How Long Does It Take To Become A Web Developer?

Earlier, we had given some insights on choosing web development as a career. A number of people reached out to us asking further about the process and how long it would take to become a web developer. We decided to put an end to all your concerns and confusions and provide you with deeper and clear answers to your queries. Based upon some specific questions that came to us, we decided to do some research and ask experts on their recommendations to further help our dear people in finding a great calling in the world of web development.

While researching, we came across some interesting facts regarding the requirements and skills that are expected of web developers. Glassdoor alone lists not less than 90,000 jobs in the web development India  on an average. And, the pay is nothing short of $88 (on an average) a year. So, this means there is no scarcity of jobs for web developers. In case, you were considering web development as a job opportunity, then go ahead and live your dreams.

When we had discussed careers in web development last time, there were certain queries and concerns raised by some of our followers, and we would be answering those first. Some had asked whether choosing a career in web development would be the right step into the world of IT or tech. Some of them were doubtful on the time taken to learn coding. Our answers to these queries are simple and something that would make you really happy. For those of you, who were doubtful whether a job in web development should be the right step, yes it is the best point where you can enter into a tech career. And, you would need a few months to master the skills in front-end web development and soon after, you can earn a living off what you know the best.

The Actual Time To Be Invested

So let us find out how long does it actually take to start this.

If you have it planned well, nothing can come in a way – as nothing can break a determined willpower. But to be honest, you will have to out in serious efforts to get there. How do you actually get started? First and foremost, you should be proficient in the coding languages, such as HTML and CSS.

Markup Languages

HTML and CSS are the markup languages that define the various components of a web page, including the colors, fonts, and layouts. And, all these collectively form HTML and CSS. With these two skills, you can easily create basic websites. And slowly, once you become experienced, you can start taking up HTML and CSS jobs. You can start this on a freelance front. Based on how well you know HTML and CSS, you might take either a few weeks or this may extend to months.

Once you feel like yes, you have reached that point where you are an expert in both HTML and CSS, then you can begin with expanding your knowledge across the development domain by taking up a few more programming languages. You can, in fact, start with a scripting language, such as JavaScript. It powers the website with dynamic content, such as interactive maps and even animated graphics.

Though you might think that when you take up Javascript, you are again wasting your time as it might take a couple of months again to master this. But, employers would give you more preference from a job perspective when considering your resume against your peers. Now that you have finally grasped some good knowledge across these domains, it would require you to constantly keep upgrading your resources and skills. As you might be aware, the world of programming languages is vast and like any other profession, it is important that you keep an eye out for the new changes and developments, unless you miss out what others know.

Apart from these, you can always keep on upgrading your skills and learn new concepts and ideas. If you would like to provide back-end support, you can always go ahead and explore the various concepts within back end. The database management and support are some vital aspects of a web development process, which will add credits to your career if you know these well.

Ruby on rails: Added Advantage

It would be great if you have hands-on experience across server-side languages, including Ruby-on-rails. You can easily become an experienced and a total package of web developer in a few months time.

Professionals or Institutions: Which is Preferred?

Now that you know what are the different ingredients of programming you should be knowing the next concern is whether you need to be taking help from professionals or institutions to learn further about these most popular programming languages or you can learn it all by yourself. Also, you should be checking on how long would it take if you determine to undergo either of these processes of learning or both. 

Just like other degrees that you can acquire from a university, front-end web development is also a professional degree for which you would have to attend a full-time course from any certified organization, which is approved as per the international standards. In other words, you should earn a bachelor’s or associate’s degree to be professionally and academically qualified for this job. Unless you have the required credentials, it would become difficult for you to apply for a job.

Do you Have a Degree in Computer Science? Then, read this:

Now the question is can you find a job as a front-end developer with a degree in Computer Science? This was one of the queries that many of our people asked us last time. Yes, you can if you have all the required front-end developer’s skills. Even if you don’t have a degree in Computer Science, but have the sufficient skills that qualify for a web developer’s job, then undoubtedly, you can find a suitable job.

So you can always avoid going to a college and enrolling into a big degree course to get yourself certified as a front-end developer, which makes no sense at all – rather than wasting money, time and effort when you could easily find a job without attending college. You can always find help online to learn through free online tutorials, or enroll in paid instructor-led online classes or attend in-person code boot camps.

Differentiating the Approaches and Finally Choosing the Best One

There should be something that differentiates these approaches and let us find out how depending upon each of these approaches, your learning time would change. If you are looking for in-person coding schools that comprise of around 8-12 week-long courses, then code boot camps are the best choice. Usually, these boot camp programs are programmed in such a way so that the candidates can actually acquire code-ready programs at the end of the training.

This means that if you are enrolling for a 12-week course, you will be ideally ready to take up a full-fledged development work in this 12-week period of time. This would be one of the best choices if you are short of time, rather than opting for the three-to-four year college degree. But like any other program, code boot camp comes with a set of challenges.

As you might be aware, these boot camps are organized across in-person locations and it would get difficult for you to travel if you are not a local of that particular location. And during the course time of the code boot camps, you would not able to take up another job or earn any income as you have your 8-12 week period already preoccupied.

Also, in most of the cases, unless you have a huge tuition fee amount set aside, it won’t be a great idea to enroll into a code boot camp course as it would be charged around an average of $11,451. And this doesn’t include the relocation – food, accommodation, and transport – charges you might have to incorporate in. And you won’t be earning anything during this period of time. Just take into account all these factors and decide whether you would be able to take up all these expenses without any income – if everything fits in, then go ahead.

Online Help: How Can You Benefit?

Otherwise, you could choose to learn from free online sites, such as Free Code Camp and Coursera, where you can learn online without any expenses or the need to relocate. Also, some other online development forums, including Stack Overflow and GitHub, also provide basic information regarding HTML, CSS, and JavaScript – and all this is available for free. But, when you choose to learn online, it would be time-consuming. Something that you could have completed in a short span of time, such as 12 weeks would take ages.

In fact, when you are learning by yourself, you do not have any time constraints and you might happen to find newer resources every time you check online for more information – so there are possibilities that you would take a lot of time when learning without any external help.

Also, when you are learning by yourself, there is no clarity on what information you should be covering and what skills are necessary for this particular job that you are going to take up in a while. In fact, these free coding courses are not for everyone – we all need direction to ensure that we are on the right path and not wasting our time unnecessarily.

But, there is something better than both the options that we happened to discuss above. You can always enroll in for an online paid training course – where you will be able to find a proper direction for learning to code.

You can actually cut on the expenses that might be otherwise needed for the code boot camp and also the time that you would end up wasting when trying to learn yourself. With online coding instructor-led classes, you can choose to learn from your preferred location and also take your time to learn with help from experienced and authorized instructors.

You might be thinking that since the online schools don’t specify any timelines within which you would learn coding like the in-person boot camps, don’t forget that here you will find the exact guidelines and syllabus structure, unlike the situation where you might end up failing while trying to teach yourself.

There are a number of such web development courses (instructor-led) that are available online. If you check online, you might be able to find the break into tech blueprint from Skillcrush, where you can learn about CSS, HTML, Javascript and acquire other web design skills, including WordPress and others, you can complete this in a period of 9-12 months of time.

In fact, you just have to dedicate maybe an hour every day for these programs that have been designed to fit into your situation and needs. Also, with this program, it is possible for you to take up freelance, no matter whether you have completed learning. So, apart from covering the basics or beginners part of any skill set is possible online and you can even learn more than this and you will take not less than a year.

What is the Correct Age to Start Learning Web Development?

One of the other questions that was commonly asked to us was that is there any age constraint as to when you can become a web developer

In fact, there is no age bar as such to learning and acquiring skills across a program that you prefer the most. Most people were worried regarding their age and how they could actually find a calling in a profession they loved the most. If you have the right set of skills and knowledge, your age is never a barrier to finding the most suitable job. You are not old to learn and it is never late to start what you love.

So, if you really prefer to find a job in web development, understand that it is never too late, you can always shine like a star if you are an expert in your skills. In fact, if you have the right skills along with the appropriate educational qualification and experience, then no one would count your age, but pay you more to acquire your skills for the job. Another interesting fact is that as you have seen through the article, the time taken to learn web development is relatively small and hence, there is no appropriate time as to when you would start learning this.

When can you start learning?

Preferably, you can start it now – today. All the while, when you had wasted a lot of time pondering on thoughts such as age and time, let us forget that and set out to start a new beginning.

Conclusion

You can always reach out to us in case you have any further queries or questions.

If you are looking for some help to create websites that stand out, then, we can help you. Acodez is a web design and web development company in India that helps in developing and designing websites that are based on the latest trends and ideas.