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I've always been interested in web development, but I get discouraged when I read about how "easy" it is to get a job in computers if you know your stuff. Most of these guys (that I know at least) who work in computer technology are super hard-core geeks. They read all the tech mags, they know how to do all sorts of stuff outside of their specialty, and get riled up for Apple vs Linux vs Windows arguments.
I'm competent with computers (slightly more than an average user) but I've never kept up with lots of feature changes and technological advances. I know what I've had to use. My life has focused elsewhere.
I've always been kind of interested in web development, however. I notice badly designed websites, I prize efficiency and attractive designs, and I can appreciate the fundamentals. If I study web development, do I have a shot at a career, even if I'm not a traditional computer geek?
I'm looking to get into a web development career as well.
Since I'm currently in the same boat as you - on the outside of the field looking to find a way in - I'm not the best person to offer advice. But I will say that with enough practice and determination, you most definitely have a shot. Just keep at it.
I believe that you do have a shot at a career. The IT industry is not "black and white", meaning either you know everything or do not. Engineers and managers have different strengths and weaknesses as well as different levels of education and experiences. To say that only "computer geeks" have a shot at web development is a generalization. Obviously, the more you know, the better.
Quite a few web developers I know do not identify as 'techie'. Many consider themselves 'artists' more than IT. Some would be offended if categorized as IT. Web developers are often hipster-ish (no offense to anyone) and many are not obsessed techies. Not all... but many. Web languages are very abstracted out from the machine and you don't always have to know a lot about how computers work to be successful at web development. It depends on what you do specifically. Maybe a backend dev has to know more about databases and scaling. But consider a javascript developer who has to know almost nothing about computer hardware, operating systems, etc.
I know because I used to be a web developer and while I knew a lot about computers and tech, I also realized I didn't have to use much of my computer knowledge to do my job. There is a computer scientist named Alan Perlis who said computer science has little to do with computers. What he meant was that the algorithms that drive computer science exist in of themselves and that computers as we know them today are just one manifestation of how we apply them. Or to put it another way, astronomy isn't the study of telescopes any more than computer science is the study of computers.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that some people are obsessed with telescopes and that may seem to correlate with being good astronomers. But you don't really have to have spent years studying telescopes to get good at understanding black holes or the big bang. Also, I'm really bad at analogies. But web development is one of the programming fields that is generally more separated from having to know about 'techie' things like linux, hardware, etc. Alan Perlis, by the way, was a winner of the turing award (considered the nobel prize of computer science).
I also was thinking about web development. I'm an accountant but I wanted to try web development as a side job, and if I'm successful do it full time, as I don't really like accounting. However, I know nothing about web design except a basic web page I developed in college over a decade ago. I heard I should start off with web tutorials like Udemy and Lynda to see if I can even grasp the concepts of web design. Does anyone else know of anyone that had a successful career, or at least side job in web development while having a career that's totally unrelated? It would be great if I could do it but I just have a lot of self-doubt.
Be prepared for constant churn. Web development changes often, and it changes fast, and the amount of 'tools' you can use to accomplish a task seems to grow exponentially every year, often deprecating previous knowledge and rendering it useless. But lots of people manage to succeed at it every day, and there are tons of 'web dev boot camps' springing up in every major city. So it is definitely an attainable goal. Just be prepared to accept constant change as part of the landscape. In other words, be prepared to constantly spend a lot of time reading books, or articles, or magazines, or online training, or a combination of the above.
Practical tip: Get into email coding. Seriously, most web devs have no idea how to do it properly, and you wouldn't have much competition.
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