October 14, 2025 • 22 mins
Have you ever wondered how much time you should invest into different things when learning to code? Then this one's for you. I also shared advice and most importantly the right perspective for standing out in the job search.
---------------------------------------------------
💻 Learn Frontend (20% off): https://scrimba.com/the-frontend-developer-career-path-c0j?via=donthedeveloper
⚙️ Learn Backend (25% off): https://boot.dev/?promo=DONTHEDEVELOPER
🤖 Learn AI Engineering (20% off): https://scrimba.com/the-ai-engineer-path-c02v?via=donthedeveloper
🐱 Learn NestJS (free) - https://scrimba.com/nestjs-c0n7djgjma?via=donthedeveloper
🧠 Advanced Coding (40% off) - https://app.codecrafters.io/join?via=donthedeveloper
👥 1 on 1 Mentorship - https://calendly.com/donthedeveloper/coaching
👁️🗨️ Join Discord - https://discord.gg/TpQe2k8Ab3
🐦 Follow on X - https://x.com/thedonofcode
👾 Follow on Twitch - https://twitch.tv/donthedeveloper
Disclaimer: Some product links are affiliate links which means if you buy something I'll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Don Hansen (00:00):
If you're wondering how to structure your days, you
know, to optimize your schedulewhile you're trying to become a
developer, I want to share mytips for you.
Now, in a lot of my videos,probably in the near future, I
don't really want to make anoutline.
I feel like I went down thisroad of, you know, trying to
(00:22):
like maybe create a blog postfirst or a detailed outline.
Then it was a generic outline.
And I find that the more that Ihave to do that, the less
videos I record.
I am just someone that needs torant.
So that's what I'm going to bedoing in this video and a lot of
future videos.
Sometimes I'll have an outline,but mostly not.
So yeah, there might be somedead air or I'm making mistakes.
(00:45):
I don't care.
We're going.
So I see a lot of people thatfor good reason want to come up
with a perfect schedule, right?
To become a developer.
I'm going to compartmentalizethis here and here and here.
And I'm going to create a bunchof modules throughout my day,
(01:06):
and I'm going to create apattern.
And those are all really goodthings.
But I before I go into this, Iwant to stress that it's okay to
go outside those bounds, butyou need to know yourself.
If you are someone that doesreally well with momentum,
right?
You like linking those chains,and then when one of them is
broken, throws everything off.
I'm like that.
(01:27):
And that's kind of harder.
So I like a consistentschedule.
And each day I actually like togive myself a little bit more
freedom in the day for, youknow, just hanging out,
chilling, and not like not workstuff.
And then I'll actually work onthe weekends as well, usually.
That works best for me.
(01:48):
But that's one of the mostimportant things.
You have to recognize like, doyou just like do you need like a
purpose every single day forwork?
Do you just like a consistentpattern or not?
You should test that out.
Some people like the weekendoff, some people don't.
Some people, you know, they canonly hang out with their family
during the weekend or whatever.
You you have yourcircumstances, but these kind of
(02:11):
things you have to test thewaters and figure out if it
works for you.
So if you're trying to figureout like, do I code during the
week?
Do I code in the weekend?
Only you can figure that out.
You just got to test it out andbe consistent over many weeks
and see if it works for you, andthen try something different.
But let's go by your dailytasks.
(02:33):
In the beginning, when you arefirst learning to code, let's
say maybe the first three to sixmonths, unless you're like
coding boot camp style andyou're like kind of cramming a
lot of stuff, you have a lot ofhours, which a lot of stuff
doesn't get retained that way.
But if you um let's just sayyou're the average aspiring
developer and you are goingthrough courses, you're
(02:56):
learning, we'll just use frontend as an example.
You're learning HTML and thenCSS, and then you kind of like
start building some landingpages.
So you went through a smallcourse, you build a couple
landing pages, and then youstart going into more advanced
CSS stuff, right?
So you got a taste of likegetting something on the page.
Now we're going back throughmore course stuff, and we want
(03:20):
to learn more advanced CSStechniques, or like to really
flush out a layout very well, ordive into different ways of
structuring a layout.
And maybe now we start learningflexbox.
Now we start learning CSS grid.
Um, again, you don't have torush it.
I think a big mistake peoplemake in the beginning is they
(03:40):
just cram that they just allthese concepts that they gotta
learn.
Um, whether it be flexbox orCSS grid or the block model or
anything else, like justsemantic HTML, or maybe they
start learning JavaScript andthey're trying to remember
functions.
I think people too often treatit like a checkbox.
(04:01):
Okay, now I learned this.
Okay, this is on the next, thisis on the timeline.
Now this is on the timeline,now this is on the timeline.
So as long as I go in order andI learn these things, then I'll
eventually get a dev job.
But you never use them.
And that is sad because peoplewill dump years into doing this
(04:28):
and just learning, gettingcertificates.
But they never build anythingwith it, they never use it, they
never really learn why theyneed it.
They just learn it and kind ofuse it to just sl quickly
reinforce it and then theyforget it and move on, right?
You you have to break out ofthat traditional educational
(04:49):
model and fucking build stuff.
Like you have to use it in apractical way.
You have to think through theimplementation and why are you
using this implementation inthis project, in that context
that requires thatimplementation of the project,
it further solidifies thisconcept.
(05:11):
The more you can think aboutand use these concepts, and then
be able to explain it to otherpeople, the more it gets
reinforced.
So, why did I tell you all ofthat?
Because if we're looking at aneight-hour day, you shouldn't be
spending more than two hourslearning.
Two hours tops.
(05:32):
Two hours is a long time, it'sa lot of material.
Now, I'm talking about like twohours kind of just going
through a guided course.
If you are really stuck on thisconcept and you are really
drilling it in, maybe you'relearning classes, and you learn,
(05:55):
and then you maybe read like adifferent way of implementing
classes.
Okay, now what are classes usedfor?
Um, and you practice a littlebit in between, and you're
actually coding, and you aremoving out of the perfectly
curated, gamified environmentthat is this interactive editor,
(06:17):
and you are forcing yourself tothink outside of that context,
and your brain has to work alittle bit harder to understand
what it what you're trying toimplement because you've trained
it to just kind of memorizethings with this perfect editor
and um that auto-fillseverything, that auto-completes
everything, that auto-hints ateverything, right?
(06:40):
So this is why, like, when youlike people say, I can't believe
like people are expecting me towrite it down.
Well, like actually going outof your code editor and writing
down an algorithm or somethinglike that showcases that you
actually really know it.
Because you would be surprisedat how comfortable you get at
(07:01):
memorization that creates anillusion that you think you
understand it and you don't.
And forcing you into adifferent context to then think
about this implementation andthen execute on it, it is really
hard.
There, this is why, like DSAstuff, I find there's a lot of
(07:22):
practicality to it, depending onhow it's tested.
I think most companiesshouldn't be testing for like
dumb niche algorithms, but a lotof the DSA stuff, it gets you
to use a lot of your syntax in away that um might be a little
out of bounds of what you'reused to.
But if you understand thefundamentals, you understand the
(07:43):
building blocks, you can dovery well starting off with DSA
stuff.
You still want to practice, butthere's some practicality to
that.
Two hours learning, two hoursgoing through articles on a
course, max.
If you don't hit that time,it'll be even better.
(08:04):
You are spending four hoursbuilding, building, building,
and building.
And so I might shift thisaround a little bit because I
didn't plan this, but we havenow we're gonna shift it.
We're shifting it already.
(08:25):
We're gonna say maybe aboutlike an hour and a half of
learning, and maybe three and ahalf hours of just building.
And I would say project here.
Here's what I'll do.
Here's what I'll do.
I think this is gonna bebetter, and I've seen this be
better for a lot of people.
(08:46):
I think in the beginning,you're gonna be spending more
time in the in your actualcourse, about two hours, and
you're probably gonna spendabout the same amount of time
outside the course practicingwhat you're learning.
That's four hours of learningand practicing.
That is going to take moremental energy than you think.
And you some people forcethemselves to go way longer.
(09:08):
Retention is scarce.
I find for the average person,retention tends to be scarce
after four hours.
Now, when you kind of learnenough fundamentals to be
building basic things, buildingbasic sites, a lot of people
might start with theirportfolio.
Why not?
Easy concept to practice kindof just some HML and CSS and a
(09:29):
little bit of JavaScript.
Um, but you're eventually goingto shift into like an hour,
hour and a half of learning max,and like three and a half hours
of project work.
Project work, it does not feellike it takes the same mental
energy that it does with thelearning.
(09:51):
They're just different.
By the way, if you are divingdeep into Node and you've
already built a few things withExpress, it might be time to
challenge yourself with a morescalable framework, NSJS.
It's one of the most popularframeworks for Node, and I
personally use it to build myprojects.
It's one of the reasons why Idecided to build a course for
it, to get people up to speedwith the basics.
(10:13):
Find that course atScrimba.com.
Oh, it's also free.
If you use my link in thedescription to sign up for
Scrimba and you decide toupgrade to the pro plan, which
unlocks a ton of differentcourses, you actually get a
discount.
Again, I partner with thembecause they are actually really
good at building up juniordevelopers.
Check it out.
What do you have to lose?
(10:33):
Now let's get back to thevideo.
And you'll find that even whenyou are struggling to build
something, as long as you starthaving fun with it, it just gets
so much easier.
And I find when people startgetting things to appear on the
page finally, and they'refinally getting their bugs to
(10:54):
work, and they're finally kindof getting more success rates
with CSS, and they're finallyjust building something.
You kind of just see itbuilding slowly over time.
I find that's when people starthaving more enjoyment with it.
If you are finding a lot moreenjoyment in the learning, the
platform itself, that is just adopamine trap.
(11:15):
And be careful about it.
It's very easy to make thereason why you like it is
because you feel like you'remaking progress when you're
making very little going throughthat coursework.
Very little.
And you have to remind yourselfof that.
You want to get to a pointwhere you're enjoying the
project work, even if it'ssimple stuff.
But you should be building aproject.
(11:36):
And so this stays consistentfor a long time.
So let's say we've like gonethrough the course stuff, we've
done some challenges, smallthings on the side, and then
three months in, now we're readyto build our first project.
It should be about like anhour, hour and a half of
learning, and then three and ahalf hours of project work,
maybe four.
Um, but what you're gonna findis you'll start probably leaning
(12:04):
into project work a little bitmore and it's fun, and you wanna
be careful about the trap ofnot putting yourself out there
to start learning how tonavigate the job hunting thing.
It's a career in itself.
It it's um it is something thatis truly underestimated, and
(12:30):
it's just a whole like the Ihave never seen a coding boot
camp.
I have never seen umself-taught courses, even the
people that are the my partners,my affiliate partners, I would
flush out a way more thoroughjob hunting program with them.
It's just always so short.
(12:51):
There's so much to it.
I don't envy people having tolearn it.
The only reason I know it sowell is because I've been
focused on it for eight yearsand I went through the job hunt
myself uh for two years.
I made a crap load of mistakestoo.
Um, I don't envy people.
Again, is why I want to buildthat course to just solidify
(13:11):
everything.
But you have to put some timeinto it.
And so, what does that mean?
That means once you get yourfirst project up, you're
applying to positions.
I think sometimes people gettrapped into like just mass
applying for positions, andthere's just this mentality of
like, we're just throwingspaghetti at the wall.
It's one of the worst ways thatyou can do it.
(13:32):
It's why positions are gettinga thousand applications per, and
it's just annoying employers.
You have to have a verytargeted approach.
You can blend your old industryin, you can build projects for
your old industry, and then youhave experience in that old
industry, you can apply forthose positions, right?
Um, it you should be aiming forcompanies where you're gonna be
(13:56):
building stuff that you want tobuild, problems that you want
to solve.
Like, what the hell do you wantto solve in tech?
That should be a question thatyou eventually should answer,
especially around the time,preferably way earlier, but
around the time you startlooking for a job.
Around the time when thatfirst, well, actually, your
first few projects are probablygonna be templated projects just
(14:17):
to reinforce things, anyways.
But, you know, when you'rebuilding that capstone project,
you really should know what kindof problems you want to solve
because your capstone projectshould speak to that.
Templated capstone projecttempted or templated main
projects on your portfolio, theydon't work.
Everyone does them, they don'twork.
(14:38):
You're competing with everyoneelse that's doing the same damn
thing.
You need that capstone projectthat is just truly this piece
that represents the type ofdeveloper you are, honestly, a
type of person you are based offof the problems you want to
solve, and it just reflects yourstyle and it's documented well.
(15:00):
And it a lot of thetechnologies that you're using,
it's going to easily beadaptable into whatever
positions that you're applyingto.
You need to think about thesethings.
But that is kind of part of thejob hunt because you need to
know what companies to apply to.
(15:21):
You need to, like, if you'reapplying to more than 15
companies per week, you aredoing it wrong.
You are fucking up royally.
You are just another developerthat no one gives a fuck about
because you have no focus, youuh you have no tailored
applications, you're probablyjust using some chat GBT cover
(15:42):
letter, you're not following up,you're not connecting with
people in that industry, you arejust another number that goes
in the trash.
When I say that, I mean yourresume.
You just you don't matter tocompanies.
And so the perspective you needto have going into the job
search needs to be one where youhave a focus.
(16:07):
You've kind of honed in on thethings that you enjoy in tech,
the problems that you want tosolve, and you start using
coding, you start becoming abetter software engineer to be
able to solve those problemsbetter.
And you showcase that throughyour capstone project, right?
But very limited applications.
If you want to do like one ortwo a day, that's good.
(16:28):
That's good.
That's really good because youshould be spending a little bit
of time, you know, researchingcompanies.
If you get it down, like youget it really optimized, you can
spend for each application, youcould spend maybe an hour or
sorry, half an hour doing alittle company research, see if
there's alignment, and you'regoing to show that alignment in
your cover letter.
Um by the way, personalizedcover letters do way better than
(16:50):
templated.
I don't know why people pay forcover letter services.
Like everyone uses chat, or notnot everyone, but the people
that are failing use ChatGPT togenerate all this templated
garbage and they change thingshere and there.
So it's more efficient.
Everyone wants to be moreefficient.
Honestly, a less professionalcover letter that is very much
(17:14):
it shows your interest in thecompany, but it, you know, it's
not the most professional orit's not the perfect template,
is going to do way better thansome templated garbage.
There's just this exhaustionthat recruiters get from reading
AI crated cover letters.
No one wants to read them.
You're just the mostunimpressive person on earth in
(17:35):
that moment to them.
It's just like you're sofucking boring.
Stop being boring.
That's my message.
Like, stop being fucking boringwith these job applications.
How the hell are do you expectto stand out with these
template-driven approaches?
You're just not.
Resume, it's a little bitdifferent, right?
I think there are a lot of goodpractices with resumes, but
man, do most people fuck up thecover letters.
(17:57):
You might as well not even doone.
And then you're again you'rejust throwing spaghetti at the
wall at that point.
But an hour.
Two job applications, a littleresearch with a company.
Um, and then also like spend alittle bit of time like going to
meetups, spend a little bit oftime maybe contributing to open
source, spend a little bit oftime getting involved in dev
(18:18):
communities, um, spend a littlebit of time participating in a
hackathon.
And you could replace a lot ofyour personal projects with
hackathon stuff.
Like really cool projects comeout of that.
You get to work on a team, youget to show that you've worked
on a team and you were able towork with other developers.
But I want to really emphasizethe chunk of your day is project
(18:40):
work.
It's just a little bit oflearning, and even that hour and
a half learning will startshortening, and you're gonna
start doing targeted learning.
I gotta look up this articlebecause I don't really
understand subgrid that wellwith CSS grid.
I think that's what it'scalled.
Really cool, by the way.
Um, but you're just kind ofgonna start with project work
(19:02):
for the day, and then maybe likea half, like, you know, six
months in, a year in, you'rekind of starting with project
work for the day, and then likea little bit of education on the
side.
Maybe it's like, well, yougotta learn Docker, but a good
time to learn Docker is whenyour application is, you know,
the MVP is finished, and now weneed to figure out how to
(19:25):
containerize it.
Because a lot of companies,especially if you're going like
applying for full stack orbackend positions, like us to
know how to deploy ourapplication that is
containerize.
So you have the deployment partof it, which is another thing,
but you have Docker.
So you start learning thesetechnologies as you need them.
It's a it's just a perfect wayto reinforce it so much more
(19:48):
deeply and remember it.
But you shift away from theeducation more towards project
work, and this is a reallyimportant piece that most people
just skip out on.
Most of your days should bespent towards project work.
I don't care if you're like ayear in, two years in, three
(20:13):
years in, five years in, if youaren't spending most of your
days with project work orvolunteering for like a free
internship or participating inhackathons, like if you're not
doing project work, what thefuck are you doing?
Why do you think anything elseis going to get you the depth of
(20:34):
knowledge you need to standout?
How are you gonna build thatreally impressive capstone
project?
How do you expect to stand outfrom others?
Obviously, you should beapplying for jobs.
And networking is still king.
If you have meetups in thearea, you should definitely,
definitely go to developermeetups and just meet people,
(20:56):
even if it's just a sanitycheck, like, hey, other people
are struggling, and I get tojust chat with people about
this.
I, you know, we get so siloedin just doing this on our own.
I don't know about you, but Iwas like that.
You know, I in NorthwestIndiana, there's I think there's
like one tech meetup, noprogrammers.
I I don't know who to connectwith.
(21:16):
So what did I do?
I streamed because I wanted toconnect with some developers,
and that was a cool way to doit.
But that's like if you have aneight-hour day, I don't even
know if the hours added upcorrectly.
I don't even think I estimatedlike the half or the meetup time
or anything like that.
But I just want to emphasizeit's really a small portion of
(21:36):
the time that goes towards a jobsearch, small portion of the
time that goes towards thelearning, big portion project
work until you get a job.
Now, what happens if you'reworking full-time?
You know what?
This video is long enough.
I'm gonna save that for anothervideo.
And in fact, before I go to bedtonight, I'm gonna record that
(22:00):
video.
Because I have some thoughts onthat.
It's really hard.
I was warning you right now, itis really hard.
But I will I will share mythoughts on that.
But I hope this helped, and Ihope everything's going well
with the job search.
Hope you're building yourselfup, building your projects up.
No matter what, just don'tstop.
(22:20):
The only people that don'tbecome developers are people
that just give up.
If you're wondering how to structure your days, you
know, to optimize your schedulewhile you're trying to become a
developer, I want to share mytips for you.
Now, in a lot of my videos,probably in the near future, I
don't really want to make anoutline.
I feel like I went down thisroad of, you know, trying to
(00:22):
like maybe create a blog postfirst or a detailed outline.
Then it was a generic outline.
And I find that the more that Ihave to do that, the less
videos I record.
I am just someone that needs torant.
So that's what I'm going to bedoing in this video and a lot of
future videos.
Sometimes I'll have an outline,but mostly not.
So yeah, there might be somedead air or I'm making mistakes.
(00:45):
I don't care.
We're going.
So I see a lot of people thatfor good reason want to come up
with a perfect schedule, right?
To become a developer.
I'm going to compartmentalizethis here and here and here.
And I'm going to create a bunchof modules throughout my day,
(01:06):
and I'm going to create apattern.
And those are all really goodthings.
But I before I go into this, Iwant to stress that it's okay to
go outside those bounds, butyou need to know yourself.
If you are someone that doesreally well with momentum,
right?
You like linking those chains,and then when one of them is
broken, throws everything off.
I'm like that.
(01:27):
And that's kind of harder.
So I like a consistentschedule.
And each day I actually like togive myself a little bit more
freedom in the day for, youknow, just hanging out,
chilling, and not like not workstuff.
And then I'll actually work onthe weekends as well, usually.
That works best for me.
(01:48):
But that's one of the mostimportant things.
You have to recognize like, doyou just like do you need like a
purpose every single day forwork?
Do you just like a consistentpattern or not?
You should test that out.
Some people like the weekendoff, some people don't.
Some people, you know, they canonly hang out with their family
during the weekend or whatever.
You you have yourcircumstances, but these kind of
(02:11):
things you have to test thewaters and figure out if it
works for you.
So if you're trying to figureout like, do I code during the
week?
Do I code in the weekend?
Only you can figure that out.
You just got to test it out andbe consistent over many weeks
and see if it works for you, andthen try something different.
But let's go by your dailytasks.
(02:33):
In the beginning, when you arefirst learning to code, let's
say maybe the first three to sixmonths, unless you're like
coding boot camp style andyou're like kind of cramming a
lot of stuff, you have a lot ofhours, which a lot of stuff
doesn't get retained that way.
But if you um let's just sayyou're the average aspiring
developer and you are goingthrough courses, you're
(02:56):
learning, we'll just use frontend as an example.
You're learning HTML and thenCSS, and then you kind of like
start building some landingpages.
So you went through a smallcourse, you build a couple
landing pages, and then youstart going into more advanced
CSS stuff, right?
So you got a taste of likegetting something on the page.
Now we're going back throughmore course stuff, and we want
(03:20):
to learn more advanced CSStechniques, or like to really
flush out a layout very well, ordive into different ways of
structuring a layout.
And maybe now we start learningflexbox.
Now we start learning CSS grid.
Um, again, you don't have torush it.
I think a big mistake peoplemake in the beginning is they
(03:40):
just cram that they just allthese concepts that they gotta
learn.
Um, whether it be flexbox orCSS grid or the block model or
anything else, like justsemantic HTML, or maybe they
start learning JavaScript andthey're trying to remember
functions.
I think people too often treatit like a checkbox.
(04:01):
Okay, now I learned this.
Okay, this is on the next, thisis on the timeline.
Now this is on the timeline,now this is on the timeline.
So as long as I go in order andI learn these things, then I'll
eventually get a dev job.
But you never use them.
And that is sad because peoplewill dump years into doing this
(04:28):
and just learning, gettingcertificates.
But they never build anythingwith it, they never use it, they
never really learn why theyneed it.
They just learn it and kind ofuse it to just sl quickly
reinforce it and then theyforget it and move on, right?
You you have to break out ofthat traditional educational
(04:49):
model and fucking build stuff.
Like you have to use it in apractical way.
You have to think through theimplementation and why are you
using this implementation inthis project, in that context
that requires thatimplementation of the project,
it further solidifies thisconcept.
(05:11):
The more you can think aboutand use these concepts, and then
be able to explain it to otherpeople, the more it gets
reinforced.
So, why did I tell you all ofthat?
Because if we're looking at aneight-hour day, you shouldn't be
spending more than two hourslearning.
Two hours tops.
(05:32):
Two hours is a long time, it'sa lot of material.
Now, I'm talking about like twohours kind of just going
through a guided course.
If you are really stuck on thisconcept and you are really
drilling it in, maybe you'relearning classes, and you learn,
(05:55):
and then you maybe read like adifferent way of implementing
classes.
Okay, now what are classes usedfor?
Um, and you practice a littlebit in between, and you're
actually coding, and you aremoving out of the perfectly
curated, gamified environmentthat is this interactive editor,
(06:17):
and you are forcing yourself tothink outside of that context,
and your brain has to work alittle bit harder to understand
what it what you're trying toimplement because you've trained
it to just kind of memorizethings with this perfect editor
and um that auto-fillseverything, that auto-completes
everything, that auto-hints ateverything, right?
(06:40):
So this is why, like, when youlike people say, I can't believe
like people are expecting me towrite it down.
Well, like actually going outof your code editor and writing
down an algorithm or somethinglike that showcases that you
actually really know it.
Because you would be surprisedat how comfortable you get at
(07:01):
memorization that creates anillusion that you think you
understand it and you don't.
And forcing you into adifferent context to then think
about this implementation andthen execute on it, it is really
hard.
There, this is why, like DSAstuff, I find there's a lot of
(07:22):
practicality to it, depending onhow it's tested.
I think most companiesshouldn't be testing for like
dumb niche algorithms, but a lotof the DSA stuff, it gets you
to use a lot of your syntax in away that um might be a little
out of bounds of what you'reused to.
But if you understand thefundamentals, you understand the
(07:43):
building blocks, you can dovery well starting off with DSA
stuff.
You still want to practice, butthere's some practicality to
that.
Two hours learning, two hoursgoing through articles on a
course, max.
If you don't hit that time,it'll be even better.
(08:04):
You are spending four hoursbuilding, building, building,
and building.
And so I might shift thisaround a little bit because I
didn't plan this, but we havenow we're gonna shift it.
We're shifting it already.
(08:25):
We're gonna say maybe aboutlike an hour and a half of
learning, and maybe three and ahalf hours of just building.
And I would say project here.
Here's what I'll do.
Here's what I'll do.
I think this is gonna bebetter, and I've seen this be
better for a lot of people.
(08:46):
I think in the beginning,you're gonna be spending more
time in the in your actualcourse, about two hours, and
you're probably gonna spendabout the same amount of time
outside the course practicingwhat you're learning.
That's four hours of learningand practicing.
That is going to take moremental energy than you think.
And you some people forcethemselves to go way longer.
(09:08):
Retention is scarce.
I find for the average person,retention tends to be scarce
after four hours.
Now, when you kind of learnenough fundamentals to be
building basic things, buildingbasic sites, a lot of people
might start with theirportfolio.
Why not?
Easy concept to practice kindof just some HML and CSS and a
(09:29):
little bit of JavaScript.
Um, but you're eventually goingto shift into like an hour,
hour and a half of learning max,and like three and a half hours
of project work.
Project work, it does not feellike it takes the same mental
energy that it does with thelearning.
(09:51):
They're just different.
By the way, if you are divingdeep into Node and you've
already built a few things withExpress, it might be time to
challenge yourself with a morescalable framework, NSJS.
It's one of the most popularframeworks for Node, and I
personally use it to build myprojects.
It's one of the reasons why Idecided to build a course for
it, to get people up to speedwith the basics.
(10:13):
Find that course atScrimba.com.
Oh, it's also free.
If you use my link in thedescription to sign up for
Scrimba and you decide toupgrade to the pro plan, which
unlocks a ton of differentcourses, you actually get a
discount.
Again, I partner with thembecause they are actually really
good at building up juniordevelopers.
Check it out.
What do you have to lose?
(10:33):
Now let's get back to thevideo.
And you'll find that even whenyou are struggling to build
something, as long as you starthaving fun with it, it just gets
so much easier.
And I find when people startgetting things to appear on the
page finally, and they'refinally getting their bugs to
(10:54):
work, and they're finally kindof getting more success rates
with CSS, and they're finallyjust building something.
You kind of just see itbuilding slowly over time.
I find that's when people starthaving more enjoyment with it.
If you are finding a lot moreenjoyment in the learning, the
platform itself, that is just adopamine trap.
(11:15):
And be careful about it.
It's very easy to make thereason why you like it is
because you feel like you'remaking progress when you're
making very little going throughthat coursework.
Very little.
And you have to remind yourselfof that.
You want to get to a pointwhere you're enjoying the
project work, even if it'ssimple stuff.
But you should be building aproject.
(11:36):
And so this stays consistentfor a long time.
So let's say we've like gonethrough the course stuff, we've
done some challenges, smallthings on the side, and then
three months in, now we're readyto build our first project.
It should be about like anhour, hour and a half of
learning, and then three and ahalf hours of project work,
maybe four.
Um, but what you're gonna findis you'll start probably leaning
(12:04):
into project work a little bitmore and it's fun, and you wanna
be careful about the trap ofnot putting yourself out there
to start learning how tonavigate the job hunting thing.
It's a career in itself.
It it's um it is something thatis truly underestimated, and
(12:30):
it's just a whole like the Ihave never seen a coding boot
camp.
I have never seen umself-taught courses, even the
people that are the my partners,my affiliate partners, I would
flush out a way more thoroughjob hunting program with them.
It's just always so short.
(12:51):
There's so much to it.
I don't envy people having tolearn it.
The only reason I know it sowell is because I've been
focused on it for eight yearsand I went through the job hunt
myself uh for two years.
I made a crap load of mistakestoo.
Um, I don't envy people.
Again, is why I want to buildthat course to just solidify
(13:11):
everything.
But you have to put some timeinto it.
And so, what does that mean?
That means once you get yourfirst project up, you're
applying to positions.
I think sometimes people gettrapped into like just mass
applying for positions, andthere's just this mentality of
like, we're just throwingspaghetti at the wall.
It's one of the worst ways thatyou can do it.
(13:32):
It's why positions are gettinga thousand applications per, and
it's just annoying employers.
You have to have a verytargeted approach.
You can blend your old industryin, you can build projects for
your old industry, and then youhave experience in that old
industry, you can apply forthose positions, right?
Um, it you should be aiming forcompanies where you're gonna be
(13:56):
building stuff that you want tobuild, problems that you want
to solve.
Like, what the hell do you wantto solve in tech?
That should be a question thatyou eventually should answer,
especially around the time,preferably way earlier, but
around the time you startlooking for a job.
Around the time when thatfirst, well, actually, your
first few projects are probablygonna be templated projects just
(14:17):
to reinforce things, anyways.
But, you know, when you'rebuilding that capstone project,
you really should know what kindof problems you want to solve
because your capstone projectshould speak to that.
Templated capstone projecttempted or templated main
projects on your portfolio, theydon't work.
Everyone does them, they don'twork.
(14:38):
You're competing with everyoneelse that's doing the same damn
thing.
You need that capstone projectthat is just truly this piece
that represents the type ofdeveloper you are, honestly, a
type of person you are based offof the problems you want to
solve, and it just reflects yourstyle and it's documented well.
(15:00):
And it a lot of thetechnologies that you're using,
it's going to easily beadaptable into whatever
positions that you're applyingto.
You need to think about thesethings.
But that is kind of part of thejob hunt because you need to
know what companies to apply to.
(15:21):
You need to, like, if you'reapplying to more than 15
companies per week, you aredoing it wrong.
You are fucking up royally.
You are just another developerthat no one gives a fuck about
because you have no focus, youuh you have no tailored
applications, you're probablyjust using some chat GBT cover
(15:42):
letter, you're not following up,you're not connecting with
people in that industry, you arejust another number that goes
in the trash.
When I say that, I mean yourresume.
You just you don't matter tocompanies.
And so the perspective you needto have going into the job
search needs to be one where youhave a focus.
(16:07):
You've kind of honed in on thethings that you enjoy in tech,
the problems that you want tosolve, and you start using
coding, you start becoming abetter software engineer to be
able to solve those problemsbetter.
And you showcase that throughyour capstone project, right?
But very limited applications.
If you want to do like one ortwo a day, that's good.
(16:28):
That's good.
That's really good because youshould be spending a little bit
of time, you know, researchingcompanies.
If you get it down, like youget it really optimized, you can
spend for each application, youcould spend maybe an hour or
sorry, half an hour doing alittle company research, see if
there's alignment, and you'regoing to show that alignment in
your cover letter.
Um by the way, personalizedcover letters do way better than
(16:50):
templated.
I don't know why people pay forcover letter services.
Like everyone uses chat, or notnot everyone, but the people
that are failing use ChatGPT togenerate all this templated
garbage and they change thingshere and there.
So it's more efficient.
Everyone wants to be moreefficient.
Honestly, a less professionalcover letter that is very much
(17:14):
it shows your interest in thecompany, but it, you know, it's
not the most professional orit's not the perfect template,
is going to do way better thansome templated garbage.
There's just this exhaustionthat recruiters get from reading
AI crated cover letters.
No one wants to read them.
You're just the mostunimpressive person on earth in
(17:35):
that moment to them.
It's just like you're sofucking boring.
Stop being boring.
That's my message.
Like, stop being fucking boringwith these job applications.
How the hell are do you expectto stand out with these
template-driven approaches?
You're just not.
Resume, it's a little bitdifferent, right?
I think there are a lot of goodpractices with resumes, but
man, do most people fuck up thecover letters.
(17:57):
You might as well not even doone.
And then you're again you'rejust throwing spaghetti at the
wall at that point.
But an hour.
Two job applications, a littleresearch with a company.
Um, and then also like spend alittle bit of time like going to
meetups, spend a little bit oftime maybe contributing to open
source, spend a little bit oftime getting involved in dev
(18:18):
communities, um, spend a littlebit of time participating in a
hackathon.
And you could replace a lot ofyour personal projects with
hackathon stuff.
Like really cool projects comeout of that.
You get to work on a team, youget to show that you've worked
on a team and you were able towork with other developers.
But I want to really emphasizethe chunk of your day is project
(18:40):
work.
It's just a little bit oflearning, and even that hour and
a half learning will startshortening, and you're gonna
start doing targeted learning.
I gotta look up this articlebecause I don't really
understand subgrid that wellwith CSS grid.
I think that's what it'scalled.
Really cool, by the way.
Um, but you're just kind ofgonna start with project work
(19:02):
for the day, and then maybe likea half, like, you know, six
months in, a year in, you'rekind of starting with project
work for the day, and then likea little bit of education on the
side.
Maybe it's like, well, yougotta learn Docker, but a good
time to learn Docker is whenyour application is, you know,
the MVP is finished, and now weneed to figure out how to
(19:25):
containerize it.
Because a lot of companies,especially if you're going like
applying for full stack orbackend positions, like us to
know how to deploy ourapplication that is
containerize.
So you have the deployment partof it, which is another thing,
but you have Docker.
So you start learning thesetechnologies as you need them.
It's a it's just a perfect wayto reinforce it so much more
(19:48):
deeply and remember it.
But you shift away from theeducation more towards project
work, and this is a reallyimportant piece that most people
just skip out on.
Most of your days should bespent towards project work.
I don't care if you're like ayear in, two years in, three
(20:13):
years in, five years in, if youaren't spending most of your
days with project work orvolunteering for like a free
internship or participating inhackathons, like if you're not
doing project work, what thefuck are you doing?
Why do you think anything elseis going to get you the depth of
(20:34):
knowledge you need to standout?
How are you gonna build thatreally impressive capstone
project?
How do you expect to stand outfrom others?
Obviously, you should beapplying for jobs.
And networking is still king.
If you have meetups in thearea, you should definitely,
definitely go to developermeetups and just meet people,
(20:56):
even if it's just a sanitycheck, like, hey, other people
are struggling, and I get tojust chat with people about
this.
I, you know, we get so siloedin just doing this on our own.
I don't know about you, but Iwas like that.
You know, I in NorthwestIndiana, there's I think there's
like one tech meetup, noprogrammers.
I I don't know who to connectwith.
(21:16):
So what did I do?
I streamed because I wanted toconnect with some developers,
and that was a cool way to doit.
But that's like if you have aneight-hour day, I don't even
know if the hours added upcorrectly.
I don't even think I estimatedlike the half or the meetup time
or anything like that.
But I just want to emphasizeit's really a small portion of
(21:36):
the time that goes towards a jobsearch, small portion of the
time that goes towards thelearning, big portion project
work until you get a job.
Now, what happens if you'reworking full-time?
You know what?
This video is long enough.
I'm gonna save that for anothervideo.
And in fact, before I go to bedtonight, I'm gonna record that
(22:00):
video.
Because I have some thoughts onthat.
It's really hard.
I was warning you right now, itis really hard.
But I will I will share mythoughts on that.
But I hope this helped, and Ihope everything's going well
with the job search.
Hope you're building yourselfup, building your projects up.
No matter what, just don'tstop.
(22:20):
The only people that don'tbecome developers are people
that just give up.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.