Is It the Best time to become a JavaScript Developer?

During earlier days JavaScript — and web development in general — when everything felt brittle. Developing entire applications with Vanilla JavaScript felt just wrong, the JavaScript APIs weren’t mature enough, the lack of supportive CSS made aligning HTML without hacks impossible, there was no tooling to ship qualitative web applications.

The lack of educational material was the tip of the iceberg which made learning JavaScript an adventure in itself. There were no courses or bootcamps, but just copy and pasting Stack Overflow answers to make things work eventually.

In contrast, I find it’s the best time to become a JavaScript developer right now. The JavaScript ecosystem is evolving every year — lots of people are complaining about JavaScript changing all the time — however, I find it has hit a sweet spot where many libraries, tooling, and the language itself are coming more and more to a halt. The perfect opportunity to get your foot into the door.

JavaScript Growth 

JavaScript skills are in demand more than ever before. For the past five years, JavaScript has been the most popular technology in StackOverflow’s developer survey. The same survey also listed JavaScript as the second most “wanted” language. In the open-source community, more JavaScript code is uploaded to GitHub than any other language; JavaScript tops the charts in number of active repositories and number of commits/day. The number of packages uploaded to NPM has grown faster than any other major language package manager, showing that JavaScript developers are not only using the language but continuing to release projects and code to accelerate that growth.

Career Path

  • HTML, CSS/SAAS navvy
  • experience in JavaScript
  • experience with GIT (or other version control systems)
  • knowledge of at least one: React, Angular, Vue, Ember
  • good English
  • experience with RWD
  • knowledge of at least one: Bootstrap, Foundation

The pros of working as a frontend developer

Well, the best part of frontend is that you don’t have to worry if soon it is going to extinct. The blossoming period of website applications is still on but of course, from time to time it is good to add some skills and never stop learning when it comes to software development. Changes in the IT world are common, sometimes there is a hype for a particular language or desired library but if you want to stay on top — always enhance your skillset and… be an expert in your field.

Additionally, if you are already experienced enough, it won’t be that difficult to make a little switch and change your career path. Transition to full-stack, product development, UX or becoming a SCRUM master could be the next step in case you are afraid of getting bored with CSS styles. Kidding, there is always something new you can learn or do in frontend.

How to find a job as a frontend developer?

Lately, without a doubt, becoming a frontend developer or a Python developer is a common goal for a huge amount of people who want to retrain and drastically change the career path. The good part about frontend is that in comparison to backend, full-stack or big data, not much math is necessary to get the basics. Although in software development, logical thinking is a key to success even if there are no sophisticated math patterns required. However, what could be an advantage is knowing the design. An eye for details, some graphics programs at your fingertips, fundamental UX/UI knowledge and experience with layouts, matching colors and so on — merging skills is a way to go, if you really want to stand out from the junior devs’ crowd.

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