Let's see... where was I... saying what I think on the internet...

It's not always what people want to hear. But it seems pretty obvious to me.

If you know me, I’m not a big fan of terms like “Coding Rockstar” or “Web dev Ninja” or “UX Magician.” I guess I don’t care about it that much - but I always thought they missed the mark. That isn’t the point. And it was usually a red flag that the person who posted the job listing was going to be out of touch at best.

But that was until there were a million “Jr. React Developers.” I’m not going to go into the reasons WHY they exist - but they are here. The “Clueless coders,” “Process Paralyzers,” “Workflow Wrecks,” “Debugging Disasters,” and “Haphazard Hackers.”

You know, I don’t think we can all be superstars. I’m not David Bowie. But you know what? I can play the guitar. I don’t get confused with how to hold it. I don’t trip over the audio cable. I don’t need help holding the pick. And I don’t think anyone will hire me to play music if I’m just terrible at it.

But this new wave of coders doesn’t seem to know the difference. Can they make a basic web page? No. Can they do pretty much anything? Not really. BUT - they’re confused as to why they aren’t getting hired. Why aren’t there more companies willing to just give them a 100k salary and train them on the job? There’s a bigger-picture cultural problem. I’ve been exploring it a bit. I also spent some time discussing it on the DonTheDeveloper podcast.

That first discussion got a LOT of views (by my standards).

The second one - not as much.

I’m not sure what happened that day. Maybe I was nervous - but I got into one of those zones where I used more filler words than usual. The “Like” count was HIGH. But now, I’m starting to think - the more I say “like” - the more views? Haha. Probably not…

But here they are if you’re interested. Pretty simple stuff. You should know the basics of how to build websites before you’re going to be hirable. And if you aren’t getting hired - it’s probably because what you think is the basics is only 1/10th of the basics.

( I don’t name the episodes ;)

If anyone is out there…

I’d be curious what you think.