I’ve been working in web for about a decade. I have no formal education, but I’ve been in various agencies and in-house teams. I have done some cool stuff but it’s limited. I mainly work in wordpress, building custom plugins and themes from scratch for mid size businesses.

I am not technically challenged. The most complex of my work is basically just figuring out client requirements, designing and pitching something that makes their requirements make logical sense, and then building it. The stuff I build is usually no more complex than typical CRUD work.

I don’t really know what to do. I’m stuck. I want out of this basic, boring, unfulfilling work. Has anybody managed to make this jump, or similar, and how did it go?

    • Rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      4·
      4 days ago

      As a quick rundown:

      1. I quit school in 2014 after taking GCSEs (rather than doing A-Levels and Uni)
      2. I took an apprenticeship in “IT & Computing” which was very general, mostly covered helpdesk and basic technician stuff but had one short module on web development. The whole curriculum was shit and the course was a bit of a mess, so I quit before completing it, but the work experience it gave me helped me get a foot in the door of IT as a career. (Very broadly)
      3. Took a job as a technician full time. Started work in the warehouse helping set up their servers and network, and provide general tech support for the office staff as well as helping build hardware/carry out general warehouse work. This company was dodgy as fuck but work is work on the CV. Critical to mention, I think I got this job because of largely non-technical reasons; soft skills in interview against a shortlist of very introverted people, and I got on with the boss who was making the decision very easily, we bonded over quitting school and wanting to prove our ability to work instead of getting certificates. I also took this job at a very low wage. It was a tough year, but it was a full-time job that allowed me to move into my own place away from my parents.
      4. Moved from the warehouse to the (for my eternal sins) marketing department. This moved my role from technician/desk support to web developer.
      5. Quit, moved to a web agency as a web developer.

      And then stayed as a web developer, changing employers around once every two years (in an effort to “quickly” inflate my salary). I’ve worked in-house, at agencies. I freelance, too. Have done on and off for years, as a writer, designer, or developer, depending on what I fancy doing or what I can get (or how desperate I am for cash).

      Mostly worked with WordPress, but have had the opportunity to work with all kinds of systems. Designing too, SEO stuff, just things you pick up that makes your life, your project managers’ lives, and your colleagues’ lives easier.

      I’ve been very lucky. I don’t know how AI/economy will affect that career path I had. I’ve undoubtedly been fortunate with my opportunities!

      But that’s how I got to here, if you were genuinely curious ✌️