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Web Developer job questions
Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2011 11:45 am
by kidrandom
Hi all,
I've been working towards becoming a web developer for a while now and have only recently been able to work on actual projects for the web.
I feel I have learnt a lot within the 7 months and have 3 sites that will be going live within the next month.
Recently I have been thinking about how I will go about obtaining my first job as a web developer and what will expected of me in this job role.
I have compiled a list of questions to help me gain a better understanding what to expect. So here they are:
1. How do I go about getting my first paid job? I'm fully aware a quality portfolio is a must but how many sites will be enough to be considered for a role.
For instance, I plan on displaying 8 but only four of them use databases and involved lots of php coding. Is this enough?
2. How do I and my prospective employer gauge where I'm at in terms of skill? One thing I'm worried about is landing a role and finding that the work is beyond my skill level.
3. What position should I go for? A Junior Web developer or just a Web developer of both?
4. What kind of tasks will you be given if your working within a team? An example of what your doing at the moment or what you have been given to do in the past would be great!
5. What kind of time scale are you given to complete a task? There have been times when I've been stuck on one thing for an hour. Is this common?
Again examples would be great!
And those are all my questions! A lot I know, but I really want get an idea what I'm getting myself into!
Thanks in advance!
Re: Web Developer job questions
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 5:55 pm
by social_experiment
kidrandom wrote:1. How do I go about getting my first paid job? I'm fully aware a quality portfolio is a must but how many sites will be enough to be considered for a role. For instance, I plan on displaying 8 but only four of them use databases and involved lots of php coding. Is this enough?
This can be read in many ways but it will probably depend on the person who is interviewing you. From the time frame you have given it seems you have a good work ethic and get things done rather quickly.
kidrandom wrote:2. How do I and my prospective employer gauge where I'm at in terms of skill? One thing I'm worried about is landing a role and finding that the work is beyond my skill level.
Job requirements are normally specified in the advertisement so once you are interviewed questions relevant to these requirements will be asked and your answers will show you skill level.
Re: Web Developer job questions
Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 8:34 pm
by Weirdan
2. How do I and my prospective employer gauge where I'm at in terms of skill?
If you come to a company that already has some development team for filling a role in that team you most certainly would have to pass a technical interview with someone who is considered knowledgeable there (and might be given a test or test assignment).
3. What position should I go for? A Junior Web developer or just a Web developer of both?
Junior developer is a safe bet. Nobody really expects anything stellar from juniors so should you be overskilled for that job you would just quickly advance to a normal developer. You might be able to land a job as 'just developer', but then expectation might be higher (this depends on the company). Myself I would hire someone without experience working in a team for a junior developer role only - just because the teamwork is a skill on itself.
4. What kind of tasks will you be given if your working within a team? An example of what your doing at the moment or what you have been given to do in the past would be great!
That would certainly depend on the circumstances. One developer might be working on a library, while other is implementing some new feature. Meanwhile a couple of other developers might be fixing issues in existing code and a another one might perform analysis for future development. Basically anything the team needs you to do, provided you can actually do that.
Some teams have members specializing in some particular area, other teams do not have fixed roles.
5. What kind of time scale are you given to complete a task? There have been times when I've been stuck on one thing for an hour. Is this common?
That depends on the task. There have been times when I've been stuck for weeks - but then again the task had like a half a year timeframe.
Re: Web Developer job questions
Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2011 10:44 pm
by califdon
The other guys have given you good answers. Do you begin to see that there is really no answer to such questions? Because every employer has different requirements--a large company will work far differently than a small team. And there just AREN'T any rules. Each manager operates the way he or she thinks works best in their situation. My strong advice is: be completely honest, but don't apologize for being a beginner. Most employers will value your honesty and be able to decide whether you would fit into their organization. Generally, a large organization may be able to accommodate a beginner more easily than a small team because they have more support for the newcomer, but there may be exceptions to even this generalization. Talk to your interviewer. Explain what you are confident you can do and what you still need help with. Show that you are interested in 2 things: what you can contribute to their operation with your present skills, and the opportunity to expand your skills by working with others.
Re: Web Developer job questions
Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2011 1:40 pm
by califdon
Tee_Hays wrote:Can you give me a rough estimate for how long it would take you guys to complete some of the jobs below please.
1 : Create a 3 table MySql database with 5 fields in each table.
2 : Write basic functional Php code which could create, update and delete elements from said database.
3 : Write form validation for all forms (about 5) submitting data to that database.
What makes this a little tricky to answer is that if you use a framework or other libraries to do such tasks, you might get a 5-to-1 difference in estimates, from what it might take to write it from scratch.
I am basically an amateur with a lot of experience, and I would guess that it might take me 10 minutes to do your #1. If I was writing code from scratch to do #2, and not copying and modifying code I had written previously, it might take me anywhere from an hour to several hours, depending on how many data elements were involved, and whether or not the task included creating the data entry forms, and that wouldn't include testing. Your #3 task depends on a bunch of other issues--"form validation" can mean a lot of things. Client-side validation (JS) vs. server-side validation (PHP), how many input fields and of what types, what special validation rules might apply, etc. Such a task might take me anywhere from a couple of hours to quite a few hours, again excluding testing, and again without using a framework or special libraries.
I don't use frameworks and I don't make very good use of libraries (jQuery, etc.), but if you invest the time to learn some of the better ones, you might cut down the time to do routine tasks like this by a large amount.
Re: Web Developer job questions
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 8:12 am
by social_experiment
Another point about libraries is that you could create your own library of code for things you do regularly and don't need to create again & again