It’s me
Since last I wrote, I received a couple technical challenges as in response to a few jobs I’ve applied to.
Since I’ve dedicated more time this week completing these challenges, I wasn’t able to give my own projects as much attention as I would have liked. So instead, I’d like to talk about my thoughts on taking on my first coding challenges.
Each challenge took a similar approach in format — build a page/application that matched given designs and mockups of the final product, using a preferred frontend framework. Drawing upon my previous experience in the creative industry, I quickly put to use my eye-for-detail to divide up each mockup into repeated patterns that I could use for building components. This immediately gave me a roadmap towards completing the challenge in the most efficient way I could.
After figuring out my game plan, I went to work by building empty placeholder components that I would be filling out. I would import and get those components up onto my app’s homepage, where I could then see the results while I code.
Once my files were connected, all that was left was to fill out my components and their functionality, and apply some styling to it. In retrospect, I think the hardest part was getting my CSS to make my elements look the way I wanted them to look. But as a result, it was the most satisfying part as I watched the code I wrote transform from plain text to something visually appealing, right before my eyes.
Depending on the type of challenge, some projects would dictate the use of hooks or libraries to achieve the desired functionality. One challenge was to build a traditional landing page that showcased responsive design, while another was focused on building a small web application that would need to keep track of application states. The latter I would incorporate Redux to keep track of my app state in a store, since there were many more interactions involved in its functionality. As for the webpage, I would focus more on the responsive-design aspects of the challenge, using material ui assets to quickly add visual components while I focus on page layout.
These coding challenges can be seen as just that — challenges to get to the next stage in the job application process. But anytime I open up VSCode, I have to realize that I’ll walk away having learned more of my craft. With these challenges, I got to build projects under aggressive time constraints, while finding creative solutions to familiar problems to get what I want. While I may not always have success in completing a technical challenge, I can always walk away a better developer than before. The road to becoming a developer is full of learning opportunities, and it’s important that I never forget that feeling moving forward.