not feel very confident in your knowledge of the areas previously learnt.
This does not mean that you must code for hours every single day. Small but consistent daily coding sessions are perfect for helping to retain that information. Aim for half your time to be spent on educational resources, the other half applying what you have learnt from those resources with some code. In the end, 30 minutes a day is better than a few hours on the weekend, but the more time you can consistently commit, the faster you will reach your goals.
Use Different Sources Of Information
Whether you are learning from a course, a book or videos on YouTube, do not stick with one source of information. With the internet, it is so easy to find many sources of information, some of which may not be correct or up to date. Areas may be missed or explained poorly and you may understand a concept better from one resource than another.
It is best to diversify your educational resources to ensure that you don’t miss or misunderstand anything. Watch videos for a selection of YouTube instructors, read several books, read the programming language or framework documentation.
Build Many Project
Similar to the coding daily tip, this one will help solidify your understanding of topics and put your knowledge to the test.
After learning a new area, build a simple project implementing what you have just learnt. You can use your notes to help familiarise yourself with what you need to do if necessary.
Once you have completed the main areas of your roadmap, it is time to build larger, more complex projects that you can add to your portfolio to showcase your abilities to potential employers in the future. Building these larger projects also allows you to see what areas you may be weaker in and need to revisit.
Stay Motivated
This tip may seem like a simple one, however, it is most likely inevitable that you will feel unmotivated or burnt out with all the studying. You may at times feel like you are not making any progress or that you are not meant to be a developer. This is both normal and untrue.
Take a short break from learning and coding for approximately 3 days. Allow your mind to rest for these days but don’t take any longer otherwise it can be difficult to get back into that routine you had.
If there is a specific area you are struggling to understand, attempt to learn it from a different resource. Another solution is to work on a different topic for a few days and then return to it with a fresh mindset.
Summary
Many of the difficulties that self-taught developers face are from the lack of organisation or structure that is provided through universities. Although you can create your own structure to progress your studying as well as setting your own goals to maintain motivation. Hopefully, these tips will help you on your journey to becoming a developer.
My path towards becoming a developer was certainly not perfect, I made many mistakes that I have learnt from that has made me a better developer today. I detail these further in “Mistakes I Made As A Self-Taught Developer”.
