It's probably easiest to build something fun or interesting, but any coding is good practice.
Or look at job specs you're interested in and try to build something based on that.
this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
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I'm trying to do the job specs, but the net is just so wide. But yeah, it looks like personal projects is the way to go.
"Build shit" is 100% the answer. Bonus points if you can finish it and put it up on GitHub or wherever. But not necessary.
My go-to is always "pick something that already exists, and just remake it" because that gives you very concrete, achievable goals. Something as simple as dir.exe, or ls, or some other CLI tool.
I would say focused – and then try and solve problems that annoy/impact you or others – rather than just going through a checklist of tutorials.
Learn some boring industry standard language if you want a job.
If I don't know any insiders, where could I learn this kind of stuff? Industry podcasts?
Look at 10,20,50,100 job specs and see what's the most common
- Language
- Framework
- Cloud provider
For extra fun web scrape those adverts and process the content using code.
Personal project for sure. Build something you want. If you want to learn a particular skill/framework try to think of a personal project that could use it.
Just following tutorials with no goal in mind is too boring.
As a professional developer nearing 20 years of experience, I am a fan of freecodecamp.org
They have a new book that covers a lot of this, both the upskilling and the interview specifically, https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/learn-to-code-book/
Currently working on the responsive web development course. I like the guitar sounds. 😅