There are no doubts that I have always be drawn to technology. Since my early age, I enjoyed the company of computers and books to people. I am now in my thirties nothing seemed to change much. Even though, I have a degree in English I could not resist studying coding as a part-time activity as I am pouring around 20 hours a week to learn front-end technologies.
The number of hours is not that meaningful since I have discovered through coursera course ”Learning how to learn” and “Make it Stick” book that methodology and learning techniques matter most and can boost my productivity significantly. This point is beyond the scope of this article and I will discuss it in a forthcoming article.
Why having a career as a WordPress developer is a good choice?
First, I have previous experience as a WordPress user and it turned out to be very helpful and it made the process of creating a website simple and fast. Then WP keeps evolving quite rapidly. It has lately added WP REST API to the WP core which opens a world of possibilities to WordPress developers and users alike.Then WP has a dominant position in CMS as shown in these stats.
Unlike, other technologies that I felt attracted to such as React Native, WP has a large market share which means a lot of opportunities as a freelancer. WordPress market share is still growing and there is huge number of legacy sites build on WP that will need maintenance and upgrade.
The fastest way to have a ROI and the most logical step to solidify my front-end skills is to become a WP developer, I will put in practice and advance my HTML, CSS, and JS knowledge and learn PHP. Besides, WP is in high demand in the local market and I was glad to know that there are numerous online opportunities.
For example, codeable and why not toptal. These two platforms do not accept more than 5% of the applicants but I want to be the a decent and an elite programmer, thus aiming to work in these two platforms is a goal worth striving for.
It is worth noting that WP work in upwork is abundant and it may be worth trying to work there, but with no doubts I should work with a clear strategy in mind to have a decent income and avoid the pitfall of what is called “the race to the bottom”.
The next practical and logical step to get professional proficiency in WP is to contribute to its open source project. After exploring many possibilities I decided to be a WP tester first. I have already joined WP slack channel but it is way out of my league.
Feel free to add a comment or an important piece of information.