How is it possible for an average construction worker to learn to code, to get that super hard first programming job and then get hired by a large tech company, making hundreds of thousands of dollars in total compensation each year?

Nine years ago, I was totally that construction worker because I couldn’t get another job with my near worthless history degree. So I ended up freezing my butt off in the cold each winter doing physical labor for mediocre pay and no benefits.

I’m now a full-time senior front-end software engineer at Adobe. And I’m self-taught working in a nice cozy office.

So let’s talk about how to become a web developer quickly in 2022 as an absolute begineer.

0:00 Why most self-taught devs fail.
2:18 Why you should choose to become a front-end web developer instead of back-end
4:52 The web development technologies you should learn
6:14 The right way to learn to code
7:20 How to get your first job as a web developer
10:41 Why you’re not getting job interviews and what to do about it

Why some web developers make more money than others: https://youtu.be/QILxmJpH6wM

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38 Comments

  4. I'm 49 and I used to teach ICT for 8 years, I thought about learning advanced web development as I was teaching the basics of graphic design and other related topics like basic Python, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, WordPress, and Graphic Design. I got off track as some friends wanted to open a digital marketing agency, but after a few years I realized that my work was really depressing me (so many liars and BS in digital marketing it's unreal). I'm American and living in Malaysia so I need to find remote work, recently it's gotten impossible to get a job in MY (no degree and no money right now as I lost my family when I was young and taught myself everything I know about tech growing up on the streets in San Francisco). I also grew up doing construction, always been a jack of all trades master of none, but my passion has always been learning to program and I love art and design.

    So, 49, American living overseas, feeling like a burden as I can't help support my wife and so. So, I'm giving this all I got, raised enough cash to do the Meta Coursera frontend course and backend course (I like the idea of being full stack as I want to have the ability to create whatever I want for web apps and later maybe even learn flutter. I'm just about to pass the section with Angela Yu from App Brewery, but I look at YouTube for people like you to inspire me to keep going. My timeline feels like I'm falling behind, going a bit slower than I had hoped, but taking the time to understand a minimum of 50% or more before moving on (I realize as long as I have a good grasp and understand most of tough concepts like Flexbox and CSS Grid I can always improve later. I'm going after the MERN stack so it's HTML, CSS, JS, React, Node.js, Redux, PostgreSQL, and be a bit familiar with MySQL and MongoDB as well when I have the time or need.

    So, that's my story, damn, that was a lot, guess feeling a bit stressed but stay pushing through studying around 8 hours or more per day. When I'm down 6-8, when I'm feeling good 10-15 (I mean I used to do 12-15 hour days working construction so right now I'm treating learning as my job, that I don't get paid for, yet:😁)

    I totally get you about the support from wife and kid, and just having to push through on those rough days, everything you said I can totally relate to, but luckily I taught kids and did corporate training so I know how to make hard concepts sound better, and I may not have a degree but I have a wide knowledge of tech and even completed the Google IT Support Professional Certificate (just realized that full-stack is my goal, I love solving problems and sometimes I'd rather just read code than talk to people all day, lol😆)

    frontendmentor.io has a ton of small projects that you can work on for free as well

  5. I'm 31 and have worked in the warehouse industry for a very long time. Let's just say it dosent matter how many hours you work it's a dead end either way for me, your videos a real inspiration for me but not only that you clearly laid out everything from beginning to end and are very well spoken! Thank you

  9. Hello. I'm just now 51 years old and fairly recently divorced. I used to be a therapist and I can't do it anymore. Many many reasons….soo maaany reasons. So, basically, starting a whole new life… and I'm clueless! LOL Anyway, I really want to just spend my time making websites for people, maybe leading to being able to open a coffee shop someday. I just finished a beginner class a couple of weeks ago (the first in a program for a certificate). It was a nightmare. The teacher didn't want to teach. I could get no help. I aced the class. It was a 100….then the teacher emailed me saying she dropped my grade by 10 points. Still and A but not ok!! She said it's because my page didn't link correctly. This is after emailing me that my page worked just fine on her end. I told her it didn't work fine on my end. And all she said was the it worked perfectly fine and looked good and I passed, then nothing more. So screw that! Now I'm a little scared and unsure how to move forward. She honestly almost turned me off of pursuing this but I've honestly fallen in love the HTML and I don't want to stop. So, I guess, Frontend is going to be my thing. LOL Or would it be Fullstack? I can never really figure that out. I want to work with dark artists, gamer geeks, and all the handcrafters out there. Especially the handcrafters. What sparked this passion is hearing my sister and several friends wanting to get out of corporate American, follow their handmade hearts, and open a shop. I want to help them have their own websites rather than joining a huge mass selling platform that lost the plot years ago and screws over their shop owners. I would like to get a certificate and, at least, a bachelor degree so that's my goal. But until I find a better program/school, I will do what I can to teach myself. I don't know if I'm starting in the right place. I don't know exactly what languages I want to learn. HTML and CSS are what I was learning in that class and love it. But what else? I dunno. I legit feel like a baby just starting to tottle. So, yeah, there's my story.

  12. Im 20, currently a mechanic but have always loved computers an gaming and rlly wanna switch up an become a work from home developer with better pay and not so hard in my body

  18. I am 17 years old and I am learning front end developing through Youtube. Last year I was trying to learn back end developing but ended up falling in the tutorial hell, mostly because I didn't keep notes and instead tried to replicate everything through the program. And after that experience I didn't even think of picking up developing of any kind. One year later, front end developing piqued my interest, and I start to search tutorials about it and I landed on Bro Code, due to his teaching skills my interest slowly turned into attention. I haven't been able to progress as much as I would like, due to being a lazy bum by playing videogames and using my phone the entire day which in progress destroyed my attention spam and got me addicted to cheap dopamine. And I don't want to force myself to learn more than my attention span can otherwise I will just fall like a year ago. Once my dopamine detox works, I will be able to progress faster.
    Grad students might have the advantage but after a year or two, I will be in grade of creating websites with "ease", and probably as a freelance front end developer I will have created connections(something which I hope becomes true, so I can actually land a good job in the future. Since I live in Europe, I hope I land a job on Switzerland, thought that is one my of my objectives. The other one would be probably to start my own business/agency.).
    As someone from Gen Z, I will say this to the other Gen Z's(if any of you are reading this). Get off your phone before it's too late, because once you realize that it's too late you will have already fallen into a deep hole and it will be hard to climb out of it.

  22. I totally agree on the point you mentioned about backend interviews. I mean they simply want to give us more coding problems and go way in depth in so many areas they dont even actually use in the company. Backend coding interviews are a nightmare

  23. Just came across your videos. It's encouraging to hear someone else admit that they started from scratch later in life. Kinda something I keep second guessing myself on.

    I'm in my 30s and just started a career in tech. My prior experience is in veterinary medicine and animal care, roughly 12yrs or so. I just got an associate of CS and am working in IT at a medical center. But back in the early 2000s I did dabble with web design and I found myself needing to revisit it.

    Your videos are a easy watch. You don't talk at the viewers, it makes it easy to retain the information and apply it.

  25. I am 41 years old. I've been working a company for 10 years with low payments and working long hours with only two days vacation every year. I am tired of living like this so, I decided to change my career for coding even though i have no background for tech. My concern is after 40 years old, I heard there are high chances to get laid off and it is difficult to get a job in tech. Is this true? I am studying by myself, the progress is slow. But if I give up now, l think I will regret more when I get older. Is there other people (no background for computer)who change career to get a job like my age?

  26. Seeing other fellow tradesmen getting into tech makes me feel much better about my situation. I’m a welder for a company called Bluescope. I’m making $65k a year with amazing benefits but I just don’t want to be in trades my whole life. Deep down I’m lazy and don’t want to be busting my ass physically for money. I’d rather do it in the comfort of my own home😂I started getting into tech in August of this year (2023) and it’s currently late November. Last October I was actually in a full stack development bootcamp but I had no time at all to be studying after classes so I was falling behind really fast despite starting off really well. So I dropped the bootcamp and decided to take the self taught route. Definitely will take me longer cuz I procrastinate a lot when I FINALLY do have time but at the same time cuz I actually enjoy this I also like to go on my free time to the park with my laptop and start working on my skills. I ain’t giving myself a date for when to start looking for jobs but I definitely will get to that point one day.

  27. 25 years old. I'm a server and I'm struggling to make ends meet. It's been a while now since I wanted to take action to change my life for good that but nothing had ever caught my attention. Today a friend of mine was talking to me about a code he was writing and it got me thinking about it. It might be the answer I need. So I've spent the past few hours just gathering as much information about programming as I can and how the process to learn it works and I got to admit, it seems pretty overwhelming. I feel kind of lost on how to start but I'm willing to give it my best shot. Flutter seems very interesting to me and as of right now I'm thinking of it as my goal. I hope I remember this comment in a couple of months to update my progress.

  28. Glad to know self-taught programmers can still succeed. I sort of stumbled into learning programming through one of my first jobs, fell in love with it and never looked back, but that was in the ancient 80s. I've always thought I was lucky to get in before everybody and their cousin was getting Computer Science degrees. It's nice to know this is still possible.

  34. Have any advice on getting into the Internship over at the Adobe Building? I've always wanted to work at the Lehi Adobe building, and I graduate from UVU in a couple years. Thanks! 🙂

  35. im 28 yrs old. no skill no job no where to go. i stumble this vid and somehow i want to be front end developer i just want steady career with a good paying job. i dont have laptop but i have phone so will using what ive got. thank you mate have a good one

  36. Appreciate this James, I've been an video editor for 7 years and I've been wanting to code. I'm 2 months in learning python, kinda dabbling into java css and html. I know it'd take a bit i just don't wanna spend money on a college degree lol so that was the most discouraging

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