I also have a background in graphic design but doing freelance. I love having that because I feel like I can leverage that aspect of myself and my eye for aesthetic rather than solely having developer skills. How was your experience with having that background when initially looking for a developer position?
Dev Advocate for KendoReact. Front-end Engineer & UI Designer. Component Librarian. She/her. Pushing the rectangles around on the screen until they look nice.
kgrayson.com
Location
Asheville, NC
Education
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Longwood University, class of '13
These days, I try to use it as a selling point, as much as I can – as you mentioned, it can really be something useful, something else you can bring to the table in ADDITION to your dev skills! When speaking with potential employers, I try to highlight that as much as possible.
When I was first starting, I was almost ashamed of it. I felt a lot of embarrassment over not having a Computer Sciences degree, and I often kind of glossed over design-related things and tried to steer the conversation towards dev topics as much as possible. I wanted people to see me as a developer and take me seriously that way – and at first, I thought my design degree undermined that.
Now, I wish I had embraced my design skills earlier in my career and really leaned into that as the unique selling point that it is. We're designer/dev hybrid unicorns!! That's really awesome
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
I also have a background in graphic design but doing freelance. I love having that because I feel like I can leverage that aspect of myself and my eye for aesthetic rather than solely having developer skills. How was your experience with having that background when initially looking for a developer position?
These days, I try to use it as a selling point, as much as I can – as you mentioned, it can really be something useful, something else you can bring to the table in ADDITION to your dev skills! When speaking with potential employers, I try to highlight that as much as possible.
When I was first starting, I was almost ashamed of it. I felt a lot of embarrassment over not having a Computer Sciences degree, and I often kind of glossed over design-related things and tried to steer the conversation towards dev topics as much as possible. I wanted people to see me as a developer and take me seriously that way – and at first, I thought my design degree undermined that.
Now, I wish I had embraced my design skills earlier in my career and really leaned into that as the unique selling point that it is. We're designer/dev hybrid unicorns!! That's really awesome