Where my journey started
Technically I landed my first job as a developer at a private university in a small town near Dortmund.
I applied for a job and the requirements for the job actually were pretty high. The job description was like you should know PHP, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap, Java and the list continues.. At that point I just knew a little bit of JavaScript, HTML and CSS. I had the hope that I would learn a lot if I could get that job.
The job interview was pretty weird, no tests, no technical questions. I was interviewed by someone who has never touched any code. A few days later I got the job and I was happy but..
It turned out to be a pretty boring job. All I had to do was managing some content management systems. A lot of different websites and all used a different tool. I learned absolutely nothing except how to use:
I was not very happy about the learn progress and decided to learn a lot more by myself. Out of nowhere I was asked if I could improve a shop from a friend of a friend. I never touched any e-commerce software till that point but accepted the challange.
My first Shops
It was time to improve my first shop and to get in touch with e-commerce the first time. I thought it would be a pretty cool project and I would learn a lot here at least..
Shopware5
The shop was already there and generating a good amount of money. The design was pretty bad. I had a deeper look into everything and I touched shopware for the first time. The shop was running on Shopware5. I started watching tutorials and learned a bit about Shopware5. After a couple days I started coding and changed a couple of things but it was not fun. A million plugins for everything, it was a mess.
Just to give you an idea. There was a plugin for everything even to change the color of the menu bar. And then a couple of plugins had conflicts with each other. It was a pain. So I had to talk to the shop owner. I literally asked him if he can imagine to throw his shop away and start from scratch.
He needed a bit of time and we discussed this a couple of times. At one point we made a comparison of Shopware5 to Shopware6. If you really start from scratch you can use the latest version right? We finally decided to start all over again with Shopware6
Shopware6
Now I installed Shopware6at a subdomain and started creating the whole shop from scratch. Luckily there was a import tool for all the products so I was glad I didn't have to deal with that. I started learning a lot again. This time my eyes were on Shopware6 and it was so much better.
Shopware6 was much easier for beginners and I actually could start coding after a couple of hours. In the end it took about 2 weeks and we had a new shop. Build with Shopware6 and it is still running today.
At the end I learned a couple things about Shopware5 and a bit more about Shopware6. Maybe enough for an internship?
My first developer internship
My real first job as a developer was in an internship. The payment was pretty bad. I actually made more in 2 weeks with the shopware6 shop than I made in a month with that internship. But I would always do it again!
Why? Because in this internship I really learned a lot. It was a real agency. So I was not the only developer, I was surrounded by developers. All the guys around me had a lot of skill. That was the first time I actually saw how people work as a software-engineer.
The agency is doing marketing and IT. Since I was pretty deep into marketing I thought this agency is the best fit for me. At the beginning I also thought that marketing is much cooler than the IT.
After the first months I loved the IT! My opinion completely changed and I don't want to do any marketing anymore. The projects I worked on in the internship were pretty cool. At the university I just had to use CMS' but don't had to write a single line of code. In the internship I learned Vue.js and Nuxt.js and extended the agencies own CMS.
Why I got the internship
The internship was running for 6 months. That's a lot of time but I also learned a lot and got a job after that. So it was 100% worth it! Now in the internship one of the colleagues told me why I got hired. My grades are pretty bad so that was not a good point for me.
Luckily I collected some experience with Shopware5 and Shopware6. That was the shop-system the agency is using. So they thought I could fit in and I did!
After the internship I also worked on shops and used shopware. I did learn much more about it and now I love the shopware community, the people and of course the open-source software shopware as well!
What advice would I give to new developers?
My advice is pretty simple, if you want to code just do it. Take every opportunity you get to build something even if you don't know much about it. I never heard about shopware when I agreed on improving a shop and that was a turning point for me.
I really like to work on real world projects and I think those projects are the best. You will not only learn the most, you will also face real issues. Sure there are many tutorials you can watch and do as well. The issues and problems you face in real world problems are most of the time not part of those tutorials.
So maybe do tutorials or watch tutorials for the basics and then start with a real project where you can see the benefits of the code you write. That would be my advice!
Strengthen your portfolio
If you have an opportunity to work on real projects always ask if you can use them in your portfolio. I also recommend to take every opportunity you get in the beginning just to learn.
Once you got into something you like you can write small projects and use them for your portfolio. For me it's Shopware 💙!