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General Discussion

Posted by Scott Howell III
Scott Howell III
12,241 Points

I have been doing Treehouse since they first got started but cannot break into the dev/design jobs

I am really wanting to start doing design and front-end web development but I have not been able to break into these types of jobs. I was with a software engineering startup being project manager by day and web dev/designer at night, but I really was just doing fixes in markup rather then creating from scratch sites. I think I have a lot of talent and skills but I would love to be mentored and learn while helping build production sites. Does anyone have any advice on what I should be doing?

3 Answers

Kelly von Borstel
Kelly von Borstel
28,880 Points
Kelly von Borstel
Kelly von Borstel
28,880 Points

Doing pro bono projects for nonprofits is a great way to get started. Check out sites like volunteermatch.org to find nonprofits in need of a web designer.

Krista McPhee
Krista McPhee
1,955 Points
Krista McPhee
Krista McPhee
1,955 Points

I found it helpful to network. Join development groups on Facebook, get an invite to groups on Slack, Twitter. This along with the advice above will help I'm sure. Good luck!

wuworkshop
wuworkshop
3,429 Points
wuworkshop
wuworkshop
3,429 Points

Not sure about your area, but how about looking for an internship at a design company or ad agency or something? You could also look for work on sites like Elance, Craigslist, and a bunch of job boards that are specifically for design and development jobs like Behance, Stack Overflow, We Work Remotely, etc.

If you're leaning towards development, you could try helping out on open source projects. You should definitely have code up on GitHub. If you want to do more design, why not put some designs up on Dribbble and Behance?

Scott Howell III
Scott Howell III
12,241 Points

Thanks for the insight. I am only a prospect on Dribbble. All of the jobs I have seen where I live want a bunch of experience in both design and development. I think the biggest problem I have is trying to make that jump from learning on here to actually creating something.

wuworkshop
wuworkshop
3,429 Points

I'm more a developer than a designer, but this article from Daniel Mall has some good advice on how to get the work that you want:

http://www.danielmall.com/articles/how-to-get-the-work-you-want/

Also, "experience" doesn't necessarily mean paid work. You can put experiments, side projects, etc. in your portfolio.

Another good advice blog post is from Harry Roberts (a.k.a CSSWizardry):

http://csswizardry.com/2014/08/advice-to-budding-front-end-developers/