I’ve been working as a Drupal site builder / admin for a small organisation for a couple of years (I’m also an AV tech / general tech guy for the same people). I’ve built and maintained a fairly complex website for them from the ground up but really only dealt with HTML and CSS, using Drupal plugins like Views and Rules to handle any logic. As a result I haven’t really got any programming experience and only committed to learning JS about 3 months ago. I’ve made good progress reading books like Eloquent JavaScript, watching YouTube tutorials and working through the challenges here (just completed the intermediate algorithms), as well as working on a few practice projects.
My plan was to put my evenings and weekends into learning JavaScript until sometime in 2017 (Spring maybe) but unfortunately I’m being made redundant at the end of November and I can’t really afford to be out of work for more than a few weeks, should I start applying for junior dev jobs? Or would that be a waste of time at this point? I’m trying to avoid taking a short term job just to pay the bills - last time I did that I got stuck there way too long - but maybe it’s necessary at the moment.
I guess I just don’t know what hiring companies are looking for in entry level positions. My ability with Drupal, HTML and Sass is pretty good, but my programming skills are very new. I realise there’s no harm in applying for work, but it takes time to do it properly and time is always at a premium.
Any advice or words of encouragement from people who have had success (or not) in this situation would be welcome.