For the past year I've been learning to code and lurking at developer communities online from the sidelines, dazzled by their skills and experience. As a code newbie and marketer, I didn't feel like I had much to contribute. I feel differently now. While I'm still on the learning journey, I'm ready to share how learning to code is slowly changing my life and career.
Why did I learn to code?
Accessibility
Managing website content & UX is one of my favourite aspects of marketing and I specialised in it heavily. While managing websites as a Digital Communications Officer I started to learn about accessibility and how a website's code can severely impact a user's experience of that website. This led to me learning about HTML and the importance of semantic code.
I got tired of CMSs
I'm a naturally curious person and try to be as polymathic as possible. After years of managing websites through CMS tools, I became interested in how they actually worked. While a CMS is a fantastic tool that's changed the internet as we know it, they all have their limitations. I wanted to know what I could do without those barriers in place.
Career opportunities
Put frankly, learning to code gave me a unique and attractive skillset amongst marketers. It deepened my knowledge of SEO, accessibility, data analysis, website management, technical knowledge and working cross-team. When interviewing for my current role as a Digital Marketing Lead in the public sector, I stressed how I could bridge gaps between technical teams and communications/marketing.
I've not yet made the transition into a full-time development role but I'm excited about possibilities and where my career will go in the future.
How did I learn?
YouTube and free content
When I first got interested in code, the amount of content out there for me to learn was overwhelming. Where to begin! I started by learning HTML and CSS from watching YouTube videos, then moved on to websites like freecodecamp and Codecademy.
Diploma and bootcamp
While I learned a lot from these free resources, I felt like I needed more structure to my learning. Then I stumbled across a government programme to get more Welsh people into tech and secured funding to do a year-long diploma in web development with Code Institute.
The course has been both a challenging and phenomenal experience. I'm currently completing my final assignment (a Django app - you can keep up to date with my progress on Github!) I can't quite believe just how much I've learned over the year since beginning the course. There's still a lot more I want to learn, but I'm now confident in frontend technologies and some server-side languages like Python.
What have I learnt?
I've learnt various languages and frameworks, such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, Materialize, Python, Django and Flask. But on a larger level, I've also learnt a whole new set of problem-solving skills and computational thinking. There is nothing more rewarding than solving a bug that's been bugging you for ages (mind the pun). So much of my time 'coding' is spent debugging, googling or reading Stackoverflow. This is one of my favourite quotes about programming:
"Programming isn't about what you know; it's about what you can figure out.” - Chris Pine
Coding has opened a whole new door to how I approach work. The mantra of "fail fast, fail often" that we often hear spouted in big tech is also true of marketing and digital transformation. The philosophy of iteration and user focus that has come to dominate developer approaches over the past decade have found their way into content creation/management too.
So... what now?
For the foreseeable I'm going to continue to work on my technical skills while my role at work dances between a tech team and communications team. In particular, I want to up my JavaScript game and continue working with Django. I'm going to be updating this blog (as regularly as I can!) with my learnings and thoughts on development. Stick around and see what you think 😄
If any of you reading have gone through a tech career change or have any advice to offer, I'd love to hear your experiences 💗