Answer 1

Hi Nichole Verssen , I'm trying to make a career change too. I did see different blog posts about people who have managed to go from zero knowledge to a job within a year. I even met a guy who says it took him 3 months. But often it's special circumstances or some luck, and I think for most people it takes longer than a year.

I also heared stories of people who took several years to make it work. So it's important to keep that in mind, but not lose hope or give up because of it. If you really want to do this, it will take patience and lifelong learning anyway.

I found it useful and motivating to listen to the CodeNewbie podcast, where they often interview people who switched careers. And each story is very different. Check some of their old episodes. I found a lot of good advice there, both from newbies and professionals.

Answer 2

Nichole Verssen I'm self taught and have been a professional software engineer since 1996.

It's possible to get started in 6 months to a year, but the odds are slim.

It will depend on your natural aptitude for learning to program, your ability to quickly piece together concepts based on limited information you've picked up along the way, the amount of time you spend coding vs reading and watching online courses.

I recommend you create a small project or web app you want to build.

Use Github or BitBucket for your project.

I recommend you spend as much time as possible writing Javascript code. Perhaps go through the JS course on www.freecodecamp.org. I believe they have a lot of hands on tutorials there.

Get to the point where you're comfortable writing imperative code, which requires the ability to breakdown logic into step by step instruction statements, control flow, looping constructs, conditional expressions, working with variables and functions, etc.

This should be a good start. 😉

Answer 3

I am a (largely) self taught coder. Now, my suggestion, if you want a career change within a year, is to practice and study like hell. I'm not a professional programmer; I simply code as a hobby.
I seriously doubt you will get a serious professional job within a year, but a job with minor programming duties. It depends what companys you apply for, also. Do you have an previous experience? Any qualifications related to programming would be extremely helpful. It largely depends on your circumstances, as there are alot of aspects that companys consider for job roles.

Hope this helps!

Answer 4

Welcome to the Q&A area of SoloLearn.

There are already similar (if not identical) questions posted, such as the one(s) below. You can find the answers using the search feature.

Part 1: "Any advice on a great pathway for a self-taught web developer?"

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https://www.sololearn.com/discuss/785615/
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Happy coding!

Answer 5

BTW... I've removed all other comments, prior to Janning⭐'s last post, if they were not specifically related to answering the question as posted. Thanks.

Answer 6

Anyway, thank you River for your response! It’s realistic and informational. I don’t have any experience professionally with Web Development. I practically grew up online and taught myself Html and CSS at 12 in the early 2000’s. I also worked with Paint Shop Pro 7 and created multiple websites for fun. I am looking for a career change and starting a career in Web Development. Primarily right now I am looking for different pathways after Html, CSS and Javascript knowledge that I am currently working on that potentially worked for others. Thanks again.

Answer 7

Study on FreecodeCamp, Edx on Coursera, and build a project you can show around
Getting a certificate might help

Answer 8

I have a certificate in HTML from coursera and am working on CSS certificate from EDX.

Answer 9

David, that is super cool! Thanks for sharing. Awesome that you started down this career path in the 90’s. Thank you for the info, and the website, I really appreciate it. Even if I can’t get started within a year I will continue to study and accomplish my goals. I think the web app or small project is a great idea and thank you for the resources.

Answer 10

https://www.w3schools.com/
To learn web development