How to get started in the web industry with no commercial experience

Groundhog day

Around 20 years ago I was struggling in a job with very long hours which was affecting my health physically and mentally. Even though the salary was great, it was a real gruelling type of gig. I'd get up at 4:30am for a day shift which would start at 5:30am and finish just before 6pm. Then the same the next day with a 24 hour gap before the two 12 hour night shifts would start, after which a blessed 4 days off to recover before rinsing and repeating the shift pattern once again.

I had suffered minor back problems since my teens and as I got into my late 20's, they just got worse and worse. I ended up going for a scan to see if I had a slipped disc but luckily no dice there, instead I had developed sciatica which when it flared up would give me severe back spasms and excruciating pain rendering me unable to walk or sit. Unfortunately, these flare ups were becoming more common and on a visit to my Doctor I was basically told that if I carried on in my current employment then my back would get worse and eventually I could end up with severe walking or mobility issues in later life.

Back to the future (no pun intended)

Whilst mulling over my future options on sick leave, I had a chance conversation with a friend who lives in the States. He had just started up a small web agency and was running a website for a fairly famous US Indy band that I was really into and participated with great enthusiasm on their message board. I eventually became a moderator on the message board and was on hand to help with technical issues such as uploading avatars, links and pictures when members were having trouble.

Rewinding back to the 80's, I was a nifty coder, I had a Sinclair ZX Spectrum and would spend hours learning BASIC and machine code. I would experiment, break things, hack things and enjoy geeking out with the results. I left it behind in my late teens when other things like music, girlfriends etc.. seemed a lot more appealing.

When I was helping people on the message board, I kept wondering "what is this http or href stuff? What does it really mean? What does it do?" So naturally, the past teenage geek in me made an appearance and I went digging....and digging....and digging. Before long I was getting hooked and that buzz I got as a teenager was back when I started to learn basic HTML and CSS.

I was trawling every web source I could to learn more and more, ordering books and experimenting with what I was learning. Viewing source code on websites I really liked and peeking under the hood to see how they worked and then trying to replicate them the best I could. I would spend hours reading Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman or Web Design in a Nutshell by Jennifer Niederst.

With my sick leave over, I returned to work but all I could think of was code. I would finish my 4 shifts and work long into the night and sometimes all night on little projects I would set myself.

I had the code bug big time and started thinking to myself that maybe, just maybe I could turn this obsession into a career, but how? What do I do? I had no commercial experience or university degree. Little did I know much later that these did not really matter in the whole scheme of things, but we will come to that a bit further on.

University Challenged

In the UK you can enrol for distance learning courses with The Open University where you can do a foundation course with several modules which when passed, would eventually lead you to an actual degree course. I did my research and came across a course titled "Design for the web". This was my ticket (or so I thought). I applied and paid my fee and soon started on the first basic introductory module which took about 2 months to complete and to my delight I passed with flying colours.

Then onto the second of the 4 modules which combined HTML and CSS, once more I passed with a high mark. I was being asked for advice quite a lot by the other students which gave me a huge confidence boost and I was more than happy to help.

The third module was all about JavaScript and initially I did struggle and it was the first real test of the course, but once again I became obsessed and out of the 3 modules so far, I got my highest mark.

Finally, just over a year later it was time for the final module in the course where everything we had learned so far was put together. I felt really confident by this time and breezed my way through it. I was tasked with creating a very small website which used the JavaScript I had learned for a quiz and HTML/CSS for the mark up, layout and navigation.

I now had my foundation course under my belt and could start a computer science degree the next year if I so wished.

Local what?

I was still working my groundhog day job and my shift pattern was still 4 on 4 off, but now every 7 weeks, I would get a sweet 18 days off which meant 18 days of solid code experiments.

I was still helping out on the message board and my friend in the states got in touch with me to ask how I was getting on. He said that I really should start learning how to work with a CMS as if I had any aspirations of making a career out of this then learning a CMS should be a priority as any prospective web agency would need me to have experience of this. He suggested I start with WordPress as that was a smaller learning curve than something like Drupal or Joomla which is a little more advanced.

I took the plunge and boy was I flummoxed! Localhost, database, mysql, php what is this stuff? I soon found out, and after a lot of trial and error I got my first working WordPress install running locally.

By this stage, I did not know a line of php so I had to learn the basics in order to create a child theme that would sit under the main installed WordPress theme. After many 404's, data base errors, critical errors I got a very basic (albeit crude) theme up and running locally. Now all I needed to do was experiment, fail, learn, win and fail again until I nailed what I was trying to do. After all you don't learn to swim without swallowing some water from time to time!

Over the coming months, I re-designed the theme constantly, learning from my mistakes. I must have had 7 different designs dialled in about 3 months! Then I started thinking that "maybe it is time I shared my online presence with the world" so I got a domain name and some hosting.

A bulletproof idea?

I had this idea in mind for a while where I could blog/share what knowledge I had with like minded people. This was right at the time websites such as Smashing Magazine started to gain momentum and a lot of people had started to create similar digital resources. There was a real online community willing to share this type of content happening and I wanted to be part of it.

I chose the name 'a bulletproof idea' as I wanted the articles to be solid and helpful. I was by this time heavily using semantic mark up and accessibility methods so why not preach what I was practising?

Instead of using a child theme, I went all in and built my first ever WordPress theme. It took weeks of hard work, head scratching, testing and more testing until it was finally ready for launch and I began to write and write and write.

6 months into the websites existence I had written a lot of articles and tutorials and was getting a lot of traffic and comments on the site. It was really taking off and in my free time from my day job, I was pretty much constantly writing content.

A leap of faith

It was getting nearer the time where I was about to enrol to start my online degree. I had initial discussions with Open University and in September 2006 I was going to start studying again, or so I thought!

I had always kept my eyes open to what vacancies web agencies were putting out there and a lot of them were off putting with the key words of 'commercial experience' or 'degree' but one agency I had taken a shine to were looking for junior web developers. No mention of degrees or commercial experience. So why not?

I spent time drafting a CV which I have to say did not at the time have much web related stuff on there, but I had a website, much better than any CV as it demonstrated what I was about.

I emailed it all off and within an hour got a response saying that they would really like to talk to me and would I be willing to come down for an informal chat. I could not say yes fast enough and the following Friday I was sat in front of the two directors who were cooing over my website, They said that out of all the applications they had been sent, no one else had a website. I was then asked if I could sit a test the following week and if successful, I would be invited for a more formal interview.

The following week I was sent a psd design of a homepage. My task was to build the homepage from the design I was given inside a time limit of 2 days. Luckily this was during my 18 days off so was raring to go.

I built the page well inside the time limit and after much checking and testing, I sent off the build by lunchtime the next day. The response I got was that "a senior developer would be checking through my code and we will be in touch soon."

3 days passed and I was getting twitchy waiting for a response. I was out driving when my phone rang, I pulled over and it was the Creative Director from the agency.

"Hi John, well done on the build you sent us. The guys went through it and were quite pleased You still have a few things to learn but we are happy to invite you down for a formal interview next week or whenever you are off from work."

I nearly dropped the phone and instantly responded with a date I could come for in the interview. Then the nerves really started to kick in.

Don't wear a suit!

Like the informal chat, the interview was again set for a Friday at 1:30pm. "Was this a lucky day again?" I thought to myself. I started to research online the type of questions I could be asked when I got an email from the agency confirming the date of the interview. The footnote read "and don't wear a suit, wear shorts if it makes you feel more comfortable, after all it is summer."

D-Day

I arrived early (in shorts) and nervously waited in reception when I heard footsteps coming down from the stairs above and the figures of two smiling directors appeared. A quick handshake and back up the stairs we went to the interview room.

I was given a seat and some water to drink which I sipped (to lubricate my now drying mouth). I was made to feel at ease the more the interview went on. Hardly any of the questions I had found online emerged from the interview, it was more of a character assessment than anything else. I think I was in there for around 45 minutes when I was asked "If we were to give you this job, when could you realistically start?"

I was quite shellshocked! My mind raced and I realised I would have to work 2 weeks notice and as I was still on my 18 days off it meant I could not start for another 4 weeks! But I needn't have worried as they were happy with that and in the coming days I was sent an offer of employment which I had to sign and return. The starting salary was a little less then what I was currently earning but I was so hungry and eager to start this new chapter of my life that I simply did not really think about it.

Then came the longest 4 weeks ever and that last night shift was the longest shift of my life. My boss was not happy at all that I was leaving which was stark contrast to my work colleagues who were happy to see me pursue my passion.

Agency Life

It was now August and time to embark on my new career. It was a new experience as it was the first time in my life I had worked in an office. No loud machinery, oil, grime or physical work, just the quiet hum of PC's and the background soundtrack of the office stereo.

My first tasks were to make static templates for the senior developers to bolt into the in house CMS. At the time Welsh Government had given out lots of money to golf clubs to have their own websites as The Ryder Cup was due to take part in Wales. There were 12 golf clubs to build templates for and each one had a deadline. Yikes!

Remember when I said earlier that in order to learn to swim you had to swallow some water? I was learning to swim once again and this time right in the deep end. I was a day late with the first template but managed to deliver the rest of them on time. Phew! This was back in the day when responsive websites were not a 'thing' yet.

I learned so much in the first month it was quite overwhelming at times. My thoughts returned to Open University and I made the decision there and then not to pursue the degree. I could always return to that in the future as right now I was more focused on developing more core skills and gaining valuable commercial experience.

Around December that year I was handed the first big project of my new career. A microsite for a TV ad campaign that was due to run over the holiday period. A very tight deadline indeed as I had 3 weeks to deliver it!

I worked late and came in early as I was determined to deliver it. I had a few hiccups on the way but the day came to hand it over after it has been QA'd by the team. A few minot changes were requested by the client and the campaign ran as planned over the Christmas period.

On Boxing Day, Sky Sports in the UK were showing a big Premier League live game. I forget who was playing but I am sure it was either Chelsea or Manchester United. During half time when the ads rolled, the first ad that came up was for Visit Wales featuring the famous Welsh comedian Rhod Gilbert. Lo and behold there was the URL for the microsite I had built, possibly seen by millions of people!

The web metrics by January were through the roof as the advert had aired on multiple TV channels and even on radio.

This was the first of many exciting projects I have worked on in my career, some very big public sector projects and some very small but equally exciting ones to boot.

No matter how big or small the project, the buzz of creating, learning and sharing is still there 20 years later as a now Senior Developer.

It doesn't take a degree or years of commercial experience to get started, all it takes is time, dedication, hard work, passion and above all, a leap of faith.