Is web dev viable today?

It's absolutely a viable career path.

To get started, you'll want to learn enough Javascript/HTML (CSS can wait) that you understand how a frontend builds on top of the data it's getting from the backend, and you'll want to learn enough Java/Python/Ruby/Node.js that you can spin up a fresh "hello world" http server in a few minutes, and enough SQL that you can back that service with a database that gives you "hello world" in a language appropriate to the request you received.

That'll give you a "full stack" core to build upon. You'll probably want to specialise either on frontend or backend work, but having that core competency with both gives you more tools to understand what you're doing on whichever one you pick.

Crucially, whatever specific languages/frameworks you pick today are unlikely to be the same you'll be using in, say, five years time, so just look at those as tools to get the job done, and focus on learning the fundamentals — Learn what's fast and what's slow, what's resilient and what's brittle, etc etc. Those are the skills that will lead you to better jobs later on.

Three general pieces of advice:

1. It matters where you are geographically as to which tech stack is hot/viable.

2. It matters what industry you are in/coming from both for which tech stack is used, and for how much value you can contribute.

3. A web search (indeed, linkedin etc) for dev jobs is likely to tell you a lot more about these two in terms of what is avaiable, what they are looking for and so on than any generic advice you receive here.

For instance, if you have a background in trading stocks, and are in NYC, then secure web interfaces might be a big deal. If you are have a background in marketing and are in a big city, then single page apps might be your ticket. If you came from Oil and Gas, in Houston, then who knows.

Context: assuming you're in the US, near a major city. If you're not, my advice probably doesn't apply.

Totally viable, but getting your first job is as much an exercise in grit and hustle (ugh, yes, I know), and self-promotion as it is technical ability. Yes, it is important to learn whatever tech people recommend you (HTML/CSS/JS, and then Node + React would be my recommendation). However, it's just as important to then build a bunch of projects and network/sell yourself to anyone that would give you a chance. It can be hard to get your first job and get someone to take a chance on you - but it is absolutely viable.

My recommendation is hit dice / indeed / etc. Look at jobs in the area. See what stacks are popular. Each locale I've worked in has it's own tech eco sphere. So what may be popular here may not be somewhere else.

As with most programming jobs the best skill you can foster is how to research, learn and apply technologies.

The tools and popular frameworks change about every 3 years. (As a web dev since 96 I feel qualified enough to say.)

That said, fundamentals are key. Learn/brush up on standard Javascript and CSS before diving into the current frameworks.

ES6 Javascript has a lot to offer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STZuv-27d9M and the Grid/Flex options in CSS can allow you to create a variety of complex layouts in a fairly quick way. https://www.css-tricks.com

On top of that, it does everyone good to understand web accessibility concerns and implement them from the start of each project (far easier than trying to retrofit things later).

Once you have a firm handle on those things, you can better evaluate frameworks and libraries. You may find that you won't need all the overhead that comes with helpful libraries if you have a specific use case that standard js/css can solve.

I spend a lot of my time reading documentation/github issues for a variety of things (node, drupal, wordpress, hugo, frameworks, php, javascript, docker, vagrant, bash) and parsing how that info can help me integrate the tools and programs I use everyday.

If documentation doesn't exist, I try to create my own barebones doc with links to info I've found and a list of questions to research later.

Web Dev, for me, has been all about solving puzzles, finding solutions, and sometimes simply discovering the right terms to search for.

This continuous learning process can feel like I'm starting from scratch over and over (and feeling like I know nothing each time ;) ), but lessons learned from previous projects usually make future ones easier to learn/identify problem areas.

It's good to embrace that uncertainty. There is so much out there to learn, no one can know it all, but if you can learn to identify good mentors, quickly parse documentation and apply current best practices you'll do just fine.

I would go so far to say web dev is still a superpower IMO. Check out how many of these various products are web based

https://www.indiehackers.com/products?minRevenue=2000 https://www.capterra.com/categories

It’s absolutely a great career with high demand. I’d start looking at freecodecamp.com. It sounds like you’re very early in this process so you’ll probably need to fight off decision paralysis. Just start something and keep going. You will figure out, soon enough, what you enjoy and what you don’t. You can do this! I’ve mentioned several people in similar situations, and it’s very doable.

This question feels similar to "I decided to switch my career and become a surgeon. Which organs should I focus on first so I can start earning income right away?"

It doesn't really work that way. "Web Dev" is not a job; it's a generic name for an industry that covers a multitude of different specific jobs, each with their own specific (and overlapping) skill sets, and all of which are a subset of the much larger "Software developer" industry.

I don't really have any advice here. My approach was learning to program computers and gradually building my skills from the ages of 12 to 26, including several paid part-time/temporary jobs towards the end. Then a friend asked me to leave graduate school and take a programming job at his company, to take over a project he didn't want to run. I took the slow road, and stumbled into the career on a whim. (I'm a Mechanical Engineer and thought I'd be building robots, with programming just being one of the tools of my job.)

I'd actually pick up php with one of the simple frameworks like Laravel (or even go frameworkless in the beginning). I think it's a bit more straightforward than picking up Node. Otherwise Rails is nice for beginners as well and has a big market in the U.S. Java/.NET aren't beginner friendly at all.

There are some core fundamentals you'll need that will help with any web development route you take. Javascript, CSS (SCSS), REST APIs, etc. These are fundamentals that you can self-teach from free code camp, and other online resources. However for the sake of locking in a job, it's easier to come in on a specific framework. Angular, React, Drupal, Wordpress, etc. However, as others have mentioned in this thread, popular frameworks and the jobs that use those can vary city by city. So it's worthwhile to find what the desired skillsets are in your area.

My current stack:

Language(s) JavaScript /ES6 TypeScript (Or Go, Elixir, Python, Ruby, etc) [insert your choice here]

Database SQL — PostgreSQL —— pg —— Postico.app — or MySQL (w/ MariaDB)

ORM TypeORM (or Sequelize)

NoSQL (can skip for now) — MongoDB — Redis — Etc..

Backend — Node — Express (or Koa) — AccountsJS (or Passport.js)

GraphQL — Modules — Apollo —— Server ——— apollo-server ——— apollo-server-express —— Client —— Link

Frontend Ant.Design (or Material, Bootstrap) React (Or angular, or vue) -- Hooks NextJS (or NuxtJS, etc) Gatsby TinaCMS (or PrimeCMS) Admin Bro

Mobile Expo.io (For React-native, mobile dev)

Linting ESLint/Prettier Jest

Deployment Netlify Zeit’s Now Heroku

Cloud Microsoft Azure Google Cloud Amazon AWS

SaaS Github

Yes, web dev is still viable and will be for a long time to come. You can't go wrong learning the basics of front end (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), the latter of which also gets used on the back end quite regularly nowadays.

You'll also have to get good working with the web environment (understanding how servers and requests work, APIs, etc), with developer tools (the Terminal, your IDE, Git, etc.), and likely some frameworks (e.g. Express on the back end, React on the front end.)

You can make it quite far with just that.

> start earning income to pay my bills

This sounds to me like you're talking needing income soon.

If this is the case, I'll give a less popular answer: Wordpress. There are definitely stacks that have a greater earning potential, and that are more satisfying to our nerd sensibilities, but there's demand, a pretty easy on-ramp, and opportunity. Even in lieu of a job, you can get pretty far just building basic Wordpress sites with $20-40 themes from ThemeForest. You can pick a single plugin and double down and become an expert. You can dive into the mess of PHP and get really good at doing customizations that there aren't pre-built plugins for. Wordpress sites tend to be slow; you could build a consultancy doing nothing more than optimizing for speed, etc.

There's a lot of competition, but we're talking paying bills here, not industry top-earner. I'd use Wordpress to put down a layer of stability, and then work on leveling up.

The answer to this question depends heavily on your location. For example, I live in Cleveland and it's dominated by .NET companies, so for someone here, my answer to "how do I get to paying my bills" (ignoring any other factor) would be to learn .NET. Other cities are dominated by Java, or ruby or node.js in some cases. In any case, you'd also be well-advised to learn some basic frontend (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) since every tech stack I mentioned needs a frontend to go with it.

How to figure out what's popular in your city? Searching job postings can definitely help, see what the common trends are. It also helps just to talk with folks in your local tech scene. Google " tech slack" -- most major cities have a general-purpose slack team for the local tech community, and you should have no problem finding some general information.

While picking a stack is certainly something important when looking for a webdev job, it isn't the most important for you as an overall developer. Don't go into it from the perspective of "Which stack should I learn?", but rather "What are the programming skills I can learn that I can apply across multiple stacks?".

If the skills you pick up are too focused on one stack, it makes it much harder to transition to a new one when that stack inevitably falls out of vogue. Study up on paradigms, not frameworks; e.g. OOP, Functional Programming, MVC, good coding style (code readability and maintainability are EXCEEDINGLY important), etc...

Once you have a solid platform to stand on, you will find that you can transition these concepts from framework to framework, and only have to focus on the syntax changes and a little bit of under the hood stuff.

I have some recent experience of this where a friend switched into web dev from a totally unrelated (non-computer) field. Originally she was looking at Python/security as a path, but then changed to web dev as she was more interested in that. Did an free Google course online, learned JavaScript and (IIRC) a bit of React, and 9 months later was working in the industry. She did this in her spare time on top of her day job. She's been a year in the industry now and she has had a couple of promotions and is doing well (double her previous salary)...

Before offering an answer, what do you mean here by "web dev?" It's currently a very wide field, so I'd like to know what your _current_ plan for entry is.

What's your current tech or programming background? Do you have a formal education? It's not a big deal if you don't, but it affects how you may want to enter the field. Have you worked on any coding projects in the past?

How much time and effort are you willing and able to commit to this career move?

If you answer at least one or two of these, I'll be able to give you a much more informed answer.

I've a friend in Brazil who is making U.S level salary consulting on tools like Zapier, Airtable, Constant contact etc. His clients ask him to set up automations, ask him to teach them etc. If his projects need coding, he hires others to do it for him.

What I am trying to say is - you don't necessarily have to code to make a decent living in tech. There are other options too, especially if you are good in interacting with people.

That said, if you enjoy coding, then by all means, do it! It is fun for sure, at least for a while :P

Btw, you know what has a much higher chance of success than learning web dev? Becoming a sales force configuror. There are tons of gigs for this and you will have a much faster path to making real money. (sales force is crap but the end users are incapable of basic config and the company avoids helping people like the plague so this has created a huge void in the market for slightly tech capable people).

Look at jobs in your area to see what's in demand. PHP is king where I live for example, there's not much else. Some places are all full stack Javascript. In Japan Ruby is still huge.

So I'd check what's in demand and then try to use it immediately to make some useful websites; ghat way you can build a portfolio while you learn.

Yes but you will need 2 years of classes and projects to actually make a living at it. It's not easy money and you really have to enjoy it to make it a career. I recommend taking some YouTube courses then if you like it, maybe a paid curriculum. Just don't fall into the trap that it's easy.

If you are looking for a remote job, checkout https://remoteleaf.com to understand the latest jobs posted.

You can get an idea on what are the tech stack that are actively used and companies hiring for. Good luck with the job search.

+1 to the advice here.

My 2 cents: learn how to quantify and record others expectations and then compare them to (your or your team's) output. My team's work and value within companies has been perceived as less because of mismanaged expectations.

React is the current biggest front end framework, with Vue growing.

For a big job market, Javascript(browser/node.js), and a database (postgres).

But more important than the "tech stack" is the fundamentals, what is your background?

Free code camp is great. You’ll learn all of the foundational skills that you’ll need to get a job and to continue learning anything else that they didn’t teach.

html/css/javscript/backend language of your choice/database of your choice. There are plenty of shops out there that kind of capitalize on people breaking into the field and will pay them lower than industry standard for a few years until they go off to a regular company. Below the industry standard is usually more than what people were making before though so employees are grateful.

Yup it’s still viable. Just pick one. Let us know what career you’ll pick after web dev. Gluck!

Yes, it’s extremely viable if you’re good at it.

Web development is definitely a viable industry. Unfortunately there's not a single stack that you "should" learn above all the rest - the best choice would likely depend on your career goals. If you want to work for a team in your region, find out what stacks are popular there - going to local meetups might be a great way to figure out what to expect. If you want to freelance, you might choose to begin with a kitchen sink-like framework like Wordpress or Drupal. A lot of software development bootcamps like to start with Ruby on Rails, which makes good sense as well.

tl;dr it depends.

If web dev isn't viable, what is?

Some people here saying things like "near a major city" or "It matters where you are geographically" and I don't know if that's really true.

I live in Lexington, KY, not exactly what springs to mind when you think of tech or web dev but there are plenty of jobs here for that skill set. Furthermore there is the option of remote work which really opens you up but I'd probably suggest working in an office for the first few years at a minimum.

Learn some combination of Javascript/Typescript, Angular/Vue/React, NodeJS/PHP/Ruby/Java, CSS/SCSS/SASS, Bootstrap, etc. The BEST way to learn FOR ME (and some others I've taught) is to have a goal/project. You might find some use out of the various online courses/bootcamps but I'd start with a simple project. It's important to not pick a project based on one of the (extremely) tired examples like: ToDo App, Blog with posts that have authors and comments, etc. It's fine to cut your teeth on something like this but that's not what I'm talking about when I say "project".

It needs to be something you wish existed BUT IT CURRENTLY DOESN'T (or not in the form you care about). Here are a couple of things I created back in/around high school:

- A simple music site where users can up/down vote songs and/or playlists (this was pre-Spotify), you gave it a youtube url and it would rip the mp3 using scrapers/ffmpeg on a server. It was highly illegal when you came down to it but a great learning experience. I got to work with Frontend (jQuery/HTML/CSS), backend (PHP), queues (DB-based, I was young, cut me some slack), JS bookmarklets (To click when on a YT page to grab the song), and more.

- A library attendance program replacement for my school. Teachers would mark they were sending a kid to the library (normally durning study period) and then it would pop up on the library computer and alert if the kid hadn't shown up in a reasonable amount of time. Kids would type in their ID numbers to sign-in/out of the library. First foray into ajax IIRC to keep the teacher-view and the library-view in sync without page reloads.

- Flash game site that I kept moving (or mirroring really) to different domains to avoid the blocks. This was less of a technical challenge and more of learning about giving people what they want and working around the existing system. .info domains were dirt cheap especially when you bought 5 at a time and song lyrics are easy for kids (if not everyone) to remember so I'd buy up a bunch of .info's for $1/first-year each based on popular song lyrics/titles and then slowly "release" them into the population as old ones got blocked. I did make a couple hundred off ads before I went to college and let it die.

- A voting program to be used by students for various things at the school (Homecoming king/queen, prom king/queen, senior superlatives, etc). This included UI to create new polls, see results, make them available to only certain classes (Freshman/Sophomore/Junior/Senior), and login for the students with UI to vote.

All of this is to say the best way to learn IMHO is to be forced to essentially or "learn as you go". I had no idea how to accomplish most of these tasks when I set out to do them, I just knew I wanted a social music site, a flash game site, a better attendance program, a better way to vote rather than paper and then I googled, followed tutorials, inspected other sites I liked and cobbled together enough code to make it all work.

I am a newly hired backend web dev for a post-IPO tech company. I was hired to use python and java. I have never used either of these languages before I started this job. My total comp is about $275k/yr. Prior to this, I have about 7 years of experience with ruby and some JS.

As long as you know a programming language, you can get a job like mine. Many companies could careless what "tech stack" you know.

edit: fix years of experience