Anybody in the Web Design or Mobile Apps fields? (1 Viewer)

[The Dude]

Looking for a little advice for my son. He's getting ready to graduate college and looking for a job in those fields in Denver.

Wondering what the key programming skills are to enhance his resume to appeal to those employers. I have been told HTML5 and Javascript - any others?

He already has HTML and Java script - but will take an online course in HTML5.

Any other advice?

 

[sublimeone]

Just tell him to find an entry level job in the industry. He'll learn more in 2 weeks on the job than he did his entire time in school. Tell him not to worry about money. Get the job that will provide the best experience. Start the job search over again with 6 months experience and he will see a lot more opportunities.

Potential employers won't care about another class. Honestly we don't even care if the person went to school period. Our best backend and front end guys are both self taught.

 

[captain_amazing]

Php, MySQL, JQuery, Ajax, CSS, among others.

 

[The Dude]

Anybody else with input?

 

[Card Trader]

Just tell him to find an entry level job in the industry. He'll learn more in 2 weeks on the job than he did his entire time in school. Tell him not to worry about money. Get the job that will provide the best experience. Start the job search over again with 6 months experience and he will see a lot more opportunities.

Potential employers won't care about another class. Honestly we don't even care if the person went to school period. Our best backend and front end guys are both self taught.

This is 100% spot on. When I interview people I don't care one bit about what classes they've taken, I see how they solve problems and check their experience. Since he has none, entry position is what he NEEDS to do.

 

[lombardi]

Looking for a little advice for my son. He's getting ready to graduate college and looking for a job in those fields in Denver.

Wondering what the key programming skills are to enhance his resume to appeal to those employers. I have been told HTML5 and Javascript - any others?

He already has HTML and Java script - but will take an online course in HTML5.

Any other advice?

WHen you're young you trade your time for experience and opportunity. Once he starts working in the industry, even if it's a low paying job or even some kind of internship, he'll begin to learn what he really needs to know. He'll be able to narrow his interests and start to build a network of people in the industry for future job possibilities. Get in and start coding, the work will dictate what he needs to learn.

 

[17seconds]

Get him to go a little deeper and learn Java. Download the Android SDK and work through the tutorials, write some apps for fun. That's where the real money is. Maybe he'll take to it.

Web dev is great and is a big skill these days but going under the hood opens up a lot more possibilities.

 

[urbanhack]

C sharp

HTML5

Ajax

javascript

 

[Abraham]

I pretty much do this for a living.

Web design and app development are extremely different.

He needs to find a language he is passionate about. The best coders and designers I know enjoy the work they do on the way to the destination. Programming is fun because it's problem-solving, but it's also REALLY boring at times. My friend, a star Rails developer, once told me, "You never know what you're getting into until after the first 1500 or so lines of code."

The market is exploding and skills are in demand all across tech. At the moment, expert Rails devs can write their own ticket pretty much anywhere. Drupal devs can also charge a ton. And the two have basically nothing in common.

My suggestion is (1) find a language he is passionate about (2) start contributing to open source projects as much as possible (3) code code code and build build build (4) get a job that he likes. The job is going to be the least important part of this. All future opportunities are going to want to see previous work.

 

[urbanhack]

Also tell him to be a good communicator and work on normal business skills. Developers that can attend sales meetings and interact with people become more valuable.

 

[Card Trader]

Get him to go a little deeper and learn Java. Download the Android SDK and work through the tutorials, write some apps for fun. That's where the real money is. Maybe he'll take to it.

Web dev is great and is a big skill these days but going under the hood opens up a lot more possibilities.

Disagree with this. Unless you are talking about mobile games.

Native apps will be replaced by mobile first sites

 

[17seconds]

Get him to go a little deeper and learn Java. Download the Android SDK and work through the tutorials, write some apps for fun. That's where the real money is. Maybe he'll take to it.

Web dev is great and is a big skill these days but going under the hood opens up a lot more possibilities.

Disagree with this. Unless you are talking about mobile games.

Native apps will be replaced by mobile first sites

Assuming you are correct, you are still talking about client side only. What do you think is running on the servers? Java is used nearly everywhere and going through all the great info on Google's site on Android development is a really fun way to get into Java.

UX and window dressing will always be more of a commodity in the job market than core software.

 

[The Dude]

Any thoughts on Python as a skill.

As for the classes, I wasn't talking about college classes - more about coursera class.