Long Journey Ahead: My First Step As A New Frontend Developer

My name is Laurence, I’m a self-taught developer, attended a Goodfrontend bootcamp and became an employee. In this article I will share my experience as a new front-end developer.

I started learning web development when the pandemic started, there’s really not much to do since we’re on a lockdown, so I decided to learn web development for the meantime. I started learning backend development with python and Django for a few months then I moved to learning frontend development. I like my experience learning frontend development more than backend development and I continued to learn HTML, CSS, Javascript, and React. 

After six months of learning about frontend development, I started looking into google, “What does a junior developer do?”, the reason why I looked into it, is because I don’t know if I’m ready to become one or not. I found out that most of them have different experiences about their journey. There are developers who fix bugs, follow other developers, and there is an unlucky developer who didn’t have a senior. While the experiences of these developers vary from person to person, I want to share what my experience is as a new developer working on a Goodfrontend project.

On this project, we used the following:

• Next JS
• Storybook
• MUI 
• Typescript
• Rush monorepo
• Bloomreach
• Jest

Lucky for me I already have an idea on some of the technology that we are going to use but it’s going to be my first time working with the team and bloomreach CMS.

When the project started, I was scared as hell, thinking to myself If I’m actually ready to be on a project. While the Goodfrontend bootcamp and mentors helped me gain confidence and gave me an idea how a project is run, and made sure I’m ready to work on a project. I still know that it’s not going to be easy but I told myself that I’m here to learn and I know that my teammates will help me grow. Now I’m about to share my experience as a new developer in Goodfrontend, everything I learned and liked about being a developer and finally contributing to my first project. 

Mobile-first approach

  When I was learning css, I never tried doing a mobile first approach simply because I think it’s easy to do a desktop first because the screen is big and I can play around the designs and be creative. Despite other developers in forums or articles suggesting to do a mobile first approach because most websites are now being accessed by mobile. 

This is also the first time that I’m going to work with web designers, while I already have an idea how to work with designs since I started doing challenges on frontendmentor. Working as a front-end developer with a design that is final and ready is a good experience for me because I can see what the project is going to look like and make the job easier. 

Working with other developers and asking for help

When I was new in the project, all the tasks that I did were something I could do alone but it’s still challenging. When I started being comfortable in the codebase and my responsibility like doing code reviews, implementing feedback on my merge request. Then I started working with more difficult tasks. There are times where I’m blocked on something and I don’t know how to solve and move past it. I looked at the same problem for two hours, trying to implement a solution and finally gave up, because I couldn’t come up with one. I took a quick break then when I came back, I asked someone for help, the problem that I had was solved quickly and I’m able to move on. Saving me time, energy, and frustration.

Not only that, this gives me more confidence in taking more difficult tasks and becoming more comfortable with my teammates. 

I did have a hard time asking for help when the project started, since I know that everyone is busy working on their own tasks and I don’t want to bother them. Thankfully, I’m able to move past it and make sure to ask for help either by messaging my teammate or making a draft merge request. 

Working with Quality Assurance

While this is my first project, this is also the first time that I started working with QA. At first, I didn't know their responsibility in the project and the only idea that I have about them is that they will be the one who’s going to test our code, the website, raise some problems or enhancement, and to make sure that our work will work perfectly on the bloomreach cms.

After working with them for a while, I realized how important their role is. They make sure there’s no bug, the website is compatible with other browsers, ensures the user gets a functional website and not buggy, the designs are correct, prevent disasters from happening and also ensures that the product is high-quality. I also got more confident when QA found less bugs on my task or it passed the QA, because I know I’m not introducing bugs on the website.

Planning my task

When I started working on a more difficult task, I didn’t change how I’m going to tackle it. I will read the task then open my IDE and start coding. When I don't plan my difficult task, it gets more difficult since I always jump straight into coding, and oftentimes I have to check and read the description again if what I’m doing is actually right. 

Later into the project, I started reading the task carefully and making sure I understood the task before I would start it. When I don’t understand something, I will make sure to read the documentation and understand it. This really helps me finish the task and understand it. I don’t have to check the ticket if I’m stuck on something because I don’t know what is the behavior. It also helps me to read the ticket assigned to other people if I’m doing code review, I’m able to know what is the proper behavior and I’m able to check if there are bugs. 

Peer review and caring about code quality

I remember my first merge request, I made a Header component and it has a lot of helpful comments and suggestions. I feel down when my merge request gets a lot of comments, but I know that these comments are helpful to me and to the project. When I started implementing the feedback and suggestions that I got, I realized that it is important to produce a good quality code. I’m really happy about peer review because it helps me improve my coding skills. We also make sure that our merge request has fewer bugs, errors, and all issues are resolved before merging it.

When I compare my recent merge requests to the first, I can see that I have improved a lot. I didn’t make a simple mistake and it has fewer bugs, if there are any, I’m able to fix it quickly. If there are any suggestions to make it easy and simple, I will try and implement it. This really helps me develop on how to solve problems and also be able to communicate with my teammates about the implementation.

Now I’m still looking forward to peer review. I can see that the team was able to grow a lot in this short period of time working together. I also started reviewing my code before making a merge request, to make sure I understand it and see if there’s anything that needs to be done or to adjust. 

Conclusion

So, this is my experience as a new frontend developer. There are stressful times but most of them are fun, exciting, and enjoyable. I met a lot of people with different backgrounds and was able to learn from them. I’m really happy that I persevered and continued learning web development. I can see that I can stay in this industry for a long time.