My path

Printer at Ann Arbor News

• Freelance developer, computer repair
• INP Program while working

Web Industry

• Associate Software Engineer (Entry Level Front End Developer)
• Software Engineer

Getting Hired - What you need to know

Bare Minimum

• HTML
• CSS
• JavaScript
• What about jQuery?

What you need to know

Helpful extras

• Setting up a dev environment (in Linux and Windows)
• Some Version Control experience (git is popular now)
• Familiarity with one or more server side languages (PHP, ASP.Net (C#), Python, Node)

Getting experience

• Side projects
• Open source projects
• Volunteering
• Charity
• Freelance
• Interning

Day in the life

• Flexible hours - in between 8:30 to 10
• Get coffee, check email, Twitter/Email lists/RSS for new stuff
• First hour of work is generally fairly productive
• Meetings as scheduled (ugh!), interruptions during day can kill momentum/productivity
• 4-7 is often most productive time personally (different for everyone)
• Often out around 7

Mostly self-directed. You estimate project timeframes (in a team usually), and then have the responsibility to deliver or raise the red flag that the project is falling behind.

Stuff I use

• Editor: Sublime Text 2
• IDE: Visual Studio
• FTP: FileZilla
• Presentations: RevealJS (HTML/CSS slideshows)
• FireBug, Chrome Dev Tools Paul Irish on using the Dev Tools
• Tools for testing Internet Explorer
• Pandora (music)

Advice for Aspiring Web Developers

• Code! Code More! Books/classes only go so far
• Learn as you go. Schedule time in your estimates for learning things
• Learn about things you may never use.
• Have fun with things!

From: 12 Great Advice for Aspiring Web Developers