The best resources every junior developer should know about
Let’s face it, starting out in any industry can be a little daunting but especially in technology. With the rate of how tech changes and the sheer volume of avenues your career could go down, lost amongst information doesn’t even come close to how many juniors feel (even if you won’t admit it!).
But do not fear as we have been working closely with several coding schools across Europe to determine the best resources available that every junior developer should be aware of, and more specifically why.
You might already be aware of some if not all of these resources and if so, then you are a step ahead but if not, then hopefully you come away from this article with a few new places to explore.
Online courses and tutorials
Depending on how you have started out in tech you have likely come across a number of tutorial sites to help up-skill yourself. If you came from a bootcamp they might have suggested a few post courses as well. Platforms such as Udemy, Coursera, Codeacademy and dare I say LinkedInLearning all offer a wide variety of courses that cover a whole range of topics.
The beauty of these is that you can learn at your own speed with many of them being for free.
I would stress here however that real projects always trump tutorial personal ones. Use the tutorials to get the grips with a technology and then try and find an open-source project where you can implement your learns to re-enforce that knowledge.
Communities and forums
Hopefully you have a few connections already within the industry, if not now is the time to start making them. Join online communities and forums to share ideas, meet new people, ask questions and gain feedback on your code.
StackOverFlow; GitHub; Reddit and The Mentoring Club are all fantastic places to start. If you have a few friends already in the industry, ask them if they are part of any Slack or Discord channels as well.
When joining these communities, you want to contribute not just take. Therefore, join in with discussions before you start asking for code reviews… except for The Mentoring Club, dive right in and get a mentor there.
Conferences and meetups
Taking the networking aspect offline, conferences and meetups are an excellent way to learn new technologies, connect with peers and generally expand your horizon to what is out there within your field.
Depending on the event you will likely always have a speaker (or several) and if a larger conference workshops led by industry experts that you can sit in on or participate within.
To find relevant meetups within your field head over to https://www.meetup.com/
Yes, even LinkedIn gets a mention here. It truly is a great tool for pretty much anything you will require from a networking perspective online. We have covered LinkedIn a lot in previous articles but to share how it could be beneficial to you as a junior developer…
- Networking opportunities with practically any company.
- A clear job board that is updated regularly.
- A stream of relevant industry news.
- The chance to connect with people outside your immediate circle.
- A way to gain mentors and advisors.
- The list can go on but you get the idea… if you haven’t already sign up now.
Among each of these resources are mountains of information and opportunity waiting to be explored from ways to up-skill yourself through to networking openings. By taking advantage of both offline and online resources you can build your knowledge and expertise within the tech industry.
We are looking to keep this article updated with relevant tools so if you find something that you feel is beneficial to others, please reach out to eden.whitcomb@perituspartners.co.uk
Alongside that, if you found these resources useful and believe someone else would benefit from reading about them then feel free to share it within your network so we can all bring simplicity to the chaos of recruitment.
