Career Direction (IT + Programming)

So I decided several months ago that I want to pursue a career in information technology in general. I haven't yet decided what I want to specialize in because I don't yet have experience.

I passed my CompTIA A+ 220-1001 and I have my 220-1002 scheduled for mid-January. I've resolved to start learning programming languages on top of the entry-level IT stuff that I'm looking for in the short term.

So, here is my question: What languages should I learn and in what order? I've heard some conflicting answers so I would like to hear some more points of view from both statistical perspectives as well as anecdotal. If it makes any difference, I live in Tennessee and IT is relatively lucrative here.

At the moment my current plan is to learn—in order: Batch, PowerShell, CSS, HTML, (Python | JavaScript [I don't know which order for these two]), Java, and whatever other languages I need for full-stack development (PHP, etc.).

The idea is to round myself and make myself marketable but also enjoy what I do. I don't want to sit in a cubicle working for a company M-F 9-5 but I do like IT and programming and I'm willing to put in the time and effort to make it happen.
So, should I learn all of those languages, and is that a good order? Is there anything else I should know or learn?

Please, any input is greatly appreciated and helps me out a ton. Thank you so much!

Depends on what the market is like where you're at or if you plan on moving. Around me, the market is really starved for frontend/backend/full stack web engineers, and companies pay big bucks because of it. Do some research to find out what's booming in your general area. Though, I reckon modern web development and devops isn't going away any time in the near future.

EDIT: Devops in-particular pays ridiculous amounts of money, and is a good skill to have regardless of where you are in the IT world.

So it sounds like you have more of an idea of what you want to do than you think, as full stack engineer is a specialization in of itself.
My best advice I can give you in terms of path choices is that you never really lock yourself in to any particular role unless you want to - and that's the beauty of the tech industry.

I've been a professional "software engineer" (it's been my job title, but hasn't reflected my responsibilities very well) for just over 3 years now.
Personally, I did a degree in game design and then promptly decided that it wasn't what I wanted to do anymore because the industry's a bit shit both in how much it pays and how well it treats its workers.
But it taught me I am truly passionate about writing good, clean, reusable code wherever that may be.
I've been at the same company for my entire career so far, and have taken up both front and back end development, done some light DevOps work, then some heavier DevOps work, and now I'm sat in a "sort of full stack engineer" role.
All of that because I chose to, and I work for a company where that's not only allowed, but encouraged.

In terms of learning for front end or full stack development - a lot of companies that hire for that (at least in my city, yours may vary) look for one of the "hip" JS frameworks, typically one of Angular, React, or Vue.
I've learned React pretty extensively now as it's what we choose to use for our front end. In doing so, I gained a lot of experience in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript all in one go, without having to think too much about it.
There are endless resources online available to start learning and make it easy to pick up the basics. You don't have to worry as much about learning from outdated resources for front end development, as those technologies haven't massively evolved yet.

Remember that skills are transferrable
Because I'm an expert in C# (according to Microsoft, at least) I could walk in to any Java job in my city and with a brief adjustment period be performing as well as the team I'd be joining.
Because I have skills with Powershell, I can do most CI/CD pipeline work, which is a valuable skill to have for DevOps work.

In order to find out what you really love - spend a month immersing yourself in a particular language or technology and document how you feel about it.
Then move on to the next one, and compare it with how you felt with the previous one.
You'll still be gaining useful experience, and you'll learn a thing or two about dealing with the different frustrations that come with developing for different areas.

If we're talking general career advice, get someone to look over your CV before you apply for even an entry level position. If you don't know anyone that would be willing to do that for you, private message me when that time comes.
Do some interview training so that questions don't catch you off guard.
Remember that technical knowledge isn't everything, I've interviewed hundreds of candidates and have said no to plenty of very talented people because they were arseholes, and I'd rather blow my brains out than work on a team with them, so be humble in your abilities.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheBlackParade [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]

Depends on what the market is like where you're at or if you plan on moving. Around me, the market is really starved for frontend/backend/full stack web engineers, and companies pay big bucks because of it. Do some research to find out what's booming in your general area. Though, I reckon modern web development and devops isn't going away any time in the near future.

EDIT: Devops in-particular pays ridiculous amounts of money, and is a good skill to have regardless of where you are in the IT world.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by testicles [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]

So it sounds like you have more of an idea of what you want to do than you think, as full stack engineer is a specialization in of itself.
My best advice I can give you in terms of path choices is that you never really lock yourself in to any particular role unless you want to - and that's the beauty of the tech industry.

I've been a professional "software engineer" (it's been my job title, but hasn't reflected my responsibilities very well) for just over 3 years now.
Personally, I did a degree in game design and then promptly decided that it wasn't what I wanted to do anymore because the industry's a bit shit both in how much it pays and how well it treats its workers.
But it taught me I am truly passionate about writing good, clean, reusable code wherever that may be.
I've been at the same company for my entire career so far, and have taken up both front and back end development, done some light DevOps work, then some heavier DevOps work, and now I'm sat in a "sort of full stack engineer" role.
All of that because I chose to, and I work for a company where that's not only allowed, but encouraged.

In terms of learning for front end or full stack development - a lot of companies that hire for that (at least in my city, yours may vary) look for one of the "hip" JS frameworks, typically one of Angular, React, or Vue.
I've learned React pretty extensively now as it's what we choose to use for our front end. In doing so, I gained a lot of experience in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript all in one go, without having to think too much about it.
There are endless resources online available to start learning and make it easy to pick up the basics. You don't have to worry as much about learning from outdated resources for front end development, as those technologies haven't massively evolved yet.

Remember that skills are transferrable
Because I'm an expert in C# (according to Microsoft, at least) I could walk in to any Java job in my city and with a brief adjustment period be performing as well as the team I'd be joining.
Because I have skills with Powershell, I can do most CI/CD pipeline work, which is a valuable skill to have for DevOps work.

In order to find out what you really love - spend a month immersing yourself in a particular language or technology and document how you feel about it.
Then move on to the next one, and compare it with how you felt with the previous one.
You'll still be gaining useful experience, and you'll learn a thing or two about dealing with the different frustrations that come with developing for different areas.

If we're talking general career advice, get someone to look over your CV before you apply for even an entry level position. If you don't know anyone that would be willing to do that for you, private message me when that time comes.
Do some interview training so that questions don't catch you off guard.
Remember that technical knowledge isn't everything, I've interviewed hundreds of candidates and have said no to plenty of very talented people because they were arseholes, and I'd rather blow my brains out than work on a team with them, so be humble in your abilities.

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Thanks so much, guys! So what I've decided to do more or less is to learn full-stack development one step at a time. I'm going to keep applying for entry-level IT positions in the mean time and get really comfortable with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Since posting, I learned HTML from scratch (to a workable level—nothing fancy), and a very basic level of CSS. JavaScript is the hard part so I'm just gonna try to follow some YouTube series and such.

I think I'm going to ditch Batch and PowerShell, at least for now. I was learning Batch because one of my software developer friends told me that it's essential as a system administrator, but that's not even what I want to do. It seems like something I won't really need and probably won't help me find a job. I think I'd rather allocate my time toward web development.

So I'll focus my efforts on web development then once I'm comfortable I'll learn Python at my own pace.

At the moment I'm just in a bad position because I don't have a full time job and I need money to stay afloat. But your advice is very valuable to me, so thank you very much! My Discord ID is Purple#0925 if you'd like to stay in touch or maybe provide me with a bit of guidance. ;)

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Originally Posted by Stratified [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]

Thanks so much, guys! So what I've decided to do more or less is to learn full-stack development one step at a time. I'm going to keep applying for entry-level IT positions in the mean time and get really comfortable with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Since posting, I learned HTML from scratch (to a workable level—nothing fancy), and a very basic level of CSS. JavaScript is the hard part so I'm just gonna try to follow some YouTube series and such.

I think I'm going to ditch Batch and PowerShell, at least for now. I was learning Batch because one of my software developer friends told me that it's essential as a system administrator, but that's not even what I want to do. It seems like something I won't really need and probably won't help me find a job. I think I'd rather allocate my time toward web development.

So I'll focus my efforts on web development then once I'm comfortable I'll learn Python at my own pace.

At the moment I'm just in a bad position because I don't have a full time job and I need money to stay afloat. But your advice is very valuable to me, so thank you very much! My Discord ID is Purple#0925 if you'd like to stay in touch or maybe provide me with a bit of guidance. ;)

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As long as you have one language down (ie Java), a lot of places will take you on in a junior role where they'll both put you to work and help you grow. Make a profile up on LinkedIn and check out what's around you. Don't be afraid to reach out to a place even if you don't meet all of the requirements, either - the worst they can say is no, and most places only have all those things listed on the off chance that they do find that special unicorn that can do them all haha.

For example, in my case, when I got my first junior position all I knew was some Java and PHP. They spun me up on JavaScript, HTML, CSS, all the frontend web goodies. New things aren't really hard to learn once you have the mindset down, and companies are willing to teach because it'll only get them better results. :)

I'd go for Typescript (some Node) and React. Learn about data structures. All programs do is modify an input to produce an output. Always. Read the ENTIRE documentation for your language of choice before asking ANY questions - you are the only one you can truly rely on when it is tough, but you can do it. Back to language, the proposition is pretty lucrative... You can create any application using one language for logic, and another for presentation. You can create full-fledged games (lib required). You can use it in the browser and for the server. It's the most utilitarian "I want to produce tangible and valuable results NOW" sort of thing you can do.

If you like a lib similar to Ionic you can build for ALL platforms at once - web, iPhone, Android - and you only wrote it once. You will inevitably require scripts to automate your build/task, or backend services for data access/persistence or search indexing or whatever and you will then gain experience in that but only need config files basically. New technologies aren't hard to pick up, most have a robust language-specific library for you to use! Learn to use the commands to build containerized applications, when you are building a new program you must define what application environment it requires. I've built GUIs in every language I have written, none compare to using just html/css/js when it is all running. It's not perfect but at least it's widely adopted standards :)


Back to desoldering electronic components

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Originally Posted by funkE [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]

I'd go for Typescript (some Node) and React. Learn about data structures. All programs do is modify an input to produce an output. Always. Read the ENTIRE documentation for your language of choice before asking ANY questions - you are the only one you can truly rely on when it is tough, but you can do it. Back to language, the proposition is pretty lucrative... You can create any application using one language for logic, and another for presentation. You can create full-fledged games (lib required). You can use it in the browser and for the server. It's the most utilitarian "I want to produce tangible and valuable results NOW" sort of thing you can do.

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I prefer Angular myself (Angular 2+, not that old AngularJS garbage), but can't dispute React is wildly more popular. Definitely a good choice, and TypeScript is certainly picking up a lot of traction lately. Hell, I'm using it in my Rune.JS project as opposed to vanilla JavaScript lol.

React, Vue, and Angular are all pretty easy to learn with how verbose their tutorials and documentation are:

React: [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
VueJS: [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]
Angular: [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...]