How to Become a Mobile Developer

when i first got into mobile developmenti wanted to create the next big appcliche right after realizing my to-dolist apps weren't gonna make it big idecided to give up on my dreams and itold myselfwell i guess i can just make apps forother people so that's what i did fiveyears later i've made mobile apps formany companies and i even did a sillythingi made a career out of it so yes todaywe're talking about how you can become amobile developer in 2021 now there'sgoing to be a lot of information in thisvideo so if you're serious aboutbecoming a mobile developer and landingyour first mobile development job isuggest that you listen to the fullvideo so this video is going to be splitup into five categories native versuscross platform which one should youchoose as a mobile developer androidversus ios again which one should youchoose where to start learning androidand ios development how to land yourfirst mobile job and finally timeline tolanding your first mobile job now thereare many ways to make mobileapplications the first way is to do itnatively in android or ios the secondway is to use a cross-platformtechnology now there are manycross-platform technologies such asxamarin flutter cordova react native andthe list kind of just goes on but assomeone new to mobile development it ismy opinion that you absolutely shouldnot start with cross-platformtechnologies and that you should pursuelearning the native route so like imentioned there's many ways to writecross-platform applications in myopinion i think the only good option atthe moment is react native but it isfrom my understanding that to write agood react native application you need apretty strong understanding in nativemobile development when i first got intomobile development i started withcross-platform technologies i initiallyused this technology called cordova inxamarin and basically because i had alack of understanding with nativedevelopment the apps i made were justkind of terrible so the moral of thestory here is start with nativedevelopment and eventually if you reallywant to get into cross-platformdevelopment you can pursue that routelater on so now that we've got thenative versus cross-platform discussionout of the way let's talk about iosversus android development which oneshould you choose at least here in theunited states you can have a prettysuccessful career in either android orios development primarily i do androidalthough i am experienced in iosdevelopment in terms of career growth idon't think it matters which one youpick because again here in the unitedstates you can have a pretty successfulcareer in either but there are someimportant things to consider the biggestone is android's low cost of entrybasically you just need a half decent pcand you can start making android appsios development on the other handrequires you to do development work on amac operating system so this means thatyou'll probably need a mac or some typeof pc that runs the mac os now one thingi absolutely do not condone andsomething that i never did was downloada hacked version of the mac os on avirtual machine again it's something inever did i don't think you should dothat because it's illegal because ididn't do that i never learned thattrying to write code on a virtualmachine of a hacked version of ios isjust insanely slow again i never learnedthat i don't condone you do that soafter i didn't learn that you couldn'treally write code on a virtual machineof the mac os i ended up buying a macmini when i first got into iosdevelopment my first uhmac machine was a mac mini back in like2016 it ran me around 500i think they're a little more expensivenowadays but i'm pretty sure you can geta used one for around the same price soif you don't have a mac with decenthardware requirements it's going to costyou a bit to get started in iosdevelopment so that's something that'spretty important to think aboutadditional things to think about is ioshas a lower user base but those usersare more willing to uh spend money onthe app store so if your goal is to makemoney on the app store you might want toconsider ios development on the flipside android has way more worldly usersbut those users are less likely to spendmoney on the google play store and onereally notable thing that i think isimportant is uh android has justincredible documentation on androiddevelopment this is a huge reason why ipersonally love android development ithink it's far more superior than theios documentation that's out there so interms of your career it doesn't reallymatter which one you pick again you canhave a very successful career in eitherandroid or ios development so whereshould you start learning android or iosdevelopment and this one is kind of atough one because there's a milliondifferent ways to learn out there youcould probably do a quick google searchand quickly figure out where to go but iguess if i were to do it all over againthis is how i would start so for androiddevelopment i think the best way tostart learning is right from the horse'smouth googleaka the creators of the android os theyhave some free courses specificallydesigned to teach you the basics ofkotlin and android development even ifyou're brand new to coding for iosdevelopment apple also offers some freecourses i don't think they're as good asthe android ones to be honest they're alittle outdated but overall still adecent place to start dabbling in iosdevelopment for free i'll put a link forboth of these resources in thedescription if you're interested in thatso apple also offers some books aroundlearning swift development which i alsothink would be a good resource to startlearning if you're interested in thatagain i'll put the link in thedescription but in my 100personal experience the resource thathelped me learn ios development the mostwas my boy brian vong aka let's buildthat up brian has a ton of playlists ondeveloping ios apps from start to finishhe often clones popular apps such asyoutube and instagram when i first gotinto ios development the youtube clonetutorial was one that i followed fromstart to finish and it helped me learnso much so tutorials books youtubechannels aside the absolute best way tolearn either android or ios developmentis to get your hands dirty and startdeveloping your own ios or android appsso these apps don't even have to beunique you don't even have to publishthem to the app store but it's soimportant that you work on your own appsbecause the thing is you're going to getstuck a lot you're going to getfrustrated and you will have to figureout how to solve these problems on yourown without any tutorials or books andthese growing pains they're prettycrucial for you to become a deaf also toland your first job you'll probably needto build a portfolio with these projectsso this kind of leads me into my nextpoint so here's what i think you need todo to land your first mobile dev job iguess here's how i would go about it ifi were trying to do it again so it'simportant that you learn the basics ofgit and you build a portfolio on githubor you could even make a websiteshowcasing the apps that you've builtback when i got my first job as aprogrammer in 2016 to be honest i didn'thave a developer portfolio but in 2021 ithink it's pretty much a non-negotiablething that you need on your resume ifyou want to land a dev job especially ifyou're self-taught after you land yourfirst dev job to be honest i don't thinka portfolio really even matters at thatpoint i've made a handful of portfolioswhen applying for different jobs butbecause i already had that first job onmy resume my portfolio was never reallybrought up in an interview it's one ofthose things that's pretty annoying toto do to build but it's something thatyou need to do to land that first job sothe next thing and probably one of themost important things to landing amobile developer job is learning bestpractices google has some specificdocumentation to follow best practicesfor android i'll put the link in thedescription below for mobile devsspecifically the best practices i thinkyou should become the most familiar withare architectural best practices anduser interface aka ui best practicesandroid again has incredibledocumentation on architectural bestpractices and also ui best practiceswhich in android is known as materialdesign again this is a reason why i loveandroid development the documentation isso extensive and whenever you have aquestion or you need help learning howto use like a class or part of theandroid sdk you can reference theandroid documentation and you'llprobably be all set so ios also has somebest practices around the ui in ios thisis known as the human interfaceguidelines again the link to all thesewill be in the description below so dosome research on best practices and it'spretty crucial that you integrate thesebest practices in your personal projectsthis is going to make you stand outtremendously and make employers morekeen to hiring you so the next and mostobvious point to landing your firstmobile dev job is you have to make aresume and your resume lists yourportfolio projects all the skills thatyou've acquired along the way andlearning mobile dev and put a link toyour portfolio so once your resume andyour portfolio is complete the nextthing that you should do is literallyapply for every single mobile job thatyou can find remotelocal entry level internship even jobsthat you aren't interested in apply forevery single job out there and that'sfor two reasons one it's a numbers gameafter applying for enough jobs you'llfinally get that interview and numbertwo when you're interviewing if you haveuh multiple interviews happening at onceemployers pick up on this a questionthat i've gotten asked multiple timeswhen i interview for places is how areyour other interviews going or are youlooking anywhere else you kind of wantto be equipped to answer this questionbecause not only does that show yourvalue to potential employers it createskind of a competition anxiety for otheremployers making them more likely tohire you all right so the last pointthat i want to hit on is timeline tolanding your first mobile job so thisone is a little more up to you uh thisis what i would do if i was learningmobile dev again so i guess take myadvice with a grain of salt but i wouldspend roughly one month learning thebasics of either android or iosdevelopment after learning the basics iwould spend the next four to five monthsbuilding my own personal projectsbecause like i said this is the way tolearn android or ios development thefastest right you kind of just want tothrow yourself in the deep end you wantto struggle a little bit and ultimatelythis will make you grow the most as adev so i would spend that time making myown personal projects building up myportfolio building up a solid resume andat around the six month mark i wouldstart applying for jobs i would say ifyou spend about 10 hours a week youcould probably land your first mobiledev job withinsix months give or take a few but like isaid 100 my own opinion take that advicewith a grain of salt because ultimatelyit's up to you to figure out how fastyou can land your first development jobalright so that was a pretty lengthyvideo i hope you took something awayfrom it uh maybe you have another pieceof advice that you want to give if youdo put in the comments if you have anyquestions again put in the comments i'lltry to get back to everybody anywaysthank you so much for watching if youmade it this far i would reallyappreciate it if you could like andsubscribe and i'll see you in the nextonepeace[Music]