So…you want to start coding?

Let's say I hit something on my head and I lost my memories. I don't remember anything that happened in my career and I somehow lost all my knowledge on how to code. What should I do to get it all back? In this video, I'll tell you all about exactly what I would do if I were to start my career all over again from scratch in 2024. In the current job market, my name is Phil. I became a senior developer without a CS degree at the age of 30. If you find this video valuable, please like and share and comment. It'll help other people find this video as well. So question one is what path should I choose? Boot camp, self taught CS degree. They're all valid and they're all good. I went to a boot camp and I wouldn't mind at this point going back to a boot camp because it really does accelerate those job skills. Right? It helps you just, it doesn't really give you a deep, deep knowledge, but it does plant the seeds in your head to kind of, if you were to take the path of like wanting to learn more without going and spending a bunch of time at college, you get to go to a boot camp, learn the skills you need to in a couple months. And then not saying you'll be super job ready, but you are job ready to a certain point, but you'll have to see it in your head. Okay, this is interesting. I want to go deeper and for me, I would go to a boot camp and kind of learn as fast and as best I can and keep studying on my own time. For me, when I choose a boot camp, I would definitely look at the price. So two factors I think of are looking at the price and if it fits my budget. And also I would interview the bootcamp like the instructor who's going to teach me what am I going to learn? And honestly, what you're going to learn is not as important as how you're going to learn. And that instructor is going to be very important. And that the teaching style and the learning style has to match, the experiences have to match with the trinity. So what language stack would I choose for the current job market for me, if I were to start over, I just choose JavaScript and stick with Node JS. In the beginning I stuck. I, I did PHP, I did JavaScript, I did Django or Python, I did a little bit of C. Try to learn golang and rust and all this kind of stuff. But you know, if I were to start all over, just stick with one and the knowledge will transfer Over So I just do Node js, get into, you know, Express, Meteor or Molecular or Nest JS and kind of just go deeper and deeper into that and React or svelte. And there's so many and the ecosystem in the community so big that you can find resources and answers everywhere. So some projects I would choose to do to kind of like master the skills is in the beginning obviously, like I don't know anything. I got hit in the head. So I would choose really easy projects like a calculator or you know, try to make a Tetris or something like that inside of the console and things like that and work with a little bit of HTML and css. And at that point like I feel like I would be like ready If I'm like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, I have that in my belt. But on top of that like I would try to find like websites and try to clone them as best I can. Pixel perfect design. So at least I could be used for kind of like making front end and picking up like CSS work or something. And then from there I probably try to clone the features of the app, right? So after I get all the UI done, which is a little bit of a pain but you know, someone has to do it and some people like it. More power to you if you do. But I like it sometimes also. So like, you know, I just like try to really clone the features like the authentication system, login, sign up, forgot password, forgot username. And then like if they have chat in there, I try to make a chat and then I make a little chat module to kind of carry around with me, you know, like profile management or commenting. And I just like try to find an app with all the features. So I have experience in doing any of the features. So that's. Those are some kind of projects, like examples of the kinds of projects that I get into to kind of get myself job ready. So I like seeing a new feature feature won't really scare me and I can kind of say, hey, I've done that before, I have a little bit of experience so I can kind of try and figure it out and get deeper into that feature. So and then once you got good enough, like after you get a couple years in your, like if I got hit in the head and I and I got like, you know, a couple years, I definitely just, you know, try to think of some kind of crud app to kind of do like a create, read, update, delete and kind of like build on top of that. So like the main focus Is like, okay, I really like dogs. Maybe like a dog walking app. So like dog walkers and I'd have like a roster of dog walkers and a roster of dogs and try to match them and, and then you can just always build on top of that. And then there's dog walker finders and then each of those is like three cruds each. So then I do that and then I try to figure that out. And then in there, the dog walker owner, the dog walker seeker and the dog walker have to chat and communicate and then see if it's a good match for the dog. And then you can just build on top and keep on building. And that's my point, I guess. So after you have some experience, like you don't have to be like the most experienced, but after like, you know, a couple months or a year, you have some skills and you're ready to start networking. Not that you can't start networking from the beginning. Or I could, if I got hit in the head and I forgot everything, I can't. I could just start networking from the beginning. You know, to gain respect as a programmer in those networking circles, in those social circles, I'm going to have to kind of put myself out there as a programmer that can find solutions to problems. And if you do have a solution, I can implement those solutions and I can brainstorm with you and I can come up with the, an easier way or a more interesting way or I think that'll help kind of my image in these networking circles and places that I can find these networking circles like Meetup or Instagram. I'm sure that you can find like whatever city you live in, you can find some form or chat room, even Craigslist, you can find some, like just try typing, coding inside of the forums or something. And you can find some other programmers that think like you. And one place you can really network is my Discord community. There are plenty of people from all over the world and you can connect and build projects there as well. And I wish I had my own Discord community. If I lost my memory, it would be freaking awesome actually. So my goals is like, oh, like I'm a new programmer, I have a little bit of experience and I just put myself out there as much as I can. And you know, even if it's not now, put yourself out there so people can call you back and put your name out there and put your face out there and just put the feelers out there and wait for people to respond. So what kind of jobs are available? If I Lost my memory. For junior developers, data gatherers, like if you. Because I think AI is very popular and those AI models need like data to kind of use. And I also think just UI like front end developers, CSS working on UI away from like the API requests and stuff. I think, you know, if you can make very good responsive designs, pixel perfect ui, you're definitely usable and like utilizable as a company because like people that are working on like business logic APIs and connecting the APIs and all that kind of stuff, I think the last thing they want to do is think about like the design. And honestly if you're programming and you're in that you have that experience, you have to like talk with the UI UX designers a lot which have meetings and that takes away from your job of hitting the goals of what the CEO wants and how to make the money. But the way I see it, like the front end and designers work with the marketers and then the back end developers kind of work with the CEO and like the business people of like the business logic and rather than that side of the business logic, I think working with the marketing and making beautiful designs, I think that's a job that as a junior developer you could kind of do. Oh, and also as a junior developer to prepare for, you know, the 2025 job market. There's so many chatbots everywhere and before you only thought like LLMs were able to be created by companies like Tesla or Apple or Samsung. But now these medium sized and smaller companies are creating their own LLMs, right? Their own rag retrieval, augmented generation systems where like you could put things into the system prompt or the settings and it could be your own data and you can teach it to kind of like make API calls and stuff like that. So it's, in the end I think all these jobs are going to open up because everybody's going to want their own. Instead of like an admin panel that I have to click through, what if I could just ask like a natural language, hey, how many customers did we have today? And I'm sure every company wants that and that's what's going to happen in the future. And the chatbot will replace the admin panel and soon and all that needs to be built so those jobs will open up. So I'd get ready for working with chatbots and then also it's my hypothesis, but like I said earlier, AI models and chatbot models or whatever, those LLMs are going to need data to feed to their systems. And one thing that can validate the data. Because right now chatbots, sometimes they get bad data and sometimes they come up with bogus answers because of the bad data it's fed to validate that data before it goes, it gets trained. Maybe blockchain could help that. Because blockchain, you could kind of, if someone trolls or something, you can kind of link it to whoever did it because it's an immutable database and learning about blockchain isn't a bad thing right now. So how I could leverage my skills property to maximize profits is putting yourself out there, like networking, making sure you get seen as a problem solver, a programmer. And, you know, then people might ask you if you can like make them a website or make them an app and you get these inquiries, right? And then you can, if you can know in your head how to kind of break down the project. And you need this and this and this and talk, you know, not in programming talk, but as a human, to that person, in person talk and kind of like explain, okay, these are, this is your problem or this is what you need to do. And you can kind of break it down. You can get a. And like it's going to be expensive no matter what for that comp. That guy or whatever, or that girl that needs an app or a website or whatever. If they give you the project and you can break it down and it's not like you're going to do the whole project on your own. You have to find a designer, but they're willing to pay that money. You could find another designer, you could help find a developer that can help you. You could find a DevOps engineer and all this kind of stuff to kind of get that project done. So just putting yourself out there and getting those opportunities will maximize your opportunity to earn. So I lost my memory and I got my, and I, and I've been programming for a couple years now and I got my experience or maybe a year and I got my first job. So the, the first thing I need to do is like, gain the respect and, you know, understanding of how I communicate and understanding of how they communicate by my colleagues or my peers, right? So the way I can do that is, you know, honest and show integrity. If I'm going to finish something on time, it doesn't matter how long I have to sit there or if I have to take it home, I will finish it and show that you have, you know, diligence and that you're not just going to coast by, but you all, you will push yourself and tell the company, hey, these tasks are, you know, they're a little bit boring for me. If you can give me some bigger tasks so I can grow I think that little sentence that can really change how someone views you and you can kind of say hey I want these tasks to kind of grow and become a good developer. And if you really express that I think that's, that's one big step forward that you can do to like gain respect. So there's so many roadmaps and different ways to navigate yourself to a job market and gain your skills. My way isn't always the right way and maybe there is a better way but there is never a right way so so please share in the comments below your own roadmaps or your own ideas or any experiences you've had learning or getting yourself job ready and I would love to read and get a discussion going in the comment section. Remember if I can do it, you can do it too. Coding saves lives.