How to Become a Web Developer: 5 Steps to Changing Careers

Sometimes Getting started into programming can be very scary, and there are a lot of misconceptions out there that make people think that programming is a skill they could never learn, or that landing a job as a web developer is almost mission impossible. They couldn’t be more wrong!

The software development industry, web development in particular is full of amazing stories of people with no tech background who switched to development and changed their life for great and they couldn’t be happier with the change.

Programming is a great skill to have, it will teach you to think differently, it will open you the doors to a lot of job opportunities even in these times where the job market is so hurt by the economic decline, and it will also give you an amazing talent to build your own projects and companies.

Step 1: What is web development?

Web development is the process of building a website. If you’re already a tech enthusiast, this might sound familiar: you’re writing code, right? Not exactly. Most developers use programming languages and tools to build websites, not the other way around. But web development is the ultimate in software development because the principles are the same: solve problems and make something useful.

Web developers are also known as web and application developers.

Get your first development job

For the time being, you can do no better than to follow the advice of veteran web developer and Director of Internet Technology at AtScale, Phil Ghedini. He shared this step by step approach to building your first web development job.

Step 2: Learning Web Development

Web development isn’t easy, and it requires a good deal of reading and learning from others. If you don’t have an educator in your life (like a friend or your mom) who’s willing to show you the ropes, don’t worry. The internet is full of valuable information.

Web developer platforms like Wufoo offer training courses, useful articles, and free resources for web development enthusiasts. The popular and free GitHub also houses the code of several popular websites. The WordPress resource Gutenberg offers a searchable database of thousands of free and paid themes, themes and plugins, and an education section that offers detailed, step-by-step tutorials for many of the most popular software.

A thorough understanding of the W3C (Web Standards) can be a great starting point for a web developer.

Step 3: Get started with a free demo

If you want to get started learning web development right now, the quickest way to do so is by trying a free demo. A variety of these are provided by companies eager to recruit talent, and there’s no better way to see just how difficult it will be to create a website.

You can also find some excellent free tutorials on sites like Codeacademy and Big Nerd Ranch. For further instruction, you can head to Lynda.com, which has a range of free courses in web development, or Codecademy, which has tutorials covering Python, JavaScript, and many other topics.

Trial of the Week

For those who have never programmed before, one of the best sites to start with is Codecademy. With this site, you can choose from a range of programming topics, from HTML and CSS to PHP, Python, and Ruby on Rails.

Step 4: Why learn web development?

Do you want to make some money off your skills? Do you want to build a site for someone? Do you want to learn to code?

Whatever your reason, learning to code is a great way to set yourself apart from the crowd and start making a bit of money. Below, we’ll look at the various ways you can make money with a web developer, including freelancing, app development, and selling consulting services.

Ready to begin your own web development career? Check out our best options for tools, services, and training.

Freelancing

So what exactly is a freelancer?

For beginners who aren’t sure what they want to do next, freelancing might seem like a great way to make money.

Step 5: What are the advantages of learning web development?

Web development is a fast-growing field. According to a study by IHS Markit, it will grow to become the third largest employer in the United States by 2020.

The question that remains is: why is web development so popular?

There are many advantages to learning web development:

You can learn programming and programming languages at your own pace. No matter what you’re interested in, there will be a way for you to learn it.

There are nearly endless jobs available in web development. If you have the skills, you can find work.

There’s a variety of industries that are quickly moving towards the use of the web as their medium of communication, including the financial world, law, medicine, and the media. Web development has tremendous practical uses in these fields.

Step 6. Find the right place to learn web development

There are many useful websites and books to learn web development. A great place to start is Lynda.com, which specializes in web development and offers a selection of videos and courses that cover web development. Many videos on Lynda.com are free to watch, but you can also pay for a premium membership and be able to watch videos on your own schedule, learn without having to wait for them to be uploaded.

If you’re looking for something a bit more advanced, there are some great resources online, including Codecademy, where you can learn about CSS, Javascript and jQuery, but it’s only for people who have some experience with coding before.

Another great place to learn web development is FutureLearn.

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