Fantastic news! We’re updating our three web development career paths: Full-Stack Engineer, Front-End Engineer, and Back-End Engineer.
Why?
The world of web development is constantly changing, and it can often feel daunting to understand what one should learn. In this update, we’re streamlining the content for what to learn to land an entry-level job as a Full-Stack, Front-End, or Back-End Engineer.
The existing career paths will be updated to focus on the foundational skills that employers look for when hiring an entry-level engineer. For skills that could provide a competitive edge and go beyond a core foundation, we’ve still included this material as links in Review Informationals — this means you have the option of exploring these links, but they’re no longer something you must click through as part of the syllabus itself. The overall ordering of the syllabi will also get updated for a smoother connection between topics.
Many of these changes are a result of the constantly changing technologies in the engineering world. In addition, we have taken into account a vast amount of learner feedback. For instance, we’ve created newer Codecademy content for a more cohesive experience. Some of this content is drawn directly from other courses and skill paths that we’ve recently created, such as Learn React Router, Design Databases with PostgreSQL, Connecting Front-End to Back-End, and more. These decisions collectively aim to provide a cohesive Codecademy experience tailored to your engineering career journey.
How does this impact you?
We will apply these updates directly to the existing career paths. This means that if you’re already taking any of these paths, you’ll automatically get the latest updates on February 11th, 2022! Your progress to these updated paths will decrease since we’ve swapped out some older, or external, content for newer Codecademy content. (That means more content to learn and revisit!)
If you’ve already started or completed any of the previous career paths, you can still revisit these career paths and re-enroll through the following links:
- Full-Stack Engineer (2021 Version)
- Front-End Engineer (2021 Version)
- Back-End Engineer (2021 Version)
Keep in mind that the links above contain the previous syllabi for each of the career paths. Also, these old syllabi will no longer be accessible from the catalog. You won’t lose progress on the coursework that you’ve completed and will be able to continue and finish the path.
When?
All three web development career paths: Full-Stack Engineer, Front-End Engineer, and Back-End Engineer, will be updated Friday, February 11th, 2022. During this time, the old syllabi will no longer be available through the catalog.
Take a look below to get an overview of the updates broken out by career path.
Notable changes to all three paths:
- Book and book chapter recommendations are now optional resources and not embedded into the syllabi
- Complete overhaul of content ordering to better support learning journey
- Review Informationals contain additional resources for continued learning
- Introduction of new Codecademy features like workspaces and the Career Center
- New and improved Codecademy Testing content
- Reorganization of the technical interview content
- Inclusion of newly created GitHub content
Full-Stack Engineering:
- HTML and CSS units go before JavaScript units
- Added new Codecademy React content
- Database content now uses all Codecademy content
- Cybersecurity content now uses all Codecademy content
- Added a new unit for DevOps topics
Front-End Engineering:
- Web Development Fundamentals section is broken up into 5 separate sections (Overview of Web Development, Fundamentals of HTML, Fundamentals of CSS, Developing Websites Locally, Deploying Websites)
- Added new Codecademy Git and GitHub content
- Added new Codecademy React content
- CSS-in-JS and Build Tools content in the Advanced Web Development unit now uses all Codecademy content
Back-End Engineering:
- HTML and CSS units are now ordered to appear before JavaScript units
- The following back-end units now have all new Codecademy Content (replacing most external content):
- Databases (multiple units)
- DevOps
- Caching
- Scalability
- Security (multiple units)
- Software Development Principles
- API Design & Development with Swagger
- Operating Systems Fundamentals
Recap
We’re updating our three web development career paths. The old paths still exist but will no longer be in the catalog. The new career paths have more Codecademy content, a better flow, and a major focus on the core skills necessary to land an entry-level engineer position. Thanks for taking the time to check out this post and we hope you also take some time to check out the updated paths (or path of your choice)!