074 - Ask Me Anything - Start Over Coder

In this episode I’m answering listener questions…ask me anything! The questions I answer in this episode are:

What kind of laptop to you use? —Ellen
What was the coding school that rejected you in episode 48? —Karl
Do you think you’d ever start a new podcast, maybe focusing more on financial independence with a few updates on your coding? —Erica
What life is like in general for someone living abroad? Do you ever get home sick or was it easy to meet new people? —Erica
What was/has been your favorite part of living abroad? Would you like to make the move permanent or just a few years? —Erica
Any podcast recommendations? I know you mentioned Second Career Devs and I’m now a big fan of that. Not even just coding ones, but what are some others you enjoy? And what made you start the podcast vs just blogging? —Erica
What is your perception of the job market for entry level frontend web development jobs? —Alex
It’s my current plan to build a solid portfolio and apply for jobs online, but I wonder if that route has become so competitive that it’s not a realistic way to land a job anymore. As you said, it’s so saturated on Upwork that they turned you down(?!) —Alex
I know that meet-ups/networking is important, but it’s hard to prioritize that stuff since it would take up a lot of time that I could use to work on my coding skills. How do you decide how to prioritize these two aspects of the job hunting process? —Alex
In pursuing financial independence, for us self supporting folk, is coding the best route? Also, is there any threshold to transition completely to a self learning or school route or just to keep at it an hour or so a day? —Krista
If you had $1000 to spend, what would be your top resources? I have tried Udemy (Colt Steele and others), FCC, Learn XYZ the Hard Way, Treehouse, Udacity, community college, and am struggling with information overload… —Krista
It seems that web dev, computer science, mobile, data, and security are really all their own things. Is it best to be a generalist or only focus on one? —Krista
Any idea on how long to really be job ready at the hour plus a day? Is it really like Gladwell’s 10,000 hours or Norvig’s 10 years? —Krista
With limited time, is it best to do tutorials/learn or just go build? —Krista