February 19, 2025 • 19 mins
I dive into three common mistakes that hold aspiring developers back. If you’re serious about breaking into tech, staying motivated, and leveling up your skills, this one is for you!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Don Hansen (00:00):
Please stop trying to remember everything as a new
developer.
I'm going to talk about threemistakes I see a lot of junior
devs make.
We're just going to jump intothe first one Again.
You don't have to memorizeeverything as a new developer
and I'll even see people createflashcards and especially try to
remember syntax and they'll behard on themselves when they
(00:22):
haven't used it or haven'ttouched on it in a while and all
of a sudden, they forgot it.
It's like I should rememberthis.
How many times have you gonethrough your coding journey or
learned a code journey andyou're like I should remember
this?
Why don't I remember this?
It's like I remember thatthought pattern when I was
trying to become a developer andit is so self-defeating to feel
(00:46):
like I'm making so muchprogress and then poof, it's
gone, it's out of my mind.
I just don't remember it.
You don't have to remembereverything as a developer.
In fact, when you buildprojects, things will slowly
start to get reinforced,especially when you're going
through a ton of courses.
Right, you're doing courseworkand you feel like you're making
(01:08):
a lot of progress.
You're going through a lot ofconcepts and you feel like you
should be remembering all thoseconcepts.
Well, you know, a good courseis going to make you feel like
you are, because it's a bitgamified.
Maybe it's enticing, it's funand it makes learning to code
fun.
But don't expect yourself toremember those concepts until
you apply them and not just once, three times, five times, 10
(01:30):
times, 20 times.
When I was a developer at mysecond developer position I've
shared this story a few times.
I'm going to share it again.
I remember the developers therewere brilliant with CSS.
They were way above me and I'mlike I want to become a really
good developer who knows CSS.
I spent a lot of time withJavaScript.
Now let's get good with CSS.
(01:51):
And I remember I bought athousand page book.
I wish I actually had it infront of me.
It's in my closet somewhere.
Haven't read a page, by the way, but I bought a thousand page
book and I told my manager atthe time about it.
I'm like I really want to getgood with this.
These developers on this teamare really good.
They just out of nowhere theycome up with these concepts and
(02:13):
they can solve a lot of the CSSbugs that I've been trying to
solve Like poof out of nowhere.
It's like this is crazy.
How do they know this stuff.
And so I told him I'm like Iwant to sit down and I want to
read this book and I'm going totry to learn as much as I
possibly can because, like,maybe I'm just missing so much
knowledge.
It's like that's a waste oftime.
(02:33):
It's a complete waste of time.
You're not going to rememberany of it, or you're not going
to remember most of it.
He said the developers here justare good with CSS because
they've made a thousand bugs andthey've had to fix a thousand
bugs.
You're not going to learn theconcepts really thoroughly until
you start having to criticallythink about them, and
encountering bugs with them is afantastic opportunity for it to
(02:56):
just get embedded in your mindjust a little bit, just a little
bit, and then it happens againand again and again and you
start to remember it more thatway.
So please don't be hard onyourself just because you think
you need to memorize everything.
You don't, and you're going towaste energy and it's just going
to stress you out just tryingto memorize everything.
So go to the fundamentalconcepts and then apply them and
(03:19):
do it over and over and overagain.
Then these concepts will startgetting reinforced.
That's how you learn how tocode.
Please give yourself.
Don't give yourself a hard timewith this, because I see a lot
of people really discouragingthemselves with this, and we're
just going to jump into thesecond one Junior developers get
discouraged too easily.
(03:41):
Sometimes it's this expectationthat you're supposed to be this
fantastic developer.
I've been spending a year fulltime as a developer and I still
feel like I'm not able to buildanything meaningful.
I still feel like I'mforgetting these concepts.
I still feel like the developerthat I met at this meetup is
way better than me.
That apparently told me thatyou know he just started and he
(04:06):
knows react better than I do.
Who gives a shit?
I think a lot of this honestlycomes from just comparing
yourself to other people, which,if you feel like you are
developing a bunch of anxiety,or you feel like you feel
discouraged in your journey whenyou were learning to code
because you were comparingyourself to other people, that's
when you stop doing that andyou literally just focus on
(04:29):
going to your course and thenbuilding projects that are
focused on kind of lining upwith the types of jobs that you
want to apply to you.
It's okay to like reel back abit.
You don't have to talk to a tonof developers and just do solo
work for a while to really buildup your confidence, because
when you start fleshing outprojects, even if they're small,
it starts building thatconfidence.
(04:49):
A lot of junior devs just getdiscouraged way too easily and I
think it comes from comparingyourself to other people.
It's completely fine and Iencourage you to look up
different implementations andtalk with other aspiring
developers how they solved it.
But if you do find yourselflike really feeling anxious
about it, you feel like you'rejust you're doing a bad job,
(05:11):
you're not learning fast enough.
I think you got to do a littlebit more self-work.
You got to build up yourconfidence.
You got to take care of thatanxiety and there are different
ways to do that.
But please try to be proud ofthe progress that you made and I
think it's really easy whenyou've just been grinding and
grinding, and grinding and youfeel like, because I don't have
(05:34):
a job right now, what has all ofthis been for?
Because I don't have a jobright now, I have failed, and
this is where I really piss alot of people off.
But this is why I harp on thesefalse expectations so much
(05:55):
because I see it destroydevelopers' confidence and a lot
of people will completelydismiss all the progress they
made.
And you could identify thisprogress by looking at your old
projects, your old code, whichprobably sucks.
You would probably refactor it.
That's a big sign that you aregrowing.
But a lot of people will put itall on this idea that because I
(06:16):
don't have a job within a year,I have completely failed.
Honestly, you might have justbeen going in the wrong
direction and it hasn't been acompletely linear direction.
That's what most developers do,probably going to take you
longer than you think it is.
But always look at your oldprojects, look at your old code,
refactor it a little bit.
And again, when you canrefactor it, when you can
(06:38):
consolidate it, when you cancompartmentalize it and start
organizing your applications alittle bit better and you can
make your code a little bit morereadable.
If you would change things aboutyour code, that's a huge sign
that you are growing and theonly like if you are growing,
you will eventually get that job.
(06:58):
There's a whole, you know, setof skills that you got to work
on in the job search itself, butthere are a lot of developers
who aren't even challengingthemselves.
They're kind of just goingthrough tutorials.
They're going through coursesand they are stuck in tutorial
hell.
They're not even buildinganything.
(07:19):
We've talked about this before.
But if you're not building,you're not reinforcing, and you
at least, are continuing to growthrough a little bit of
coursework but a lot of projectwork.
You would go back into your oldcode base, you would change
things, you'd refactor.
You are growing, you are movingin a positive direction and I
(07:39):
think sometimes people just needto stop with the grind just for
a few days and go back and lookat their old code and look at
how far they've come as asoftware engineer.
This growth is.
You know, this is a very, verylong path.
You are constantly growing as asoftware engineer and I think
sometimes people just need tocreate a little bit more
(08:02):
realistic milestones that aren'tjust get a job, because if it's
just get a job, it's reallyreally easy to dismiss all the
growth and get discouraged andquit.
A lot of people get discouragedwith themselves when learning to
code and I find that a lot ofpeople when, or a lot of people
(08:25):
that can move past, that arepeople that enjoy working on the
stuff that they're building.
They're like oh you know, now Ifinally see these foundational
concepts that I've learned.
That might have been a bitboring just solo learning those
concepts.
Now I see them applied to realapplications.
Now I'm starting to be able tobuild real stuff.
(08:46):
Even if it's small projects,I'm building something that I
could use, that other people canuse, that are like small
features of maybe some of theapps that I'm going to be
working on at professionalcompanies.
When you start building stuffand you start getting those aha
moments that things finallyclick, which they can take time.
They really can take a longtime to click, both with
(09:07):
concepts and also like featuresyou're trying to flush out with
your projects.
As a new developer, you don'tknow how long it's going to take
for that concept to reallyclick.
It'd take weeks For recursion.
It took like a month for me.
I hate recursion.
I still hate it, but I can doit just fine, like if I'm tested
in interviews.
I'm okay with recursion, butI'm not an expert.
(09:29):
But it took me a long time forthat concept to click and you're
going to find that if you aregetting discouraged with stuff
that you're learning and it'snot clicking.
Oh, by the way, if you're tryingto become a front end developer
, I highly recommend you checkout Scrimpa.
I'm specifically talking abouttheir front end developer career
path.
They have a fun, interactiveway to learn how to code and
(09:50):
become a web developer, andwhile that's true, that's not
the main reason that I want topromote them.
Honestly.
The main reason is theircurriculum is solid.
There are a lot of curriculumsthat do not prepare people to
actually be competitive in themarket, and I've reviewed a ton
of programs and to this day, itis still one of my favorites and
(10:10):
one of the best front-endcurriculums out there for
self-taught developers.
And they're backed by MDN, aleading and well-respected
resource in the developercommunity, and I actually
personally run my own menteesthrough the program to prepare
them for front-end developerjobs.
And if you choose to sign upvia my affiliate link below in
(10:31):
the description, you actuallyget 30% off if you sign up for a
paid plan, but you have to signup by the end of February to
take advantage of that, becauseit expires after that.
Anyways, check it out foryourself.
What do you have to lose?
Let's get back to the topic.
One thing you're going to learnis that you need to trust a
process and that if you continueto try to learn something, you
(10:52):
continue to try to apply it, iteventually will click.
And because you put a lot ofeffort here's the key thing you
put a lot of effort into gettingthat concept to stick and apply
.
Now that's when this concept,when it does click it clicks
hard it gets reinforced deeplybecause you've thought about
(11:15):
this deeply.
These concepts, everything thatyou're learning, start getting
reinforced much more deeply whenyou critically think about them
.
You aren't just blindly goingthrough a course.
You are going to these concepts, you are saying them out loud,
teaching that rubber, duck theconcept, trying to apply it to
something small, doing a couplecoding challenges with it,
especially for concepts thatseem a bit tougher for you.
(11:37):
When you apply it, apply it,apply it, think about it, think
about it, think about it.
Eventually things do startclicking.
But that's the secret.
It's to trust the process, thatthis stuff will eventually be
learned over time throughapplication and critically
thinking about it.
So I'll repeat this again Stoptrying to memorize everything.
(12:02):
Now the third thing that juniordevelopers are making a big
mistake on and this is acontroversial one.
I don't know why it is.
People get mad at me for thisone.
You are fucking up royally ifyou are taking month-long breaks
from coding.
I'm worried when developers aretaking over a week break from
(12:24):
coding.
But I see this a lot.
I saw this a lot with codingboot camp grads.
But I see this a lot withself-taught developers.
But coding boot camp grads aperfect example like they'll
kind of rush a bunch of thatknowledge and it used to be like
three month programs.
They rush a bunch of thatknowledge and then they just
completely take a break.
They're burned out or they onlywere learning to code because
(12:49):
they thought it would get them ajob.
They never really found thatlove for coding and they're like
you know what?
I learned all this knowledge.
Now I'm going to just apply forjobs for the next six months.
They stop project work, theystop learning things.
They just maybe do some DSAchallenges and that's it.
And all of that knowledge, allthat money that they spent, just
(13:11):
starts to float away.
These concepts in your headbecome a little less easier to
grasp.
Your understanding startsloosening because it's already
very shaky, because you rushedthat knowledge and man, you just
spent a lot of money and thatknowledge never got reinforced.
That's rough, but I seenowadays self-taught developers
(13:34):
doing that as well.
I think burnout is a reallycrucial thing to pay attention
to and I understand takingbreaks due to burnout.
Most importantly, I understandtaking breaks due to life
circumstances, like emergenciesthat happen, death in the family
, stuff like that.
But but if you're going througha breakup, take a little bit of
(13:58):
time to heal, but use thatcoding as a therapy or something
.
I think some of the excusespeople come up with for their
breaks, they kind of know it's abullshit excuse and they take
it anyways.
I think there are emergencies.
I think there are severe thingsyou have to deal with in life
that are good reasons to take amonth off, especially like
(14:18):
severe health issues and stufflike that.
I want you to be honest with me.
Of course, there are going tobe a few people like yeah, I had
a major life event, that breakthat you've taken, that like two
week break, that month longbreak, that three month break
did you have to take that break?
Could you have, like, maybecoded two days a week for maybe
(14:42):
like an hour or two each week toreinforce the stuff that you're
learning?
Could you have done that?
Like, if we're being honest, Ithink you could have.
Um, I made excuses in my pastwhen I was learning to code
where I'd get a little bit ofburned out and I would just take
too long off.
I didn't do it too often,thankfully.
But it's okay to have a breaklonger than a week.
(15:06):
But when it starts becoming apattern, that's when it's a
problem.
You are.
This knowledge is way too freshin the beginning to let your
foot off the gas.
It's way too fresh.
And if the idea of coding atleast once a week for two years
is overwhelming for you, I'm notsaying you're going to lose all
(15:28):
your knowledge if you take aweek break or two weeks break.
But when it becomes a pattern,that's when I see people just
their foundations just aren'tsolidified yet and their
knowledge just goes to shit.
They fail interviews, they'renot able to build projects
anymore, right, but if two yearsof coding at least once a week
(15:52):
just sounds overwhelming to you,I had to really rethink this
career choice.
Overwhelming to you.
I had to really rethink thiscareer choice.
One thing I think we need torecognize is burnout can happen
due to a variety of things.
Right, a lot of times burnoutwill.
It can happen because, like you, had this milestone, this
(16:14):
single solo goal of just gettinga job, and you don't get a job
and so you failed and it becomesreally discouraging and then
you take a break.
You're like what's the point?
These are the types of peoplethat end up usually giving up.
It's the people that recognizethis as a shitty moment.
(16:35):
Maybe my goals sucked, maybeI'm just discouraged with the
job search, but I'm going tocontinue moving forward
regardless of that.
When you develop that mindsetnow, you are the type of
developer that eventually landsthat job, and a lot of junior
developers are taking a lot ofbreaks and this knowledge it's
(16:57):
just too fresh for you to bedoing that.
Please stop taking so manybreaks and when you learn a new
concept, apply it right away.
Please apply it right away andthen you'll revisit that concept
later, because a lot of thesefundamental concepts that you're
(17:19):
learning are usually thebuilding blocks of your projects
.
But I see too many people like,if I had to identify if someone
is going to give up, it'susually big gaps in their
learning to code journey, wherethey're not committing anything
to GitHub or they're not really.
(17:41):
They're not building anything,they're not really coding and
reinforcing these concepts.
Even people that justconstantly are going through
course after course after courseand they're stuck in tutorial
hell.
You're not going to want to hearthis, but I really think you
aren't far behind people who aretaking major breaks.
If all you're not going to wantto hear this, but I really
think you aren't far behindpeople who are taking major
(18:01):
breaks.
If all you're going through iscourses, you're not really
learning this stuff.
You're not applying it.
You're getting dopamine hits tomake you feel like you're
actually growing.
You're not growing.
You gotta build.
I understand at the beginningyou don't really have enough
fundamental knowledge to evenbuild really, really basic apps
in the beginning.
You don't really have enoughfundamental knowledge to even
build really really basic appsIn the beginning.
(18:22):
You're going to spend more timein courses, but you have to
apply the stuff.
You have to do it consistently.
You have to code consistentlyand if you can't keep up with
that it's going to take a very,very long time if you ever even
enter the industry.
So a lot of people don't likewhen I talk about that, but it's
a big red flag that I see in alot of people that I know are
(18:43):
probably eventually going togive up.
I try to warn people they don'tbelieve me that this excuse
happened, this excuse happened,this event happened.
I just I had to take off becausethis most of the reasons are
just bullshit.
But you have to identify thatwith yourself.
Are you bullshitting yourself?
Are you making excuses becauseyou're discouraged with the
(19:03):
learning to code journey?
Are you actually beingconsistent enough to make it to
that finish line?
Or do you need to call yourselfout on that and be critical of
your habits and stop with thebullshit so that you actually
can be consistent enough to landthat job?
You tell me.
(19:23):
But please just start beinghonest with yourself with that.
But I'd say these are threemain mistakes.
I see I wouldn't say main.
These are three mistakes I seejunior developers make.
I'm probably going to createmore videos like this and start
identifying a lot of the justthings that are holding people
back, that cause people to quit,that get people discouraged,
(19:44):
that get people lost in theirjourney.
I'm probably going to createmore videos like this.
But if you have any opinionsabout anything I said, leave it
in the comments below.
I would love to hear them.
Please stop trying to remember everything as a new
developer.
I'm going to talk about threemistakes I see a lot of junior
devs make.
We're just going to jump intothe first one Again.
You don't have to memorizeeverything as a new developer
and I'll even see people createflashcards and especially try to
remember syntax and they'll behard on themselves when they
(00:22):
haven't used it or haven'ttouched on it in a while and all
of a sudden, they forgot it.
It's like I should rememberthis.
How many times have you gonethrough your coding journey or
learned a code journey andyou're like I should remember
this?
Why don't I remember this?
It's like I remember thatthought pattern when I was
trying to become a developer andit is so self-defeating to feel
(00:46):
like I'm making so muchprogress and then poof, it's
gone, it's out of my mind.
I just don't remember it.
You don't have to remembereverything as a developer.
In fact, when you buildprojects, things will slowly
start to get reinforced,especially when you're going
through a ton of courses.
Right, you're doing courseworkand you feel like you're making
(01:08):
a lot of progress.
You're going through a lot ofconcepts and you feel like you
should be remembering all thoseconcepts.
Well, you know, a good courseis going to make you feel like
you are, because it's a bitgamified.
Maybe it's enticing, it's funand it makes learning to code
fun.
But don't expect yourself toremember those concepts until
you apply them and not just once, three times, five times, 10
(01:30):
times, 20 times.
When I was a developer at mysecond developer position I've
shared this story a few times.
I'm going to share it again.
I remember the developers therewere brilliant with CSS.
They were way above me and I'mlike I want to become a really
good developer who knows CSS.
I spent a lot of time withJavaScript.
Now let's get good with CSS.
(01:51):
And I remember I bought athousand page book.
I wish I actually had it infront of me.
It's in my closet somewhere.
Haven't read a page, by the way, but I bought a thousand page
book and I told my manager atthe time about it.
I'm like I really want to getgood with this.
These developers on this teamare really good.
They just out of nowhere theycome up with these concepts and
(02:13):
they can solve a lot of the CSSbugs that I've been trying to
solve Like poof out of nowhere.
It's like this is crazy.
How do they know this stuff.
And so I told him I'm like Iwant to sit down and I want to
read this book and I'm going totry to learn as much as I
possibly can because, like,maybe I'm just missing so much
knowledge.
It's like that's a waste oftime.
(02:33):
It's a complete waste of time.
You're not going to rememberany of it, or you're not going
to remember most of it.
He said the developers here justare good with CSS because
they've made a thousand bugs andthey've had to fix a thousand
bugs.
You're not going to learn theconcepts really thoroughly until
you start having to criticallythink about them, and
encountering bugs with them is afantastic opportunity for it to
(02:56):
just get embedded in your mindjust a little bit, just a little
bit, and then it happens againand again and again and you
start to remember it more thatway.
So please don't be hard onyourself just because you think
you need to memorize everything.
You don't, and you're going towaste energy and it's just going
to stress you out just tryingto memorize everything.
So go to the fundamentalconcepts and then apply them and
(03:19):
do it over and over and overagain.
Then these concepts will startgetting reinforced.
That's how you learn how tocode.
Please give yourself.
Don't give yourself a hard timewith this, because I see a lot
of people really discouragingthemselves with this, and we're
just going to jump into thesecond one Junior developers get
discouraged too easily.
(03:41):
Sometimes it's this expectationthat you're supposed to be this
fantastic developer.
I've been spending a year fulltime as a developer and I still
feel like I'm not able to buildanything meaningful.
I still feel like I'mforgetting these concepts.
I still feel like the developerthat I met at this meetup is
way better than me.
That apparently told me thatyou know he just started and he
(04:06):
knows react better than I do.
Who gives a shit?
I think a lot of this honestlycomes from just comparing
yourself to other people, which,if you feel like you are
developing a bunch of anxiety,or you feel like you feel
discouraged in your journey whenyou were learning to code
because you were comparingyourself to other people, that's
when you stop doing that andyou literally just focus on
(04:29):
going to your course and thenbuilding projects that are
focused on kind of lining upwith the types of jobs that you
want to apply to you.
It's okay to like reel back abit.
You don't have to talk to a tonof developers and just do solo
work for a while to really buildup your confidence, because
when you start fleshing outprojects, even if they're small,
it starts building thatconfidence.
(04:49):
A lot of junior devs just getdiscouraged way too easily and I
think it comes from comparingyourself to other people.
It's completely fine and Iencourage you to look up
different implementations andtalk with other aspiring
developers how they solved it.
But if you do find yourselflike really feeling anxious
about it, you feel like you'rejust you're doing a bad job,
(05:11):
you're not learning fast enough.
I think you got to do a littlebit more self-work.
You got to build up yourconfidence.
You got to take care of thatanxiety and there are different
ways to do that.
But please try to be proud ofthe progress that you made and I
think it's really easy whenyou've just been grinding and
grinding, and grinding and youfeel like, because I don't have
(05:34):
a job right now, what has all ofthis been for?
Because I don't have a jobright now, I have failed, and
this is where I really piss alot of people off.
But this is why I harp on thesefalse expectations so much
(05:55):
because I see it destroydevelopers' confidence and a lot
of people will completelydismiss all the progress they
made.
And you could identify thisprogress by looking at your old
projects, your old code, whichprobably sucks.
You would probably refactor it.
That's a big sign that you aregrowing.
But a lot of people will put itall on this idea that because I
(06:16):
don't have a job within a year,I have completely failed.
Honestly, you might have justbeen going in the wrong
direction and it hasn't been acompletely linear direction.
That's what most developers do,probably going to take you
longer than you think it is.
But always look at your oldprojects, look at your old code,
refactor it a little bit.
And again, when you canrefactor it, when you can
(06:38):
consolidate it, when you cancompartmentalize it and start
organizing your applications alittle bit better and you can
make your code a little bit morereadable.
If you would change things aboutyour code, that's a huge sign
that you are growing and theonly like if you are growing,
you will eventually get that job.
(06:58):
There's a whole, you know, setof skills that you got to work
on in the job search itself, butthere are a lot of developers
who aren't even challengingthemselves.
They're kind of just goingthrough tutorials.
They're going through coursesand they are stuck in tutorial
hell.
They're not even buildinganything.
(07:19):
We've talked about this before.
But if you're not building,you're not reinforcing, and you
at least, are continuing to growthrough a little bit of
coursework but a lot of projectwork.
You would go back into your oldcode base, you would change
things, you'd refactor.
You are growing, you are movingin a positive direction and I
(07:39):
think sometimes people just needto stop with the grind just for
a few days and go back and lookat their old code and look at
how far they've come as asoftware engineer.
This growth is.
You know, this is a very, verylong path.
You are constantly growing as asoftware engineer and I think
sometimes people just need tocreate a little bit more
(08:02):
realistic milestones that aren'tjust get a job, because if it's
just get a job, it's reallyreally easy to dismiss all the
growth and get discouraged andquit.
A lot of people get discouragedwith themselves when learning to
code and I find that a lot ofpeople when, or a lot of people
(08:25):
that can move past, that arepeople that enjoy working on the
stuff that they're building.
They're like oh you know, now Ifinally see these foundational
concepts that I've learned.
That might have been a bitboring just solo learning those
concepts.
Now I see them applied to realapplications.
Now I'm starting to be able tobuild real stuff.
(08:46):
Even if it's small projects,I'm building something that I
could use, that other people canuse, that are like small
features of maybe some of theapps that I'm going to be
working on at professionalcompanies.
When you start building stuffand you start getting those aha
moments that things finallyclick, which they can take time.
They really can take a longtime to click, both with
(09:07):
concepts and also like featuresyou're trying to flush out with
your projects.
As a new developer, you don'tknow how long it's going to take
for that concept to reallyclick.
It'd take weeks For recursion.
It took like a month for me.
I hate recursion.
I still hate it, but I can doit just fine, like if I'm tested
in interviews.
I'm okay with recursion, butI'm not an expert.
(09:29):
But it took me a long time forthat concept to click and you're
going to find that if you aregetting discouraged with stuff
that you're learning and it'snot clicking.
Oh, by the way, if you're tryingto become a front end developer
, I highly recommend you checkout Scrimpa.
I'm specifically talking abouttheir front end developer career
path.
They have a fun, interactiveway to learn how to code and
(09:50):
become a web developer, andwhile that's true, that's not
the main reason that I want topromote them.
Honestly.
The main reason is theircurriculum is solid.
There are a lot of curriculumsthat do not prepare people to
actually be competitive in themarket, and I've reviewed a ton
of programs and to this day, itis still one of my favorites and
(10:10):
one of the best front-endcurriculums out there for
self-taught developers.
And they're backed by MDN, aleading and well-respected
resource in the developercommunity, and I actually
personally run my own menteesthrough the program to prepare
them for front-end developerjobs.
And if you choose to sign upvia my affiliate link below in
(10:31):
the description, you actuallyget 30% off if you sign up for a
paid plan, but you have to signup by the end of February to
take advantage of that, becauseit expires after that.
Anyways, check it out foryourself.
What do you have to lose?
Let's get back to the topic.
One thing you're going to learnis that you need to trust a
process and that if you continueto try to learn something, you
(10:52):
continue to try to apply it, iteventually will click.
And because you put a lot ofeffort here's the key thing you
put a lot of effort into gettingthat concept to stick and apply
.
Now that's when this concept,when it does click it clicks
hard it gets reinforced deeplybecause you've thought about
(11:15):
this deeply.
These concepts, everything thatyou're learning, start getting
reinforced much more deeply whenyou critically think about them
.
You aren't just blindly goingthrough a course.
You are going to these concepts, you are saying them out loud,
teaching that rubber, duck theconcept, trying to apply it to
something small, doing a couplecoding challenges with it,
especially for concepts thatseem a bit tougher for you.
(11:37):
When you apply it, apply it,apply it, think about it, think
about it, think about it.
Eventually things do startclicking.
But that's the secret.
It's to trust the process, thatthis stuff will eventually be
learned over time throughapplication and critically
thinking about it.
So I'll repeat this again Stoptrying to memorize everything.
(12:02):
Now the third thing that juniordevelopers are making a big
mistake on and this is acontroversial one.
I don't know why it is.
People get mad at me for thisone.
You are fucking up royally ifyou are taking month-long breaks
from coding.
I'm worried when developers aretaking over a week break from
(12:24):
coding.
But I see this a lot.
I saw this a lot with codingboot camp grads.
But I see this a lot withself-taught developers.
But coding boot camp grads aperfect example like they'll
kind of rush a bunch of thatknowledge and it used to be like
three month programs.
They rush a bunch of thatknowledge and then they just
completely take a break.
They're burned out or they onlywere learning to code because
(12:49):
they thought it would get them ajob.
They never really found thatlove for coding and they're like
you know what?
I learned all this knowledge.
Now I'm going to just apply forjobs for the next six months.
They stop project work, theystop learning things.
They just maybe do some DSAchallenges and that's it.
And all of that knowledge, allthat money that they spent, just
(13:11):
starts to float away.
These concepts in your headbecome a little less easier to
grasp.
Your understanding startsloosening because it's already
very shaky, because you rushedthat knowledge and man, you just
spent a lot of money and thatknowledge never got reinforced.
That's rough, but I seenowadays self-taught developers
(13:34):
doing that as well.
I think burnout is a reallycrucial thing to pay attention
to and I understand takingbreaks due to burnout.
Most importantly, I understandtaking breaks due to life
circumstances, like emergenciesthat happen, death in the family
, stuff like that.
But but if you're going througha breakup, take a little bit of
(13:58):
time to heal, but use thatcoding as a therapy or something
.
I think some of the excusespeople come up with for their
breaks, they kind of know it's abullshit excuse and they take
it anyways.
I think there are emergencies.
I think there are severe thingsyou have to deal with in life
that are good reasons to take amonth off, especially like
(14:18):
severe health issues and stufflike that.
I want you to be honest with me.
Of course, there are going tobe a few people like yeah, I had
a major life event, that breakthat you've taken, that like two
week break, that month longbreak, that three month break
did you have to take that break?
Could you have, like, maybecoded two days a week for maybe
(14:42):
like an hour or two each week toreinforce the stuff that you're
learning?
Could you have done that?
Like, if we're being honest, Ithink you could have.
Um, I made excuses in my pastwhen I was learning to code
where I'd get a little bit ofburned out and I would just take
too long off.
I didn't do it too often,thankfully.
But it's okay to have a breaklonger than a week.
(15:06):
But when it starts becoming apattern, that's when it's a
problem.
You are.
This knowledge is way too freshin the beginning to let your
foot off the gas.
It's way too fresh.
And if the idea of coding atleast once a week for two years
is overwhelming for you, I'm notsaying you're going to lose all
(15:28):
your knowledge if you take aweek break or two weeks break.
But when it becomes a pattern,that's when I see people just
their foundations just aren'tsolidified yet and their
knowledge just goes to shit.
They fail interviews, they'renot able to build projects
anymore, right, but if two yearsof coding at least once a week
(15:52):
just sounds overwhelming to you,I had to really rethink this
career choice.
Overwhelming to you.
I had to really rethink thiscareer choice.
One thing I think we need torecognize is burnout can happen
due to a variety of things.
Right, a lot of times burnoutwill.
It can happen because, like you, had this milestone, this
(16:14):
single solo goal of just gettinga job, and you don't get a job
and so you failed and it becomesreally discouraging and then
you take a break.
You're like what's the point?
These are the types of peoplethat end up usually giving up.
It's the people that recognizethis as a shitty moment.
(16:35):
Maybe my goals sucked, maybeI'm just discouraged with the
job search, but I'm going tocontinue moving forward
regardless of that.
When you develop that mindsetnow, you are the type of
developer that eventually landsthat job, and a lot of junior
developers are taking a lot ofbreaks and this knowledge it's
(16:57):
just too fresh for you to bedoing that.
Please stop taking so manybreaks and when you learn a new
concept, apply it right away.
Please apply it right away andthen you'll revisit that concept
later, because a lot of thesefundamental concepts that you're
(17:19):
learning are usually thebuilding blocks of your projects
.
But I see too many people like,if I had to identify if someone
is going to give up, it'susually big gaps in their
learning to code journey, wherethey're not committing anything
to GitHub or they're not really.
(17:41):
They're not building anything,they're not really coding and
reinforcing these concepts.
Even people that justconstantly are going through
course after course after courseand they're stuck in tutorial
hell.
You're not going to want to hearthis, but I really think you
aren't far behind people who aretaking major breaks.
If all you're not going to wantto hear this, but I really
think you aren't far behindpeople who are taking major
(18:01):
breaks.
If all you're going through iscourses, you're not really
learning this stuff.
You're not applying it.
You're getting dopamine hits tomake you feel like you're
actually growing.
You're not growing.
You gotta build.
I understand at the beginningyou don't really have enough
fundamental knowledge to evenbuild really, really basic apps
in the beginning.
You don't really have enoughfundamental knowledge to even
build really really basic appsIn the beginning.
(18:22):
You're going to spend more timein courses, but you have to
apply the stuff.
You have to do it consistently.
You have to code consistentlyand if you can't keep up with
that it's going to take a very,very long time if you ever even
enter the industry.
So a lot of people don't likewhen I talk about that, but it's
a big red flag that I see in alot of people that I know are
(18:43):
probably eventually going togive up.
I try to warn people they don'tbelieve me that this excuse
happened, this excuse happened,this event happened.
I just I had to take off becausethis most of the reasons are
just bullshit.
But you have to identify thatwith yourself.
Are you bullshitting yourself?
Are you making excuses becauseyou're discouraged with the
(19:03):
learning to code journey?
Are you actually beingconsistent enough to make it to
that finish line?
Or do you need to call yourselfout on that and be critical of
your habits and stop with thebullshit so that you actually
can be consistent enough to landthat job?
You tell me.
(19:23):
But please just start beinghonest with yourself with that.
But I'd say these are threemain mistakes.
I see I wouldn't say main.
These are three mistakes I seejunior developers make.
I'm probably going to createmore videos like this and start
identifying a lot of the justthings that are holding people
back, that cause people to quit,that get people discouraged,
(19:44):
that get people lost in theirjourney.
I'm probably going to createmore videos like this.
But if you have any opinionsabout anything I said, leave it
in the comments below.
I would love to hear them.
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