When was the last time you thought about front-end career planning?

If you are a student, you must be strange to the front end of this career, although you have no experience, but curious about the future, you have a lot of time to think, but may not feel the direction, there is a kind of fist hit cotton on the powerless feeling.

If you’ve been in a job, whether it’s your first internship or three, five, or even 10 years, it’s definitely fulfilling, but is it really enough time to think? If I stay where I am, where will I be five years from now? If you’re not clear about these conclusions, it’s probably a lack of thought about career planning.

This anxiety about a lack of career planning has developed into a business opportunity. When you do not have a clear career plan, are confused, training institutions to come out and say, are you full of anxiety about career planning? If so, you can order our course, famous brand big factory P10 take you to run the career. In fact, the course is really good, but a specific course is not a substitute for your own thinking, you need to figure out what you want, rather than being indoctrinated by others, because there is no standard route in the workplace, but the copywriting of training institutions does have standard writing.

So this front end career plan is written from my point of view as a reference if you are also thinking about long-term development.

I have summed up three main thinking directions, which are knowledge classification, field deep cultivation and economic perspective.

Knowledge classification refers to whether your understanding of knowledge is systematic or not. The world is adding more knowledge every day than a single person could learn in a lifetime, and without establishing your own set of criteria for selecting knowledge, long-term development is impossible.

Studying every day is useless. You have to do something of value to contribute to the industry, or to turn your knowledge into wealth. Of course, the ratio of learning to practice is different for different occupations. For example, theoretical physics may blur the boundary between learning and practice, while engineers in the workplace environment can more easily distinguish between learning and practice.

Economic perspective means you have to be able to look at things with an economic perspective. It can be said that without economic activities, all our study, production and occupation are meaningless, because the driving force of our study and social production is trade. Without economic activities, there would be no demand, and demand is the basis of promoting all activities. With a little understanding of the relationship between economy and production, you can understand why technology should serve business, because any technology is worth studying only if it has the potential to be transformed into commercial value, from social value to product value.

Here are my interpretations of each direction.

Knowledge classification

As a front end, we subscribe to a number of columns to keep up with new knowledge in order to stay technologically savvy. In fact, according to some specialized column search websites, I can even see more than 100 different front end columns every week. Most columns are aggregated, and there are generally 5 to 30 articles aggregated in each column. Even if repetition is removed, there are at least hundreds of new front-end technology articles waiting for you to read every week, so some students will feel anxious and even shout out that they can’t learn.

I wrote intensive reading every week just to find some articles to read, but after a few years, I just felt that I could not find any useful material every week. For example, in this week’s javascript Weekly, I’ve picked some of the headlines:

  • DOM Events: A Way to Visualize and Experiment with the DOM Event System.
  • Introducing WebContainers: Run node.js Natively in the Browser.
  • New & Updated Course: Complete Intro to React v6 with Brian Holt
  • Parcel 2 Beta 3: A Wild Rust Appears!
  • 2D Optics Demos in JavaScript
  • A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Next.js
  • How to Create Reusable Web Components with Lit and Vue

The second part is an article to help you understand DOM events through visualization. UI is interesting, but DOM events are a front end basis, and it’s not really a good place to rehmash things up for intensive reading.

The second one is about a technology that allows Node to run in a browser. This is a new technology, but we don’t need to find a scenario for this technology at this stage. We just need to know that it exists, and we don’t need to read it carefully. The third is a complete tutorial on React, very systematic, but there is nothing new, suitable for new front end readers, so do not need to see.

The Next few articles are an introduction to the features of the framework upgrade, an interesting visualization, a beginner’s introduction to next-.js, and how to develop components using the Lit framework. Intuitively, these knowledge can be read or not read. If you read it, you feel like you have no growth. If you don’t read it, you feel like you have missed something.

If you’re hesitant to look at these feeds, I suggest you develop a front-end knowledge classification system. Just like learning martial arts, if you do not know what is basic skills and what is fancy, then faced with hundreds of “martial arts news” every day is really impossible to learn, and can not learn.

In the field of technology, there are rules to follow in the classification system of knowledge, which can be roughly divided into two types: general knowledge and industrial knowledge.

General knowledge refers to the most basic, is also the largest applicable knowledge, such as math, science, the knowledge we have learned at school and use knowledge in the work are based on the general knowledge, such as without a certain mathematical basis is difficult to learn computer visual field, because it will be a large number of mathematical knowledge.

General knowledge is the most useful and the best value, so the school arranged for us, so the university is actually teaching general industry knowledge, so if you do not have a solid foundation at this stage, it is very easy to make up for it, as long as you review according to the university textbooks. General knowledge of the computer field generally includes computer principles, operating systems, design patterns, compilation principles, data structures, algorithms, etc.

The general knowledge of the field seems to be rigid, while the students who have just entered the job are generally doing things like turning screws, and they tend to ignore the importance of the general knowledge of the industry. However, when you get in touch with the core technology of the company, you will find that you have applied a lot of the general knowledge taught in the university, and it will be too late to learn when you use it.

If the store of value of general industry knowledge is 30 years, then the store of value of industry specific knowledge mentioned below is only 1 year. Industry expertise is most of what we see in Weekly, but it also includes the front-end framework, APIS, and so on that the training class helped us speed up. These knowledge is very useful, grounded gas, and the first time to contact the work, but the biggest problem with these knowledge is too upper level, so that the same products too much, strong substitutability, knowledge can be released with the new version of all changed.

Like the project scaffolding tool, there is a new brand of webpack or rollup packaging out every day. This kind of scaffolding is not worth learning, and you don’t need to think of it as new knowledge, because most of this knowledge has a life span of less than a year, most of it is unused, and the most important thing is that despite the name, There is no new knowledge in the components, so reading the source code will not learn new knowledge. More importantly, you can’t produce similar products according to these knowledge, so if you really want to learn scaffolding related knowledge, carefully read a mainstream scaffolding source code on the line, in addition to work in the future, do not need to see any use of documentation.

The same is true for architectural capabilities. What we learn from working on a craphole or even failing a project is probably just a common misconception mentioned in the design Patterns book; When we design a very complex system, the module communication design may be just a common communication method in operating system design. A person who understands the complexity of an operating system can, by and large, deal with software engineering problems of equivalent complexity, and software engineering is hard to beat, so rather than try and error on a project, it’s better to look for answers in the basics.

So if you want to take your career to the next level, check that your foundation is solid. If you special solid general knowledge, basic knowledge, can quickly learn to industry according to the basic knowledge of industry, you can even create a new independent framework, the framework will be learning to others industry-specific knowledge, if there is no ground another classmate, spent time in studying on the framework of you do, so his career development to a certain extent will be around you, In the long run, your career ceiling will be higher if he stays at the use stage and doesn’t understand how it works.

As for the general basic knowledge, industry basic knowledge and industry specific knowledge, no specific suggestions are given here. I believe that everyone will have their own judgment.

Field of deep

This paragraph of thinking does not apply to the front end students who just joined the work.

There is a famous saying that “the front end is not because of the interaction interface, but because of the front end of the business”. In fact, there is a problem with this saying. I think every front end student with more than three years of working experience has a feeling of weakness in the business field.

Natural in the back end is at the core of the business model, this is because the front end is just a window, users interact with the business system without front end, users can also directly interaction and interface, just do it cost a lot, so in order to decrease the difficulty of user or bring a better user experience, just need to constantly upgrade the UI interface, Therefore, the RELATIONSHIP between UI interface and the back end is often many to one. The interfaces corresponding to mobile terminal, small program and web page are all one set, and the purpose is to facilitate the users in any scenario to easily reach the business. Therefore, as the front end, it is necessary to have a correct understanding of the reason why the front end exists.

Note that this is a business model, not depth of experience. If depth of experience is important, only the front end can do it. However front nature or add flower on the part of the scene, because in any industry for a long time, if only considering the front-end, the objective is always experience measurement, research and development about the effect, rarely touched the business layer, so that the front end in the body of the business value are not directly, difficult to interpret experience measurement, research and development work and finally the relationship between the business growth.

Therefore, for the front-end students who have some working experience, if they want to go further, they must be deeply ploughed in the business field.

So how do you dig deep in the business? The first step is to get out of the front end perspective and into the business perspective, otherwise you’ll get bogged down in endless interaction details. First of all to understand your domain, such as the author in the field of data, to know the history of the industry, the present situation and the future, what are the products, what is the business model of each product, product, what is the connection between product what gap distance head now, what product goal this year is mainly to solve the problem, what is the target for three years, and so on. Each student should first understand the product, and then produce research and development, product manager division of labor.

Then look at your own work. What role does it play in the core competency of the product? Do BI tools, for example, its core is the data analysis ability and the visualized analysis ability, if you keep doing similar report list page of this general background, personal center job, you will think about it, did the work can be outsourced, if not, then try to do some field, turn to the general areas.

When you look at his work, found that the core product ability is not consistent with what you work content, and if you don’t want to go to the front of the background of general field has been doing research about the effect, then you will find a way to communicate with the boss to change the work content, you can find some front of strong business model, also can contact such as BI analysis, data visualization and so on. Actually general field there are many deep waters, such as language sparrow behind the rich text editor, flow charts, research and development workbench, business component library, and so on are all can do deep general field, when you want to the next level, it is become like jade “sparrow, leader of the whole product, so you actually and entered the knowledge collaboration, this professional productivity tools.

If you don’t want to move into general technology and you can’t change your job description, try taking on more responsibilities and, if possible, get involved in the development of back-end business logic, which will help you understand the business logic deeply and fully. In fact, the front end + product route can also be very good in the professional field deep, the front end + back end route can also be, you need to make adjustments according to the actual situation of your team.

Any product development team has to have a big picture of the product, that’s what I’m talking about. Beyond the technology, how much you understand your business, and the more you understand it, the more technical direction you’ll have, but if your career plan is to go further up the ladder, you’re going to be the entire product owner. Today’s young people are very motivated, and many companies are trying to adopt a “live water” policy, where young people who want to go further try new directions rather than stay in a mature team.

Economic perspective

Another goal of career planning, of course, is to get a raise or promotion, but your salary can’t be inflated indefinitely. It’s more or less in line with the market. In addition, any work is an economic account, we have to take a technical, product and economic perspective to look at the business, to make a reasonable judgment.

As a result of last year’s pandemic, global telecommuting has been actively practiced, and it still has the potential to grow in the future, so employers must gradually look at the cost of labor globally, because they can work anywhere. From the point of global software development data, the highest wages in the United States, China’s software engineers pay also followed suit, so China is in the field of software does not exist the advantage of low labor costs, especially when you are rich work experience, after competing for senior positions, Chinese software company salary isn’t low around the globe.

However the national technology development, education level is still a gap between, if the same jobs by senior technical experts, domestic and foreign open a flat salary, but China’s software engineers architecture level not software engineers in the United States, so in the long run, this mismatch waste will cause the enterprise cost of choose and employ persons, enterprise in a certain degree to find a way to optimize the personnel. So as a front end, or as a software engineer, you have to understand that in the long run, you’re going to be competing with software engineers all over the world, so you have to have a good understanding of where your field is at the global level, what the talent level is.

So that’s the personal account, and then the business account.

The first thing you need to understand is how your skills translate into income and cover your salary. We first look at the market competition, market competition through the price adjustment supply and demand relationship, we do the product cost, the price is very clear, whether it is worth doing at a glance. For complex product need collaboration, however, that if you travel through the market mechanism of cooperation between people, tend to produce efficient results, such as button I do according to 3 yuan a price to sell to the back-end, that in order to enhance the value of me, I will raise prices to $5 a, tend to add more buttons to products, however, such short-term interests are watching, No one is responsible for the long-term development of the product.

Therefore, the company is a relatively big-pot organization, no one should give their own work pricing, everyone as much as possible to polish the product, according to the contract at the end of a fixed salary. That it really solves the problems of product development for a long time, but the mechanism is mature, especially in large companies, just graduated students went to twist screws will probably never has no chance to understand what is the cost, no cost concept, it is difficult to want to know why do things to consider input and output ratio, or think the word ROI is very advanced, in fact the word not advanced. It’s just that the company is blocking it, but if that leads you to do technology with no regard for the cost, only pursuing technical details that excite you, or only pursuing technical directions that you’re interested in, that’s a sign of immaturity, and what you’re doing may not be recognized by the business.

If you want to develop toward a higher level, the cost is must cultivate awareness, can know about the human cost, machine cost, and access to the second party and third party service of external costs, after understanding these costs, and then calculate the product whether annual revenue to cover these costs, if you want to continue to add people, corresponding to the next product revenue how many, Does the market now allow for so much turnover? If you want to provide better service, you need to add machines, will your business become more because the service is better? The value of increasing the business side is typically measured in terms of the price of the order, MAU, if the service is external, directly whether the price covers the cost, and if the service is internal, whether MAU is worth the cost of the machine.

But it’s not just about money. Market share is also important. If Chrome only looked at annual revenue for its r&d efforts, IE would still be a major browser. Actually Chrome after establishing dominance, ecological through Google products, W3C voice has a lot to improve, developers, attraction and influence of the invisible is difficult to directly into money, so if you think we can improve the product market share from long term value, then can also be one of the market as a target.

Finally, the economic perspective does not only allow us to stay in the business account, the economic marginal revenue theory can guide us to do the priority of greater marginal revenue. In the current business product matrix, which products can be expanded to quickly make up for the deficiency, and which modules can be optimized to bring the greatest product benefits and maintainability benefits if we do technical optimization. If we can think clearly about these problems at all times, the annual product and technical direction will not go astray.

conclusion

To sum up the three thinking directions mentioned in the article, there are actually three kinds of problems you may encounter in your career development.

After working for a long time, you will find that even if you still have the passion for learning, it is difficult to make a breakthrough if you keep the learning way you just graduated. You will find that you will not need much knowledge in your work practice. Repeatedly reading or writing introductory technical articles will only make you stay at the technical level of college enrollment. You’re in a career that’s limiting, and you need to figure out how to break that ceiling. It’s not enough to even delving into technology, because everyone’s talking about cost, and you’re talking about technology, and you’re not on the same channel.

This article also provides three corresponding solutions. Knowledge classification helps you to solve the problem of learning useless, introductory knowledge over and over again; A deep field will help you solve the problem of career ceiling; The economic perspective helps you solve the problem of a single technical perspective.

Actually profession has the ceiling is very normal, no professional rise is all the way to shine, but people are living, you can gradually change myself, see more business and economic issues at the appropriate time, learning knowledge and don’t just stay on the surface, although these probably won’t be used in your work, but it is a paradox, because you don’t have to master certain knowledge, So I don’t have access to those jobs, and the only way to break the paradox is to break the boundaries of the painful self.

Contrary to front-end career planning, I didn’t say a lot of proper nouns front field, or want to learn what framework, named because I don’t think people IQ gap between big, must grasp the knowledge can learn to work a few years, but really can pull open the gap between, not IQ, but the method of study, or learning route, if you use your time in the wrong place, Or the wrong stages, which will eventually add up to a huge gap.

I hope my thinking can be helpful to you.

Discussion address: Intensive Reading of Front-end Career Planning – 2021 · Issue #317 · DT-FE/Weekly

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