This article was written in 2016, 4 years has passed, looking back at the original a pen, recently visited 404, slightly revised reprint so far, to help the recent line of new children’s shoes, we can add Scott V: Codingdreamer communication career growth, chat south chat north.
I’m Scott, CTO of a startup.
In the past year, I have contacted dozens of new front-end graduates and interviewed more than 100 front-end engineers and Nodejs engineers. I have some feelings about this career of front-end development. I plan to write some working experience and share technology successively. I would like to make some precipitation of my experience in the first 6 years. According to my urine nature of engineering background and poor rhetoric, these articles are likely to be messy or even rotten. Please forgive the children’s shoes by mistake.
This is a quasi chicken soup article, dedicated to work 0 ~ 3 years of front-end engineers, the content is my personal experience, not wonderful but grounded.
2010 211 graduated from a normal university, institute of electrical automation major, learn the professional know about direction of automation is low and employment high inadequate low not, not only by the degree of grinding technology accumulation is difficult to enter good units, and I am kind of get lost as soon as she entered the university “skipping classes,” four years cut class failed the numerous, not only waste the professional, Also wasted youth, at that time young and frivolous, proud but do not know where the road is, the only harvest is freshman early to get a wife, love 8 years later to get the certificate, realize that now has been a full 10 years, so say code farmers love as early as possible ah.
Above is a typical diaosi engineering male background introduction…
All of the following are from graduation internship in Hangzhou Iron and Steel Group. Internship is actually an internship. Wearing a helmet, I went to each production line to look at the steel production process and make notes. When I first arrived in Hangzhou, I was informed that there was an outstanding female student in high school who was working as an intern in the advertising department of Taobao in Hangzhou, so I visited my house during the internship to learn and apply for experience.
Into the line before
Change industries
Meet high school female students at the same time, also met her good grades students class’s boyfriend, with her presence taobao, is a senior Java engineer, after they know that I am interested in the Internet, he dictated the taobao to me all the workplace atmosphere of open, interesting jianghu culture and daily every story impressed me deeply, It aroused my interest in the Internet and motivated me to enter Taobao. The latter two started to give me advice and encourage me to engage in programming, such as Java programming, which can be started by self-study. In fact, as early as 2009, a friend suggested me to engage in front-end development, and helped me choose the return of Javascript King by Moon Shadow, a big book, but due to lack of understanding and lack of interest in support, it has been left in the corner to dry up and accumulate dust, until now I have not finished reading it.
Beginner Java programming
At that time, I knew nothing about HTML, CSS and Javascript, so I decided to learn Java. After graduation in June, I rented a small room in Hangzhou, where I ate Java books in Hangzhou Library every day and watched Java video tutorials of Teacher Ma Junjun on the Internet. Follow down a small chat room and imitate QQ communication small software, but also just copy, and did not understand the technical point, anxious! In addition, during these two months, I was so embarrassed that I only had a few tens of yuan left in my pocket, and I only ate one meal of noodles every day. It was also during this period that I was left with gastric ulcer and other gastric diseases, and I could hardly survive. Therefore, it was imperative to find a job.
I put off getting my gastroscopy done
Looking for a Java position
Since the middle of August, I have forced myself to apply for the job of Java engineer. Two companies I have met have offered me offers, but the salary is 1500, which is not only for apprentice work, but also for signing a 4-year contract and not breaking the contract. I think I am afraid to go to the female student with excellent performance mentioned before for advice. Her boyfriend suggested that I should first consider the position of front end, because I was quick in work and my lively personality was more suitable for design-related work. Looking back, sometimes life needs not only luck, but also guidance from the VIP, so I went back to my residence that afternoon and started the 2-week endorsement mode of forgetting sleep and sleep.
Abandon Java for the front end
The so-called endorsement mode, in fact, is to hand-copy all the front-end knowledge that can be found to the paper, and then start to recite, all day long in my mind like a movie, memorizing the difference between block elements and elements in the line, the difference between absolute positioning and relative positioning, jQuery secondary drop-down menu Javascript plug-in code implementation… Even memorized the DOCTYPE, several document declaration writing, old cheat sheet, can also be vaguely seenVertical centerA few words:
The interview mount guard
Interviewing for front-end positions
Carefully prepared a resume proficient in everything, which was also the first front-end resume, and I sent it to Koubei (a newly established internal project of Taobao at that time) to practice my skills. As a result, the first question on the phone of the interviewer left me confused:
Do you know how to solve the bilateral distance in IE6?
Oh, my god! What the hell is this? ! I’ve never heard of it!!
At this time, I did not understand the original browser compatibility issues! Also did not know that front-end development is required to be compatible with IE6 style and behavior to write Hack scripts (including IE7 and IE8)!
Further on, the box model for different document types… “, I was like a fool, at the end of the phone atmosphere did not dare to give a, really want to find cracks in the ground into the atmosphere of embarrassment to die.
The interviewer saw that I didn’t know how to do anything, calmly introduced me to the basics of front-end development, and politely turned me down.
Turn around and relearn the front end
After that interview, my confidence was shattered, and I realized how far apart I was from even a passing front-end developer. The dream was right in front of me, and your arm span was lacking, and all sorts of bad psychological cues started to come to mind:
- Taobao certainly can not enter……
- Hangzhou I came to a white……
- I can’t find a job at……
- Mom and dad can’t cheat……
It was already early September, and my dear classmates had all been on duty, while I was still hovering in the same place. I can only comfort myself: you are 0 programming foundation of the new (university computer is hung, for hanging computer class or slightly regret), do not compare yourself with others, this stage is normal, just get over it!
So I tried to recollect the interviewer’s question, the key assault compatibility issues, IE method is back, thank god gives me a strong cramming ability, from the university, are the way of taking the assault to cope with, amount of short term memory can be very big, but said forget it all, thanks for the patience of the interviewer to ask, I am definitely, We became very good friends in private. This endorsement only experienced 3 days and 3 nights, right, sleepless memory, I will start a new round of job hunting experience.
Third job interview
This time, I spent a whole afternoon preparing my resume and only sent it to two small companies. One of them was so efficient that they called me for an interview after a few hours. After going to do a set of written examination papers, I talked with the company boss in the office, did not expect to talk more and more hi, why, because we are talking about football, I have been the college team’s main left back, played for four years school league, so with this boss in football this topic began to speculate.
Sometimes life is really unpredictable twists and turns, ah, the next day at noon I got the offer of this company, but the offer content is:
Send you to Taobao when outsourcing, you are willing to do it? Wages will be lower
Now I know that this company is an outsourcing company. After much consideration, I decide to accept this offer, even though the salary is pitifully low and barely enough to pay the rent.
However, this is only the first level, and I still need to go to Taobao to participate in the second round of interview. Only after being selected by Taobao interview can I finally obtain the qualification for assignment, so I went to Huaxing Technology for an interview. At the beginning, I still did a set of pen-based test questions, and the interviewer told me like this after seeing my answer: Indeed as expected is just graduated students, full of your papers, but the title all do wrong, and asked me the difference between the apply and call, nature is not, I even don’t know the context is what meaning, only knew that these two transmission difference, so the interviewer ask me in other ways, such as why engaged in of this profession and so on, I tried my best to talk about my desire to find a job, and it was all I had left to say.
Out of huaxing technology mansion, the mood is gray, feeling and taobao is say byebye, back of knowledge points met senior interviewer literally a dig, I betray oneself disguise failure, more think more sad, at this time should write you mindless pouring rain pouring down, I put the files in a plastic bag over his head and quietly on his way home, Shelter from the rain mood is not, a blank in my mind, the rain is bigger and bigger, fascinated the road ahead, fascinated my line of sight…
After a storm comes a calm
Life is so twists and turns bizarre, the next day they received a notice, Taobao actually want me! So I went to an outsourcing company to sign an employment contract and went to Taobao to report on it. At that time, it was September 6, 2010, when I went to Taobao, I was surprised to find that I was in the same big department — Taobao Advertising Business Division with my former excellent student and female classmate. Life was full of surprises and we met each other whenever we had a word or two.
I began my four-year career as a front-end engineer.
Pretty good, I enter the department, is also humble to be as far as possible, don’t understand, ask, to get along with your colleagues, colleagues help me to solve a problem, I just based on this problem, the night after I get home, according to his solution, put all the related knowledge points, all in baidu search again isn’t science by (the Internet), so stick to a year, This technology is also growing rapidly, the first year in the outsourcing company engineer team is walking in the forefront, outsourcing company, also give a significant pay rise, but with ali formal treatment is still a far cry from the front end engineers, after all is outsourcing, to earn your reward, but not long after taobao think I already completely achieve formal engineer level, A sum of money will lose the outsourcing company (colleague said that I didn’t research, is listening to outsourcing), so I just happy obtainment of become a formal staff taobao, but became very good friends and outsourcing company boss, also formed the company since the establishment of the first team, as team captain I outsourcing companies in hangzhou city to participate in a variety of game, Although the results were mixed and I didn’t get good results, I got exposed to the weather with the team members of this wave of outsourcing companies and established precious revolutionary friendship. Later, as I became a regular employee of Taobao and joined the team of Taobao, I played football with the old team less and less.
Professional precipitation
Four years of Ali front-end career
In fact, I have paved the way for so many career changes, just to explain that I am a very ordinary person, different from all the job seekers, but the starting point is similar, there are fears, surprises, loss, determination… , but chose the front-end development, no matter it is not the way of return, is I think a very suitable for their own way, realize this, will be iron heart to go on.
In ali four years, the biggest harvest is to see what is Daniel. Many active in the public view of cool people of various circles sensation (including my own, some new thought I very cow, actually otherwise, I actually very food), in a big company who touch down with the low-key doing things, they the person to do things, for their own positioning, requirements and output, always can let me aware of their shortcomings, not modest enough efforts. If this is the force of example, ok, I admit that work with good people are always very memorable experience, and myself as an ordinary engineer, think hard enough, but it is far from outstanding, let alone is remarkable, perhaps talent is not enough, may be the world one heart, my career bottleneck still early, and take the past take longer.
Work in 2 years, I found myself on technical depth is very difficult to have professional attainments, I began to put the eye of the longer term, I no longer just positioning themselves as a front-end engineer, but will begin to care about the trend of the development of the Internet and the overall pattern, care about profit model in the process of product from 0 to 1 birth, Care in product iteration engineers and operations participating the Angle and the combination of the efficiency of the care about the workflow and team culture, all these are my subconscious involuntary attention, is a kind of uneasy cent, after a long time to come to realize that they had in paving the way in silence, sometimes a choice would have done, you just haven’t realized that.
In the field of technology, I also began to pay attention to more non-front-end ecology, from Linux production environment configuration and deployment, domain name resolution, advertext strategy and SEO promotion, from mobile terminal and PC terminal front-end separation and architecture, to PHP WordPress, Codeigniter… I tried to use Nodejs to pull Mongodb to do data interface and template output. From database installation to master/slave DISASTER recovery, I just wanted to be proficient. I spent countless evenings and weekends after work, spending my youth in front of the screen. Through at sixes and sevens about this a series of some didn’t of, I gradually realized that he can create value is no longer just the front page of the output, not only refers to the value can help build a complete web site, but have a hands-on experience before and after, can from a higher level of mastering the form of a project in what to design, What kind of way of thinking to iteration will be more save time and effort, this time really can better contribute to the product, to get the business objectives, and with this consciousness, can better cooperate with product managers to realize the idea in his mind, if you think it’s unrealistic sports idea, it doesn’t matter, to verify the small cost, perhaps is really a sports after verification, It is also this idea that encourages me to make lots of friends in my spare time and participate in at least three small entrepreneurial projects as a part-time job, thus greatly expanding my technical horizon and technical depth.
Discover your greater value
When the focus point is no longer just the front-end developer, I found the possibility of a more fun and more, once upon a time, I will spend several days repeatedly testing an advertising templates, for inside a module loader or special effects how components to design to minimize the volume and reduce delay, maximum optimization animation fluency, For mobile side advertising compatibility with effect of what the best power saving these points and finely occupies most of my work time, it must be admitted that, to solve these technical points is very with a sense of accomplishment, but the technology innovation speed fast, still struggling with a few K yesterday the network delay, code execution efficiency performance of consumption, Today suddenly in the 100 megabit broadband or even 4G large water pipe high specification hardware era has become less sensitive, yesterday or carefully use radius rounded corner picture two sets of compatible solutions, today CSS3 attributes open freely, these are of course we need to constantly update the knowledge stack, but think carefully, Is it the best way for me to spend multiple times researching low-level optimization details when it comes to realizing my personal value? Many similar technical problems, I may need to spend 2 days, and talent good colleagues, only need to spend 1 day or less, from this point, more and more, I do not recognise their own technical direction and advantage, so I take off glasses with professional boundaries to look at each other’s division of labor, with a win-win cooperation mentality to reach more areas, Including small entrepreneurial teams I mentioned above, they are not able to survive, have a plenty of for technical reasons, and partly because resources problem, also gave me the touch of the more involved in these projects, I gradually understand that if you want a thing well done, is to first positioning is which realize the expected goal, the goal of completely different period depends on the different periods of the allocation of resources, Balancing the pursuit of value for money is the key to doing things. To put it bluntly, it is knowing what to do and what not to do, plus some methodology.
Entrepreneurship bud
Period of career fluctuation
3 years working in ali node, I came up with the idea of entrepreneurship, but there is no chance to also have no guts to take this step, and in the third year, I’m ali ushered in the career is the most relaxed and happy months, was assigned to the technology very good head, began to participate in more challenging projects, personal technology is growing faster and faster, Both front-end development capability and back-end development capability, however, the good times lasted only a few months, and they were assigned to support the Double 11 and double 12 promotion conference. In Ali, this kind of change is the norm. Business support always comes first, because customers always come first, so it is normal to be assigned to support an activity. I also participated in this project calmly at the beginning, but the process of this activity was full of sadness and exhausted my patience.
Growth retarded, falling into disordered demands is one of the reasons that prompted me to quit my job and start my own business. Another important reason is to follow the entrepreneurial impulse in my heart, as I will write later.
About this project, the original is 2 months in advance in the process of this activity, from the back-end data to the front and operations, all in place, although the front is critical in the inside of the role of, but the technical difficulty is not high, the workload is not big, is a time when the page over with parameters, in accordance with the rules of the comb, hair some requests to the back end, Take the encrypted values and replace them with all the a tag href in the page, that is, the brush page parameters. Then abstract this code into components, integrate them into a large system, and load different brush parameter logic depending on the venue type.
It took 7 weeks to finalize the project, which was originally completed in 3 weeks. The main reason was that 3 product managers were replaced, and the big Boss of the demand side was involved for several times. The project manager’s lack of risk awareness led to constant rework and high interpretation cost. Every alignment problem, the first will be all the responsibility over to the front, that is me, and then every time I will, in turn, serve as half of the project manager’s role, to push each participating team to cooperate with my check the source of the problem, and every time after found out either the back-end data abnormal environment changes, or switching trigger incompatible data engine, Either the product design rules are not complete and there are parameter loopholes, in short, the project leader is not professional, and the cost of team cooperation is high, which leads to the unhappy work of all the participants. In fact, I have participated in such a quarrelsome delayed project before, but this time is especially difficult for me.
Struggling between day and night
In double 11 was not at the start of the project, I contact to a startup project, household part-time earn extra money, the usual fitful nights and weekends doing, probably in October, ready to go to the project financing, so I hope I can as soon as possible in 10 ~ 12 months the project prototype development online, this point is crucial to them, I evaluated the remaining workload and found that 15 people days were needed. At the same time, I calculated the time and found that there were at least 3 weeks of free weekends in October, and there were 6 days in total, not counting the nights. In addition, there were about 20 days in the evenings and weekends in November and Even December. So they also agreed to come down (my risk awareness hate immature).
The from double 11 before they start, however, continued to double 12 projects, the company has launched a problem, and every time a problem that need to be front end engineers involved in alignment, and almost every weekend all requisition by company, more than that, during the day can only debugging, can’t release, need to stay up late, a problem with rolled back, after after the rollback, Still can’t go, want to wait for test engineer to test finish, repeat above process again, then had continuous weekend overnight, this promise goes up in December entrepreneurial project, then ran aground, after all company matter is big, which is which I still cent clear.
A week after the launch of Double 12, I went back to my home after work, and the financing window for this entrepreneurial project was about to be delayed. I thought THAT since I had promised, I would win it anyway! Fortunately, after The Double 12, this project did not change any more, so I only need to coordinate and adjust the strategic parameters every day when I work in the company, and I do not need to put much effort into development. After returning home at night, at seven o ‘clock start writing code to catch the entrepreneurial projects, knock code breath all night to the next morning at six o ‘clock, wash it out to the company to eat breakfast, and then sleep to 9 o ‘clock on the company’s couch, wash your face, on the espresso, with the double 12 projects continue to do communications, email notification, I had lunch at noon, slept in the recliner for an hour, followed up some routine department work in the afternoon, went home at night and continued to write the code, and so on for about 12 days. During this period, I fell asleep on the desk at least twice while knocking on the code at midnight. To pre-release start-ups that night, need to run publishing environment, I bought a case of red bull, night drank five cans, 4 o ‘clock in the morning, suddenly a trance, have a sense of soul out-of-body experience, hands and feet of ice hemp, can’t open your mouth and say a word, eyesight drops sharply, at that moment, I think, I even want to sudden death.
In this symptom lasted for 2 minutes, I was afraid to the extreme, think a lot of many, if I sudden death, parents how to do? What about grandma? What about my career? What about this project? I close my eyes, let myself pant hard, slowly come back to god, and then get up and walk for a while, ruthless and cruel, continue to torture release environment, almost 7 o ‘clock, after the environment is good, wash a face to the company. This time to the company didn’t dare to sleep, worry will lay down completely physical collapse, on the 1 day, go home at night and stay up to about 2 PM, successfully posted online, the heart is really like a boulder down, suddenly tired, in a daze is going to go to sleep, suddenly found a abnormal environment problem, to hold your breath for emergency debug, I remembered every second of this debugging deeply, because I needed to pull back my dormant body and consciousness, and it took me about 5 minutes to get it back online again. I sent a message to the company supervisor to ask for leave at home this morning and fell asleep all at once.
About two weeks later, the start-up project was launched and received more than 2 million angel investments. This is the important reason that prompted me to start my own business, which is also the project I am starting now.
Departure of entrepreneurship
In the big company when a screw, I actually is not bad, but if I found some bad one million head or process big problem, because I have, again good technology, or it is a good work attitude can improve the situation, I did feedback but everyone shook his head, what have I done to promote powerless, but everyone said this kind of powerlessness is more and more strong, I found that EXCEPT for the front-end skills and poor salary, I had nothing and could do nothing. I began to doubt my life. Should I insist on going public until I have better ability and voice in the company and team, or choose to leave?
This time is the spring of 2014, I consider to start again, this time years ago to participate in the venture project investment in place, I have a basic understanding of its business model, hard drive program is likely to be years ago that too devotion, cause I have deep feelings for it, after all is the code you write, is his own skill raise children, Each other at this time wish I joined with technology partners, I wanted to think and eventually agreed that this decision is impulse, because it is that time is the most uncomfortable I project to do in the company, in the powerlessness of the company and the identity of a sense of accomplishment on entrepreneurial projects is in stark contrast, often impulsive emotion is the most powerful).
Anyway, I am the hope can through my strength, that is to achieve some of my ideas, or some I hope I can have some things can be within the scope of my influence and control, so in June, which is listed on the eve of alibaba, I handed in his resignation, and give up all of the options, the walk though an attachment but there is no regret.
Entrepreneurial dog routine
Today, entrepreneurship has been more than two years, walk will not be easy, and entrepreneurship two words like CTO, is it sounds really very tall, but things may be dusty, there is no new idea, the so-called CTO, agriculture is a code, the only difference, this is the path of a stepped on my feet, I go to see a bit more quickly somewhere near the target. As I walk slower, I see a blur in the distance.
There are too many uncertainties in starting a business. The biggest uncertainty is whether you can take care of your health and family, because both time investment and capital return depend on the company’s condition and market response.
In the back. – So called CTO
When I meet investment institutions and partners outside, I always declare that I am the CTO of the startup company, and to my friends and colleagues, I always hope that everyone will treat me as an ordinary programmer. Because foreign, can explain set up the company’s image and reduce the cost, the CTO of the title is clearly the sense, and to friends, makes little sense to include it for myself, I don’t think there is a CTO hat on his head, technology can be somewhat, cow force value can increase somewhat, on the contrary, with the hat on his head, What brought me more was a sense of responsibility, and as it happens, I gradually became a person with a strong sense of responsibility. In terms of technology, I still don’t think I can match the title of CTO, but I can handle the business scale of the current team completely, but I still don’t know what the future will be.
Later in my article, I can talk about how I learned Nodejs, how I learned some technical points, how I treated the combination of technology and entrepreneurship, how I looked at the 0 foundation after graduation, how to choose the model and how to cut into the front end of the industry, etc., etc., everyone do not hope, I am the king of bad tail, ha ha ha. Technology is a long way to go, and I will continue to work with you.
I should publish in Jianshu, SegmentFault and other platforms. Please indicate the source for reprinting this article.
Scott nearly two years whether the interview or offline online technology to share, meet many front-end classmates, because team, personal and professional growth, technology direction, even family and so on reasons, between the ideal and the reality, between give up and stick to, swayed, sad hard to carry, you can find me talk about the south north, Learn more about the fate of engineers, see and hear more, Scott V: Codingdreamer, also can come to pay attention to Scott language finch follow up the latest my latest developments, this article is not allowed to be reproduced without permission, please contact Scott for permission, otherwise in the public number directly reproduced, especially after cutting content, I will directly handle complaints.