My name is Laurens, I am a Web Developer from Norwich, England. I wasn’t always a Developer, for most of my life, I didn’t really have much of a goal. Like many people I wound up in a dead-end job and I wasn’t feeling satisfied and so I really put my mind to learning to code.
I had always been interested in coding. When I was a teenager and the internet first became mainstream, I started to design and code websites for bands that I was interested in (back when everything was done in HTML using tables). Despite this I didn’t really have the motivation to pursue a career in Development, and life took me in a different direction.
Cut back to my dead-end job, some years later. It got to the point where I knew I had to do something to get out of the rut, I started to read books, learned JavaScript and brushed up on my HTML and CSS. Progressed on to some projects, and began to get a basic grasp of React. I started to apply for jobs. Nothing happened for a while. I started to lose hope, thinking that I’d missed the ‘learn to code’ train. But then just as things were about to take a turn for the worse at my job, I got an interview, and landed myself my momentous first development job.
This was a milestone for me, and I will always be grateful to them for taking a chance on a guy stuck in a dead-end job, who was making weird random poetry generators in his spare time. Now I want to take my skills to the next level and to take you along with me.
Like many who find themselves in this position, I have had moments of self-doubt and terror. Thinking that everything out there is way above my level. Seeing job advertisements for ‘Junior Developers’ that list a tech stack that would take years to learn. Feeling like AI might just make me obsolete anyway. Not knowing what to do and where to focus. Sound familiar?
I decided to start nextleveldev.blog because I know I’m not alone, and also I know that I can actually level up my skills and stay motivated, and why not document the process? Join me as I share my thoughts, and document my progress to take my dev skills to the next level. As someone who used to empty litter bins for a living, and does not have a Computer Science degree, I can most assuredly tell you that if I can do it, anyone can!