I have been “coding” for over two years now, and I have yet to develop a decent portfolio of my own.
I began learning the fundamentals of HTML two years ago, with little to no prior knowledge or experience. I was told professional web developers do not require a formal, post-secondary education, and that many can land themselves a job in a matter of months. I progressed overtime and became comfortable with CSS, Vanilla JS (ES5 and ES6), PHP, and SQL.
However, I can say right now, I am not even remotely comfortable applying for a web development job. I think design and responsive design is holding me back. I know media queries and how to use them and all, but it is a matter of making my web apps look aesthetically nice. I don’t feel comfortable with my design skills. In addition, form validation and all these frameworks and libraries that exist are making it difficult. I am having difficulties reading new documentation and adapting to others’ code.
What inspired and motivated me to pursue web development was a web app idea I had. I have attempted to build it, scrapped it, started over, repeat. I still don’t really know how to go about it.
I am not these guys (like my friend) who started coding at age 12. I started in my 20s and this was never something I grew up with.
Advice please.