Common mistakes FrontEnd development learners make in 2022 as shared by experts

FrontEnd development is a versatile practice with many focus points that make it easy to get lost when starting out. FrontEnd development beginners have to navigate rough waters and find their lighthouse amidst an ocean of opinions, tutorials, books, best practice claims, and online courses.

Learners searching for their lighthouse

When dealing with learning a huge discipline like FrontEnd development, however, there are common mistakes beginners tend to share.

I’ve sourced feedback from highly qualified fellow FrontEnd developers. Each has been in the field for years, with impressive track records and contributions to the tech world. I’ve spoken with self-starters, freelancers, FAANG engineers, open-source contributors, startup engineers, and Indie Developers to accumulate this list. Avoid making these mistakes and you’ll be well on your way to mastering the FrontEnd craft!

Patience and perseverance are recurring mentioned themes among the experts. Beginners in the web development discipline tend to be overeager to get hired without giving themselves the time to truly learn and master the craft.

Learning web development is no easy task that can be rushed. Beginners find themselves getting caught up in a “become a dev quick” scheme, which has recently become advertised like it’s a timeboxed guaranteed fitness plan.

“Master FrontEnd development in 3 months by following this guide!"... should say no one, ever.

Timeboxed Unrealistic FrontEnd Beginners Guide

Do not fall for these ploys to rope you into an inauthentic experience. Learning how to develop applications is a journey filled with trial and tribulation, and the experts want you to persevere through them without becoming disillusioned. Becoming a software engineer is well worth the journey, but success will not be handed to you.

One mistake beginners make often is not giving yourself the permission to take your time to actually learn this stuff. Everyone is racing to learn something to get hired as soon as possible but learning isn’t a race. So they end up with so many knowledge gaps but also, due to the insane time tables, they also end up discouraged if they do not succeed as quickly as possible. Just the other day I had a comment "I have been learning for 5 months! I feel hopeless! No one hires juniors anymore!" 5 months?! Took me way longer to land a job! But because you hear the constant tale of "3 months to land a job in tech!" and the timeline just isn't going to be there for the vast majority. Sure, some may be able to do it, but for most people, it will take a bit longer. You need to know and understand the concepts to build a career out of this. Take the time to learn, so you can build a strong career that earns!

-Danny Thompson (developer community leader/educator helping people get jobs in tech)

Learning to become a software engineer takes time that varies for every person. Sotware development is not something that can be forced into a specific time period, despite the natural desire to want to know exactly when you will be ready. Forcing oneself to learn something so broad can lead to dangerous repercussions. Feelings of imposter syndrome or inability could be avoided if beginners ensure they set realistic expectations for their journey, and avoid referring to others for timelines.

Imposter Syndrome Visual as intersection between something “easy” and discounting value

Maxime is another expert with a different background than Danny Thompson. Maxime is an Indie developer, working on his recent product Birdy. He shares the belief with Danny Thompson that patience is key. He also puts emphasis on picking what you start learning by the supporting community size, applying necessary filters to the courses you choose to take, and above all applying the craft while learning — building!

Build your apps!

I’m always thinking about the macro picture when it comes to beginners starting off with learning application development. The biggest mistake is a lack of self-discipline and persistence. It’s not easy. It will suck. But you gotta keep doing it over and over again to get good at it. It’s like anything you want to learn in life. Therefore on the macro level, the biggest mistake beginners make from what I see is giving up too soon.

As far as micro mistakes:

1. The biggest of them all: Not learning by building. Find something you want to build and that you are excited about building. It can be anything. Then learn only what is necessary to build this product. You will improve so much faster and assimilate so much more information by building.
2. Using a framework that doesn’t have as big a community or as much documentation. When you are starting out, you will have so many issues. If you can’t rely on the community and documentation you are screwed as a beginner. So I would value this over anything else. Pick the most popular framework. React. Only pick the most popular stack. Go on google trends. Check the GitHub stars. Check the npm downloads. Pick the most popular.
3. Not choosing Javascript. It’s the same as the above. You want the largest community. The biggest ecosystem. The most support. Javascript is very beginner friendly with amazing courses and tutorials out there.
4. Pick a good Udemy course. The highest rated and the most recent. Watch just enough so that you have a solid base to start building (point #1). When you are building your project and you feel stuck/overwhelmed, go back to the course, it’s time for another learning session. Once you feel like you are a little bit more comfortable, back to building. Build as much as you can.

-Maxime Dupré (Maker of Birdy & senior dev with 15 years of full-stack web development experience)

Mastering the fundamentals is one goal that should be more obvious for beginners, however, given the plethora of routes that can be taken, many get derailed or think they have learned enough before moving on.

Master the fundamentals for excellence

What I have found in beginners is they tend to learn the surface level of a language. To be a developer is to question things, to dig deep, to have the curiosity to understand how something truly is working. This drive to understand details end-to-end will ultimately lead you to those deeper concepts and provide you with the well rounded understanding you will need to easily pick up the next big thing.

For instance, many tend to leap right into learning ReactJS because it’s what is observed on job requirements or what many are using. This is synonymous to running before walking. ReactJS is built on Javascript. Ultimately learners end up running into some weird behavior or problems that feel unexpected, and a lack of understanding of the basics are to blame. Learn Javascript first, wholly and completely so you aren’t forced to take steps backwards.

Javascript fundamentals are critical both to the interview for the job and doing the job itself. So as much as you may feel like it isn’t worth the time, make sure to learn the fundamentals, and trust that it will fast forward your learning capability AND your career!

-Stefana Gloginic (creator of ByteSizedPieces) and Senior Software Engineer at Disney/Hulu

One danger of learning online is ensuring that the teachings are still relevant and provided by a trusted source that delivers high quality content. Oftentimes, lack of familiarity and awareness leads beginners to learn dated or incorrect concepts.

Referring to official documentation has a high chance of being accurate, relevant and maybe most importantly, reliable.

Documentation illustration

People tend to google “Tutorial for X” and then go for some video course or tutorial because that was the medium they wanted to go to. They end up with a video course that is outdated 5 years, wasting hours of precious time to learn outdated concepts.

Meanwhile, the official documentation for whatever they want to learn is probably the most up-to-date source to read. Also, once they get on a job and have to learn “smaller” things, it might be the only source on the topic. Reading docs is an important skill — and has to be trained as well. So I’d always encourage people that want to get into a topic to spend at least one hour on the official docs. If they don’t like the style of writing or find them confusing, they can still go for a tutorial or video course afterwards — and might already have some knowledge that allows them to judge if the content they are watching is up-to-date and relevant or not.

-Lenz Weber-Tronic (Senior FullStack Developer and Redux Toolkit maintainer)

Many experts found that once they grasped the fundamentals, what helped jumpstart and accelerate their career was becoming skilled in crafts that were highly relevant to FrontEnd development, but not necessarily “required”.

I think the biggest mistake is people jumping from technology to technology without actually focusing on what they want to become. If you want to be a front-end dev — learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and a framework. Work and focus on those over learning anything else. Build tons of sites, post them on social media, and blog about how you built them.

Also, study design and when you visit a website, write down what you like and dislike about it. Put in as many hours as you can to become the best front-end developer that you can be. Over time it will pay off, people will take notice and you’ll be getting offers without even having to apply for positions.

-Jack Forge (freelancer who focuses on quick builds for agencies and content creators)

Jack Forge emphasizes that after focusing on learning the basics, first HTML, CSS, Javascript, and a framework, building leads to growth. Typically in an industry setting, there is a separation of concern that happens to enable a streamlined assembly line for rapid product delivery. The notion of craft specialization runs strong. However, having an understanding of design understandably unlocks the ability to make decisions that represent the consumer's best interests. Engineers tend to understand the implications of designs. With experience, we start to develop the skill to determine whether a design will have a detrimental impact for the consumer. Therefore having the capability to provide feedback and work with the design team on a deeper level is valuable. It also enables us to solo work on our own applications!

Design workflow

Dagobert, another expert finds that learning design was a game changer for his career. He landed roles that were design heavy and eventually built a startup, Logology around the design premise.

My tip is to also get into learning graphic design / ux / ui. Because as a frontend dev, a big part of your value is your ability to make pixel perfect designs and really make a figma file shine throughout your work. But if you don't have any design skill you won't know how to do it well. Also learning design on the side was a game changer for me. Then it gave me a big advantage when trying to get hired in companies that focused on that aspect a lot.

-Dagobert Renouf (been a software-engineer for 18 years mostly specializing in FrontEnd. The highlight was when I was tasked to rebuild the univision mobile apps aka a big tv channel in USA in 2017. Now working on my startup Logology full time for 4 years with my wife)

Eddie Jaoude, an open source contributor for LinkFree stressed the importance of learning related skills to FrontEnd as well. Although his emphasis is targetted toward staying in the realm of development oriented building.

Some common mistakes beginners make are:

1. Not looking into end to end testing sooner (for example Cypress)
2. Not having an appreciation for backend (API, Database)

People want to improve their frontend craft and I understand that. But knowing a few more React features is not impressive. Knowing how to test that project, and to make sure the quality is high and consistently kept high will add a lot more value to the project.

-Eddie Jaoude (15+ years experience in fullstack and DevOps, currently contributing to EddieHub’s LinkFree project aka the open source alternative to LinkTree)

Automation Testing with cypress

Eddie wants to ensure that testing remains in the minds of learners. Tests help ensure confidence in the delivery and maintenance of products. Testing has the added benefit of ensuring a standard of high-quality. In FrontEnd disciplines particularly, testing is something that could plausibly be skirted, but absolutely should not be and serves as a distinguishing factor for a high-quality engineer.

Ultimately, our FrontEnd experts of varying background bestowed advising from their experience and observation for web development beginners.

This culminates to the following:

1. Patience and perseverence is key. Nothing good comes from rushing.
2. Build applications as you go to learn
3. Master the fundamentals before moving on to the next thing
4. Be wary of dated teachings, read documentation!
5. Learn crafts related to FrontEnd, like design skills and testing

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