
Ask HN: I'm a young developer. What should I do next? - hellisonwright
I have been programming for almost 5 years. In this period I have learnt Python&#x2F;Django, HTML&#x2F;CSS&#x2F;JS and have just started learning Node.js&#x2F;Meteor as part of Stanford&#x27;s Startup Engineering Course. During this time I have developed several non-trivial MVC web apps (mostly side projects) and taken many Coursera&#x2F;Udacity programming courses. I also have a web design business although I am currently struggling to find clients who are not affected by my age.<p>Frankly, I feel lost in this world of technology and startups. I assumed that the more I knew, the easier it would become, but experience has proved that this isn&#x27;t the case. I feel I need guidance in order to gain any traction&#x2F;reputation in a particular field. It would be greatly appreciated if I could have some suggestions as to which direction I should take next.<p>Many thanks in advance. I have been following HN for almost half a year now and the community here is one of the strongest I have ever seen.<p>EDIT: Thanks everyone! The feedback has been incredibly helpful and I will take a look at the resources you have commented soon. Also, if you have anything else you want to add more personally, send me an email at: harry01a (at) gmail (dot) com
======
ivanhoe
You are very young and obviously talented so I'll suggest you something
completely different: Don't burden yourself with web business yet. Forget
startups, companies, investors, clients, etc... you honestly don't need that
yet. Go instead and do everything that "adults" can't afford the time for:
build your own stuff just to see if you can, learn more about things that you
love, join some open-source projects that you find interesting, follow your
passions and meet people with similar interests. That way you'll build both
your skills and reputation...and don't worry, the money and business
opportunities will follow, they always do... so take your time and try to
enjoy your youth as much as you can. You will be an adult for the rest of your
life, but being a smart kid is something that lasts only a few years, so make
sure to use them fully...

------
Jgrubb
I started playing electric bass at the age of 15, and got an acoustic guitar
about 6 months later. I decided to major in music in college since that was
literally the only thing I ever felt like spending my time on (excluding
girls, since you can't major in that). I picked the bass as a primary
instrument and for the next 12 years never had a "real job". Traveled the
world, met tons of interesting people, got treated like a rock star, got
really good at the bass, gained a ton of "domain expertise" in the music
business, and generally had a whole heck of a lot of fun. I didn't even think
to start programming until I was 30.

There is an entire world out there, and you likely have a whole lot of other
talents that you don't even know about yet. My advice would be to make sure
you take time to discover them too.

~~~
hellisonwright
Yes, I do quite a lot of music as well. (I play the cello / electric cello!)

------
sown
You probably should not really use your full name and age in most cases on the
internet. It's weird out there and people may wish to do you harm. At the very
least, it's better to keep your digital history out of the public eye (for
google has indexed this page already and will never forget) -- at least until
you're ready.

As for finding clients put off by your age, one possible way is to enlist the
aid of an older person to do talking? I knew someone in high school that did
that when he ran a training service. Also, don't mention your age.

People are always telling me to find a problem and solve it; get to know some
group of people. If I only knew a group of people, heh. Or people.

If it makes you feel any better, I'm much older than you and have been doing
programming 'professionally' for several years, like, as a career an'
everything, and I feel just as lost as you. 'Cept now I'm old, embittered, and
am looking for ways to just not work, take a break and go back to doing things
rather than spending time at work.

~~~
hellisonwright
As I have said in another comment, I normally meet my clients personally and
so they normally do know my age/name. It would be fantastic if you could point
me in the direction of someone who could help me with this.

~~~
hellisonwright
Update: I've edited my name out of the submission text

~~~
sown
you've gotten good feedback on your site? Maybe you should do the same for
your website URL.

~~~
hellisonwright
Done

------
ericssmith
Holy smokes. You're 14. Forget about "web design" and having a business. This
isn't 2005. Don't set the bar for yourself so low. Aim high. You are the next
generation in the greatest technological advance in the history of human kind.
Do something hard. Find a language with a type system. Implement something
meaningful in it. Russell and Norvig's "Artifical Intelligence" is full of
great, inspirational stuff.

~~~
hellisonwright
Thanks for the ambitious words ;) I'll see what I can do!

------
timmm
The case study really isn't compelling at all, it just doesn't look like a
good site.

I doubt people will care much about your age and or just don't mention it.

Side note - "Design" is becoming more and more obsolete as the use of design
frameworks becomes more ubiquitous. I started out doing design from scratch
but now I just search for the best framework to use and cut my development
time into a fraction.

Check out Twitter Bootstrap and Foundation (Zurb)

~~~
hellisonwright
I mentioned my age simply to help people understand my position. I generally
find clients by meeting them personally so they do normally know my age.

I understand my design isn't great and I will try to focus on my development
work. I have used both those design frameworks in the past.

------
fenier
I assume you did all the work on the case study. Is that correct? Have you
ever heard of PageSpeed? If you want to develop better webpages / apps, a good
way to work on those skills is to try to get the best score possible in
plugins like Pagespeed and YSlow. It will help you learn about different
things such as minifying, concatenation and caching.

At least in the Case Study homepage, there is a lot of commented out markup in
the source, and an entire section where it looks like it was done in an HTML
generator - because you are not using the Cascade at all, and every link re
declares the same font-family over and over.

Something else you should consider is looking into this course:
[http://discover-devtools.codeschool.com/](http://discover-
devtools.codeschool.com/)

It will help you understand what is going on when debugging webpages.

I know it's hard to be doing stuff that likely few people your age can relate
to. Adults will dismiss you because of your age, and there isn't much you can
do about it aside from continue to develop your skills so when you _are_ taken
seriously, they feel stupid for doubting you.

~~~
hellisonwright
I developed that case study for a client when I was 12 and so many of the
techniques used were very immature. The site was done in the Joomla CMS.

Also, I have already taken the dev-tools course and it was very useful.

~~~
fenier
In that case, you should be reviewing whatever case study you feature on a
periodic basis to make sure it's reflective of your current skill level.

Depending on how much time you sink into learning, you can progress at a very
high rate. You want people to make the most informed decision possible when
hiring you, so you want to be showing them the thing most likely to wow them.

Keep in mind that some companies with an IT Department may still outsource
smaller projects to freelancers. In this case, your development practices may
be evaluated by IT minded folks. You really do not want to lose out at a job
because you are showing code 4 years old, and that's not even how you'd go
about it if you were to start over.

Another poster did say something about traffic increase. But let's extend
that. If you can prove that you not only redid the design, but you increased
performance by X%, and traffic by Y% and so on, those are real numbers people
who make decisions can base you on. So it may be worth your while to learn
about metrics.

In School, I would really look into a course on statistics. You'd be surprised
how often that comes in handy.

------
legacy2013
Like others said your case study is not bad but its not amazing. Realize that
is OK and expected. Web design doesn't come to people overnight. Keep working
at it. As for feeling lost, again it's to be expected. There's a lot out
there. If your serious about programming , learn another language like Java or
C#, then move to something like C++ or C. This will expose you to other
languages and a different design flow from something like python or
javascript. You can also read some books on program designs, data structures,
and algorithms. A great place to start would be Code Complete. There's a lot
out there to learn. Take your time and absorb it. Most of all, HAVE FUN DOING
IT. Your fourteen, this should be a fun hobby for you. Computers are complex
machines that are a lot of fun to play with. If you get frustrated put
whatever your doing down and go do something for a while. Always happy to help
out, let me know if you have any other questions or if I didn't answer your
first one well

~~~
hellisonwright
This is really helpful feedback, thank you very much.

------
cmancini
I'd encourage you to think bigger than just tinkering with the next big
framework as some are suggesting, whether that be a UI kit or Node or
whatever. Instead try to understand why and how they work, and just keep
programming. Focus on principles and languages over frameworks and toolkits.

Find an area of technology that you do care about. There are SO many areas to
explore, and this is a great time of life to poke into them-- computer
security, artificial intelligence, graphics, operating systems. Have you
banged your head on a segfault in C? Can you explain HTTP? It is mind boggling
how much is out there, but deep familiarity will make you a great engineer.

If it's design you're interested in, practice. Copy, "steal", and iterate.

I don't know your situation or how far along you are, but this is an amazing
time to be learning. Do a breadth first search on technology--learn a little
bit about a lot, and then dig into whatever piques your interest.

~~~
hellisonwright
Thanks for this advice. It's probably the best I've seen in these comments.

------
thepumpkin1979
I'd suggest you to jump into Mobile boat. Since you already know HTML/CSS and
JS, develop a simple application using Phonegap and sent it to Google Play and
AppStore. I'd also try to make my website look more like my Curriculum(without
removing the freelance stuff).

------
shin_lao
Time will bring all the answers you need, but the harder you will try to get
those answers, the faster they will escape you.

Continue to play with technology as you like. You seem to already know a lot
for someone of your age. Perhaps you will tire of it at some point. Perhaps
not.

Accept the mystery of life.

------
lsdafjklsd
I mean, design isn't development, it is so much more fickle than just
programming or developing something. Companies hire designers because they
have experience solving problems and can translate what the client is saying
into a solution. I'm not saying you can't do this at 14 but yea, it's going to
be hard.

Your best bet is to try and make a product that people will use and throw it
on the various app stores, it doesn't matter who makes those as long as they
are great. Once you make things go to meetups and do a show and tell, but
don't let being 14 become your identity. If you just continue making things,
everything else will fall into place.

~~~
hellisonwright
I do understand the difference between design and development and I would be
the first to admit that design isn't my strongest point. Thanks for the
feedback.

------
thomasfoster96
The site looks good. Nice and clean, as well as intuitive.

What you've sort of got to do is wait for an idea to come along. It might take
a long time, but it's worth waiting. Otherwise, reach out to other people
interested in startups in your area. Get involved and see who you can meet.
Some one might want to get you in on something they're working on. I've had
this happen before, though I have declined such requests as I am working on my
own projects.

I'm sixteen (so two years younger than you) and age hasn't been an issue yet,
apart from when dealing with laws regarding banks and business. No doubters
and no haters so far.

------
rdouble
It depends on your goals.

If you want to stick with startup stuff it seems like other successful young
people go heavy into the programming side (the Stripe guy) or the design side
(Mike Matas) or the PR side (the Summly guy). I think the main thing is to go
more hardcore into one aspect of the business. I have a friend who got into
web consulting very young and he's still doing almost the exact same thing now
that he's old. You don't "level up" by default.

Personally, if I were to do it over again I'd choose design as you can meet
more women that way.

------
zachlatta
I recommend not mentioning your age to your clients until necessary. At least
that's what I did. As timmm said, your case study isn't very compelling. If I
were you, I'd try to build up a Github with some open source stuff and get
more involved in the developer community. Clients will eventually come looking
for you.

By the way, shoot me an email at zchlatta (at) gmail.com. I'm currently 15 and
am always looking for other young developers to chat with. I'd be more than
happy to talk to you about technology and other interesting pursuits.

~~~
khirasaki
I agree that rather than looking for work as a web developer, you might focus
on building really useful components and libraries on GitHub, or just staring
by forking projects there and making improvements or fixes.

I understand your desire to get paid work, but really building your skills and
making things that people find useful is a great proving ground.

------
ivan_gammel
Socialize and extend your knowledge beyond the computer science. Software
development is not about solving complex math or algorithmic problems, it's
about doing good for the people. In most cases, it's about doing that in a
team. You have to understand people's needs and behavior, to communicate well
and to propose the solutions that, sometimes, cross the CS boundaries.
Physics, genetics, geography, history - this is an incomplete list of
disciplines that helped me in my career.

P.S. try Java. It's still damn good for web development.

~~~
hellisonwright
Thanks for your advice, I agree completely that it's important to look cross-
discipline. Also, I find that generally Java for web development has a pretty
bad image here on HN but maybe I'll take a look.

------
luisivan
I started a free software project at 12 and then got involved with startup at
age 15 while still studying. I decided not to go to university and now I'm
working full time on my startup. The only thing I regret is not having left
school when I was clear what I was doing with my life. I wasted 2 years of my
life in school while I could perfectly work full time on my projects.

Shoot me an email to me (AT) luisivan (DOT) net, I have an event to suggest
you attending this September in London.

------
happn
Have you considered applying for a summer work placement at a startup? Might
be a good way to get a better insight into the industry and network with some
other developers.

(I am a developer at a digital publishing startup in Shoreditch - working
mostly with Node.js - and we regularly take on short-term placements in our
production and development teams. Do you have any code samples - Github
account, maybe? Shoot me an email if you're interested - gary [at]
getcontentment [dot] com)

~~~
hellisonwright
I would love to get an internship somewhere but I'm not sure I know the right
people to find one that will accept me.

I don't normally upload my projects to Github as I'm never quite happy with
them...

------
zekenie
I agree with timmm, the case study isn't compelling for me. I like the way the
logo moves from the red to the white. Not a huge fan of centered text. How
good are you at javascript? I might hire you for some freelance work if you
know how to work with the prototype object.

~~~
hellisonwright
I know the basics of JS but have never done a serious project with it. The
advice was really helpful by the way.

------
mapleoin
Erm, so can you legally be employed (even self-employed) in the UK at 14?

~~~
ealexhudson
Yes, you just can't work full-time. For certain professions, you can earn
money at any age.

~~~
nknighthb
> _you just can 't work full-time_

In the US, sans certain specified professions, federal and most state laws
effectively exempt properly self-employed children or children working in
their parents' business from most restrictions. Do such exemptions exist in
the UK?

~~~
ealexhudson
No, I don't think so. The basic rule is you can work part-time from 13, and
then full-time from 16 (soon to be 18 - basically, the minimum school age). It
doesn't matter what the form of employment is, they're generic rules, and
largely about ensuring children attend school.

------
fgoodman
I started programming around a time similar to you, and I also faced many of
your challenges. I know this may not be the general opinion, but my opinion is
to not worry about starting a web design business. This is a super competitive
field, and your age WILL hurt you when it comes to finding clients.

That being said, I started working for a web development firm at age 15. I
didn't have a portfolio and I didn't have an impressive interview; I simply
knew the right people and was in the right place. I lucked into a great job. I
was able to work after school and on weekends, and I'm still employed at this
firm. Working for a firm allowed me to mask my age. I wasn't a person; I was a
member of a team. I produced the results expected of that team, and clients
never once asked my age. I'd continue networking with people and being active
in the community. Eventually, you will find the right opportunity -- sometimes
it just takes time. Connections will be your biggest asset as this age. See if
you have any family friends who own businesses who might need a website.

I never viewed web development as a career, but rather as a job. My passion is
computer science, and by working in web development for several years before
going to college, I've had the opportunity to gain communication skills and
work skills. I am currently studying computer science, and I love what I'm
doing. I feel if I was focusing on both computer science and web design, I
would be spreading myself too thin. I'd suggest picking a field of focus, and
going full throttle.

I'd suggest spending more time learning and less time trying to start a
business, especially if you're facing resistance with the business. Running a
business is a huge time investment (if you do it right), and this time might
better be spent learning at your age. You have the blessing of being at an age
with minimal obligations. You should use your free time to learn everything
you can. Watch TED talks, read Wikipedia, take online courses, etc. This will
broaden your horizons and perhaps open doors for you.

Finally, I'd suggest changing your personal website -- both design and
content. I'm not accusing you of copying (and I'm not sure who did it first),
but your website looks like a direct copy of Macaw's sneak peek website --
[http://macaw.co/peek/sample](http://macaw.co/peek/sample). While a fraction
of the design community might be the only people who recognize this, it still
might give people the wrong idea. Considering you want to be a web designer
and a website nearly identical to this was made in a matter of minutes as a
demo, you might want to show something unique and reflective of your skills
(your case study and your personal site do not look like they came from the
same person). For your case study, I'd suggest explaining why having a site
helped this client. Did he go from 0 traffic to 100 unique daily views? Did he
go from 100 unique daily views to 1,000 unique daily views? Businesses and
clients want to see results.

If you have any questions on web design/development at a young age, feel free
to respond to this comment and I'll do my best to answer.

------
adamzerner
1) Startups/business. If you haven't, I would read all of Paul Grahams essays.
I think startups are a great option ([http://www.collegeanswerz.com/risks-and-
rewards-of-startups](http://www.collegeanswerz.com/risks-and-rewards-of-
startups)), but even if you don't end up starting one, you should understand
the business. I would also highly recommend reading Rework.

2) Your site. The top part (good design is good business) and the footer
(contact me) are solid, but the rest could use a lot of work. The periods in
the 'Hi there' paragraph are on the next line. Could just be my browser, but
something you should look into. That paragraph definitely should be "nicer".
Maybe something like this:
[http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/2.3.2/examples/carousel.h...](http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/2.3.2/examples/carousel.html).
The design of the case study is solid.

The main problem with your site I think is the lack of information. Tell us
more about yourself. What you do? What are your aspirations? Hobbies?
Thoughts/opinions? Show us that you know design and programming by telling us
your philosophies. Also, have a blog ([http://nathanmarz.com/blog/break-into-
silicon-valley-with-a-...](http://nathanmarz.com/blog/break-into-silicon-
valley-with-a-blog-1.html)).

3) Design resources. I'm new to programming and design too (~ 1 year of on and
off experience), but there are some resources that have helped me a lot. \-
Definitely learn bootstrap
([http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/index.html](http://twitter.github.io/bootstrap/index.html)).
\- Best resource on typography
([http://practicaltypography.com/](http://practicaltypography.com/)) \- Best
resource on color ([https://www.helpscout.net/blog/psychology-of-
color/](https://www.helpscout.net/blog/psychology-of-color/)) \- Amazing
([http://worrydream.com/#!/MagicInk](http://worrydream.com/#!/MagicInk)) \-
Fundamental concepts -
[http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/it_just_doesnt_matter.php](http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/it_just_doesnt_matter.php)
& [http://justinjackson.ca/words.html](http://justinjackson.ca/words.html) \-
Adjacent in space vs. stacked in time -
[http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1128-learning-from-bad-
ui](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1128-learning-from-bad-ui) \- solid
resource -
[http://startupsthisishowdesignworks.com/](http://startupsthisishowdesignworks.com/)

I think design is partly about understanding this stuff, which well help you
develop "empathy for the consumer". But it's also partly about having
"internal templates" that you can work with. I noticed that to start, I didn't
have many inner templates, and my "tools" were limited. But after looking
around and noticing some more things and stuff, I've expanded my inner
templates, and my site reflects that
([http://www.collegeanswerz.com/](http://www.collegeanswerz.com/)).

Take a look at my essay/gathered content
([http://www.collegeanswerz.com/essays/](http://www.collegeanswerz.com/essays/))
for more info on design, startups, business, and other things you might be
interested in.

I love the initiative, discipline and motivation you have as a 14 year old.
Let me know if you have any other questions or anything, I'd love to help:
arz21@pitt.edu. Good luck!

~~~
fgoodman
I'd advise against a carousel. I don't have sources, but I've read that
something like 90% of viewers never make it past the first slide of a
carousel. They just aren't good UI. ++ for all your other links though.

~~~
brbcoding
Sounds like this
[http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/..](http://shouldiuseacarousel.com/..). It was
posted
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6018316](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6018316)
a few weeks ago.

------
Toshio
> "What should I do next?"

Become an enlightened developer by learning a functional programming language.

~~~
hellisonwright
I've had a brief look at functional programming style before but it never
stuck. Which language would you recommend to someone of my skill level?

~~~
peter-fogg
I was going to recommend FP as well.

The Little Schemer is (in my opinion) the single best book on programming out
there. It won't directly improve your MVC webapps or teach you enough of
Scheme to write real software; be warned. What it _will_ do is give you a
fantastic introduction to recursive computation and all the mind-expanding
ideas that go along with it. It's also great fun to read -- how many books do
you have with space reserved for jelly stains?

Also worth looking into is Learn You a Haskell, which is available for free
online. Haskell teaches you to have some discipline in code organization, in a
way enforced by the compiler, and will also help you to find more abstract
patterns in your code.

Finally, Clojure is a functional language that has somewhat more of an
emphasis on practical programming than the above books. There are some good
libraries for web development such as Ring and Enlive; I'd recommend rewriting
an app you've already completed in another language as a good way to learn.
That way, you can concentrate on the language and the way you express
concepts, rather than the particulars of the problem you're solving.

~~~
rdouble
The Little Schemer is not the single best book on programming out there and I
did not find it "fun to read."

~~~
peter-fogg
Well, to each their own.

