This article turns to music bytes
When was the last time you thought about a front-end career plan?
If you are a student, you must be unfamiliar with the front-end profession, you have no experience, but you are curious about the future, you have a lot of time to think, but you may not feel the direction, you feel powerless to fist on cotton.
If you’re already in the workforce, whether it’s an internship or three, five, or even 10 years into your career, it’s incredibly fulfilling, but do you really have enough time to think? If the status quo remains, where will I improve in another five years? If you’re not clear about these conclusions, it’s probably a lack of thinking about career planning.
This front-end career planning is written from my own point of view. If you are also thinking about long-term development, it can be used as a reference.
I summed up three main thinking directions, namely, knowledge classification, field deep cultivation and economic perspective.
Knowledge classification refers to whether your understanding of knowledge is systematic. The world is now adding more knowledge every day than it would take a single person to learn in a lifetime, and long-term development is impossible without establishing your own criteria for selecting knowledge.
The field of deep cultivation is practice, every day learning is useless, you must do something valuable, in order to bring contributions to the industry, or knowledge into wealth. Of course, the proportion of learning and practice is different in different professions. For example, theoretical physics may blur the boundary between learning and practice, while engineers in the workplace are more likely to distinguish between learning and practice.
Economic perspective means you have to be able to bring an economic perspective to things. It can be said that without economic activities, all our learning, production and occupation would be meaningless, because the driving force for our learning and social production is trade. Without economic activities, there would be no demand, and demand is the basis for all activities. With a little understanding of the relationship between economy and production, we can understand why technology should serve business. Only when any technology has the potential to be transformed into commercial value can it be worth studying, from social value to product value, it is the same.
Let me explain my understanding of each direction.
Knowledge classification
As a front end, we subscribe to many columns to keep abreast of new knowledge in order to stay tech-savvy. I know of 30 weekly columns alone. In fact, according to some specially organized column search websites, I can even see more than 100 different front-end columns every week. Most of the columns are in the article aggregation, each column aggregation of articles generally ranging from 5 to 30, so even if the removal of repetition, at least a week there are hundreds of new front-end technology articles waiting for you to read, so some students will feel anxious, or even shout out learning not to move.
I happen to find some articles to read for intensive reading every week, but after a few years, I just don’t think I can find any useful material every week. In this week’s javascript Weekly, for example, I’ve picked some article titles:
- DOM Events: A Way to Visualize and Experiment with the DOM Event System.
- Introducing WebContainers: Run node.js Natively in the Browser.
- New & Updated Course: Complete Intro to React v6 with Brian Holt
- Parcel 2 Beta 3: A Wild Rust Appears!
- 2D Optics Demos in JavaScript
- A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Next.js
- How to Create Reusable Web Components with Lit and Vue
The second article is to help you understand the DOM events through visualization. UI is interesting, but as a front-end foundation, it is not suitable for intensive reading. This point is covered once, there is no need to make the UI again.
The second article is about a technology that allows Node to run in the browser. It’s a new technology, but we don’t need to find scenarios for it at this point, just know that it’s there, no need to read it. React 3 is a complete tutorial on React. It is very systematic, but there is nothing new. It is suitable for beginners to read, so there is no need to see it.
The Next few posts are about features from the framework update, an interesting visualization, getting started with Next. Js, and how to develop components with the Lit framework. This knowledge is intuitively readable and not readable. If you read it, you feel like you are not growing up. If you don’t read it, you feel like you are missing something.
If you’re hesitant to look at these Feed streams, I suggest you set up a front-end knowledge categorization system. Just like learning martial arts, if you do not know what is basic skills, what is boxing and embroidery, then facing hundreds of copies of “martial arts news” every day is really unable to learn, and can not learn.
In the field of technology, there are rules for knowledge classification system to follow, and knowledge can be roughly divided into two types: general knowledge and industrial knowledge.
General knowledge refers to the most basic, is also the largest applicable knowledge, such as math, science, the knowledge we have learned at school and use knowledge in the work are based on the general knowledge, such as without a certain mathematical basis is difficult to learn computer visual field, because it will be a large number of mathematical knowledge.
General knowledge is the most useful and the most valuable, so it is arranged for us in school. Then the university is actually teaching general industry knowledge, so if there is no solid foundation at this stage, it is easy to make up for it, just review it according to the university textbooks. General knowledge of the computer field generally includes computer principles, operating systems, design patterns, compilation principles, data structures, algorithms and so on.
The general knowledge of the field seems rigid, and the students who just started their work are usually doing the work of turning screws, often ignoring the importance of the general knowledge of the industry. However, when you get into the core technology of the company, you will find that you have used a lot of the general knowledge taught in the university, and it will be too late to learn it when you use it.
If the industry-specific knowledge is preserved for 30 years, the industry-specific knowledge mentioned next is only preserved for 1 year. Industry-specific knowledge is most of the content we read in Weekly, including the front-end framework, API and other knowledge that the training class helped us learn quickly. These knowledge is very useful, grounded, and the first time to contact the work will be used, but the biggest problem of these knowledge is too upper, so that there are too many similar products, strong substitutability, knowledge can be changed with the release of the new version.
Like project scaffolding tools, where a new brand based on webPack or Rollup packaging comes out every day, it’s not worth learning, and you don’t need to think of new scaffolding as new knowledge, because most of this knowledge has a life span of less than a year, most of it is unused, and most importantly despite the name, There is no new knowledge in the components, so read the source code to learn no new knowledge. More importantly, you can’t produce similar products according to these knowledge, so if you really want to learn scaffolding related knowledge, read a mainstream scaffolding source code on the line, in addition to work later, do not need to see any use of documents.
The same goes for architectural skills. The lessons we learned at work by stepping in and even failing a project are probably just a common mistake in the design Patterns book. When we design a very complex system, the modular communication design is probably just a common communication method in operating system design. Someone who understands the complexity of an operating system can basically deal with software engineering problems of equivalent complexity, and software engineering is really hard to surpass the complexity of an operating system, so instead of trying and failing on a project, look for answers from this basic knowledge.
So if you want to take your career further, check that your foundation is solid. If you special solid general knowledge, basic knowledge, can quickly learn to industry according to the basic knowledge of industry, you can even create a new independent framework, the framework will be learning to others industry-specific knowledge, if there is no ground another classmate, spent time in studying on the framework of you do, so his career development to a certain extent will be around you, If he stays in the application stage and doesn’t understand how it works, your career ceiling will be higher in the long run.
As for general basic knowledge, industry basic knowledge and industry specific knowledge, there are no specific suggestions here, I believe everyone will have their own judgment.
Field of deep
This part of thinking does not apply to the front of the students just joined the work.
There is a famous chicken soup in the front end: “The front end is not because of the interactive interface, but because of standing at the front end of the business”. In fact, this sentence is problematic. I think every front end student with more than three years of work experience has a sense of weakness in the business field.
Natural in the back end is at the core of the business model, this is because the front end is just a window, users interact with the business system without front end, users can also directly interaction and interface, just do it cost a lot, so in order to decrease the difficulty of user or bring a better user experience, just need to constantly upgrade the UI interface, Therefore, the RELATIONSHIP between UI interface and back-end is often many-to-one. The corresponding interfaces of mobile terminal, small program and web page are all the same. The purpose is to facilitate users in any scenario to easily access the business.
Note that this is the business model, not the depth of experience. If you want depth of experience, only the front end can do it. If you work in any industry for a long time, if you only consider the front end, the goal is always to measure the experience and improve the efficiency of R&D, and rarely touch the business layer, so that the front end is not directly reflected in the business value, and it is difficult to explain the relationship between the experience measure, improve the efficiency of R&D and the final business growth.
Therefore, for front-end students with certain work experience, if they want to go further, they must work deeply in the business field.
So how to work in the business field? The first thing you need to do is get out of the front end and start looking at things from a business perspective, or you’ll get bogged down in endless interaction details. First of all to understand your domain, such as the author in the field of data, to know the history of the industry, the present situation and the future, what are the products, what is the business model of each product, product, what is the connection between product what gap distance head now, what product goal this year is mainly to solve the problem, what is the target for three years, and so on. Each student should first understand the product, and then the division of research and development, product manager.
Then look at your work. What role does it play in the core competency of the product? Do BI tools, for example, its core is the data analysis ability and the visualized analysis ability, if you keep doing similar report list page of this general background, personal center job, you will think about it, did the work can be outsourced, if not, then try to do some field, turn to the general areas.
When you look at his work, found that the core product ability is not consistent with what you work content, and if you don’t want to go to the front of the background of general field has been doing research about the effect, then you will find a way to communicate with the boss to change the work content, you can find some front of strong business model, also can contact such as BI analysis, data visualization and so on. Actually general field there are many deep waters, such as language sparrow behind the rich text editor, flow charts, research and development workbench, business component library, and so on are all can do deep general field, when you want to the next level, it is become like jade “sparrow, leader of the whole product, so you actually and entered the knowledge collaboration, this professional productivity tools.
If you don’t want to move into general technology but can’t change what you do, try to take on more responsibility and, if possible, get involved in the development of back-end business logic, which will help you understand it deeply and comprehensively. In fact, the front end + product route can also be very good in the field of expertise, the front end + back end route can also be very good, you need to adjust according to the situation of your team.
Any product development team has to have a product holistic view, that’s what I was talking about. The more you understand your business outside of the technology, the more specific the technical direction, but if your career plan is to climb the ladder, you’re going to be the product owner. Today’s young people are very motivated, and many companies are trying to adopt a “moving water” policy that allows young people who want to advance to try new directions rather than staying in a mature team.
Economic perspective
Another reason to plan your career is to get promoted and raise money, of course, but your salary can’t be inflated indefinitely. It will probably increase in line with the market. In addition, any job is an economic ledger. We need to look at the business from technical, product and economic perspectives to make a sound judgment.
Because of the epidemic last year, global telecommuting has been actively practiced, and there is still potential for growth in the future. Therefore, as employers, they will gradually look at the labor cost globally, because they can work anywhere. From the point of global software development data, the highest wages in the United States, China’s software engineers pay also followed suit, so China is in the field of software does not exist the advantage of low labor costs, especially when you are rich work experience, after competing for senior positions, Chinese software company salary isn’t low around the globe.
However the national technology development, education level is still a gap between, if the same jobs by senior technical experts, domestic and foreign open a flat salary, but China’s software engineers architecture level not software engineers in the United States, so in the long run, this mismatch waste will cause the enterprise cost of choose and employ persons, enterprise in a certain degree to find a way to optimize the personnel. So as a front end, or as a software engineer, you have to understand that in the long term, you’re going to be competing with software engineers all over the world, so you have to be very aware of where your field is going globally, where the talent level is.
That’s personal economics, and now business economics.
The first step is to understand how your skills translate into revenue to cover your salary. We first look at the market competition, market competition through price adjustment of supply and demand, we do product cost, price is very clear, whether it is worth doing at a glance. For complex product need collaboration, however, that if you travel through the market mechanism of cooperation between people, tend to produce efficient results, such as button I do according to 3 yuan a price to sell to the back-end, that in order to enhance the value of me, I will raise prices to $5 a, tend to add more buttons to products, however, such short-term interests are watching, No one will be responsible for the long-term development of the product.
Therefore, do not set a price for your work in the company. We should polish the product as much as possible and pay a fixed salary at the end of the month according to the contract. That it really solves the problems of product development for a long time, but the mechanism is mature, especially in large companies, just graduated students went to twist screws will probably never has no chance to understand what is the cost, no cost concept, it is difficult to want to know why do things to consider input and output ratio, or think the word ROI is very advanced, in fact the word not advanced. It’s just that the company blocks it, but if it leads you to do technology without any consideration of cost, only pursue technical details that excite you, or only pursue technical directions that interest you, that’s immature, and what you’re doing may not be recognized by the business.
If you want to develop toward a higher level, the cost is must cultivate awareness, can know about the human cost, machine cost, and access to the second party and third party service of external costs, after understanding these costs, and then calculate the product whether annual revenue to cover these costs, if you want to continue to add people, corresponding to the next product revenue how many, Is there room in the market to multiply that much? If you want to provide better service and add machines, will your business get more because the service gets better? The value of increasing the number of business parties is generally measured in terms of order price, MAU, if the service is external, whether the price directly covers the cost, and if the service is internal, whether the MAU is worth the cost of the machine.
But it’s not just about money. Market share is also important. If Chrome only looked at annual revenue, IE would still be the dominant browser. Actually Chrome after establishing dominance, ecological through Google products, W3C voice has a lot to improve, developers, attraction and influence of the invisible is difficult to directly into money, so if you think we can improve the product market share from long term value, then can also be one of the market as a target.
Finally, the economic perspective does not only let us stay in business accounting, the marginal income theory of economics can guide us to do things with greater marginal income first. In the current business product matrix, which products can be expanded to quickly make up for the deficiency. If technical optimization is carried out, which modules can bring the maximum product benefits and maintainability benefits. If we can always think clearly about these problems, the annual product and technical direction will not go astray.
conclusion
To sum up the three thinking directions mentioned in the article, they are actually three kinds of problems you may encounter in your career development.
Work for a long time will find that, even if there is still the passion for learning, but keep the way of learning that just graduated has been difficult to break through, you will find that: work practice will not use a lot of knowledge, repeatedly read or write entry technology articles, will only let themselves stay at the technical level of school enrollment; Your career is also limiting, and you need to figure out how to break through the career ceiling; It’s not enough to even focus on technology. Everyone is talking about cost, and when you’re talking about technology, you’re not on the same channel.
This article also gives three corresponding solutions, knowledge classification to help you solve the problem of repeatedly learning useless, entry-level knowledge; Delving deeper into your field can help you overcome your career ceiling; The economic perspective helps you solve the problem of technical monoculture.
Actually profession has the ceiling is very normal, no professional rise is all the way to shine, but people are living, you can gradually change myself, see more business and economic issues at the appropriate time, learning knowledge and don’t just stay on the surface, although these probably won’t be used in your work, but it is a paradox, because you don’t have to master certain knowledge, So there’s no access to those jobs, and the only way to break the paradox is to start with the painful self breaking the boundaries.
Contrary to front-end career planning, I didn’t say a lot of proper nouns front field, or want to learn what framework, named because I don’t think people IQ gap between big, must grasp the knowledge can learn to work a few years, but really can pull open the gap between, not IQ, but the method of study, or learning route, if you use your time in the wrong place, Or the wrong stage, will eventually accumulate a huge gap.
I hope my thinking can be helpful to you.
Note: welfare will be updated every week, more welfare waiting for you to receive, more skills, welcome to communicate in the comments section!
+ Jun Yang front three 606, middle three 846, back three 127, jin Jun Yang secret code T123, receive Python, Web front-end development, Python crawler, Python data analysis, big data development, artificial intelligence, Java project, Java foundation and other high-quality learning courses. Learn Python, Java, Web front end and big data from zero. Be a great programmer!
Finally, about finding a job, I believe that if you look hard, you will find a good job. I wish you all success.