My first role as a front-end developer mainly involved building static landing pages with HTML, CSS, and jQuery. JavaScript was mostly an afterthought. JS was something that I would copy and paste snippets of if I ever needed to use it.

Fast forward two years and I was at a crossroads in my career. I was not passionate about building static pages. But I was eager to continue learning. I just didn't know what. Fortunately, my company had a training budget and I was able to go to 

, a developer conference in Montreal. This was a career-changing event for me. When I saw all of the projects and talks showcasing what people were doing with JavaScript, it was an eye-opening moment.

As soon as I got back from that conference, I immediately shifted my focus to JavaScript. I made a decision that I was going to be a JavaScript developer. That was the real beginning of my journey. I started learning the basics and trying to put them into practice in my day to day work. In the evenings and weekends, I concentrated on learning the new hot framework, AngularJS. Eventually, my desire to learn more led me to find a new job as a JavaScript consultant. I was finally able to build JavaScript applications as my full-time job. After a year, the same itch to learn more led me to move to a startup, where I was able to focus on building with React, Redux and Node.js. In more recent years I have worked for clients through my consulting business (StackFive.io), where I get to help businesses solve interesting problems utilizing my skills in JavaScript.

I've continued to learn and grow as a developer, implementing my learnings on projects like Viyo.io and ReactLibraries.com. But I will always center my focus around JavaScript. It has been the catalyst for my career and the thing that first made me fall in love with web development.

Coding Journey

How JavaScript has shaped my career